Epigraph:

وَمِن كُلِّ شَيْءٍ خَلَقْنَا زَوْجَيْنِ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ

And of everything have We created pairs that you may reflect. (Al Quran 51:49)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

If you ponder over the short verse quoted in epigraph for a minute, you will be ready to join me here on a journey from biology to physics and quantum mechanics.

The first addressees of this verse, the seventh century Arabs only knew of pairs in the domestic animals. Perhaps they thought that Allah is talking about the two genders among humans and animals. But, it was a more profound message as more recent centuries have revealed. No wonder, the holy Quran challenges those who do not believe it to be God’s word to produce a book like it, even ten chapters or even a single chapter to compete with it, in style and subject matter.

Before we go into biology or physics, let me simply bring out a miracle from history here. This verse was revealed during the Meccan period of Prophet Muhammad’s ministry. He was in Mecca for thirteen years after the start of the revelation of the Quran and at the end of that period had to leave Mecca in disguise, while an attempt was made on his life and he had to hide in a cave, named Thaur, for a few days before proceeding to Medina. He had escaped with only 73 companions at different times to a town at a month’s journey, where he needed to defend himself and his fledgling community in at least three to four defensive wars. There was no guarantee that this Quranic verse will reach the world and survive his lifetime. Yet, the verses before had a very profound message of cosmology of our expanding universe, a subject of no interest and without any proof, for the first recipients of the Quranic message. Let me quote the two preceding verses:

“And We have built the universe with Our own hands, and indeed We have been expanding it. And the earth We have spread out, and how excellently do We prepare things! And of everything have We created pairs that you may reflect.” (Al Quran 51:47-49)

The holy Quran talking about cosmology and expanding universe in the context of pairs of everything, certainly expands the scope from animals to all things, including physics as the words كُلِّ شَيْءٍ literally means each and every possible thing.

In other places the Quran talks about pairs in plants that were also not known in the seventh century.

Once in Medina, the Prophet saw the farmers climbing up the palm trees to perform what we have learnt in recent centuries to be pollination and he made a cursory remark, to the farmers to let go of this unnecessary waste of time, but his suggestion proved unhelpful. As a result the dates-crop failed that year. So he declined to offer further advice, saying, “I am only human. If I ask you to do something concerning religion, then accept it. But if I ask you to do something on the basis of my personal opinion, then remember, I am only human.”[1]

The Prophet had no knowledge of pairs, gametes or twosomes in nature, other than what was common knowledge. If he were the writer of the Quran, he had no need or purpose to introduce a random and apparently meaningless subject.

There are several places where the Quran talks about pairs in the plants, a reality that was clearly not known with any certainty in seventh century as noted in the above incident:

I have previously written a detailed article about discovery of gametes and pollination in plants, in recent centuries: Plant Kingdom: A Proof of Allah’s Divinity According to the Quran.

This repeated mention of pairs in plants and fruits reminds me of the opening verses of the Surah Furqan:

Exalted is He who has sent the Differentiator down to His servant so that it may be a warning to all people. It is He who has control over the heavens and earth and has no offspring––no one shares control with Him––and who created all things and made them to an exact measure. Yet the disbelievers take as their gods things beneath Him that create nothing, and are themselves created, that can neither harm nor help themselves, and have no control over death, life, or resurrection.
The disbelievers say, ‘This can only be a lie he has forged with the help of others’––they themselves have done great wrong and told lies––and they say, ‘It is just ancient fables, which he has had written down: they are dictated to him morning and evening.’ Say, ‘It was sent down by Him who knows the secrets of the heavens and earth. He is all forgiving, all merciful. (Al Quran 25:1-6)

In a very profound verse the holy Quran introduces the subject for generations to come in our times that it is not only talking about pairs in plants and fruits, but they exist in things that Arabs did not know of:

Glory be to Him who created all the pairs of things that the earth produces, as well as themselves and other things they do not know about. (Al Quran 36:36)

Pairing in Quantum physics can be described at several levels, like matter versus antimatter and energy versus dark energy. Matter and antimatter particles are always produced as a pair and, if they come in contact, annihilate one another, leaving behind pure energy. But, today I want to focus on only one such pair in Quantum physics, electron and positron.

