chuck010342 said:
If nobody knows the meanings of the verses execpt Allah then why are they there? Its not for humans because we cannot understand them in the first place. Also if Nobody knows then your not relying on a person at all. If nobody knows the meaning of the verses then the verses are useless. And the Koran cannot be a perfect book if it has useless verses in them.
Teach us? How can it teach us if the book has verses in them that cannot be understood?
Let me clarify on this subject a bit more. Lets say that I were to write a medical paper describing the human body. In this paper there are no gramatical errors, I used all the correct medical terms to refer to the correct parts of the body, everything was used in the correct context, and it agreed perfectly with known medical knowledge. In other words the paper was completely perfect. Now lets say that I were to read this paper to my nine year old brother. I can assure you, and I'm sure you would agree, that he isn't going to be able to understand or comprehend some, if not the majority, of the things discussed within the paper dispite it being perfect. As we can see, the fact that my brother can't comprehend everything within the paper has no effect on the paper's validity, how truthful it is, or it's perfection.
Let me give you another example from the Bible itself. Jesus (pbuh) would use parables to give lessons to people and to his disciples, however, the people and even sometimes his disciples didn't comprehend the meanings of the parables. Some examples:
Matthew 13:36
"....His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."
This obviously implies that they (his disciples) didn't understand the meaning.
Mark 4:10
"When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables....."
Mark 4:13
"Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?..."
Again these show that the disciples didn't comprehend the parables.
Mark 8:17-21 (This one isn't a parable but nonetheless it shows how the disciples didn't comprehend)
"Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?"
"Twelve," they replied.
"And when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?"
They answered, "Seven."
He said to them, "Do you still not understand?"
Now, I'm sure you would agree that even though the crowds and Jesus' (pbuh) own disciples did'nt understand or comprehend the teachings/parables/signs of Jesus (pbuh) doesn't make them "useless" (as you put it), or less valid, or untrue, or have any effect on how perfect they are. Our unability to comprehend God has no effect on His perfection.
As I have stated before, maybe when we become more knowledgable about the world around us we will be able to understand certain verses in the Qur'an that are a mystery to us now. Let me provide an example of a verse in the Qur'an that shows how this has been the case in the past.
In the book "The Bible The Qur'an and Science" written by Dr. Maurice Bucaille (who by the way does speak Arabic), he has this to say in the chapter about astronomy.
"The expansion of the universe is the most imposing discovery of modern science. Today it is a firmly established concept and the only debate centres around the way this is taking place.
It was first suggested by the general theory of relativity and is backed up by physics in the examination of the galactic spectrum; the regular movement towards the red section of their spectrum may be explained by the distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of the universe is probably constantly increasing and this increase will become bigger the further away the galaxies are from us. The speeds at which these celestial bodies are moving may, in the course of this perpetual expansion, go from fractions of the speed of light to speeds faster than this.
The following verse of the Qur'an (sura 51, verse 47) where God is speaking, may perhaps be compared with modern ideas:
"The heaven, We have built it with power, Verily We are
expanding it."
'Heaven' is the translation of the word
sama' and this is exactly the extra-terrestrial world that is meant. 'We are expanding it' is the translation of the plural present participle
musi' una of the verb
ausa'a meaning 'to make wider, more spacious, to extend, to expand'.
Some translators
who were unable to grasp the meaning of the latter provide translations that appear to me to be mistaken, e.g. "we give generously" (R. Blachere)."
As you can see here, the verse in the Qur'an has been misunderstood becasue the translator (R. Blachere) didn't comprehend the meaning of the verse. My guess is that he translated it before the expansion of the universe had been discovered and therefore "We are expanding it." didn't make sense to him. Now that we do know of the expansion of the universe the verse makes a lot more sense to us. There are other instenses within translations similar to this one, where phrases have been mistranslated because the translator did'nt understand what the verse meant, but with new discoveries we have made we can now comprehend these verses. So perhaps God put certain verses like this, in the Qur'an, so that they can be a sign for people of latter generations, and perhaps there will be more signs like this one found in the Qur'an. Infact these signs like this one just prove to me that the Qur'an and Islam were meant for all people for all time (which is a Muslim belief).
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