12. Decoding the verses of the Holy Quran

It is worth noting that Prophet Muhammad never limbed into a boat. Biographies, both old and new, suggest that he never spent time at the ocean. His journeys to Syria took him into remote hinterland areas. Quite clearly, the following comment does not sound like it could come from a man who has never seen seawater in his life.

“And He is the One Who merges the two bodies of water: one fresh and palatable and the other salty and bitter, placing between them a barrier they cannot cross.”

Chapter 25 (Surah Al-Furqan) verse 53

Did the people of the Prophet’s time could have realized what was meant. After all, there were no seas near Makkah or Madinah. So, let’s decipher this verse of the Holy Quran.

The barrier

It is true to the amazement of those who would have traveled by ships across seas. There are several locations, such as at Cape Peninsula (South Africa) where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean, or where the North Sea waters join with the waters of the Baltic Sea, or the Raritan Bay water joins with the New York Harbor waters, or the Blue Nile waters joining with the White Nile waters, or the two seas at Bab at-Mundeb, etc.

Oceanographers and the Sea Barrier 

It was in the 19h century that oceanographers first discovered that ocean waters were not the same all over the globe. Samples taken from a number of locations were different from each other in respect of salinity, temperature, density, types of marine organisms, etc. The study’s findings were confirmed when the Americans undertook the study in 1933.  why did the seas not mix and become homogeneous in spite of the effect of tide and other factors such as surface and internal waves, sea currents? Further studies revealed that there happen to be ‘barriers’ laid between the seas which helps waters on each side of them to maintain their distinctive properties.

It has been observed that the barrier seems to exist even to the depths of up to 1,400 meters and even at long distances both bodies of water maintain their individual temperatures, salinity and other properties.

The zone of separation to which the Quran refers as a “barrier” has different salinity from the waters on the two sides and there is no strangeness involved in the phenomenon, except that mankind has learnt of it only since about a century or less. The waters of the Earth’s oceans and seas DO MIX, but only on a restricted scale, and it will most likely take millennia to finish globally.

The difference in densities 

The difference in density between the two waters can lead to slow mixing. For instance, the difference of density of the order 0.1kg/m3 can cause several days for mixing to occur. In case of fresh water joining sea water, the mixing would take yet longer because density difference between fresh river water and salty sea water is high, and so, is calm. The boundary is also visible clearly.

Experiment at home 

Simple experiments can be conducted at home to watch the phenomenon of two waters not mixing with each other. E.g. if blue food color is added to a well-mixed sugary water, and then a red-colored water is gently poured over it, the color of the new mixture remains blue at bottom, red on top, and minimal purple in the middle. The result persists, perhaps for days.

The Quran does not discuss technical details. Its objective is to make a man think about the text, and ask himself: could this be a human production?

What prevents the water from mixing?

The zone separating the upper mixed layer from the deeper ocean is usually characterized by substantial Vertical gradients in water characteristics. To maintain stability in the water column, lighter (less dense) water must be placed above heavier (denser) water…

During summer at mid-latitudes, surface heating from the sun can cause a shallow seasonal thermocline (pycnocline) that connects the top mixed layer to the deeper, more permanent thermocline, or main pycnocline.’

Similarly, in subpolar locations, seasonal summer imports of fresh water near the surface from rainfall, rivers, or ice melt can create a seasonal halocline (pycnocline) that separates the fresh surface from the deeper saltier waters. The vertical density gradient in the primary pycnocline is very severe, and the turbulence inside the top mixed layer cannot penetrate deeper into the ocean due to the high stability of the main pycnocline. The primary pycnocline’s stability acts as a barrier against turbulent mixing processes, and water beneath this depth has not come into contact with the top in a long time.

Vertical gradients in water can refer to differences in water temperature, density, or hydraulic head, and they can indicate a number of things, including:

Blue Energy 

Several decades of studies of chemical reactions at where the sea and river waters meet has led to the discovery that the chemical processes taking place at the barrier could lead to a new method of energy extraction in massive quantities. This new energy is dubbed blue energy because it creates no pollution but could in addition prove to solve the pollution problem created by the burning of fossil fuels.

According to one estimate, this “blue energy” is so plentiful that it could meet all our needs – if we can find an effective way to tap it.

This developing technology of extracting energy, which is also referred to as the “osmotic power,” (because it relies on osmosis with ion specific membranes) depends on energy extraction from the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water. To explain in simplest possible terms, two solutions of waters of different densities are separated by a thin membrane that lets water through but not salt ions. This causes less dense water to pass through to the other side. The pressure that builds up can be used to drive turbines which produce energy.

Plants have been set up in many parts of the world, such as Australia, Holland, Norway, UK, to name a few, to produce electricity through this process. At present the yield is low when measured against the costs, but improvements are expected.

4. Decoding the verses of the Holy Quran

Iron is originally formed through the fusing of elements in stars. Iron on Earth arrived millions of years ago in the form of meteorites following a big stellar explosion known as a supernova, which occurs when a star’s lifetime is exhausted. But what does the Holy Quran tells us about iron?

