Signs Hinting at Islam’s Veracity

Salaamun alaykum, dear readers!

We live in a time period that can be called the “Era of 19“.

From 1974, until the end of the world, this new era is the period of time during which the world enjoys the fulfillment of the Quran’s prophecy of 19.

What is the prophecy of 19? This is a Quranic prophecy, found in verses 74:30-31, which states that the number 19 will one day bring certainty to the believers and the People of the Book and increase their faith, while removing the doubts from their hearts.

Verse 74:31 lists five functions of the number 19:

To be a trial for disbelievers

To bring certainty to the recipients of the previous scriptures (Jews and Christians)

To increase the faith of the existing believers

To remove the doubt from the believers and the recipients of the previous scriptures

To cause people to disbelieve by mockingly asking what God really meant by mentioning the number 19.

Here is the prophecy of 19 as it appears in the Quran:

[74:30] Over it (the Fire) are nineteen.

[74:31] We have made not but angels as custodians of the Fire, and We have not assigned their number (the number 19) except as: (1) a trial for those who have disbelieved, (2) so that those who were given the Book may attain certainty, (3) and that those who believed may increase in faith, (4) and that those given the Book—as well as the believers—do not doubt, (5) and that the ones who have sickness within their hearts—as well as the disbelievers—say, “What did God intend with this example?” Like that, God sends astray whom He wills, and guides whom He wills; none knows the soldiers of your Lord except He. It is but a reminder for humanity.

In other words, according to the Quran, the number 19 will someday, somehow, prove beyond all doubts that God exists and that Islam is the truth.

And now, we know how the prophecy of 19 was to be fulfilled, because it happened already. We know that the Quran has an extremely complex mathematical structure based on the number 19. You can read all about it by clicking this link,

Perhaps, when trying to create a mathematically structured book similar to the Quran, one can imitate and even exceed the Quran’s 19-based structure with time, effort, and the help of a brilliant team of mathematicians. But it would be impossible for any person, including prophet Muhammad, to do so by pure accident or random chance.

Hence, it can be concluded without a doubt that prophet Muhammad could not have been the creator of the Quran. The true author of the Quran deliberately structured the book in such a way as to give it a complex 19-based mathematical structure, then tasked Muhammad with delivering it to the people.

Signs Other Than 19

We, the ones born in the Era of 19, are spoiled with the gift of certainty.

There are many religions and ideologies in existence, each providing its own claim to the truth. Hence, simply knowing with 100% confidence what the true religion is and who people are supposed to worship and serve is an immense source of happiness, comfort, and pride.

This knowledge should be a great motivator to do as much good as possible in this world and make as much of a positive difference in the world as possible. After all, that is expected of a Muslim.

As a result, this may prompt people to ask the following reasonable question: God decided to bless the generation of 19 with the gift of certainty, but what about those who lived before 1974? They had no knowledge of the number 19, so how could they have known what the true religion is?

Actually, it turns out that while the number 19 provides 100% certainty, there are other signs which strongly suggested (without providing full certainty) that Islam was the truth and that God existed.

Sign #1: Ghost Stories

In Indonesia, my girlfriend once rode past a cemetery with two friends. She was riding together with one of her friends on the friend’s motorbike, while the other friend rode a motorbike alone.

She said all three of them heard a woman laughing behind them, but neither she nor the friend that she was ridesharing with could identify the source of that laughter.

Strangely, the friend who was riding a motorbike alone saw a woman laughing behind them, but my girlfriend and the other friend was unable to see anyone.

In other words, all three heard the same laughter, but only one of them was able to see the spirit whom it was coming from.

An atheist might be tempted to dismiss ghost stories as hallucinations, but once you hear so many of them from completely sane and mentally healthy people, the idea there is no divine world makes atheism increasingly unlikely.

That is because if the spirit world (which is the world of jinns according to the Quran) exists and interacts with the human world from time to time, then the existence of God is far more likely than not.

What else would metaphysical entities like spirits or jinns come from, if not the king of all metaphysical entities?

It was her story which prompted me to realize: if I ever was born and raised an atheist, I definitely would have converted away from it after hearing about ghost stories and thoroughly shattering my hypothetically pre-conceived atheistic worldview that there is no god, no spirit, no angels, no demons, and no spirit worlds.

Sign #2: The Unmoved Mover

Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest stays at rest until an external force is acted on it.

