Tag: books

The Quranic Verses about Math and How It Developed with Astronomy in the Islamic Civilization

Zia H Shah
Epigraph:

هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَاءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ ۚ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ ۚ يُفَصِّلُ الْآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ 

إِنَّ فِي اخْتِلَافِ اللَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ وَمَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ لَآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَّقُونَ 

Allah it is Who made the sun radiate a brilliant light and the moon reflect a luster, and ordained for it stages, that you might know the number of years, reckoning of time and mathematics. Allah has not created this but in truth. He details the Signs for a people who have knowledge. Indeed, in the alternation of night and day, and in all that Allah has created in the heavens and the earth there are Signs for a God-fearing people. (Al Quran 10:5-6)

وَجَعَلْنَا اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ آيَتَيْنِ ۖ فَمَحَوْنَا آيَةَ اللَّيْلِ وَجَعَلْنَا آيَةَ النَّهَارِ مُبْصِرَةً لِّتَبْتَغُوا فَضْلًا مِّن رَّبِّكُمْ وَلِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ ۚ وَكُلَّ شَيْءٍ فَصَّلْنَاهُ تَفْصِيلًا 

And We have made the night and the day two Signs, and the Sign of night We have made dark, and the Sign of day We have made sight giving, that you may seek bounty from your Lord, and that you may know the computation of years, reckoning of time and mathematics. And everything We have explained with a detailed explanation. (Al Quran 17:12)

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD

The key Arabic word in the above verses is الْحِسَابَ, which means calculating, reckoning of time or mathematics. The above verses put this word in the context of day and night and solar and lunar calendars. No wonder, the field of mathematics developed in the context of astronomical developments in the Golden age of Islam, from 8th to 12th centuries.

There is another very short verse using a word based on the same root word:

الشَّمْسُ وَالْقَمَرُ بِحُسْبَانٍ

This is the fifth verse of Surah Rehman, chapter 55 of the Quran. Apparently, the verse has only three or four words. But, it is pregnant with meanings. For the Muslim civilization it was a magical wand to create the whole field of astronomy and mathematics. My translation of this verse is:

The sun and the moon move by precise calculation.

Let me now present different translations from the well known Muslim English translations:

[At His behest] the sun and the moon run their appointed courses. — Muhammad Asad

The sun and the moon are made punctual. — William Pickthal

The sun and the moon follow courses (exactly) computed. — Yusuf Ali

The sun and the moon run by a mathematical design. (Such are the changeless Laws given in this Book) — Shabbir Ahmed

The sun and the moon function (perfectly), as per their schedules. — Dr. Munir Munshey

The sun and the moon follow their calculated courses. — Abdel Haleem

The sun and the moon move according to a fixed reckoning. — Wahiduddin Khan

The sun and the moon move according to a fixed reckoning. — Sir Muhammad Zafrulla

Now a few non-Muslim translations:

The sun and the moon pursue their ordered course. — N.J. Dawood

The sun and the moon run their courses according to a certain rule. — George Sale

The sun and moon [move along] like clockwork. — T.B. Irving

The Sun and the Moon have each their times. John Medows Rodwell

The sun and the moon to a reckoning. — A.J. Arberry

The Quran was revealed during a 23 year period from 609 to 632 AD. The Muslims tried to understand these and other verses pregnant with study of nature, astronomy and mathematics and the divine text inspired many, over the decades and centuries. As the Muslim influence spread from Arabia to Iraq, Syria and Spain a new culture of learning developed. Let us fast forward two centuries:

The House of Wisdom was an academy established in Baghdad under Abbasid caliph Al-Ma’mun in the early 9th century. Astronomical research was greatly supported by al-Mamun through the House of Wisdom.

The first major Muslim work of astronomy was Zij al-Sindhind, produced by the mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in 830. It contained tables for the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The work introduced Ptolemaic concepts and of Indian astronomers into Islamic science, and marked a turning point in Islamic astronomy, which had previously concentrated on translating works, but which now began to develop new ideas.[9]

It is a work consisting of approximately 37 chapters on calendrical and astronomical calculations and 116 tables with calendrical, astronomical and astrological data, as well as a table of sine values. This is the first of many Arabic Zijes based on the Indian astronomical methods known as the sindhind.[67] 

The work contains tables for the movements of the sun, the moon and the five planets known at the time. This work marked the turning point in Islamic astronomy. Hitherto, Muslim astronomers had adopted a primarily research approach to the field, translating works of others and learning already discovered knowledge.

The original Arabic version is lost, but a version by the Spanish astronomer Maslama al-Majriti (c. 1000) has survived in a Latin translation, presumably by Adelard of Bath (26 January 1126).[69] The four surviving manuscripts of the Latin translation are kept at the Bibliothèque publique (Chartres), the Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris), the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) and the Bodleian Library (Oxford).

Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi did not just write about astronomy. He was a  Persian polymath who produced vastly influential Arabic-language works in mathematics and geography as well. Hailing from Khwarazm, he was appointed as the astronomer and head of the House of Wisdom in the city of Baghdad around 820 CE.

His popularizing treatise on algebra, compiled between 813–33 as Al-Jabr (The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing),[6]: 171  presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. It is from his book that we have the word algebra.

Medieval Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and later in the Far East and India. It closely parallels the genesis of other Islamic sciences in its assimilation of foreign material and the amalgamation of the disparate elements of that material to create a science with Islamic characteristics. These included Greek, Sassanid, and Indian works in particular, which were translated and built upon.

Islamic astronomy played a significant role in the revival of ancient astronomy following the loss of knowledge during the early medieval period, notably with the production of Latin translations of Arabic works during the 12th century. Islamic astronomy also had an influence on Chinese astronomy.

A significant number of stars in the sky, such as Aldebaran, Altair and Deneb, and astronomical terms such as alidade, azimuth, and nadir, are still referred to by their Arabic names. A large corpus of literature from Islamic astronomy remains today, numbering approximately 10,000 manuscripts scattered throughout the world, many of which have not been read or catalogued. Even so, a reasonably accurate picture of Islamic activity in the field of astronomy can be reconstructed.

According to the Library of Congress:

Between the 8th and 15th centuries Islamic astronomers produced a wealth of sophisticated astronomical work. Largely through the Ptolemaic framework, they improved and refined the Ptolemaic system, compiled better tables and devised instruments that improved their ability to make observations. The extensive contributions of Islamic astronomy also exposed some weaknesses in the Ptolemaic and Aristotelian systems.

al-Farghani (died after 861), known in the west as Alfraganus, wrote Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions around 833. This textbook provided a largely non-mathematical presentation of Ptolomy’s Almagest, updated with revised values from previous Islamic astronomers. The work circulated widely throughout the Islamic world and was translated into Latin during the 12th century.  It became the primary resource that European scholars used to study Ptolemaic astronomy.

The conclusion is inescapable that the holy Quran triggered scientific inquisitiveness among the Muslims, they learnt from the Greeks and others and improved on astronomy, mathematics and other sciences and transmitted those to Europe from the 12th-15th centuries.

Additional reading

Allah created the universe or the multiverse through mathematics  بِالْحَقِّ

The Quran: Allah has bound the sun and the moon into service, each running its course for an appointed term

The Quranic Verses about Math and Is It Discovered or Invented?

Dr. Yasir Qadhi’s partial acceptance of evolution

Zia H Shah
Epigraph

And most of them follow nothing but conjecture. Surely, conjecture avails nothing against truth. Verily, Allah is well aware of what they do. (Al Quran 10:36)

But they have no knowledge thereof. They follow nothing but conjecture; and conjecture avails naught against truth. (Al Quran 53:28)

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

Most of the Muslim scholars and commentators of the holy Quran deny biological evolution or at least do not acknowledge it. A few accept it partially.

Those who accept it, like Yasir Qadhi, generally accept it in a limited sense, and invariably try to create an exception for the human species. This will become very clear if you hear all thirty minutes of the above video, or at least for five minutes after 16 minute mark of the video.

Nevertheless, I am, grateful to Qadhi that at least he has opened the discussion for the general Muslim audience. Few others like Dr. Israr Ahmed, in Pakistan, had taken a similar stance a few decades ago.

First a few words about Qadhi.

Yasir Qadhi (formerly known by his kunya Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi) (born January 30, 1975)[6] is a Pakistani American theologian and Islamic scholar.[7] He is dean of The Islamic Seminary of America and resident scholar of the East Plano Islamic Center in Plano, Texas.[8] He currently serves as the chairman of the Fiqh Council of North America.[10]

His ideas about the beginning of humanity in the above video seem to be not only bad science but also bad theology. He is suggesting a Divine trickery that Allah is fooling all of humanity and giving them a false impression about human creation.

A little more of his CV:

Born in Texas to parents who migrated to Pakistan from India after 1947, Qadhi studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Houston, before studying at the Islamic University of Medinah in Saudi Arabia. Qadhi has written books and lectured widely on Islam and contemporary Muslim issues.[11][12] A 2011 The New York Times Magazine essay by Andrea Elliott described Qadhi as “one of the most influential conservative clerics in American Islam.”[13] Writing in 2017, journalist Graeme Wood called him “one of the two most prominent Muslim scholars in the United States today.”[14] He has also consistently been listed in The 500 Most Influential Muslims, most recently in 2022.[15] He has nevertheless been criticized for his views on women, and for defending high-profile Al-Qaeda supporters and the Taliban.[16][17]

The above video is ten years old and in the last ten years a lot more evidence for evolution has pilled up in molecular biology and better articulation of the facts of biology in writing and documentaries.

