4.7 Contradictions In The Qur’aan
The Qur’aan challenges its readers to find any errors in it if they do not believe it is really from God.
“Will they not consider the Qur’aan carefully? Had it been from other than Allaah, they would have found many contradictions in it.” 63
The few apparent “contradictions” commonly mentioned by critics are easily explained.
Case One:
One critic writes: “Calling together or ripping apart? In the process of creation, heaven and earth were first apart and are called to come together [41:11], while 21:30 states they were originally one piece and then ripped apart.” First let us look at the text of each verse. Verse 30 of Soorah al-Ambiyaa’ states:
“Have not those who disbelieved known that the heavens and the earth were joined together, then I split them apart?
On the other hand, verses 11 and 12 of Soorah Fussilat say:
“And64 He turned to the heaven, when it was smoke and said to it and the earth: ‘Come, both of you willingly or unwillingly!’—to which both responded, ‘We come in obedience.’ And He decreed that they become seven heavens in two periods of time, and imparted unto each heaven its function.”
It is surprising that a critic educated in an American university would find a contradiction between these two verses, considering that the dominant theory of cosmogony taught in such universities is the Big Bang theory. According to astronomers and physicists, all the matter in the universe emerged from a state of extremely high density and temperature, which then split apart in an explosion that led to a rapid decrease in temperature and density. This allowed for the formation of certain atomic nuclei. They say that after a million years the universe was sufficiently cool for hydrogen and helium atoms to form. After a few hundred million years, fluctuations in density in the expanding gas cloud led to an eventual separation into galaxies. Clouds of gas in the galaxies then pulled together to form individual stars.65 This model envisions two stages in the process of creation. The first is an unimaginably dense solid mass. The second is an expanding cloud of high energy particles which eventually cooled enough to be called a gas cloud, from which the galaxies formed.
The two Qur’aanic passages cited by this critic describe two stages in the history of the universe. Neither passage explicitly indicates which state came first, but it is not far-fetched to suppose that there was an original compacted mass that was split asunder, which led to a gaseous (“smoke”) stage, from which the heavens then became differentiated.
Case Two:
The same critic writes: “What was man created from? A blood clot [96:1-2], water [21:30, 24:45, 25:54], ‘sounding’ (i.e. burned) clay [15:26], dust [3:59, 30:20, 35:11], nothing [19:67] and this is then denied in 52:35, earth [11:61], a drop of thickened fluid [16:4, 75:37].” Let us look at the verses cited:
“Doesn’t the human being remember that I created him before, when he was nothing.” 66
“Were they created from nothing or were they themselves the creators?” 67
“And I created every living thing from water.” 68
“And Allaah created every crawling creature from water.” 69
“And He it is who created the human being from water.” 70
“And, indeed, I have created the human being out of sounding clay, out of dark, smooth mud transmuted.” 71
“And, indeed, I have created the human being out of sounding clay, out of dark, smooth mud transmuted.” 71
“And among His signs is that He created you from dust.” 73
“Read in the name of your Lord who has created—created the human being from a clinging thing.” 74
“Was he not a drop of fluid that gushed forth?” 75
“He created the human being from a drop of fluid, then, behold, he becomes an open opponent.” 76
The perception of contradiction here is a result of confusion between metaphysics, chemistry and biology, and between different stages of the process of biological creation. The first two verses above are dealing with creation in metaphysical terms. In the first verse, Allaah reminds human beings that He created them and all of creation ultimately from nothing, which is one of His most sublime attributes. In the second verse, He poses a rhetorical question to highlight the untenable implication of atheism, “If you deny the existence of God, then do you believe that nothingness brought you into existence?” Therefore, there is no contradiction between these two verses.
The next three verses state that all living creatures, including those that crawl and human beings, are created from water. This is a biological fact that no one denies. All living creatures have water-based physiologies.
The next set of verses state that the human being was created from dust and clay and was brought forth from the earth. There are two acceptable tafseers for these verses. One is that they refer to Aadam, the ancestor of mankind. The other is that they refer to the chemical composition of every human being. The elements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, etc. are present in the earth. Through photosynthesis these elements are transformed into vegetable matter, which human beings consume directly or by eating the flesh of animals that have consumed plants. The source of all living creatures is thus, ultimately, the earth, or, by another expression, the dust of the earth, which when combined with water is called ‘clay.’
The rest of the verses refer to the biological aspects of human creation. The word nutfah is commonly used to refer to male seminal fluid, but it is also linguistically possible to use it to refer to the female reproductive fluids. The fertilized zygote is referred to in the Qur’aan as nutfah amshaaj, that is, ‘a mingled fluid’.77 In a hadeeth, the word nutfah is explicitly used to refer to the fluid of the woman. It was reported that the Prophet (r) was asked from what the human being was created, and that he replied,
“He is created from both the nutfah of the man and the nutfah of the woman.” 78
After fertilization, the embryo implants itself in the uterine wall. It is at this stage that it is called an ‘alaq in Arabic.79 Therefore, there is no contradiction between any of these verses, al-hamdulillaah.
63 Soorah an-Nisaa’ (4):82.
64 The Arabic word is thumma. It is a conjunction which generally indicates an order of events but at other times is used for a more abstract ordering. Muhammad Asad understood it not to be ordinal here, so he translated it as ‘and.’ See Diyaa’ as-Saalik ilaa Awdah al-Masaalik for an explanation of the meanings and usage of thumma. See the Qur’aan, 2:198-9 and 6:154 for other examples of its nonordinal usage.
65 See The New Encylopaedia Britannica, vol. 16, pp. 776-7. Of course, this scenario is highly speculative, but there are some observable features of physical reality that support the broad outlines of the theaory
66 Soorah Maryam (19):67.
67 Soorah at-Toor (52):35.
68 Soorah al-Ambiyaa’ (21):30.
69 Soorah an-Noor (24):45.
70 Soorah al-Furqaan (25):54.
71 Soorah al-Hijr (15):26. The term ‘salsaal’ used in this verse means ‘clay mixed with sand, which, when dried makes a sound’ (i.e., when it is struck.). Arabic-English Lexicon, vol. 2 , p.
1711.
72 Soorah Hood (11):61.
73 Soorah Room (30):20.
74 Soorah al-‘Alaq (96:1-2). The word ‘‘alaq’ is more accurately translated as ‘a clinging thing’ rather than ‘a blood clot’ in this context.
75 Soorah al-Qiyaamah (75):37.
76 Soorah an-Nahl (16):4.
77 Soorah al-Insaan (76):2. There is a wonderful subtlety in this expression that puzzled early commentators; the word nutfah is a singular noun, while amshaaj, the adjective that modifies it, is a plural. Normally, the adjective must agree with the noun it modifies in number, gender and case.
The nutfah is a single entity after fertilization, but it’s chromosomes are half from the father and half from the mother. “Therefore, from the scientific point of view, amshaaj is entirely accurate as a plural adjective modifying the singular nutfah, which is really a multifaceted single entity.” The Qur’an and Modern Science: Correlation Studies, pp. 27-9.
78 Musnad Ahmad, no. 4206. The isnaad has weakness in it due to the presence of al-Husayn ibn al-Hasan al-Fazaaree, who was truthful but prone to mistakes. (See Taqreeb at-Tahtheeb, p. 166, no. 1317.) This part of the hadeeth is supported by the hadeeth of ‘Abdullaah ibn Salaam reported by al-Bukhaaree which mentions that if the fluid of the woman (maa’ al-mar’ah) supersedes the fluid of the man, then the child will resemble the mother. (Sahih Al-Bukhari, vol. 5, pp. 189-90, no. 275.)