An Elementary Study of Islam — Page 20
20 prophets, as they themselves shared the same knowledge as the people. Many interesting examples of the same can be quoted from the Quran, where the understanding of nature as known to the people of the time was to be proved false by the men of learning of later ages. Whichever position the Quran adopted, it would still remain vulnerable to objections, either by contemporary people or by people of a later age. It is amazing how the Quran solves this problem, and in no way can it be criticised by present day philosophers and scientists either. The following illustration would be of particular interest. A man of this age does not need to be highly educated to know that the earth rotates on its own axis; but if someone had made this statement fourteen hundred years ago and dared to attribute it to God, either he would have been rejected out of hand as being absolutely ignorant, or God would be ridiculed as having no knowledge of things which He professes to have created. The Holy Quran being a universal book for all ages could not have avoided the mention of this subject altogether, or the people of later ages, such as ours, would have rightfully blamed it for possessing no knowledge of the universe. Meeting this challenge squarely, the Holy Quran speaks of the mountains in the following verse, presenting them as floating or coasting like clouds, while people perceive them to be stationary: H # $% # & # & I J K 3* L E $ M N EO P &7 You see the mountains and imagine them to be stationary whereas they are moving like the moving of clouds. (Quran 27:89) Obviously the mountains would not be floating without the earth moving along with them. But the tense used is that of future ( Muzaria )