We, the Muslims, cannot pick and choose willy-nilly from the scientific facts of biology, based on our religious biases.

I fully accept the well established scientific facts of biology, except for the metaphysics of atheist scientists, who conclude lack of a Creator from this science. I do not agree with their metaphysics, while agreeing with the biological fact of common ancestry of all the nine million species on the planet earth. Humans have evolved from ape like animals. Our first cousins are chimpanzees and second cousins are gorillas.

It may be that the Muslim scholars are becoming a little open to evolution, given the trend among the Muslim masses.

Many Muslims around the world believe in evolution. In 13 of the 22 countries where the question was asked, at least half say humans and other living things have evolved over time. By contrast, in just four countries do at least half say that humans have remained in their present form since the beginning of time.

In Southern and Eastern Europe, a majority of Muslims in Albania (62%) and Russia (58%) believe in evolution. But Muslims are divided in Bosnia-Herzegovina (50% believe humans have evolved, while 45% take the opposite view) and Kosovo (34% vs. 40%).

In four of the Central Asian countries surveyed, more than half of Muslims say they believe in evolution, including nearly eight-in-ten in Kazakhstan (79%). In Tajikistan and Turkey, by contrast, the predominant view is that humans have remained in their present form since the beginning of time (55% and 49%, respectively).

At least six-in-ten Muslims in Lebanon (78%), the Palestinian territories (67%) and Morocco (63%) think humans and other living things have evolved over time, but Jordanian and Tunisian Muslims are more divided on the issue. About half in Jordan (52%) believe in evolution, while 47% say humans have always existed in their present form. And in Tunisia, 45% say humans have evolved, 36% say they have always existed in their present form, and 19% are unsure. Iraq is the only country surveyed in the Middle East-North Africa region where a majority rejects the theory of evolution (67%).

Muslims’ views on evolution vary in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Muslims in Thailand (55%) and Bangladesh (54%) tend to accept that humans have evolved over time. But Muslims in Malaysia and Pakistan are divided: roughly four-in-ten Malaysian Muslims (37%) believe in evolution, while 45% say humans have always existed in their present form. In Pakistan, 30% think humans have evolved, while 38% disagree and 32% say that they do not know. In Afghanistan and Indonesia, the prevailing view is that humans and living things have remained in their present form since the beginning of time (62% and 55%, respectively).

In countries surveyed in Southern and Eastern Europe, more religiously observant Muslims are less likely to believe in evolution. In Russia, for example, 41% of Muslims who pray several times a day believe in evolution, compared with 66% of those who pray less frequently. Significant gaps also appear between more and less devout Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina (-19 percentage points) and Kosovo (-14). Views on evolution do not differ significantly by religious commitment in the other regions surveyed.

Towards the end in the above video Yasir Qadhi also claims that each generations was a thousand years in the era between Adam and Nuh. There is a lot to digest here.

Now, I want to share a few of my prior posts to share the rest of the story of guided evolution, which does not deny any facts of biology or evolution:

Surah Al Baqara (The Cow): Section 4: Adam and Eve

Meeting the Quranic Adam with Charles Darwin

Video: The Best Argument for Guided Evolution by Alvin Plantinga

The human language is perhaps the best evidence for guided evolution but that is for another day.

We have saved the above video in the Muslim Times as well.

How Could Most Mathematicians Believe in Heaven, But Not in God?

Zia H Shah

Epigraph:

He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. (Al Quran 57:3)

We have created the heavens and the earth and all that is between the two in accordance with the perfect truth (mathematics) and wisdom. (Al Quran 15:85)

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

Most humans die in the religion that they are born in. From this at least we can conclude that most of us do not examine evidence very rationally. Is it true for the best mathematicians as well? Jim Holt wrote for the New York Times in 2008:

A physicist, a biologist and a mathematician walk into a bar. Bartender says, “Any of you believe in God?” Which of the three is most likely to say yes? Answer: the mathematician. Mathematicians believe in God at a rate two and a half times that of biologists, a survey of members of the National Academy of Sciences a decade ago revealed. Admittedly, this rate is not very high in absolute terms. Only 14.6 percent of the mathematicians embraced the God hypothesis (versus 5.5 percent of the biologists).