All activity in the universe takes place because something else originally acted on it, causing its motion. The stars and planets exist because gravity causes objects to come together and orbit each other, for example.

If the universe is not infinite, then someone or something should have been the source of the original motion which caused all future motions, eventually leading to the formation of the planets, stars, and galaxies today.

We can call that entity the “unmoved mover“, because in a finite universe, the original mover should have caused the first motion without having been originally moved by something before. There cannot be an endless chain of movers going back to infinity in this scenario.

We know that the universe is not infinite because it is projected to naturally undergo a “heat death” in the very distant future.

That means all the heat and energy in the universe will be too evenly spread out to make new stars, planets, and galaxies. When that happens, all existing matter will undergo radioactive decay, becoming subatomic particles. There will be no more motion and activity.

If the universe is projected to have an irreversible ending, then it certainly had a beginning. If it had a beginning, then there was an original “unmoved mover” which has existed since infinity and was not moved by any previous force before it.

So while this argument does not provide 100% certainty that God exists, it provides a sign that there is an infinite, divine entity who served as the unmoved mover which initiated the formation of the universe.

Sign #3: Universe Was Made From Nothing

Matter cannot be created from nothing, according to the laws of physics.

If the universe is finite, that means it had a beginning, and that there was absolutely nothing before it.

Now that we know the universe will end someday, we know that there was an absolute beginning. Scientifically, it is widely acknowledged that time, space, and matter was born from a singularity that somehow appeared in the midst of pure nothingness.

If the universe had a definite beginning, then there was absolutely nothing before that beginning. It would have to take a physics-defying, supernatural miracle for matter, time, and space to be originated from pure nothingness.

Hence, the creation of the universe from absolute nothingness is a strong sign that a higher divine power exists.

Sign #4: Fine-tuning of the Universe

The fine-tuning of the universe is a scientific observation which states that the fundamental constants that govern the universe can only exist within an extremely narrow set of parameters for life to still be able to exist in the universe.

There are many universal constants that have to stay just right for life to exist, such as: the masses of the subatomic particles, Planck’s constant, the universal gravitation constant, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, etc.

Nobody knows where those constants come from, but they are just a given fact of life.

The interesting thing about the universe is that if the fundamental constants of the universe were just very slightly altered, that would result in a universe that cannot sustain life.

For example, if the universal gravitation constant alone was different from its current value by just 0.00000000000000000000000000000000001, there would be no life.

You can’t randomly throw a stack of papers in the air and expect it to spontaneously come back down into the ground as a neat pile, even though it theoretically could happen.

Likewise, it is technically theoretically possible but extremely unlikely for the universe to spontaneously, by random chance, make all the fundamental constants of life at exactly the right amounts needed for life to be capable of existing. The allowable difference from the current values is too little to make that a realistic possibility.

Rather, it makes far more logical sense that an unfathomably powerful deity intentionally programmed the perfect conditions into the universe from the very beginning to allow life on Earth to exist, to fulfill some kind of grand purpose.

Of course, someone might say: our universe just “got extremely lucky” amongst hundreds of millions of failed universes whose physical laws make life impossible within a grand multiverse. But if I were an atheist, I would be a fool not to give serious consideration to the idea of intelligent design, given how incredibly fine-tuned our universe is to sustain life.

The Quran describes a large number of naturally occurring phenomena, and states that all of these are signs (ayaat in Arabic) from God. Honestly, I always had a hard time understanding exactly why natural phenomena would be a sign that can point towards God’s existence. I just saw natural phenomena as just a consequence of the existing laws of physics. I believed that for those phenomena to be a sign, the laws of physics themselves would have to be a sign somehow, but I wasn’t sure exactly how they were a sign from God.

However, given the high level of fine-tuning required for the laws of physics to allow life to exist at all, and how unlikely it is that our universe got all the numbers just right due to random chance, it is easy to see why any natural phenomenon (even as simple as the act of breathing) is a sign of God.

This op-ed article from cosmologist Paul Sutter at space.com explains the fine-tuning of the universe with good detail:

https://www.space.com/science/astrophysics/the-physics-of-the-universe-appear-to-be-fine-tuned-for-life-why

Sign #5: The Very Specific 4D Shape of the Universe

Special relativity

It was Hermann Minkowski, the college math teacher of Albert Einstein, who first suggested the idea during a lecture that the universe did not actually have a 3-dimensional shape like ordinary space.

