Reason #4: The “middle” ayah

WhyIChoseIslamLeave a comment

“And thus We have made you a middle [i.e., just] nation that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you… ”

– Qur’an 2:143

One “miracle” of the Qur’an I grew up hearing about is this Ayah1 of the Qur’an. So what’s special about this? Well, in this Surah2, there are 286 Ayahs. Where is this one? In the 143th Ayah. Right in the middle.

Now one can say that anyone can do that. After all, great books have gems hidden in them. However, the Qur’an wasn’t a book in its original form. It was all spoken by Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). It is well known that he didn’t know how to read or write. 

And when he recited the Qur’an till its completion, it was over a period of 23 years. To make matters more complicated, Surahs were not revealed by God all at once. Some were also revealed in parts and not necessarily in chronological order. Not til some Surahs were fully revealed did Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) know truly what the order what. Lastly, the Qur’an did not have a number scheme until after it was written down in a book form.

So Muslims ask – how is it possible that an unlettered man in 14th century Arabia put this Ayah right in the middle of a long Surah, even though the Surah was not revealed at once, nor was there a number scheme? In fact, was this Ayah even “necessary” for the impact of its message during his time? No. Perhaps early Muslims didn’t even realize the fact that it was in the middle. So doing this would have made Prophet Muhammad’s (ﷺ) job even harder if he was somehow the author. So it begs the question – how did it get there?

  • This was taken from Nouman Ali Khan’s explanation of this Ayah, as explained beautifully in this video –
  1. “Verse” is a rough translation for Ayah.
  2. “Chapter” is a rough translation for Surah. Both will be explained in a future article.

Reason #3: Position of the Earth

WhyIChoseIslamLeave a comment

My philosophy is that whether you’re an atheist or theist, a logical way of starting the humble journey to see if God exists or not is to look at one’s surroundings.

And what better place to understand than our planet itself? Here’s a list of 6 things you may or may not have known:

  1. It’s in the perfect distance from the Sun. A little closer and it’s too warm. A little further and it’s too cold.
  2. Its atmosphere protects us from meteors and the Sun’s dangerous rays.
  3. The moon moderates the planet’s wobble on its axis and possibly stabilizes the oceans’ tides.
  4. There’s oxygen for us to breathe in with the help of plants of course!
  5. Available water and edible food to keep us nourished.
  6. Lack of the presence of unstoppable creatures that can wipe us out of existence.

So think about all this. We sometimes rave about the planet being the perfect distance from the Sun, but if one of the other factors was not here, we would not exist.

If we can appreciate this, shouldn’t we wonder – doesn’t it seem like everything got fine-tuned to allow life to exist here? Can we honestly say this was by chance or just the works of nature? Never in a billion years can all these things come together and give existence to life….. unless Something Supernatural that is full of wisdom and incredibly powerful made it happen.