“And We sent down iron with its great might, benefits for humanity, and means for Allah to prove who ˹is willing to˺ stand up for Him and His messengers without seeing Him. Surely Allah is All-Powerful, Almighty.”

– Chapter 57 (Surah Al-Hadid) verse 25 

Let’s decipher this verse of the Holy Quran.

Iron and Quran 

The word “created” is used in the Quran for things counted as Allah´s blessings to man, there are two things which are always mentioned as having “sent down”, one is water and another is iron

With the reference to water, admittedly, it could be justified because it is coming down when it rains is a visible phenomenon. But usage of word, “We sent down” for iron always had a question mask before it, until of course recent times when the origin of heavy metals came to be investigated by the scientists.

By its mass, iron is the most common element on earth, while it is only trace in the universe (0.11%). It accounts for 35% of earth ´s mass. The innermost core of the earth is 90% solid iron. The outer core (surrounding the inner core of diameter 6800 km) is liquid iron. So, where did all this iron come from? It must come from exploding stars (also called supernova). Iron is produced in the core of such stars, where the high temperatures – above 108 K – allow for the fusion of heavy metals. There is no other way of forming iron in the universe and the earth itself has never experienced any such temperature during the course of its formation.

Early universe 

There is known that the  early universe created hydrogen and helium. Both are very simple elements. Astrophysicists suggest that hydrogen was the first element to be created in the soup of sub-atomic particles after big bang (the big blast that created the universe). It has no neutrons. within three minutes, helium is thought to be formed. It has two protons, two neutrons and two electrons circulating its nucleus. After the creation of hydrogen and helium, the early universe cooled and expanded so much that formation of new elements was forbidden. So, the question remained,how and when did heavy elements appear, and specifically iron that has 26 electrons, 26 protons and 30 neutrons.Researches have shown that the creation of iron is only possible in the core of large stars, larger than sun, which are largely made of hydrogen and helium. When they have burnt hydrogen, they switch to burning their helium. At that stage they expand to several times their size and are referred to as “Red Giant Stars.” If they had sufficient mass at the start, they become supergiants. Nonetheless, when they have finished burning their fuel, they begin to contract. As they contract, temperature rises immensely. As the process of contraction continues, pressure builds up, and temperatures rise. With high temperatures and pressures, the process of nucleosynthesis is triggered and new, heavier elements are synthesized, iron being the last. (This cannot happen in our sun because it is not large enough).  Then the star explodes, scattering this all material in the vast space. It was this scattered material, which would have floated around it millions of years and which, attracted by the earth during is formationd period, slammed into it, and gradually, sank into its core.

To pick up a line from the Net for summary:

“The first four elements were present after the big bang. Elements up through magnesium were created in red giants. Elements up through iron were created in supergiants and the elements from iron to uranium were created in supernovae.” (http://www.haystack.mit.edu/“Carbon and oxygen are produced by the processes of nuclear synthesis in stars via a delicately arranged process. At first, a star burns hydrogen to form helium.

Eventually, when enough hydrogen is burnt, the star contracts, thereby increasing the core temperature of the star until helium ignition takes place, which results in helium being converted to carbon and oxygen. This process occurs by helium nuclei colliding first to form beryllium 8 (8Be), which is a metastable nuclei with a half-life of 10-17 seconds. During 8Be’s short lifespan, it can capture another helium nucleus to form carbon 12. Some of the carbon 12 that is formed is then burnt to oxygen 16 by collisions with other helium nuclei…( and this process continues, until temperature and pressure are suitable for the synthesis of iron). At the end of its life, the star looks like an onion, as shown in the figure below:

The unsolved matter

1 Distance The distances between the earth and nearest star is so huge that, no matter how long a time is allowed, the mystery as to how the exploding material landed on earth remains unsolved. The matter becomes all the more mysterious noting that all exploding stars will not scatter iron. Stars of certain size alone can synthesize iron at their core. The nearest star, for example, Alpha Centauri, is 4.35 light years away. That works out to 40,000,000,000 trillion m.

(40,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

km).

That’s the distance the stuff exploding from the star had to travel to reach the earth. To get to feel about the distance, look at the following image of the earth taken by Voyager 1, at some distance from the earth, as it traveled outward, but not yet out of the Solar system. Atronomically, the voyager ´s camera was more closer to the earth than two eyes of a tiny baby ant.

1. Probability Dr. Nabeel suggested, the geometric efficiency can be calculated by the cross-sectional area of earth divided by the area of the sphere whose radius R is the distance between the star and the earth.So, radius of the earth = r; cross-sectional area of earth = П t2; radius of sphere = R; area of sphere = 4ПR2Therefore, П r2 / 4ПR2 = r2 / 4R2 = ~ 0That is, the likelihood of any material reaching earth from the given distance is zero.
2. The exploded material had to travel in one direction alone encountering no other heavenly body on the way to land onto.
3. When it arrived at the solar system – at last! – it had to escape the gravitational pull of the sun. But the sun is so large in comparison to the earth, that it is intriguing that iron could ever escape its pull.
4. There is another mount improbable to climb. The earth is surrounded by massive planets like Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter has 318 times mass of the earth. In fact, it is so large, it can accommodate all the rest of the planets into itself; and Saturn is 95 times more massive than the earth. One of their functions in the solar system is that they absorb into themselves, many wayward comets and other loose interstellar junk. So, they should have taken in all the iron entering into the solar system. But, mysteriously, the two massive planets Jupiter and Saturn have next to nothing of iron as their constituents.

