“You find the real beauties of the Qur’an in the allegations made by Atheists.”

By the Grace of Allah, the Amoor-e-Tuluba (Student Affairs) department held an event at the Fazl Mosque for all students in the London regions to attend an insightful lecture on ‘How Atheist criticisms strengthened my faith’, delivered by Umar Nasser Sb of Rational Religion and the National Tabligh Department.

Umar Sb spoke about how claims made by the Qur’an can be proven using science and gave several interesting examples, focusing on ‘Mountains’ and ‘Embryology’. For each piece of scientific evidence given by the Qur’an that he presented, he then addressed as many Atheist allegations against each topic as he could, solving them with the intensive research he and his team have undertaken at Rational Religion. The beauty of the Arabic language in solving these allegations was one of the eye-openers of the lecture, showing how the people who make allegations against the Qur’an have often just misinterpreted the actual meaning of the verse(s) they refer to. This research often involved a ‘word by word’ breakdown of verses, going deep into etymology. 

When discussing the topic of embryology, Umar Sb mentioned that there was a (Non-Muslim) Professor of Anatomy named Dr. Keith Moore who was well known for his books and research on embryology, and he famously declared, “descriptions of the human embryo in the Qur’an cannot be based on scientific knowledge in the 7th century”, proving the knowledge contained in the Qur’an to have been impossible to be written by mankind during the time of The Holy Prophet^saw. Dr Moore publicly supported the Qur’an’s understanding of embryology.

When it comes to researching evidence to refute allegations, Umar Sb pointed out that we can often get anxious about the truthfulness of the Qur’an when hearing well-made allegations, especially if you’re not a professional in that area, such as embryology or geology. But the answers the Jamaat gives for these allegations are much more in-depth and rigorous when compared to many external resources and Umar Sb encouraged the use of Jamaat literature as the first call for research on challenging topics and allegations.

After the lecture, there was a brief Q&A session in which Umar Sb was asked about his work at Rational Religion and he mentioned how a lot of the research for topics can take a very long time- ’embryology’ was over 18 months worth of on-off research before it was presented to the AET department. He covered how we respond to claims about Jesus’ deliverance from the cross and the differences between our responses to allegations against the Holy Quran from Non-Ahmadi academics.

The Khuddam brothers finished the event with Iftari which included dates, biscuits, and pizza.

Currently, Umar Sb and his team are working on more research topics such as ‘The Date of Creation’. If you missed this event, he will be speaking once again live, at Cambridge University on the 7th May starting at 3pm, on ‘Is there a need for religion in the 21st Century?‘, organised by the Tabligh Department. May Allah continue to bless Umar Nasser Sb and the Rational Religion team for their work, Ameen.