Contributing Authors

Many of us must have watched the Youtube videos under the caption “Mathematical Miracles in Koran”.[1] There are numerous articles by Muslim apologists on the same subject. These videos and articles display how many times certain words are mentioned in the Koran and from these data try to deduct some scientific truths or to pass it as miracles, and hence to claim that the Koran is not manmade but have a divine origin.

We present below a few of these data in Table 1.

Table - 1

Out of these data, the mention of “men” and “women” 23 times each by Allah are miraculous to the fertile Muslim mind. They interpret this as a reflection of Allah’s knowledge that a human cell contains 46 or 23 pairs of chromosomes, 23 from the father and 23 from the mother. So interpreting it, they find it amazing, which, to them, reflects how cautious Allah was in revealing the Koran. But Allah displayed no such carefulness while revealing other data.

But the warped Muslim mind would not take into account Allah’s discrepancy in mentioning other words with similar cautiousness. For instance, there is only one sun, Allah mentions it 33 times in the Quran. Should He have mentioned it juts once?

The other data on which the commentator puts importance is mentioning land 13 times and sea 32 times by Allah. Adding 13 and 32, one obtains 45. Furthermore, dividing 13 by 45, one obtains 28.8888889%, which is the percentage of earth surface covered with land, while dividing 32 by 45, one obtains 71.11111, which is the percentage of earth surface covered by the seas. But Allah’s calculation, in this respect, does not seem to be accurate. According to modern calculation, the total surface area of the earth (Wikipedia) is 510,072,000 sq km, out of which 148,940,000 sq km, or 29.2% of the total area is land and 361,132,000 sq km , or 70.8%, is covered with water.

Another aspect that needs clarification is that the Koran repeats the word “day” 365 times, that may imply that 365 days make a year. But a solar year contains 365 days, while a lunar year contains 355 days. And Allah prefers the Lunar Calendar. All Islamic events and festivities, pilgrimage, fasting, Eid celebration etc. according to Lunar Calendar. If Allah was sensible and wise, He should have repeated the word “day” 355 times, not 365 times.

In this context, it may be mentioned that three solar years contain 36 solar months but 37 lunar months. So, in India, to make an adjustment between the solar and the lunar calendars, the astronomers invented the process called Triennial Intercalation. We have seen that 36 solar months is the same as 37 lunar months and a compromise was made by counting a lunar year of 13 lunar months in very third solar year. In Sanskrit, this extra 13th month is called ‘in adhika māsa (extra month). In English, the process is called Triennial Intercalation and the respective month is called the intercalary month.

This process was also in vogue in pre-Islamic Arabia. But Allah denounced this practice by revealing the verse (9.37) of the Koran that reads, “Postponement (of a sacred month) is only an excess of disbelief whereby those who disbelieve are misled; they allow it one year and forbid it (another) year, that they may make up the number of the months which Allah hath hallowed, so that they allow that which Allah hath forbidden. The evil of their deeds is made fairseeming unto them. Allah guideth not the disbelieving folk.” Thus the Arabic calendar became purely lunar one.

This author has failed to discover any scientific importance linked to the other data. The commentator does not say for how many times the Koran mentions the word Allah. It may be a few hundred times. But, as there is only one Allah, the Koran should have mentioned it only once. It is interesting to note that, both the word Satan and the Angels are mentioned 88 times. Does it mean that the Satan is 88 times more powerful than that of an angel?

The source of the above data

Harun Yahya: The Deceptive Islamist & charlatan anti-Darwinist.

All the data presented above have been collected from a book ATLAS OF CREATION [2], written by Turkish author Adnan Oktar (though in Turkey he is also known as Adnan Hodja), in the pen-name of Harun Yahya.

“Operating from Istanbul, Yahya is the founder of the Science Research Foundation, an impressive publishing empire that boasts more than 60 websites dedicated to his writings. It provides documentary films and audio recordings in fifteen languages, including Turkish, English, Russian, Amharic and Arabic, and claims to sell more than half a million books a year, including the infamous 850-page, fully illustrated Atlas of Creation, which was sent free in two volumes to dozens of universities, libraries and prominent scientists (including Richard Dawkins) across the world. In painstaking detail, with a mass of photos, graphs and statistics interspersed with verses from the Koran, the Atlas purports to prove that Darwin was utterly mistaken, that each plant and animal was created intact, and that no modification through natural selection ever took place,” says Halil Arda in his article Sex, flies and videotape: the secret lives of Harun Yahya. [3]

Yahya is not even a university graduate, but writes on modern science, cosmology, genetic science and so on. “Despite the shoddiness of his science, Yahya has found a ready audience amongst Muslims, looking for scientific justification for their rejection of the West. Over past decades, he has served as an adviser to several Turkish politicians, and received endorsements from across the Arab world including Saudi Arabia and Dubai, where his stalls feature prominently at book fairs. He has also proved a fascinating subject for the Western media, offering all-expenses-paid flights to Istanbul to any journalist wishing to interview him, and making himself available for radio interview whenever required”, says Halil Arda.