Rather, the universe had a 4-dimensional geometric shape, and the fourth dimension was time. He believed reality made more sense when viewed as a kind of union between space and time, rather than space and time being separate things.

His math student, Albert Einstein, used this concept to help develop his Theory of General Relativity, which is the most successful model for understanding the physics of this universe that has ever existed.

Do you know the concept of relative velocity? Let’s say Car 1 is moving at 50 miles per hour, and Car 2 is moving at 80 miles per hour, and both are parallel to each other. Car 2 is moving at 30 miles per hour relative to Car 1 in this case.

However, in our universe, light does not obey this rule, but does something very strange. The velocity of light always remains at 300,000 km/s relative to any object!

So if Car 1 is travelling at 150,000 km/s, and someone shoots a beam of light parallel to the car that is travelling at 300,000 km/s, the velocity of the beam of light relative to Car 1 will NOT be 150,000 km/s.

Rather, the relative velocity of this beam of light will be…300,000 km/s.

How is this happening? Why doesn’t the relative speed of light in relation to any frame of reference ever changes, when the relative speed of all other objects changes depending on the frame of reference? What kind of physics-defying magic is this?

Well, it’s not really caused by magic. In the case of Car 1, the length of the path that Car 1 travels will shrink, the length of Car 1 will shrink, and the time it takes to get from point A to point B actually grows, all for the purpose of keeping the relative velocity of the light beam as 300,000 km/s.

In Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (the precursor to General Relativity), the closer an object’s speed is to the speed of light, the shorter its length will appear to be for a stationary observer in the direction of its motion, and the shorter the length of the path it travels will appear. This is known as “Length Contraction“.

Additionally, times slows down more for an object when it travels faster in space. This is known as “Velocity Time Dilation“.

The combination of both Length Contraction and Velocity Time Dilation is known as a “Lorentz transformation“. Lorentz transformations happen for all moving objects, but they become more visually noticeable when an object’s speed approaches the speed of light.

The “Lorentz factor” measures how much space contracts, and how much time dilates during any Lorentz transformation, as shown by the bottom equation. You can see how slow speeds like 5 m/s will always cause the Lorentz factor to be very, very close to 1 (meaning almost no length contraction or time dilation), but higher speeds (such as 99% of the speed of light) can make it be 10 or more:

So in short, the theory of special relativity says Lorentz transformations (velocity time dilation, space contraction) occurs for all moving objects just for the sake of keeping light at a constant speed for all observers.

And why does this occur? That’s because the 4-dimensional geometric shape of the universe mathematically forces that to happen.

general relativity

Now that we know about the universe’s 4-dimensional shape from special relativity, we can move on to Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

So now we can move on to General Relativity. According to Einstein, gravity as a force does NOT actually exist. Here is the proof:

If you are inside a big rocket in outer space that is either stationary or travelling at a constant speed, then you should expect to be weightless, because there should be very little gravity in space compared to on Earth.

But if your rocket accelerates at a rate of 9.8 m/s per second, you and everything inside this rocket will suddenly weigh the exact same as you do on Earth.

So the weight that you feel on an accelerating rocket is because of the force of the rocket floor pushing up against you.

According to Newton’s Third Law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when the rocket floor is pushing against your body, your body is pushing down equally hard against the rocket floor, and your downward push is your weight inside the rocket.

In other words, there is no “force of gravity” inside an accelerating rocket within outer space making you weigh the same as you do on Earth.

But if that is the case, then how do you know a similar phenomenon is not happening in Earth?

Maybe there is no magical force of gravity pulling you down to the Earth’s floor?

Maybe the Earth’s floor is just somehow pushing up against your feet, causing your body to have an equal and opposite reaction, therefore causing your weight?

Maybe, when you are in a state of free fall, you feel weightless because there is no real force of gravity acting on you?

That’s essentially how Einstein’s general relativity explains your weight, saying there is no real force of gravity pulling you down to the center at a rate of 9.8 m/s per second.

Instead, when you stand on Earth, the electromagnetic repulsion force on its surface is just pushing against your feet at a rate of 9.8 m/s per second.

And you can see this phenomenon with any accelerometer. When you fall off a building, your accelerometer will measure zero acceleration because no force of gravity is acting on you when you are falling down. Gravity is not a real force.

