The multi-layered wording of the Qur’an allows it to accommodate new scientific discoveries, which is remarkable.
- For example, the Qur’an says:
﴿الله يعلم ما تحمل كل أنثى وما تغيض الأرحام وما تزداد وكل شيء عنده بمقدار عالم الغيب والشهادة الكبير المتعال﴾
“God knows what every female carries, what the wombs decrease, what they increase, and everything with Him is by measure. He is the Knower of the unseen and the seen, the Great, the Most High.”
The multi-layered word used here is تغيض (taghīḍ). This Arabic word does not merely mean to decrease or lose in general, but it is multi-layered and means to lose by a specific mechanism, which is غور أو غثور السائل في باطن الشيء حتى ينفذ ما على السطح, meaning the penetration or absorption of a liquid into the interior of something until what is on the surface disappears, such as the earth absorbing or swallowing water, as in ﴿وغيض الماء﴾ in the Qur’an.
Therefore, this word accommodates both visible miscarriage, as understood by ancient people, and invisible miscarriage that happens by an internal mechanism, where the uterus swallows or absorbs an unviable embryo, such as in spontaneous embryo resorption and vanishing twin syndrome, just as the earth absorbs water into its interior.
No one can say that this is retrofitting or stretching. This is an attested Arabic meaning of the word from 1,400 years ago. It can be read exactly like that: the uterus swallows or absorbs an unviable embryo internally without visible expulsion.
And even if ancient people did not interpret it that way, but interpreted it according to their cultural knowledge, that does not make this meaning a retrofit or a stretch. It makes it a discovery of a layer of this multi-layered word, because I have not invented a new meaning of the word out of thin air. It is an attested classical meaning of the word تغيض (taghīḍ).
There are many other words in Arabic that simply denote losing or decreasing in general, rather than losing by غور أو غثور سائل في باطن شيء, such as نقص، قل، فقد، جهض. None of them would accommodate internal embryo resorption or vanishing twin syndrome in the same way.
- Take another example: the Qur’an says:
﴿والسماء ذات الحبك﴾
“And the sky possessing al-hubuk.”
The word الحبك (al-ḥubuk) means, in attested classical Arabic dictionaries, pathways, but not just any pathways. It refers specifically to pathways in the form of ripples or node-filament patterns. It is specific, not a general term for any kind of pattern. For example, it was never used in classical Arabic dictionaries for dots, spirals, concentric circles, honeycombs, or fractals. Rather, it refers to pathways in the form of ripples, like sand and water ripples when wind hits them, curly hair, or interwoven fabrics. Metaphorically, something well-made can be described as محبوك (maḥbūk).
So, 1,400 years ago, I can read this verse as referring to the sky possessing pathways in the form of node-filaments, even if ancient people did not interpret it that way and instead interpreted it according to their cultural biases, such as the sky having pathways of stars or simply being beautifully made.
And here, the cosmic web, which is exactly something in the sky that is composed of interwoven pathways and along which matter moves, would be a discovery that fits the specific semantic range of the word used.
Again, this is not stretching or retrofitting because this is an attested classical meaning of a word that has a specific semantic range. I have not invented it.
If the Qur’an wanted to simply say that the sky is well-made, or that it has rippling patterns such as ripple clouds or auroras, or “pathways of stars” in general, rather than pathways in the form of “node-filament” patterns, there were many other words available to denote that, such as الشفق، تموجات، موج، مدارات، مسارات، أفلاك، طرائق، بهية، عظيمة، بديعة. Yet the cosmic web would not fit any of these words at all.
So why use this specific word, which carries the multi-layered sense of the sky possessing pathways in the form of node-filaments, like interwoven fabrics?
- Take a third example. The Qur’an says that there are معارج (maʿārij) in the heavens and that everything ascending in the universe follows them. There is an entire chapter in the Qur’an named المعارج (Al-Maʿārij), and God describes Himself in this chapter as the owner of those maʿārij:
﴿من الله ذي المعارج﴾
“From God, the Lord of the ways of ascent.”
