Majid Daneshgar: Scientific Miraculousness and the Qur’an | The Scientific Readings of the Qur'an
In this interview I chat with Professor Majid Daneshgar. We discuss the so-called scientific miracles in the Qur'an. Professor Daneshgar who has studied these ideas for many years walks us through the history and development of the scientific miracles apologetic. In addition to the beginning of the idea that the Qur'an contains scientific miracles he also discusses how figures like Maurice Bucaille and Zakir Naik worked to popularize these ideas.
Professor Daneshgar's work connects Southeast Asian Studies to broader circulations or the Persianate and Indian Ocean worlds through studies of trans-regional intellectual and exegetical traditions, Shi‘ism, Persian- Shi‘ism, Orientalism and method and critical theory in the academic study of religion.
He has written "Studying the Quran in the Muslim Academy" (AAR-Oxford University Press, 2020), which was nominated for the Best Publication Prize, and was subject of an academic symposium with Brill and of graduate theses in Indonesia. His first monograph, "Tantawi Jawhari and the Qur’an" (Routledge 2018) has been translated into Arabic by The Human Foundation in Egypt, and his article “How Intellectuals Censor the Intellect: (Mis-Representation of Traditional History and its Consequences” was awarded “the Best Publication Prize 2022”. He was also nominated for the Most Inclusive Teacher Award at the University of Otago in 2015.
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Another Miracle of the Quran: the existence of this KZhead channel
I was expecting more push on the ‘Alaq or congealed blood theory and the formation of the foetus, a huge scientific anomaly amazingly still used to prove Qur’anic scientific marvel.
Wow I got a lot from this conversation, thank you
Scientific knowledge is obtained through mind and reason and religous knwledge through heart and emotion ,so cannot be mixed.Prof.Dr.Nasir Fazal Cambridge
Peace and blessings, The goal should be to show consistency with scientific discoveries such as the theory of evolution, especially considering that many people outright object to it despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that evolution is true even beyond "microevolution." Thanks for inviting me to your channel.
Could we please discuss some examples of miracles and offer some pushback in a subsequent interview. Thank you Dr. Reynolds for all your work
I heard some historians think that the academy of Gundishapur could in fact never existed before the time of Islam or at least wasn't so important than we thought. Is there really strong historical proof of this academy before the 7th century ?
Dr Reynolds is great but I may not sure if we really get to the point. Does anyone take Zakir Naik seriously?
I used to like him when i was a Muslim, listening to him now makes me cringe so hard i get an ab workout
Most Muslims do, they quote him and refer to him if you start talking science. His book is a complete joke - he never quotes any tafsir (as they would all contradict his points) and never quotes any pre-Islamic sources which say what the Quran says.
This was a very difficult interview to sit through. The guest was on a different wave length altogether. While Gabriel was trying to discuss the phenomenon of scientific micraclousness and the Quran, the guest was having having a different conversation with himself.
When exactly do you talk about the miracles? I feel like you only talk about other people's works, on who did what at what time etc... Why not enter the subject?
Someone who decides to prove the miracle of Quran scientifically, either does not understand science/scientific method, or is fraud.
Too bad we couldn't watch it because there were no Turkish subtitles
Please do one about numerical miracles eg number of days numbers of months, occurrences of number 19, the word wast ( ie the middle is in the middle of the Quran!!) can we look at the remarkable claims and truths about all these
They briefly discussed that around 39:30
Those are very boring and easily dismissed by realizing that it requires selective counting of the words based on all their different spellings. As an astronomer, I do find them also amusing because the Quran is supposed to be eternal, yet the length of the day for example has changed as the rotation period of the Earth changed over time, so the number of days in a year has changed.
Anybody who doesn't have advsnce degrees in science has no credibility ,talking about science in any context, specially religious context...Prof.Dr.Nasir Fazal gold medalist Cambridge
Greetings Dr Gabriel. Needless to say that the discourse of scientific miracles of the Quran amongst modern Arab scholars such Bint Al Shat’e and Dr Khalid Montaser has been long debunked.
@@JMP160They don’t argue against it necessarily either but rather promote caution. Hamza Tzortzis has always been heavily into scientific miracle.
@@JMP160 I’m not so sure he’s abandoned it. He said last year on the ahead of the curve channel that he’d be open to another debate with Lawrence Krauss and hopes to perform better. He mostly seemed to have a shallow understanding of what he spoke about in almost all of of his engagements and got embarrassed biting off more than he could chew. Interesting stuff!
@@JMP160 Mmm not purely, it did have scientific discussions interwoven. But I digress, Hamza avoided getting bogged down in it or argue from that position.
@JMP160 Shabbir Aly and Dr Yasir Qadhi (with his scientific training - engineering and theology won't argue this way)
Very true, more and more Muslims are abandoning this scientific miracles narrative
Ijaz 😂 worth a go anyway. Its much better seen as a 7th century document.
The Quran is not a book of biology, mathematics, geology... and it never claimed to be, but when it talks about signs of God in the human body or the movement of the moon, the sun, the earth, beginning of life and the universe, etc. It talks accurately, and science is compatible with the mentioned things in the Quran.
Embryology disproves the divinity of the Quran.
@@AJansenNL No, it didn't.
You're joking right?
The problem isn’t the Quran, it’s very evidently based that the Quran is just regurgitating ancient ignorant and archaic knowledge of its time, the problem is you who’s constantly engaging in an intellectual devolving to preserves the notions you have been taught all your life.
Keep in mind that ONLY Muslims make this claim. I hold a PhD in astrophysics and have read the Quran several times, as well as numerous sahih hadiths and tafsirs, and have studied history. Yet, I'm sure you'll dismiss what I have to say. The Quran borrows from local, man-made creation myths, legends and scientific ideas of the time (as the Quran itself mentions - "tales of the ancients"). Take Q21:30 for example which Muslims claim talks about the Big Bang. This was a common myth from Egypt (Ra separated the heaven and Earth) to Iran (Enlil separated them) - Arabia just happens to be in the middle! If you read the Sumerian creation story you'll see it is found in 21:30: “Enlil, lord Nunamnir, the En, his utterance cannot be countered, separated Heaven from Earth, separated Earth from Heaven.” - Krebernik 1998, p. 321, n. 805. This myth and the verse are of course wrong because the Earth did not exist at the time of creation (not for another ~9 billion years) and you cannot separate the Earth from the havens as it is part of the heavens (sky/universe). The classical tafsirs scholars understood the verses exactly as the myth implying that the Earth existed but it did not rain on it until it was separated. Then in 2:29 Allah gives the wrong order of formation, finishing the Earth before working on the heavens, which contradicts the Big Bang. No cosmologist would ever explain the Big Bang in such a way. Muslims today are forced to re-interpret the Quran and the science to make them agree, but if this verse was not in the Quran and I showed it to you, you would have no issue saying that it's a scientifically incorrect ancient myth.
my God!! long winded conversations that add zero value. Nothing new here.
Agreed. We needed a real scientific debate to close that chapter and move to rea comparativel theology.
These interviews are mainly to introduce the author's work.
@@rolandboston48774 Then the Chanel title and more specifically this episode would be misleading. It usually goes beyond respectfully introducing the guest.
My thoughts exactly. I feel like they're talking about the people's works, on who did what, at what time, but never enter the subject. For example, the only thing they say about Bucaille is "someone else did the same thing for bible long before" Ok, but what about the content of his work? That's the interesting part.
The miraculousness of the Quran is not based on a scientific awe inspiring formula within its verses. For example, Euclids Elements was written 300BC, so there is no need for that. The Quran is miraculous to the modern reader for its accuracy and consistency along a wide spectrum of topics, from theology, to history, Law and Science. The Quran's monotheism, law and justice is a sign and an example, which only modern Western thought has begun to articulate with equal consistency. The Quran lacks the obvious anachronisms, legalistic errors, and folk science of other texts of its times. Invariably, the Quran's clams and provenance are proven more and more accurate, although there may be no 100% proof, particularly since its poetic-like language is open to many acceptable interpretations, and none of them easily falsifiable. The Quran challenges the reader on many issues, particularly language and religion. For example, it is written in a pure Arabic that is continuously proven to be more ancient than assumed, with no direct descent from other Semitic languages according to linguistics. It shows a deep understanding of Egyptian history and religion, the Old Testament and Talmud and Gospel and Apocrypha, including utilizing elements of many prophetic languages such as Hebrew and Aramaic. To collect this knowledge, it would require the "author" of the Quran to have at his/her disposal an enormous library to achieve any single aspect of this book. That is the Quran's "miracle" and that is its challenge: To deny this miracle, you must show us the library in the desert that held its accumulated and consistently accurate knowledge of language, science, law, religion, history, theology, monotheism and justice.
The authors of the Qur'an made so many errors on all levels its beyond ridiculous - perhaps to let the real searcher's of truth realise that it is not from God. Nice speech though.
@@jma7600 The historian does not assess if a book "came from God". We ask, how was the information accumulated? In the Quran's case, the information is quite "miraculous".
@@arbitScaleModels Historians never use the word miracle. They make assessments based on available facts. The Quran was found defective in everything you have mentioned and those who have taken the time to compare it to most previous writings have documented its obvious inferiority. Others continue to believe it is perfect and therefore divine in nature.
Quran is full of scientific errors when read in its most direct meaning. “Pure Arabic” has no meaning. It’s Hijazi Arabic from that period. There was Arabic before it and other scripts like Safaitic script. There are many loan words from other languages like Persian and Aramaic in the Quran.
How does the Quran lack "folk science"? It borrows from local, man-made creation myths. For example Q21:30, which Muslims claim talks about the Big Bang, was a common myth from Egypt (Ra separated the heaven and Earth) to Iran (Enlil separated them) - Arabia just happens to be in the middle! If you read the Sumerian creation story you'll see it is found in 21:30: “Enlil, lord Nunamnir, the En, his utterance cannot be countered, separated Heaven from Earth, separated Earth from Heaven.” - Krebernik 1998, p. 321, n. 805. This myth and the verse are of course wrong because the Earth did not exist at the time of creation (not for another ~9 billion years) and you cannot separate the Earth from the havens as it is part of the heavens (sky/universe). The classical tafsirs scholars understood the verses exactly as the myth implying that the Earth existed but it did not rain on it until it was separated. It speaks of the 7 heavens, which was a very common cosmological view in MANY ancient cultures of the time because of the seven objects that moved in the sky (Sun, Moon and five visible planets) - they were each thought to have a celestial sphere or "heaven". Some models had stars in the lowest heaven, which the Quran has. The Quran simply adopts these ancient (and incorrect) ideas, but no Muslim can admit this so they re-interpret the verse. If these ideas were not in the Quran but were in another religious book, Muslims would have NO problem pointing out that they are "tales of the ancients" - as non-Muslims accused Muhammad of teaching, by the way...
You are top down, getting paid by Noter Dame
And you are rock bottom, upset that the ludicrousness of pop evangelists has been revealed
@@rolandboston48774 a student always regards themselves as rock bottom. What evangalism?
@@A.--. the kind that promotes 'scientific miracles' as fact
@@rolandboston48774 give me an example
Quran is not a book of science, it's a book of signs.
Signs of what? Where are the signs?
And it is also the criterion
@@nav021298 Not only the Quran is the criterion according to the Quran, previous scriptures are. The word Al Furqan used in the Quran doesn’t mean criterion, that’s it’s secondary connotation which was employed by the Islamic commentators(Tafsir) The primary meaning of the word Furqan in Arabic is “the light of dawn” (sunrise) and the Qur'an regards revelations( Torah, Gospel, and itself) as the Al furqān in the sense that they are a guiding light that leads one out of darkness. Not necessarily as criteria for good and bad rather a path that leads one towards their salvation.
@@nav021298 but anyway we know that the Quran is a bull crap.
Yet countless Muslims will try to sell it for its scientific "miracles". There are countless youube videos, websites and books written on this! Any ancient religious book is a "book of signs", do you believe in those? If you are a Muslim, would you ever teach your children to follow a different religion? Would Christians, Hindus, etc ever teach their children to follow Islam??? Think about that.
Alaq = Blastocele
❤🇮🇱 🇬🇧❤
you will be destroyed by history
The current Hamas Israel war is a repetition of the scenario in Quran 2:247-251. Thus both Ishmaels, chief of Hamas and chief of Iran´s Quds Force, are dead men walking.
😂 You must be really stupid if you concluded that from the story of David and Goliath. May be you should also read Quran 15:4-8
Come to islam and get paradise for eternity. Leave the problems of the world