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Dr. Keith Moore is the author of The Developing Human, a recognised textbook in the field of Embryology. In the third edition, on p. 8, he presented statements from the Qur’an as a marked advancement over the scientific knowledge of the field that was available at the time.

In a separate paper he has explained at length the remarkable correlation he finds between the Qur’anic statements and modern embryological data.

For example, the verse number 14 of Al-Mu’minun in the Qur’an mentions that God makes us like a leech at one stage. Dr. Moore shows that this description is accurate because at 24 days old the embryo does resemble a leech.

Moreover, it acts like a leech in that it extracts its nutrients from the mother’s blood. The same verse continues to say that after that God makes us into a chewed lump in the subsequent stage.

Dr. Moore shows that the embryo at 28 days old does look like a chewed lump, as the newly developing somites appear similar to the teeth marks we typically leave on a piece of chewed gum.

At 28 days old the embryo is no larger than a grain of rice. It could not have been studied without the use of a microscope. How then did this knowledge become available to find its way into the Qur’an if not by divine revelation?

Numerical Miracle

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Another interesting area of modern study of the Qur’an is the arrangement of its words, verses, and chapters. Naturally, such elements convey meaning.

But one would hardly expect that the arrangement itself would be meaningful. For example, any book may say that there are 12 months or 365 days in a year.

But suppose we pick up a book, any book, and for the sake of curiosity we count the number of times it mentions the words ‘month’ and ‘day’.

What are the chances that it will mention the word ‘month’ precisely 12 times and the word ‘day’ precisely 365 times?

For that to occur by mere chance is so remote that we may suspect that the author deliberately planned to use the word that many times.

It so happens that the word ‘month’ (shahr in Arabic) occurs in the Qur’an exactly 12 times and the word ‘day’ (yawm in Arabic) occurs in the Qur’an exactly 365 times.

The history of how the Qur’an came to be available in the world is clear enough for us to assert with confidence that no human author planned this result. The alternative conclusion is that this is the work of God.

One may ask if this isn’t by chance, even though a very remote one. However, there are so many examples of surprising sums of letters, words, verses, and chapters in the Qur’an that it would be quite unreasonable to credit all this to chance.

For example, the verse number 59 of Surah Ali ‘Imran in the Qur’an says that Jesus is like Adam in the sight of God. This means that as far as God is concerned Jesus and Adam are both his creatures.

But there is another way in which Jesus is like Adam. The name Jesus occurs in the Qur’an 25 times; the name Adam also occurs 25 times. The two names are scattered throughout the Qur’an.

Seldom do they occur in the same chapter. For an author to have kept track of the number of times these words were in the book wouldn’t have been easy.

The Qur’an wasn’t, like other books, composed by someone privately and then made public only when the final completed and revised copy is ready for circulation or publication.

The earliest and only records about the Qur’an’s first availability to the world show that the book was recited by the prophet Muhammad, on whom be peace, in short segments over a period of 23 years.

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The short recitals were often in response to questions put to him, sometimes by critics. Or, the short pieces may have offered guidance on newly occurring events. Or they may have even predicted future developments.

Hence, people could hardly have expected the prophet Muhammad as a human being to remember how many times he had recited all these words.

Nor would he have had any reason to do this. If he wanted to convince everyone that his is a great book then he might have told someone about this remarkable manner.

But these word counts were not known to anyone for centuries after the death of the prophet.

In 1938, however, an Egyptian scholar Fuad Abdul Baqi prepared a concordance listing all the words of the Qur’an and their location. Now we can see at a glance that the names Adam and Jesus seldom occur in proximity to each other; yet they occur 25 times each.

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Similarly we can see that the words for man and woman in the singular occur 24 times each. Likewise the words for Satan and Angel occur 68 times each. The word for this life (dunya) and the life hereafter (akhira) occur 115 times each.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this result was planned. Yet this was never the plan of any human being. Hence we are looking here at the plan of God.

For a final example, consider the fact that the words for dry land (barr, yabis) occur a total of 13 times in the Qur’an and the word for sea (bahr) occurs 32 times. It turns out that 13:32 is the approximate ratio of land to water on the surface of our globe since there is about 28% land and 72% water.

Based on the evidence presented here, we may conclude that the Qur’an is an abiding wonder. It isn’t a relic of the past, but a guide for the future.

Whereas modern discoveries have cast doubt on many other ancient scriptures, similar discoveries demonstrate that some of the Qur’an’s statements contain knowledge that must have come from God.

The numerical arrangement of the Qur’an’s elements is unique to the Qur’an. Many attempts have been made to prove a similar mathematical phenomenon in other books.

But only in the case of the Qur’an was this successfully proved.  But the Qur’an isn’t about science or mathematics. Its message is about you and me; about where we came from and where we are heading.

The Qur’an informs us where we come from, where we are headed, and how to get to the right place by serving God and God’s creation.