But when you are standing still on Earth’s surface, your accelerometer will report an upward acceleration of 9.8 m/s per second, because that is the acceleration from the ground pushing you up.

Why is Earth doing this? That’s because the universe has a 4-dimensional shape, and there are four dimensions: length, width, height, and time. Anything that has mass causes the 4-dimensional shape to curve. It’s like when you crumple up a piece of paper and open it up, you see many curves in the paper’s 3-dimensional shape.

Usually, outer space is very flat. Any gravitational effects that space curvature exerts is very weak for most objects, so gravity can mostly be explained by the time curvature: mass causes time to slow down around it. More mass = more time curvature. Time speeds up when you move further away from an object that contains mass.

On Earth, for example, you age slightly faster when you move away from Earth because your time moving faster. But when you move closer to Earth, you age less quickly because your time moves slower.

This phenomenon is known as “gravitational time dilation”, and it has real world effects.

For example, our GPS system has to make corrections for time dilation when telling us where to go, because satellites in space experience faster time compared to our phones and computers which receives the signal on Earth. Otherwise the GPS would be inaccurate and unusable.

Objects in space naturally travel from areas of faster time to areas of slower time, It’s just like how water and electrolytes naturally move from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration. Time just happens to slow down more when you are near higher mass, compared to when you are near less mass, for some unknown reason. Therefore, less massive objects naturally travel towards more massive objects in outer space.

That is why Earth moves towards the sun, and that is why we move towards Earth.

So in general, there is no real force of gravity. All objects are always following the straightest possible path through the 4-D geometry of curved spacetime (known as the geodesic), from areas of faster time to areas of lower time. When an object is following its geodesic, no force is acting on that object.

This causes objects on Earth to have weight because we are always trying to follow our geodesic and travel to the center of Earth, where time is the slowest there. But Earth’s surface (due to electromagnetic repulsion) pushes against our feet at a rate of 9.8 m/s per second, preventing us from going further down into the Earth. And Newton’s third law causes us to push back down on Earth with equal force, which creates our weight.

Alright, so now we must ask: why would general relativity be a sign of God’s existence?

To start, let’s ask the following question: what rule does the geometry of a triangle obey? All internal angles must add up to 180 degrees. A right triangle’s geometry exists to obey two rules: all angles add up to 180 degrees, and one of those angles must be a 90-degree angle.

Likewise, the 4-dimensional geometry of the universe exists to obey two rules: keep the speed of light constant relative to all moving and stationary bodies, and let any object with mass curve it. A universe could in theory have a geometry that doesn’t require obeying those two rules, but life would not be able to exist in that universe.

The universe could have had many other geometries. It is mathematically possible to have 4 spatial dimensions, rather than 3 spatial and 1 time dimension. It can have 5 or 6 dimensions. It is even mathematically possible to have 3 spatial and 1 time dimension without requiring matter to curve space and time (which is Minkowski spacetime), or without requiring the speed of light to be a constant, even if life cannot exist in such universes.

Out of all the possibilities, did the universe randomly and coincidentally choose the specific 4-dimensional shape that is needed for a stable physical existence and to sustain life? Or was there always an intelligent designer who intentionally shaped the universe’s geometry into the one that is most stable and conducive for life, for some grand purpose?

Therefore, general relativity provides a very strong sign that a powerful deity shaped the universe. It is like part 2 of the fine-tuning argument for God’s existence.

And if this is not convincing, then at least this was an excuse to discuss my fascination on with this subject. General relativity really turned my worldview of the universe upside down!

Sign #6: Quran’s Accurate Retelling Of Joseph’s Story

Surah 12 in the Quran is named “Yusuf” (Joseph). It is largely God retelling the story of prophet Joseph in detail.

The striking thing that I noticed is the roughly 70% or 80% overlap between the Biblical retelling of Joseph’s story and the Quran’s retelling of this story.

While we have established the signs suggesting or pointing towards God’s existence, this is a major sign indicating that the Quran came from God rather than made up by prophet Muhammad.

The reason is because before the Quran, prophet Muhammad was unfamiliar with the previous scriptures, and he used to not be religious himself. The Quran confirms the prophet’s lack of knowledge about the Bible:

[29:48] And you used to neither recite any Scripure before it, nor inscribe it with your right hand. The falsifiers would then definitely have doubted.

