Iron

"Indeed We have sent Our Messengers with clear proofs, and have descended with them the Scripture and the Balance (justice) that mankind may keep up justice. And We have descended iron wherein is mighty power, as well as many benefits for mankind, that Allah may test who it is who will help Him (His religion) and His Messengers in the unseen. Surely, Allah is All-Strong, All-Mighty." [The Qur'an, Chapter of Al-Hadid (Iron) # 57, verse 25]

Iron is without a doubt one of the most valuable metals to man which has benefited him for thousands of years and will continue to benefit him as far as we can see into the future. In the above verse from the chapter of Al-Hadid (Iron) in the holy Qur'an that is pretty much what is being said and that was what everyone understood to be one of the main points of the verse, that the verse was simply restating that obvious piece of knowledge. In the 1400 years that have passed since prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him) spoke these words however a certain part of that verse was interpreted in a way that stood trivial next to the other stronger meanings presented by the Qur'an, and in these last few decades a truth was revealed about it to mankind that no one before could ever imagine.

The atom of iron is known to be the strongest to ever exist, a property that gives its metal its strength and might. Although 35% of the Earth is composed of iron, and 99% of its core is made up of iron, still secular science didn't really believe that iron could have been formed within that core. Secular scientists continued to wonder how iron could be found at the Earth's core when the temperature there was not high enough to create an atom of these properties. In fact, even though the core of our Sun hosts a temperature of up to 20 million degrees centigrade yet even that temperature is not high enough for the formation of iron. With these facts laid clear scientists started looking beyond our solar system to try to find the appropriate environment in which such a metal could be formed, and  looking at the stars far and beyond the answer to that question was finally answered. With the nuclear fusion taking place in stars light years away from our solar system, the hydrogen atoms (the basic building block for all known elements in the universe) get used up at temperatures reaching 100 billion degrees centigrade to form the iron atom. With such massive reactions taking place on the inside these stars finally explode and their iron content shoots out travelling across the universe. As the balls of iron fly through the skies they start intersecting with the course of orbit of other heavenly bodies, some of which are planets, and so they crash into them and plunge into their surface. Back at the time of formation of the universe Earth was just another giant ball of dust, with the strongest metal on it probably being aluminum. As the iron from these exploding starts came to fall onto the Earth this planet started to absorb it. The iron having the greater weight started to fall deeper into the Earth's crust until most of it finally rested at its core giving Earth its magnetic field, environmental integrity, and many other benefits for mankind.

When Muslim scholars were asked centuries ago about the significance of the word "descended" in the Qur'anic statement "And We have descended iron" as mentioned in that verse above, these scholars said that the word "descended" probably meant "created" or "formed" since it didn't make sense back then that iron could have descended from anywhere else. Modern day secular science however tells us that iron could not have been made within the Earth because of the its atomic properties and that it was in fact formed far and beyond our solar system millions of years ago before it descended from the skies onto the Earth. Only now with the revelation of this scientific fact can the accurate wording of the Qur'an be understood despite it being handed over from generation to generation for hundreds of years with no one really understanding what that exactly meant.

May the blessings of God and His peace be upon our illiterate Prophet Mohamed who recited these exact same words of the Qur'an 1400 years ago in the barren desert of Arabia among its nomadic tribes.

(This scientific explanation was presented by Professor Z.R.M. EL-NAGGAR, Ph.D., F.I.A.S. Director, Markfield Institute of Higher Education Ratby Lane, Markfield, Leicestershire, England.)