The Qur’an An Abiding Wonder
The Qur’an: The Book of God
~ 43 ~
Certainly, there is no book like it, among the works
of men.
NATURAL PHENOMENA
The Qur’an was revealed at a time when little was
known about nature. Rainfall, for example, was
believed to come from a river in heaven which
gushed down on to the earth. The earth was
thought to be flat and the heavens a kind of vault
resting on the hilltops which provided a roof over
the earth. Stars were considered to be shining silver
nails set in the vault of heavens, or thought of as
tiny lamps which were swung to and fro at night by
means of a rope. The ancient Indians held that the
earth rested upon the horns of a cow and when the
cow shifted the earth from one horn to the other,
this caused earthquakes. Up till the time of
Copernicus (1473–1543 A.D.) it was generally
believed that the earth was stationary and that the
sun revolved around it. (Two thousand years
earlier, Aristarchus of Samos had anticipated this
theory, but his ideas did not gain ground).
With the advances made in the field of science and
technology, the range of human observation and