[42:52]…You used to not know what the Scripture was, nor the faith, but instead, We made it a light with which We guide whom We will of Our servants; indeed you definitely guide to a straight path.

Of course, people who do not believe in the Quran might respond: “Muhammad secretly copied from the Bible without telling anyone. Or he heard Bible stories during his travels as a merchant, but he pretended to be unfamiliar with the Bible when creating the Quran so that he can fool everyone. Or he is just unnaturally good at guessing.”

In any case, while not providing 100% proof or certainty (due to the alternative hypotheses proposed by skeptics as mentioned above), this seems to be a very good sign that the Quran came from God.

Sign #7: The Prophecy of the Romans

The Quran briefly mentions a severe defeat that the Byzantine Romans faced at the hands of the Sassanid Empire.

Then, the Quran makes the claim that in a few years, the Romans will emerge victorious, and at that time, the believers shall rejoice. Obviously, the rejoicing of the believers would be due to hearing about the victory of the Byzantines against nearly impossible odds, thus witnessing the fulfillment of a Quranic prophecy.

[30:1-4] Alif, Lam, Meem. The Romans have been defeated in the lowest land. But after their defeat, they will be victorious in a few years. For God is the command, before and after. And on that day, the believers will rejoice.

Essentially, the Byzantines Romans and the Sassanid Persians were in a war from 602-628 CE. The Byzantine Empire suffered such horrible losses that by 615 CE, when the Persians conquered Chalcedon, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius was ready to submit to the Persians and allow his empire to become a client state of Persia.

However, Heraclius ultimately decided not to give up, and started secretly training his army to give the Byzantine empire one last chance. In 622 CE, Heraclius and his army launched a major counteroffensive in Anatolia. This was known as the “Battle of Issus” and it resulted in an overwhelming victory for the Byzantine Empire.

The Battle of Issus is what the Quran prophesized when predicting the Romans will be “victorious in a few years” after the defeat. It showed that the Persians can be defeated and that there is still hope, hence provided the crucial momentum needed for the Byzantines to eventually reverse their losses and win the war.

The Romans eventually won the war after their victory in the Battle of Nineveh on diciembre 627 CE, and they proceeded to regain all territory lost since the start of the war.

Therefore, the fulfillment of the prophecy of Rome is another sign of the Quran’s authenticity, although critics may argue that it could have just been a lucky guess made by prophet Muhammad.

Sign #8: Science in the Quran

Another sign of the Quran being from God are the pieces of knowledge found in it that were only confirmed to be scientifically correct many centuries later.

One example is the Quran’s well-known assertion that clay was used to make human beings. Harvard research shows that montmorillionite clay could have acted as the catalyst which helped form the first living cells.

Another example is that Quran says that the two biological sexes are determined by the sperm, which is verified by the study of genetics.

[53:45-46] And that He created the two mates, the male and the female, from a sperm-drop when it is emitted.

One striking example is that the Quran states a honeybee has multiple bellies, and the honey is produced from its bellies (butooniha in Arabic). This actually turned out to be scientifically correct, because in addition to their regular stomach, honeybees have a second “honey stomach” used for storing and processing nectar to make honey. Not only that, but people didn’t even know that flower nectar is processed into honey inside the bee until the 17th century, but the Quran is correct in stating that honey comes from the belly of the bee.

[16:68-69] Your Lord revealed to the honeybee: “Build homes on the mountains and the trees and in what they construct. Then eat from all the fruits and follow the tamed paths of your Lord.” From its bellies comes a drink of different colors, wherein there is healing for the people. Indeed, in that is a sign for people who reflect.

Additionally, the worker bee in Surah 16, and the worker ant in Surah 27, both are given a feminine Arabic pronoun, because worker bees and worker ants are all female. But this information was not known until recent decades, when insect behavior was more closely studied.

The Quran says the sky is a ceiling, which may have sounded crazy at the time, but it is scientifically accurate. The purpose of ceilings is to protect from the environment above. The ozone layer in the sky helps absorb excess UV radiation from the sun, the air resistance from the sky helps cushion the fall of meteors, and the magnetic field helps deflect harmful solar winds, hence why the sky serves as a vital ceiling for life.

[21:32] And We made the sky a well-guarded ceiling, yet they avert from its signs.