This word معارج means curved, graded pathways of ascent. So the Qur’an says that there are built-in curved pathways of ascent in the heavens, and God is the owner of them.
Then the Qur’an uses, in the context of God’s all-encompassing knowledge, the verb يعرج (yaʿruj), which means to move in a curved, graded manner, like a meandering river or a lame person, rather than moving straight.
In two verses, in Al-Hadid and Saba, the Qur’an says:
﴿يعلم ما يلج في الأرض وما يخرج منها وما ينزل من السماء وما يعرج فيها﴾
“He knows what enters the earth and what emerges from it, what descends from the sky and what ascends within it.”
This verse uses the word ما and occurs in the context of God’s all-encompassing knowledge. Thus, whatever goes into the earth or comes out of it, whatever descends from the sky, and whatever ascends within it in a curved, graded manner is known by God.
By combining all of this, can we conclude that there are curved pathways of ascent built into the heavens and that everything ascending within the heavens follows them? Is that not exactly an accommodation of gravity as spacetime curvature, so that there are always curved pathways of ascent that all things ascending within the heavens will follow, such as hypervelocity stars, rockets, galactic winds, atmospheric particles escaping, light ascending from stars’ gravitational wells, and so on?
The Qur’an uses this same verb يعرج (yaʿruj) for the human body if it were to ascend within the heavens:
﴿ولو فتحنا عليهم بابا من السماء فظلوا فيه يعرجون﴾
“Even if We were to open for them a gate in the sky and they continued ascending through it.”
It also uses it for angels:
﴿يدبر الأمر من السماء إلى الأرض ثم يعرج إليه﴾
“He directs the matter from the heaven to the earth, then it ascends to Him [by angels].”
And:
﴿تعرج الملائكة والروح إليه﴾
“The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him.”
What is remarkable is that the verses say there are built-in curved pathways of ascent within the heavens and generalize that everything ascending follows them, because the verses are in the context of God’s all-encompassing knowledge.
There are many words that could be used to denote mere ascent without implying that this ascent is always graded and curved and follows built-in curved pathways within the heavens that Allah owns. Instead of المعارج (al-maʿārij), it could have been المصاعد، المراقي، الدرجات العلا. And instead of يعرج (yaʿruj), it could have been يسمو، يعلو، يرتقي، يرتفع، يطير، يصعد. None of these would accommodate the general law of gravitation in the same way.
- The Qur’an also says that night and day, the sun, and the moon are all in an orbit, swimming:
﴿كل في فلك يسبحون﴾
“Each is swimming in an orbit.”
In ancient views, the Earth was generally considered static and the sun and moon were thought to move around it. The idea that the sun is static and the Earth moves around it was a minority view. Scientifically, however, neither ancient model is correct in the modern sense: the moon, Earth, and sun all move through space in different orbits.
And this is implicitly implied in the verse because night and day cannot swim in an orbit like the sun and moon unless the body that carries them, which is the Earth, is swimming in an orbit as well.
Here, you cannot say that this verse means the sun and moon move around the Earth and that, through their motion around the Earth, night and day revolve around the Earth with them. First of all, the verse does not say that the sun and moon move around the Earth. It says that night and day, the sun, and the moon move in an orbit in the sky without specifying what revolves around what at all.
Furthermore, it says “swimming” in an orbit. Swimming implies motion within a medium rather than simply revolving around a body. Night and day cannot swim in an orbit like the sun and moon unless the body that carries them, the Earth, swims in an orbit as well.
Ancient commentators said that ﴿كل في فلك يسبحون﴾ means that the sun, moon, and stars all swim in orbits in the sky, even though the verse does not mention stars at all. Their worldview assumed a fixed Earth, so they were forced to introduce stars to make sense of the plural كل and يسبحون.
This theme recurs many times throughout the Qur’an and in different fields: cosmology, biology, geology, and so on. How did an illiterate person manage to use the language in this way?