But here is something you probably didn’t know. Most mathematicians believe in heaven. Not a heaven with angels, but one populated by the abstract objects they devote themselves to studying: perfect spheres, infinite numbers, the square root of minus one and the like. Moreover, they believe they commune with this realm of timeless entities through a sort of extrasensory perception. Mathematicians who buy into this fantasy are called “Platonists,” since their mathematical heaven resembles the realm of the Good and the True described in Plato’s “Republic.” Some years ago, while giving a lecture to an international audience of elite mathematicians in Berkeley, I asked how many of them were Platonists. About three-quarters raised their hands. So you might say that mathematicians are no strangers to belief in the unseen. (Of course, mathematicians don’t drag their beliefs into the public square, let alone fly planes into buildings.)[1]

Read on and in the words of Sir Francis Bacon, “Read not to contradict … but to weigh and consider.”

I have only a one liner for these mathematicians, who do not believe in God, while believing in heaven and then a few articles with a few videos where good mathematicians explain my line and some more.

The one line is that mathematics formulae and equations are like thoughts and these only exist in a conscious mind that can write them on paper, if paper and pen exist. If universe does not exist paper, pen or computers do not exist. If consciousness does not exist, mathematics cannot be imagined and nothing exists. Nothing comes out of nothing: ex nihilo nihil fit.

Now my previous articles:

Laws of Nature and Mathematics are not Eternal or Platonic

Are the Mathematicians Looking for God, When They Worship Mathematics?

Movie: Ramanujan: A Prophet of Mathematics Born in a Hindu Family

The Quran: Have the humans been created from nothing, or are they the creators?

The 75% mathematicians, who are Platonists, do believe in the unseen. They find mathematics to be not contingent and they believe it to be necessary, based on the simple fact that we and our universe exist. What I have shown them in a simple argument above is that mathematics cannot be the ultimate necessary reality, as it requires some consciousness to imagine and conceptualize. In other words mathematics is contingent and cannot be necessary.

This makes some ultimate consciousness a necessary existence, to make mathematics and the rest of the reality possible. In other words, according to the vote of the 75% mathematicians, mathematics was necessary and I am now replacing it with some ultimate consciousness, which the Abrahamic faiths call God.

Reference

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/books/review/Holt-t.html#:~:text=Only%2014.6%20percent%20of%20the,Most%20mathematicians%20believe%20in%20heaven.

Paul Davies: The Agnostic Among the Contemporary Atheist Scientists

Zia H Shah

Epigraph:

We have not created men, high and low, but to worship God. (Al Quran 51:56)

[Prophet], when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this,’ or, ‘It was our forefathers who, before us, ascribed partners to God, and we are only the descendants who came after them: will you destroy us because of falsehoods they invented?’ In this way We explain the messages, so that they may turn [to the right path]. (Al Quran 7:173-174)

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

I think the above short video is a good place to start if your journey to religion or Monotheism is going to start in science, rather than what you have been indoctrinated with about the history of the prophets or divinity, be it Moses, Jesus or Muhammad or in case of the three Abrahamic faiths other prominent saints or other figures in your immediate society or sect.

Then I want to take your journey gradually from agnosticism to theism.

Atheism goes hand in hand with denial of Afterlife or ultimate accountability. We have a good collection of articles about Afterlife.

The neo-atheists often want to be dogmatic about religious topics and want to shut off the discussion. I believe that my collections and those of Robert Lawrence Kuhn are easy ways to escape dogmatic yokes of modern day atheists and their media.

Please watch the following video as you contemplate on the psychological ramifications of the following verse:

[Prophet], when your Lord took out the offspring from the loins of the Children of Adam and made them bear witness about themselves, He said, ‘Am I not your Lord?’ and they replied, ‘Yes, we bear witness.’ So you cannot say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘We were not aware of this,’ or, ‘It was our forefathers who, before us, ascribed partners to God, and we are only the descendants who came after them: will you destroy us because of falsehoods they invented?’ In this way We explain the messages, so that they may turn [to the right path]. (Al Quran 7:173-174)

…

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Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an agnostic, for he focuses on the question of suffering.  If that question […]

The Five Authors to read in Order to Comprehend the Bible and the Quran in Light of the Scientific Revolution

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If the Atheists and the Christians Debate, Islam Wins!

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An Agnostic Jew, Robert Lawrence Kuhn: Can God Face Up To Evil?

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times In the above video, philosopher Stephen Law, around minute 6 of the video, puts all the evidence for […]

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Why Physicalism is Not True: If Mathematics is ‘Discovered,’ God Exists

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Laws of Nature and Mathematics are not Eternal or Platonic

Epigraph: He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things full well. (Al Quran 57:3) The Quran: Have the humans been […]

Why does the Science of Consciousness Need a Muslim Theologian and a Sleep Specialist?

Epigraph And among His Signs is your sleep by night and day, and your seeking of His bounty. In that surely are Signs for a people who hear. (Al Quran […]

Video: William Lane Craig in Quest of the Historical Adam and My Muslim Perspective

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