The Quran says all living things are made of water, which is now known to be true universally.

[21:30] Do the ones who disbelieved not see that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, then We separated them, and from water We made every living thing? So will they not believe?

The Quran says that Earth’s water which makes up the Earth’s oceans gradually came out from inside the Earth, which is now known scientifically to be true.

[79:30-32] And the earth, after that, He spread it. He brought out from it (the earth) its water and its pasture. And He anchored the mountains.

Note that verse 79:30 says after the sky was made, God “spread” the Earth. The spreading here could likely be referring to Earth extending its capacity to support life, since verse 79:31 mentions water and vegetation coming from within the Earth. Verse 79:32 mentions the mountains, which house 60-80% of the world’s fresh water and are a major contributor to terrestrial biodiversity, thus further increasing Earth’s capacity to sustain life.

The clouds are described as heavy, which is accurate because even a small cumulus cloud contains 500 tons of water.

[13:12] He is the one who shows you the lightning as a source of fear and hope, and He produces the heavy clouds.

The Quran attributes the motion of the clouds to the wind, which turns out to be true.

[35:9] And God is the one who sent the winds so that they stir the clouds…

In short, the Quran contains tidbits of scientific information which were not confirmed to be true at the time, but are known now. This is another sign pointing to the Quran originating from God.

Although once again, critics may argue that prophet Muhammad was just very good at guessing and making things up, therefore his scientific predictions turned out to be correct just by accident.

Sign #9: Prophet Muhammad’s Honesty

The Quran tells the critics of prophet Muhammad who lived during his time that they knew him for a very long time before he received the Quran and did not know him to be a dishonest or crazy person.

[10:16] Say, “Had God willed, I would not have recited it (the Quran) to you, nor would He have made it known to you. I have remained among you for a lifetime before it, so will you not reason?”

So in the Quran, God is implicitly asking those critics why are they disbelieving in him now, when they knew him for a long time and had no problems with his character before.

Of course, the critic can respond, “Prophet Muhammad may have had an excellent character before, but people can change very quickly. Maybe when he turned 40, he suddenly had a change of heart and became a liar who wanted to fool and deceive people by creating the Quran just to gain status, power, and fame as the founder of a new religion. Or maybe he became mentally crazy at age 40 and experienced hallucinations and delusions!”

Moreover, God in the Quran at times scolds or gently chides the prophet for doing something he was not supposed to do. If the prophet was a dishonest person whose main motivation for fabricating the Quran and inventing a religion is to improve his power, status, and public image, he would not intentionally embarrass himself in the Quran with self-rebukes. Here are some examples:

God asked him why he prohibited something that was lawful (66:1).

God in verse 33:37 says prophet Muhammad hid information in himself that God ordered him to disclose out of fear of the people, even though God is more worthy to be feared.

Prophet Muhammad was admonished for being too distracted with trying to convert a rich man who was indifferent to Islam, such that he “frowned and turned away” from a blind man who eagerly came to him seeking his guidance (verses 80:1-11).

Of course, the critic will say, “Muhammad was a cunning master of deception! He intentionally pretended he is being scolded by God in the Quran to trick the people into thinking that he is an honest person so that he can gain more followers, and so that he can appear relatable and human to his followers.”

Sign #10: Prophet Muhammad and His Wives

The Quran in Surah 66 stated that prophet Muhammad entrusted one of his wives with a secret, but she spilled the secret to another of his wives. Then prophet Muhammad found out about it, and he informed her that he knows she spilled the secret.

Technically, the prophet informed her that he knows she spilled a part of the secret but avoided mentioning that he knows she spilled another part of the secret.

Then she asked her husband how he found out that she spilled the secret. The Quran says the prophet responded that God told him.

[66:3] And when the prophet confided to one of his wives a statement. But when she revealed it, and God disclosed it to him, he made known some of it and avoided some. So when he informed her of it, she said, “Who informed you of this?” He said, “The Knowing, the Aware, informed me.”

This is a strong sign that the Quran came from God and that prophet Muhammad was really a prophet, at least to the wife who was caught by surprise. No one was nearby, not even her husband, when she said that secret to another wife. Therefore, there was no way the prophet could have known what she did except if God told him.

But of course, this is not 100% proof, because the critic can always argue, “Muhammad is a liar who fabricated this story in the Quran, and he pressured his wives to be silent about his deception or else he would subject them to unspeakable horrors. Or maybe his wives were accomplices who willingly worked together with Muhammad to fabricate this story and decieve the public!”

