ALLAH sent the prophets to guide mankind and Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the last in the series of the Prophets. He delivered the perfect guidance to humanity. That perfect order of the human life is enshrined in the Holy Book of Islam, the Qur'an. In my various articles published earlier in the Saudi Gazette, I submitted that many Qur'anic facts could be confirmed only after development of the modern science in the 19th century and afterwards. No previous revealed Books – Torah, Psalms and the Gospel – contained such facts in detail that could cover the modern developments. This is the proof of perfection of the Qur'an. Thus, guidance to Islam is the greatest blessing as Allah said, “And whomsoever Allah wills to guide, He opens his breast to Islam; whomsoever he wills to send astray, He makes his breast closed and constricted, as if he is climbing up to the sky.” (Qur'an, 6:125) However, the Qur'an uses here an illustration for the one who rejects faith saying his bosom gets narrowed as if he is climbing up to the sky. In the earlier 7th century when Allah blessed humanity with Islam, the means of transport on the land were limited to such beasts of burden as horses, camels, mules and asses. There was no notion whatsoever of climbing up to the skies. Further nobody could ever imagine that ascent to the skies involves the constriction of chest which happens only due to lack of breath. The then populated mountainous region of Taif (Arabian peninsula) is still not that high for us living here which may cause breathing difficulty as is experienced on steep heights due to lack of oxygen. Even the highest mountain, Al-Suda in Abha, in southern in Saudi Arabia, which is about 750 kilometers away from Makkah, is not that high to cause any breathing difficulty. I myself have been there. Further no one in 7th century carried out the mountaineering expeditions. It was completely unknown that steep heights involve constriction of one's chest. In the 19th century, the invention of airplanes paved way for climbing up to the skies. This enabled the scientists to observe the phenomenon of the atmosphere. They discovered four layers of atmosphere: the troposphere; its range is 8 to 18 miles above the poles and the equator respectively. The stratosphere, it is free form clouds and the associated weather phenomena with thickness of about 20 to 35 miles having a rich layer of ozone, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The Qur'an refers to ozone layer and says, “And We have made heaven a roof a shield, yet they turn away from its signs.” (Qur'an, 21:32) Arabic word ‘Mahfooza' means safeguard, shield, secure. (Al-Mawrid Arabic English by Dr. Roohi Baalbaki) Thus the ozone layer is serves as a shield or a safeguard against the ultraviolet rays. So the modern development of science helped us to get to the correct and literal meaning of the verse as the Qur'an is specifically pointing to the heaven as a ‘Sign' of Allah's creation. We have now learnt that the CFC (chlorofluorocarbon) carbons have damaged the ozone layer at a few places with the result that the weather is warming and the Antarctic icebergs are dissolving fast. Above the stratosphere is the ionosphere containing electrically charged particles called ions. These particles reflect radio waves back to the earth's atmosphere and enable wireless communications. Lastly, the uppermost atmosphere is called exosphere. This is known as the boundary of the earth's atmosphere and interplanetary space. Beyond the atmosphere's envelope no gases are found. The climbing up to the skies shall certainly make one breathless and choke. This way the discovery of the science about the atmosphere firmly upheld the Qur'anic statement mentioning the constriction of the breast in climbing up the skies. One feels amazed to know that the Qur'an stated the climbing up to the skies in the 7th century when no-one could conceive of it and also that ascent involves constriction of the breast, which particularly points to the airless space beyond the range of our atmosphere. What the Qur'an mentions is not a mere illustration but it points out something which is definite. It remarkably reveals a scientific fact about the atmosphere on the one hand and predicted the 20th century progress of ascending to the skies on the other. This is the proof of its being Allah's Book, which has been revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) who expounded the Islamic way of life, covering all scientific developments that would come up till the Doomsday, a perfection and comprehensiveness that no other book shares with it. __
