Absolute Justice, Kindness and Kinship — Page 280
A New Category of Testimony 273 testimony of the laws of nature. In saying this, Allah has opened a window of unlimited research by using the expression bi‘ilmih i (based on His knowledge). This means that because the Holy Quran is based on His knowledge, whatever the Holy Quran claims has to be supported by the testimony of natural laws. The Holy Prophet sa did not personally possess the knowledge that Allah possesses. According to worldly terminology, to have declared him unlettered was a very appropriate epithet. The fact that he had no personal knowledge of the laws of nature is further supported by the following tradition: Hadrat Anas ra narrates from Hadrat ‘ A ’ishah ra that once the Holy Prophet sa passed by a few farmers who were fertilizing the flowers of female date trees with the pollen of male trees. The Holy Prophet sa commented 'even if you do not take this trouble, the trees will be fertilized and bear fruit'. Accordingly, they stopped doing this, but that year the unfertilized trees did not bear any fruit at all. They reported this to the Holy Prophet sa to which he responded: 'If you have a worldly affair to decide, do it among yourselves. Only if the work is religious in nature refer it to me'. 44 From this incident, it is definitely proved that the Holy Prophet’s sa personal knowledge of science was so meagre that he did not even know how date trees were fertilized. Despite this, the repeated uncovering of scientific mysteries by the Holy Quran most