Sign #11: Battle of Badr

The Battle of Badr was the first major battle in the war between the Muslims under prophet Muhammad and the Meccan tribe Quraysh.

The Muslims went through persecution in Mecca for following Muhammad, hence they were forced to migrate to Medina. It is said that they left significant wealth and property behind to follow the prophet there.

However, according to the earliest biographies of prophet Muhammad, the Quraysh still would not leave them alone. The Quraysh threatened the Medinans who took the immigrant Muslims as refugees with military action if they continued protecting the Muslims.

Prophet Muhammad realized the Muslims and their Medinan protectors are under an existential threat. But instead of sitting back and waiting for the inevitable, he chose to take matters into his own hands. He sought to economically weaken the Quraysh by intercepting their trade caravans before the Quraysh built up enough strength to invade Medina and start a war, to try to even the odds.

The Quran says that God revealed to Muhammad outside the Quran that the Muslims will be victorious over one of two groups of the Quraysh, one armed and one unarmed. The Muslims were hoping to encounter an unarmed trade caravan because it would have been easier to achieve a victory over them, and because they were not yet prepared for an all-out battle against the Quraysh (which is why they resorted to caravan raids in the first place).

But unexpectedly, things did not go according to plan. Instead, they missed the caravan (likely because the caravan somehow anticipated the arrival of the Muslim raiders and took a different route). As a result, the Muslims were met with a surprise attack from well-armed group of people at Badr. The nascent Muslim community was not expecting violent conflict between the Quraysh to happen just a couple of years after migrating to Medina, hence they were woefully underprepared. This is like in movies and books when the worst-case scenario ends up actually happening.

Prophetic biographies add some further context to this. According to the biographies, the prophet learned of a trade caravan led by someone named Abu Sufyan and gathered an army to intercept and raid it. But Abu Sufyan somehow learned of the plan, took a different route, and escaped. He then proceeded to call the Quraysh for backup, and they sent 1000 well-armed men to fight the Muslims at Badr.

The Quran clarifies that even if both the caravan and the Muslims tried made an appointment to meet voluntarily, they would have failed to make the appointment because God didn’t allow it for the purpose of fulfilling a predetermined matter (to establish the fact that people can and do overcome significant odds when God provides support). So, they met the Quraysh army on a valley where they expected the caravan to be, and the caravan was somewhere in a region below that valley.

[8:7] And when God promised you that one of the two groups will be yours, and you wished that the unarmed group would be yours. But God intended to validate the truth with His words and cut off the roots of the disbelievers.

[8:42] When you were at the near side of the valley, and they were at the far side of the valley, and the caravan was below you; if you made an appointment to meet, you would have failed in the appointment. However, it was so that God would carry out a predetermined matter: to annihilate those who were annihilated upon clear evidence, and to keep alive those who were kept alive upon clear evidence. Indeed, God is Hearing, Knowledgeable.

The Muslims were caught unprepared, inexperienced, greatly outnumbered, and not well-armed. Two groups among the believers were on the verge of losing their courage to keep going. Logistically, they should have lost the Battle of Badr, if not for divine intervention from God. The Quran thoroughly documents this.

[8:9-10] When you were seeking your Lord’s help, and He responded to you: “Indeed, I am reinforcing you with one thousand angels in succession.” And God did not render it except as good news, so that your hearts would be contented thereby. And there is no victory except from God. Indeed, God is Dignified, Wise.

[8:43-44] God made you see them as only a few during your sleep. Had He made you see them as many, you would have failed and disputed in the matter. But God saved that from happening. He is Knowledgeable of what the chests hold. And when you met one another, He made them appear fewer in your eyes, and made you appear fewer in their eyes, so that God would carry out a predetermined matter. All matters are returned to God.

[3:13] Certainly, there has been a sign for you in the two groups that met: one group fighting in the way of God and another of disbelievers. They (believers) were seeing with the sight of their eyes that they (disbelievers) were twice as many. But God supports with His victory whom He wills. Indeed, in that is a lesson for the people of sight.

[3:122-123] When two groups amongst you were on the verge of losing hope, God was their Ally. And upon God, let the believers trust. And certainly, God has definitely granted you victory at Badr when you were weak. So revere God, so that you may appreciate.

