Ah, iron. our beloved metal. Where do we begin with its benefits? LiveScience has a nice article on it online, which you can find on the footnote¹. However, as you may know, because it is used to make steel, much of our refined metals have iron in it. It is also in us, specifically in hemoglobin, which is a protein in our blood that carries oxygen. It is even important for plants in the production of chlorophyll.

So where are we going with all this? In the Qur’an, God says in Surah Al-Hadid (The Iron),

“Indeed, We sent Our messengers with clear proofs, and with them We sent down the Scripture and the balance ˹of justice˺ so that people may administer justice. And We sent down iron with its great might, benefits for humanity…“

[Qur’an 57:25]

What’s unique is that God usually says He creates something. He mentions in the Qur’an how he created us, the heavens, Earth, life, and death. He could’ve said that here as well, or even said “We dug out” because iron is mined, but He didn’t. So why say “sent”?

Muslims believe that because the Qur’an is God’s speech, He is specific with His word choice and what you may not know is that actually, a lot of iron on the Earth’s crust is not from here! In fact, scientists say they came from supernovas of stars in the form of flying objects, such as meteorites. They’re even given a specific name – iron meteorites. When some massive stars die, they explode, and the iron in them spread throughout space, sometimes colliding with other heavenly bodies, and this planet happened to be one of them. Thus, the word “sent” makes sense!

Now it gets more interesting! When the Qur’an was revealed, Arabic numbers we know of today did not exist. A system was used where the letters of the Arabic alphabets were used as numbers. The number assigned to each letter is its “Gematrical Value” or Abjad value. Other cultures in the past have done this as well.

When you take the Arabic letters of “Hadid”, from the title of the Surah, you get ha which equals 8, da which equals 4, ya which equals 10, and again da which equals 4. The sum is 26. What’s so special about that? Well, what’s the atomic number of iron? That’s right – 26! Now if you add the definitive “Al” (meaning “The”) before the Hadid, alif equals 1 and lam equals 30. That is 31, and 26 + 31 is 57. Al-Hadid is also the 57th Surah in the Qur’an!

But wait, there’s more! Some Islamic scholars suggest that the phrase “Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem”, which appears in the beginning of every Surah, except one (Surah Ar-Rahman), is considered an Ayah when you count the total Ayahs of a Surah. Some say it is not. Regardless, we get some interesting facts both ways. If you count that as the 1st Ayah, iron is mentioned in the 26th Ayah. And if you don’t count it, the word “Allah” is mentioned 26 times from the beginning of the Surah up to the ending of the Ayah that mentions iron! Go ahead and check!

To end it all, iron has four stable isotopes: 54, 56, 58, aaaaaaannnddddd you might have guessed it, 57! In fact, 57 is special too because it is the only one amongst them that has a negative spin.

Yes, sometimes people look too much into numbers. There can be a serious obsession with coincidences. Some people even use numbers in religious texts to attempt to predict the future! But when one sees all the examples given above, can we truly say these are just coincidences? Or is it perhaps that God, the Creator of the worlds and the Author of the Qur’an from 1,400+ years ago, knew that in the future, there will come about the periodic table and numbers given to isotopes and thus, He chose to crafted this Surah in such a way to make us discover all these hidden gems?

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1. https://www.livescience.com/29263-iron.html

If someone is claiming to be a Prophet of God, you’d think that the Book “given to him by God” would only support and praise him. If the person is a fraud, the last place to get any sort of negative feedback would be in that book, right? 

However in the Qur’an, there are a few incidents where Prophet Muhammad was, in fact, corrected. Now you must know one thing about Islam and Prophets – in the religion and by God Himself, they are held in a very high status. Unlike their portrayal in the bible, in the Qur’an, they are shown to be the epitome of human character. But, at the end of the day, they are still flesh and blood like any of us. Thus, they too can make mistakes. Also, what God does with Prophets is He holds them to high standards even in their mistakes. Things that may seem trivial to us, God wants to make sure the Prophets are corrected, whereas if we did them, we would’ve been easily excused.

Now let’s look at the Qur’an, specifically Surah ‘Abasa. The chapter literally translates to “He frowned”, referring to Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). The first few Ayahs are as follows,

“He frowned and turned away. Because there came to him the blind man, [interrupting]. But what would make you perceive, [O Muhammad], that perhaps he might be purified Or be reminded and the remembrance would benefit him? As for he who thinks himself without need, To him you give attention. And not upon you [is any blame] if he will not be purified.”

[Qur’an 80:1-7]

What happened was, one day Prophet Muhammad was preaching Islam to one of the elites of his society. As the conversation advanced, Prophet Muhammad felt that the person was inching closer and closer to converting to Islam. Eventually, one of the Muslims, ’Abdullah ibn Um Maktum رَضِيَ ٱللَّٰهُ عَنْهُ, approached them. Now ‘Abdullah was of the lower social class. Prophet Muhammad knew that simply seeing ‘Abdullah would be a turn-off for the elite, superficial, arrogant person man because it will remind him that anyone can become a Muslim. That, in result, would negate all the progress made in that conversation. As a result, the Prophet frowned.

But as you can see, Prophet Muhammad didn’t even say anything. After all, ‘Abdullah didn’t do anything wrong. Prophet Muhammad simply frowned because he knew what would happen. That’s exemplary character! However, because God holds his Prophets to high standards, He informed Prophet Muhammad that he shouldn’t have even frowned, so that he can continue to be a great example.

Now ask yourself this – if Prophet Muhammad was a fraud, would it make sense to mention such an incident for all of humanity to read?