“In recent years he has been interviewed by the Irish Times, by American National Public Radio, by Gordon Liddy on Radio America, by the American science magazine Seed and even by The Skeptic magazine. While coverage in the West tends to treat Yahya’s scientific claims with derision (though all are still posted on his website as evidence of his growing influence), he is treated far more seriously across the Muslim world. From daily newspapers in Egypt and Bosnia to influential satellite TV stations like al-Jazeera and (the Iran-funded) Press TV, to small Muslim broadcasters in the West like Radio Ummah and Radio Ramadan, Harun Yahya’s argument, with its appearance of scientific credibility, its crowd-pleasing critique of Western materialism and its promise of the imminent collapse of the “Darwinist Dictatorship”, is enthusiastically welcomed by a new audience hungry for compensatory narratives of Islamic superiority. As the American journalist Nathan Schneider argued, to judge Yahya’s message on its scientific content alone misses the point: “its power, for those who are not scientifically literate, lies in its vision of redemption”, Arda adds.

More on Harun Yahya

Yahya was Born in Ankara in 1956 and by the late 1970s he was a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul, where he studied interior design. During this time, he fell under the influence of the ideas of a charismatic Islamist preacher and moderniser, Said-i Nursi, in particular Nursi’s marrying of Islamic mysticism with scientific rhetoric.

He repudiated the Jews and wrote, “The principal mission of Jews and Freemasons in Turkey, was to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and make them like animals. He eventually served 19 months for this comment and during this period he was confined to a prison clinic, and then Bakirkoy Mental Hospital, where he was diagnosed with an obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and schizophrenia. His former colleague Islamist author Edip Yuksel, who was imprisoned in 1986 at the same time, believe Oktar was faking to avoid compulsory military service and criminal charges. (“Which is ironic,” wrote Yuksel, “since he was indeed mentally ill; he was a delusional maniac.”) Already by this point, Yuksel reports, Oktar believed himself to be the Mehdi (Mahdi), the messiah foretold in Sunni (and Shia) theology. He told us the Mehdi would emerge from Turkey, and he would come with an army of youth. He never said that he was the Mehdi himself, but we all believed that he was.”[3]

Another article Who is Harun Yahaya [4] says, “Harun Yahya is charlatan and a dangerous man. Here's some background of this great impostor.  … Adnan Oktar (pen name: Harun Yahya) is claimed on his web page to be a 'world renowned and respected scholar' who has devoted himself to writing about scientific and faith-related subjects such as the theory of evolution and miracles of God. He is further described by supporters as a respected 'scientist' who has publications in incredibly diverse areas of interest (actually he is not a university graduate).”

There are many allegations of sexual abuse of minor girls, against Harun Yahya and his team. Nearly 1000 of such allegations are being tried in courts. “About three years ago, upon complaints of victims and many years of suspicion, Turkish police raided residences of this group. The discoveries at the houses and testimony of the group members were shocking. Under the mask of promoting Islam and scientific facts, the group members had been found to engage in extensive criminal activity. These crimes included blackmail, possession of unlicensed weapons and sexual intercourse with individuals under age of 18.” [4]

In a particular case, Harun Yahya and his colleagues are alleged to have blackmailed and then slandered a fashion model  named Ebru Simsek as a prostitute as  in fax messages sent to hundreds of different newspapers, TV channels, major business companies, foreign consulates, government offices etc. The reason for the slander was that she refused to have sex with Adnan Oktar. A few years ago, in the sudden raid, 20 women and 2 other men were found at his residence. Most of the females (girls really) were under the age 18, (Oktar is his middle 40's) and they claimed that they had been having sexual intercourse with Oktar and members of his sect.