The people who fought in Badr alongside prophet Muhammad best knew what kind of dire situation they were in. As a result, the victory against all odds probably became a source of certainty for them that God indeed is the one in control of everything.

Moreover, the prophecy of victory over one of two groups (either the armed group or the unarmed group) that God revealed to prophet Muhammad outside the Quran came true with the victory at Badr.

Hence, for both of those reasons, the Battle of Badr is a sure sign of God’s existence, and a sign that prophet Muhammad is indeed a true prophet.

Of course, non-Muslim critics will say, “Muhammad is a talented guesser and a cunning, devious liar, so of course he must have thought he would snag an easy victory over an unarmed Qurayshi caravan! So, he fabricated a prophecy that God will grant victory over an unarmed group of people, that way when the easy caravan victory occurs, he would exploit it to bolster his claim that he is a real prophet! And he included an army in the prophecy as a possible worst-case scenario without thinking it wasn’t really going to happen, just to make his fake prophecy sound even more awesome! But unexpectedly for Muhammad, the worst-case scenario occurred, and he was hit with an army before being prepared for a real fight. But by pure accident and luck, he won despite having zero military experience! No God has ever helped that wicked false prophet.”

Conclusión

We live in the Era of 19, marked by 100% certainty that God exists and that Islam is the truth, as prophesized in the Quran (verses 74:30-31).

However, previous generations were not left without any signs. There are multiple strong signs of God’s existence and the Quran’s authenticity that converge to paint us a vivid picture.

From this group of 11 signs, we can have a high degree of confidence that God exists and that the Quran really came from God. Undeniably, the 11 signs alone take the idea of God authoring the Quran out of the realm of fiction and fantasy and transforms it into to the most convincing hypothesis available to explain all of these coincidences.

Let’s use the flat earth theory for example, which tries to explain natural observations with a stack of disjointed assumptions, such as:

Claiming there is no such thing as gravity or spacetime curvature (because gravity would be pulling everything towards the center of the disc if Earth was flat)

Explaining lunar eclipses with a “mysterious shadow object”

Claiming airlines distort flight paths to make it appear to the public that Earth is round and to hide the Earth being flat

Claiming that circumnavigation is just travelling in circles

Claiming that there is a giant ice wall around the flat Earth disc preventing water from falling off

Claiming that when ships go beyond the horizon, the hull looks like it disappears before the mast due to atmospheric distortion

Yet the heliocentric round-earth model just makes three core assumptions (the Earth is round and tilted sphere, Earth orbits a large Sun, and the normal physics of a sphere orbiting a star at a tilted angle in outer space applies to Earth). From that, it provides a coherent, logical, unified framework for explaining the seasons, flight paths, day and night, lunar eclipses, circumnavigation, weather, and much more.

In the field of science, when two theories can explain observations, the one that requires making the least amount of assumptions is preferred. This is known as Occam’s Razor, or the rule of parsimony. The round earth model follows the rule of parsimony far better than the flat earth model does.

One possible theory to explain the 11 observations is theory A, which says: “There is a grand multiverse full of millions of failed universes, and our universe is the lucky one amongst all the failed trials to get the numbers magically right for life to possibly exist. The unmoved mover that helped originate our universe may just be stray remnants of other universes in this grand multiverse, and that our universe did not truly originate from nothingness. Prophet Muhammad is nothing but a scheming liar with superb guessing and prediction skills who used to be honest, but had a change of heart and pursued fame and power by creating a new religion, and he even coerced his wife into playing along with a made-up story where God told him his wife spilled a secret he entrusted her with. He just won the Battle of Badr by pure accident.”

The other possible theory that explains the 10 observations equally well is theory B, which says: God created the universe with intent and purpose, the same God who revealed the Quran to prophet Muhammad.

Notice that Theory A relies on a stack of disjointed assumptions, while Theory B minimizes assumptions and provides a coherent framework (God). In that case, science would favor Theory B over Theory A to explain these 10 observations.

So while the miracle of 19 can stand alone as the tool for achieving 100% certainty, the 10 signs help enormously augment the clarity that the Quran’s mathematical structure provides.

Therefore, instead of putting our heads in the sand in blissful ignorance, I hope we can all follow the path that those signs lead us to.

Indicios que apuntan a la veracidad del islam