The Qur'an says that Allah created every living thing from water. Today's biology tells us that the largest component of every living cell on earth is water, that life began in water, and that in the search for life in space, scientists look first for water. A short sentence of the Qur'an holds a truth far deeper than the people of the seventh century could see in it.
For thousands of years, great philosophers said the universe is eternal, with no beginning. Even at the start of the twentieth century, many scientists considered it static and everlasting. Yet fourteen hundred years ago, the Qur'an said that the heavens and the earth were once joined together and then separated, and that Allah is expanding the heaven. Today, science tells us that the universe has a beginning and is constantly expanding.
When there were no microscopes in the world, and people believed a child was formed only from the man's seed or from clotted menstrual blood, the Qur'an described the stages of human development in the womb in a few simple words. The remarkable agreement between these words and what modern embryology shows today compels thoughtful people to reflect.
A poet who came with cotton stuffed in his ears, tribal chiefs who came with spears in hand, a robber climbing a wall in the dark of night, and even a group of jinn. For fourteen hundred years, a few verses of the Qur'an have turned the course of countless lives. No human words have such power, to change hearts century after century, across the boundaries of language and culture.
In Berlin in 1979, Shaykh Nimatullah Khoja went beyond the audience in the mosque and took the message of Islam to those who were in a tavern. Through his love and wisdom, forty people returned to the mosque that night. Three years later, the most drunken man of that night appeared in the Prophet's Mosque in Madinah, now a bearded, turbaned man of prayer.
Two Korean teenagers visited Ansan Mosque. One is learning Arabic through the Duolingo app, and the other is interested in Islam. Having already learned the salam and the names of the prayers, the two made wudu and prayed Maghrib with the congregation.