“In his testimony, Oktar claimed that he had committed no crime as the intercourse was consensual, allowed under Turkish law. Further, Oktar insisted that this intercourse was also religiously permissible under Islam because he and his followers did not have a 'real sexual intercourse with these girls.“

“He and his followers claimed that they had only engaged in 'anal and oral' sex. They preferred these kinds of sexual intercourse since according to Koran, he claimed, these acts are not impermissible outside of marriage. According to their interpretation 'vaginal' intercourse was 'haram' but 'anal and oral intercourse' was 'halal' when not married.” [4] In the late 1980s, after several babies were born to group members (whether Oktar’s or not is unclear), Oktar forbade sexual practices that would lead to pregnancy (his followers were limited to anal or oral intercourse). Since then there have been no more births in the group.

Science Research Foundation and the followers have thus initiated thousands of court cases. As a results of these crimes, Adnan Oktar (aka Harun Yahya), and about 40 of his sect members were taken to the court and judged. Once there, they denied the truth of their original confessions, claiming that they were extracted under torture.

The judicial process lasted over 2 years, during which most of the complainants' retracted their claims because of threats or bribes from sect members. As a result most of the cases against these people were dismissed, with only two of them jailed for 1 year each. That said, coverage of the arrests and trials were so extensive in Turkey that the reputation (and money making opportunities) of the group were permanently destroyed. It is now taken seriously only in foreign countries where their legal troubles received little or no press coverage.[4]

Most recently, Yahya has been propagating himself as the Mahdi and talking about the “Turkish-Islamic Union”, which would bring peace to the entire Muslim world under the leadership of Turkey. This is in compliance of the prophecy that the Mahdi would revive the Caliphate. “Harun has an ambitions of creating a Turkish-Islamic union, a new Ottoman Empire girdling the world from Eastern Russia to Western Nigeria, which would unify the Islamic world under Turkish leadership”, says Halil Arda.

The prophecy regarding Mahdi

According to both Sunni and Shia sects of Islam, just before the Day of Judgment (qiyamah), a kafir called Dajjal will be very powerful, who will attack Arabia to destroy the Kaaba. At that time, another prophet called Mahdi (Guided one) would come as redeemer of Islam. He will stay on Earth for seven, nine or nineteen years (according to various interpretations). “In Shia Islam, the belief in the Mahdi is a "powerful and central religious idea" a 10th generation grandson of prophet Mohammed and closely related as the Twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, whose return from occultation is deemed analogous with the coming of the Mahdi,” says Wikipedia. In Sunni traditions, there are several hadiths that referred to the Mahdi.

Thus the Mahdi doctrine is common to both Sunni and Shia Muslims and according to scholar Moojan Momen: The Mahdi will be a descendant of Muhammad of the line of Fatimah, He will be descendent by one side (by one of the parents) by Hassan and by another by Hussain. He will have the same name as Muhammad. He will be a fore-runner to Jesus' Islamic Rule. His coming will be accompanied by the raising of a Black Standard. His coming will be accompanied by the appearance of the Masih ad-Dajjal (Antichrist). A star with a luminous tail will rise from the East before the coming of the Mahdi. He will establish the Caliphate. He will fill the world with justice and fairness at a time when the world will be filled with oppression, which is war and calamities. He will have a broad forehead, a prominent nose, and a natural mascara will ring his eyes. His face shall shine upon the surface of the Moon. [5]

At present, Many Islamic groups have started campaign against Harun Yahya condemning his efforts to establish him as the Mahdi. Watch videos [6]

The Conclusion

From the above discussions it becomes apparent that, what kind of science and miracles the Koran contains and what are the kind of people who are propagating these lies. In out time, Muslims have proven themselves most shameless in propagating lies. And, it is because, all-knowing and most merciful Allah has given them the clean chit to tell lies of any sort, the sacred doctrine of taqiyyah or holy deception, for the benefit of Islam. It is more dangerous that these people have succeeded to engage a group of well paid scientists in the Western world, who are jumping in the field to discover modern science in the Koran. More perilously, some of these reputed scientists are also converting to Islam. We hope to discuss this aspect in the next article.

References:

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76PwAovAlEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76PwAovAlEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHInBbjgWQU&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y96KuhAQBMI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob60pQYyYM4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdQ0t1wfSe4

[2] http://www.mukto-mona.com/debunk/harun_yahya/

[3]  http://newhumanist.org.uk/2131/sex-flies-and-videotape-the-secret-lives-of-harun-yahya

[4] : http://www.secularislam.org/visitors/66.htm

[5] Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia

[6] Beware of Harun Yahya - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlqA5eQcvX4

Beware of Harun Yahya ! A 'Mahdi' in a making [Exposed] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAOFGFDOgg