3.3. The Percentage of Water on earth

The percentage of water contained on earth had been for a long time unknown. The exact percentage was finally settled at 71% recently (Wikipedia).

The most remarkable thing about this topic is that the number 71% could already be found in the Holy book of the Muslims – the Holy Quran.

This information from the Quran was not discovered until very recently by an Egyptian named Dr. Tareq Al Suwaidan.

His technique was as follows:

–          To count the number of times the word sea appeared in the Holy Quran. The number turned out to be 32.

–          Then he counted the number of times the word land appeared in the Holy Book; this lead to the number 13. In other words, the earth is composed of land and sea (of water) of 13 respectively 32 “units”.

–          If we sum these two numbers we get 45 which correlates with the earth as a whole, i.e. the entire land and the seas.

–          Then he finally did the following to find the ration that the water (seas) have with respect to earth’s entire surface:

Water (sea) = 32/45*100% = 71.11111111% and
Land = 13/45*100% = 28.88888888% 

Sobhan Allah (May God be Praised!) Therefore while asking God to Guide us the straight way (the Holy Quran 1:6) one has to really start reading the Book of Allah that contains unlimited knowledge that can indeed be discovered and at the same time learn much more that can be used in a society to get reward for it such as ethical values, history, medicine, geology, astronomy, etc.

Hence, it is crucial to consider the following saying of Imam Ali (A):

Whenever a tradition of the Holy Prophet is related to you, scrutinize it, do not be satisfied with mere verbatim repetition of the same because there are many people who repeat the words containing knowledge but only few ponder over them and try to fully grasp the meaning they convey.
(Imam Ali (A) – Nahjul Balagha, saying #98)

This saying refers to the Holy Prophet Mohammed (SAAS), a human being, so imagine to what extent one has to scrutinize the verses of Allah the Creator of the whole universe in order to fully grasp the meaning His Words, which He puts in His own Words as follows:

And were every tree that is on earth (made into) pens and the sea (to supply it with ink), with seven more seas to increase it, the words of Allah would not come to an end; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise.
(The Holy Quran: Surah An-Nahl (Chapter 16 – The Bee) verse 65)

So for western scientists for not having read and accepted its Words are the main reason why the discovery on the exact percentage of water on earth was not discovered by them.

For this reason the technique Dr. Suwaidan used in order to discover this shows us that he, as a Muslim, believes that the Holy Quran must be read by scrutinizing the words.

The technique he used above is only one example, there are many other thing that can be discovered through the Holy Quran by “counting-technique” and even “word-position-technique” (shown later in the next chapter called the Miracles of Iron, which isn’t posted yet).

.