Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 345
THE QURAN AND EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE visualize the possibility of human flight but could only conceive it in relation to the then available knowledge. . Science and technology had not, until then, advanced to a stage where the human mind could envisage the image of man flying with the help of machines driven by fire. Thus, to visualize even a rudimentary aeroplane lay beyond the limits of Leonardo's potential. . The case of the Divine scriptures, however, is a different matter altogether and the knowledge expressed in them cannot be confined to any particular era. Moreover, chance has no role to play in their fulfilment. The scientific discoveries of subsequent ages have never proved any. Quranic prophecy to be wrong. . So we must look forward with well-founded hope for the realization of even such prophecies as rest with the future to decide. The prophecy about the meeting of life here and the life elsewhere belongs to the same category which remains as yet unfulfilled. May we live long enough to witness the glorious day when life on earth will establish some sort of communion with life in space. 334