So, isn ´the holy Quran word of God?

A very puzzling observation

Now let´s take a look at the above mentioned verse one more time:

The statement,”Wherein is great military might” is an obvious meaning. Swords, spears, helmets, shields, ammunition and various other military things are made form iron. But the next phrase is interesting, “and benefits for mankind”. Bronze Age proceeded that of Iron Age. Bronze is easier to extract, is light, malleable, easy to melt and mold. But natural iron is more difficult to handle because of the presence of carbon. It corrodes so its product have a short life. But then people learned to make furnaces – over decades -humans learn to remove its carbon and alloy it with other elements, before they could put it to wider use.

Today, from ships to cars to high-rise buildings, thousands upon thousands of iron products dominate the metal market, and production of iron in millions of tons a year over the globe is considered a proud achievement by nations of east and west. Thus, the puzzle of the Qur’anic verse revealed 1400 years ago, claiming that “there are (other uses of iron) for mankind” came to be solved

universal benefit

That said, it seems we are not finished with benefits of iron yet: iron is necessary for hemoglobin, transportation of oxygen around the body, conversion of blood sugar to energy, production of enzyme for manufacture of new cells, and for the immune system, there is yet another essential function of iron in life’s existence in the earth – unthought of any time in the past viz. sun’s radiation would kill life

– humans, animals, plants – if not for the presence of iron in the earth ´s core, in two layers, in quantities necessary.

As mentioned above, earthis core is entirely iron. Surrounding i is another core (the outer core). It is also iron. Both the cores rotate which is other than the earth ´s rotation on its axis as a whole: thus there are three rotations. The inner core rotates in a different rotation than the outer core. The interaction of the two movements in opposite directions creates a magnetic field. This magnetic field protects the surface of the earth from the deadly solar radiation.

An Engineer

Ch 18 verse 94-96

I believe that Dhu al Qarnayn also created some kind of magnetic field in opening of the portal (wormhole). Click here to read more this story

How many times iron mentioned in Quran?

What does Quran say about the atomic number and atomic mass of Iron?

The term “hadid” in Arabic means “iron”. Iron is represented by the symbol Fe in the periodic table. It has an atomic mass of 56 amu (atomic mass unit) and an atomic number of 26. There are four stable isotopes of iron that exist naturally: 54Fe (5.84%), 56Fe (91.7%), 57Fe (2.12%), and 58Fe (0.28%).

If we do not consider Surah Al-Fatihah to be the first chapter of the Holy Quran, then Surah Al-Hadid is the 56th chapter. However, if we take Surah Al-Fatihah to be the first chapter of the Holy Quran, then Surah Al-Hadid ranks 57th. Let’s move on to iron’s atomic number. Al-Hadid is written in Arabic as “حديد”.The following lists the Arabic alphabet’s sequential and geometric values:

If we add these value we will get the atomic number of iron:

Although Henry Moseley identified the atomic number of iron in 1913, the Holy Quran mentions this almost 1400 years ago. Here, Allah provides us with the concept of isotopes. If we examine the surah’s location, we will find two values (which I have already explained): 56 and 57. However, the total number of letters in حديد will not change. Isotopes are defined as such. The atomic mass varies, but the atomic number stays the same. The Holy Quran also discusses their properties as well. Since each isotope of an element has the same number of electrons, their chemical characteristics are all the same. Regardless of whether we place Surah Al-Hadid in the 56th or 57th chapter, it will still be Al-Hadid, with the same content and with the same attributes. That’s how Allah explains the isotopes with the example of Iron in the Holy Quran.

My final words

The glorious Quran says:

“We will show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this ˹Quran˺ is the

truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things?”

– Chapter 41 (Surah Fussilat ) verse 53 

Some people require only one sign, while others require numerous signs to embrace the truth. On the other side, there are others who, even after receiving thousands of indications, refuse to embrace the reality. The Quran describes these persons as:

“They are ˹wilfully˺ deaf, dumb, and blind, so they will never return ˹to the Right Path˺.”
– Chapter 2 (Surah Al-Baqarah) verse 18

The Bible says the same thing:

“Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
– Gospel of Matthew verse 13 of chapter 13 

Hopefully, that was helpful to you and will assist you in strengthening your belief. You can also visit my other blogs:

What does Quran says about the dynamic motion of the Earth?

What does the Quran say about the moon?

What does Quran say about the rise in sea level?

writer= Ayhian Ali

email: ayhianali@gmail.com