The Qur’an
and the Origin of Life on Earth
By Dr Bashir Ahmad
Wildwood, MO
It is wonderful to realize that all Qur’anic
declarations based as they are on divine revelation
are superbly supported and authenticated by scientific
evidence.
About 4 billion years ago, earth’s atmosphere
remained oxygen-free and was devoid of its protective
ozone layer in the stratosphere.
J.B.S Haldane, the great British biochemist, was
the first to appreciate that the earth’s
anoxle atmosphere was a requirement for the evolution
of life from non-living inorganic matters. (Ref.
Dickerson,R.E. (September 1978), Chemical evolution
and the origin of life. Scientific America, page
70).
According to Haldane, water, carbon dioxide and
ammonia molecules, subjected to uninterrupted
bombardment of intense cosmic energy, were largely
instrumental in the creation of the prebiotic
organisms. (Ref. Dickerson R.E. (Sept. 1948) Scientific
America, p 71.)
Stanley Miller in 1953 produced amino acids, the
basic material life is made up of, by performing
the following experiment.
He filled a sealed apparatus with a few liters
of water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen gases,
representing the atmosphere which scientists thought
had existed in the past billions of years. A spark
discharge device simulated lightening, while a
heated coil kept the water bubbling.
Within a few days a reddish precipitate began
to stain the glass, which on analysis, was found
to be rich in amino acids. (Ref. Miller S.L. (1953)
Production of some organic compounds under possible
primitive earth conditions. Journal of the American
Chemical Society: 77: 2351-2361)
The Holy Qur’an has shed light on the creation
of life on earth in the following verses.
“And the Jinn we created before that (the
creation of man) from blasts of fire, (maris-samum)
Qur’an 15/28 And also,
“And the Jinn He created from the flame
of fire” Qur’an 55/16. Samum which
means a blazing fire or a blast that has no smoke.
(Ref. Lane, E.W. (1948) Arabic - English lexicon
William & Norgate, Cambridge).
These verses very aptly apply to the minute organisms
drawing their energy for their existence, directly
from the blazes of lightening – Samum -
and cosmic radiation.
Dickerson agrees with the Qur’anic view
when he observes that the most ancient organisms
- “----------- would have lived on the energy
of lightening and ultraviolet radiation”
Ref. Dickerson R.E. (Sept. 1978) Chemical evolution
and the origin of life. Scientific American. Page
80.
Most ancient bacteria, ‘Prokaryote’
has a well defined cell membrane, but no distinct
nucleus. The Eukaryotes, on the other hand, possess
well-defined and well-developed nucleus occupying
the center of each cell.
Woese published the findings of his pioneer research
in Scientific America (June 1981) claiming that
archaebacteria could be rightly considered as
the earliest form of organism. (Ref. Woese C.R.
(June 1981) Archae bacteria . Scientific American,
p. 114.)
According to the Hutchinson Dictionary of Science:
‘--------------The archeabacteria are related
to the earliest life forms, which appeared about
4 billion years ago, when there was little oxygen
in the earth’s atmosphere’ (Ref. The
Hutchinson Dictionary of Science (1993) Helicon
Publishing Ltd. Oxford, p. 37.
The majority of the commentators of the Qur’an,
appear not knowing the geological environment
that existed on the earth four billion years ago.
The commentators of the Qur’an also could
not comprehend that blasts of fire could sustain
life! They also could not dissociate their mind
from the Arabian folklore, where Jinn came to
devote all manner of demons in the most popular
sense of this world.
The commentators of the Qur’an were also
puzzled by the fact that ‘Jinn’ has
been used in the Qur’an in diverse connotations,
for example, the opponents of prophets are described
as satans from among men and Jinn, meaning rebellious
ones from among low and high. (Qur’an 6/113;
6/129-130; 6/131)
Solomon’s host comprised gentiles (Jinn)
natives (men) and saintly people(birds) formed
into companies. (Qur’an 27/18)
Foreign experts, (Jinn) who were subject to Solomon’s
authority, worked for him and fashioned whatsoever
he desired: Palaces, statues, basins as large
reservoirs; huge cauldrons (Qur’an 34/13-14)
A powerful chieftain is called Jinn (Qur’an
27/40)
Jinn mentioned in the Qur’an 46/30 and 72/2,
where a party of men who happened to listen on
one occasion to the Holy Prophet reciting the
Qur’an one night during his return journey
from Taif to Mecca and another party who came
and talked to him and reported their impressions
to their people when they returned home.
It is astounding that the Qur’an has clearly
and very acutely described the earliest creation
of life - very primitive cells, 1400 years ago
when there was no concept of geology, which only
now is being discovered with the most advanced
scientific monitors and gadgets.
Recently Timothy Kusky, a St Louis University
geologist, has found in a mountain in China, a
rock half the size of a basketball, which on carbon
dating was found to be 2.5 billion years old,
fingers jutting out of the rock. Inside these
tubes are faint rings that enclose tiny white
crystals, which under a microscope look like thin
sausages.
Kusky says he has a carbon signature to prove
that what he sees was once alive: fossilized microbes
that fed within the super heated, sulfurous tubes
of a sea floor chimney – sulfide - spewing
vents. These are sea floor rocks found high in
a Chinese mountain range north east of Beijing.
The sea floor fossils support what many scientists
believe: that life began at the bottom of the
oceans near these super-heated vents.
How the rocks got from an ocean floor to a Chinese
mountainside is a million year long story. Hot
magma splits the ocean plate at a mid ocean ridge.
(It also provides the heat, 1400 degrees, that
drives sulfurous water to build black smoke chimneys,
20,000 feet below sea level, eventually, the spreading
heavy ocean crust encounters a continent and dives
under it. Some of the sea floor rocks can be scraped
off and later lifted to the surface during a period
of mountain building, said Stephen Mojzsis, a
geologist at the University of Colorado. Whilstexploring
the seabed in ALVIN, an advanced deep diving submarine,
owned and used by the Oceanographic Institution
of Woods Hole, Mass, first found black smoke chimneys
in 1977, scientists were surprised to find clams,
fish and tube worms thriving in the 1400 degree
pitch dark water ,the animals fed on bacteria
that in turn ate sulfur dioxide percolating from
sea floor vents. It is the ecosystem not dependent
on sunlight. (Ref. Scientific American Frontier
series documentary on Deep Sea Exploration aired
on PBS)
In my following article I shall present the Qur’anic
version of the Creation of Homo Sapiens, InshAllah.