Electron was discovered in 1897. JJ Thomson discovered the electron and then went on to propose a model for the structure of the atom. 

Paul Dirac was considered by Dr. Abdus Salam to be the smartest Physicist of all times. In a 1926 letter to Paul Ehrenfest, Albert Einstein wrote of a Dirac paper, “I am toiling over Dirac. This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful.” In another letter concerning the Compton effect he wrote, “I don’t understand the details of Dirac at all.”^[12]

In 1928, Dirac proposed the Dirac equation as a relativistic equation of motion for the wave function of the electron.^[69]

In 1931, he admitted that his theory, about electrons, if true, implied the existence of, “A new kind of particle, unknown to experimental physics, having the same mass and opposite charge to an electron.” One year later, to the astonishment of physicists, this particle – the antielectron, or positron – was accidentally discovered in cosmic rays by Carl Anderson of the United States.

No wonder, in 1933 Dirac received Nobel Prize in Physics.

And the Muslims saw another amazing fulfilment, of the profound verses of the Quran, quoted above, which had been revealed almost 1300 years before.

Electrons and positrons are only one set of pairs in quantum mechanics. At a quantum level particles are categorized into two main groups: fermions and bosons. Each particle has a corresponding antiparticle with the same mass but opposite charges. Here’s a comprehensive list of these particles and their antiparticles:

Fermions (Matter Particles):

Quarks:

• Up quark (u): Charge +2/3
• Down quark (d): Charge -1/3
• Charm quark (c): Charge +2/3
• Strange quark (s): Charge -1/3
• Top quark (t): Charge +2/3
• Bottom quark (b): Charge -1/3

Antiquarks:

• Up antiquark (ū): Charge -2/3
• Down antiquark (d̄): Charge +1/3
• Charm antiquark (c̄): Charge -2/3
• Strange antiquark (s̄): Charge +1/3
• Top antiquark (t̄): Charge -2/3
• Bottom antiquark (b̄): Charge +1/3

Leptons:

• Electron (e⁻): Charge -1
• Electron neutrino (νₑ): Charge 0
• Muon (μ⁻): Charge -1
• Muon neutrino (ν_μ): Charge 0
• Tau (τ⁻): Charge -1
• Tau neutrino (ν_τ): Charge 0

Antileptons:

• Positron (e⁺): Charge +1
• Electron antineutrino (ν̄ₑ): Charge 0
• Antimuon (μ⁺): Charge +1
• Muon antineutrino (ν̄_μ): Charge 0
• Antitau (τ⁺): Charge +1
• Tau antineutrino (ν̄_τ): Charge 0

This classification aligns with the Standard Model of particle physics, which describes the fundamental particles and their interactions.

For a more detailed overview, you can refer to the List of particles on Wikipedia.

Conclusion

If we are not overwhelmed by secularism and science and physics worship of our age, we can begin to see the holy Quran as the literal word of All Knowing God, having seen enough evidence here and else where for that.

When we privilege the Quran as such, it begins to talk to us even more. Now, let me share with you the opening of Surah Lail:

“By the enshrouding night, by the radiant day, by His creation of pairs: male and female! The ways you take differ greatly. There is the one who gives, who is mindful of God, who testifies to goodness––We shall smooth his way towards ease. There is the one who is miserly, who is self-satisfied, who denies goodness––We shall smooth his way towards hardship and his wealth will not help him as he falls. Our part is to provide guidance––this world and the next belong to Us.” (Al Quran 92:1-13)

The holy Quran cites, the day and the night, in other words our solar system, and then goes onto cite as testimony, the subject under discussion here, the pairs that Allah has created in all things, as discussed above, as foundation to teach us pursuit of truth and goodness. One who is inspired by all these provisions of God and becomes generous and kind is promised success. The one who does not seek the truth and is miserly is doomed to fail sooner or later.

Reference

1. Muslim bin Al-Hajjaj, Al-Sahih, Translated by Nasiruddin Al-Khattab, (Riyadh, Darussalam, 1997) Hadith 6126 (139-2360)