Do scientific miracles really exist in the Quran?

The discussion about scientific ‘miracles’ of the Quran can be very argumentative. I generally try to stay away from it, mainly because I’m not a very big believer of the scientific miracles of the Quran.

Some of the verses in the Quran appear to be very insightful (like human conception, life beginning from water, the concept of atom etc) but overall I don’t think the Quran contains extraordinary revelation about any branches of sciences (physical, biological, astronomy, quantum, etc).

Perhaps some Muslims have found some very extraordinary claims (interesting or mysterious) from the Quran and so they see this as something very ‘magical’ and hence it must be from the God, otherwise how on earth can someone even possibly know all those ‘scientific’ facts, some of them that only came into existence as recent as the 19th and 20th century.

See, this is the part that has always confuses me. The so-called scientific verses from the Quran are very interesting, no doubt, but they don’t really translate well into real scientific statements/facts/theories that is contained in the modern scientific corpus.

For e.g, A verse from the Quran claims that that the life began/originate from water. I would of course agree because if we had no water then human being would die from thirst, the livestock and animals would die and no plants could grow to sustain life for the benefit of human and non-human. So without a doubt, water is the most crucial source of life. This is intuitive.

The folks who seem to believe in the scientific miracles of the Quran claim that we cannot just look at the most obvious interpretation of that verse but go one step further, at the creation of life itself (or the origin of every living being on earth). And this is where I think the whole argument falls apart.

Science of creation of living being doesn’t really give you a nice one sentence statement. It is a very complex chemical and biological process way beyond the comprehension of most folks in which water may have played a small/big role depending on how you choose to look at.

I’m also aware that a lot of these Quranic verses are twisted and tweaked to fit in the ‘scientific’ description. For, eg there’s one verse that talked about how ‘the earth and sky/heaven were initially joined together’ but then it was split apart. Someone actually think that this verse is talking about the big bang theory of the Universe! Can you believe that?!

Moving on.

I’m not entirely sure but I think this ‘looking for sciences in the Quranic verses’ is a recent phenomenon. I remember reading about a book written by a Muslim convert (ex-Christian?) who was soo impressed by what he was reading in the Quran that he started to read way more than he should have. Yep, he ‘discovered’ interesting ‘scientific facts’. His book became a bestseller of some sorts in the Muslim World. Muslims were convinced that the Quran contains many hidden proofs/gems that matched exactly with the modern science. Maybe the convert who wrote that book had the purest of intention but the people who came later didn’t have the purest of intentions. I’m not going to name names but I think you can guess who those folks are.

Let’s now look into the ancient and medieval Muslim scientists who were making breakthrough scientific discoveries. Did they have a deeper connection to the Quran than at the surface level as we know it? Perhaps they were inspired by the book to ponder on the environment/nature they are living in, be curious and seek knowledge. People who are considered as ‘Quran experts’ (translators, historian and exegists) don’t go beyond the traditional methods. They may have utilized scientific process in their work but they could care less about anything specific from the realm of natural sciences.