Gates of Heaven-4
Signs & Voices
Go for main Engine start
We have main engine start
Two, One, booster ignition and a final liftoff of Discovery
The shuttle has cleared the tower
The production of this film has been made possible by a generous funding from
‘Bodoor Foundation’.
Discovery now making one last reach to stars using the stress on the shuttle as it goes supersonic.
Discovery Houston, you are go at throttle-up.
Discovery sensors are now throttling down as the orbiter passes through the area of maximum pressure.
Q minus16 seconds, Sound Suppression water system has been activated.
We have a go for main engine start
Q minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Booster ignition and liftoff of discovery hoisting harmony to the heavens and opening new gateways for international science. Discovery has cleared the tower.
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Lift off! Lift off!
Indeed! To some people this is truly the ‘moment of illumination’ in the story of modern science; a full rounded four dimensional moment that triggered, into an almost totally new dimension, man’s age-old quest for answers to a few existential questions. Where did we come from? How did this happen? And what is our destiny? Questions among many that persistently preoccupied our human race since time immemorial.
Ancient myths created by that quest were the outcome of many a civilization. Philosophers and early scientists, driven by human curiosity centuries ago, have had their fair share of search and research.
When darkness reigned, even before the advent of the Middle Ages, those mind expeditions were destined to gain new ground. For a few centuries a remarkable contribution was made to the birth of Modern Age.
But when the torch was about to die out, a few courageous men had ultimately managed, against all odds, to pick up the torch and eventually the pursuit for ‘scientific’ answers acquired a new momentum.
And over the last hundred years man’s quantum leap into almost all realms of knowledge has caused a close encounter to happen for the first time…on another world!
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O.K., engine stop . . .
We copy you down, Eagle
Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed
It is a small step for man
A giant leap for mankind!
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Since that defining moment mankind is still pushing the cosmic envelope into brave new dimensions of science, discovery….and imagination!
A free leap into space in an artist’s impression seems almost the only gateway to the heavens…a driving force behind Man’s burning desire to fly out and away to see and know his place in the Universe. He is there now; overtaken by awe and wonder, trying to ascend through what seemed for long forbidding frontiers around those cosmic gates….the Gates of Heaven.
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If We were to open for them
A gate into heaven
And they proceeded to ascend through it,
They would say:
Our eyes have been bedazzled.
Rather, we are a bewitched people.
{15/15}
Subtitles: Gracious Qur’an
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Subtitles: Prof. Abdus Salaam, Nobel Laureate 1979
‘You cannot escape knowledge. Science is knowledge.’
Q minus15 seconds, Sound Suppression water system has been activated. T-15 seconds. The sound suppression water system has been activated…. We have a “go” for main engine start. And we have main engine start. Two… one… booster ignition… and liftoff of Discovery, celebrating its 25th birthday by racking up science and supplies to the space station.
Houston now controlling the midnight rider Rick Sturckow and his crew to the International Space Station.
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Subtitles: Jose Hernandez, Astronaut/Discovery STS-128, International Space Station 2009
I am a believer. No, I didn’t see God up there. But you certainly did feel His presence. So I certainly felt closer to God. You are up there. You know there are only seven of you up there going around this beautiful world of ours every ninety minutes going around. You look at it, you look at the stars and you look at our sun and you say this is just too perfect for it to be a coincidence or a freak of nature or science for this to have occurred, there had to be a Higher Being that created all this beauty and so that what makes you feel closer to God.
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Moreover, say:
All praise is for God
He shall show all of you
His ‘wondrous’ signs,
So that you shall know them
‘To be utterly true’.
For never is your Lord at all heedless
Of what you ‘human beings’ do.
{27/93}
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Subtitle: Richard Varley, Association of Muslim Police, UK
“The Qur’an tasks us as individuals to look further into science, to look further into understanding the universe.”
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Subtitle: John Esposito, Center for Muslim-Cristian Understanding, Georgetown University US
“I really prefer if somebody want to know about Islam or to be introduced to Islam, I prefer they first read about Islam before they go to read the Qur’an because the Qur’an is much different from the Bible in its organization its approach so you got that initial sort of obstacle you know it is much better that they had a context for it.”
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Subtitle: Richard Varley, Association of Muslim Police, UK
Youssef Ali was the Quran I read to start with. His translation is the one I have grown into Islam with.
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Now behold the heaven!
It is We ‘alone’
Who built it
With mighty Hands.
And indeed,
It is We ‘alone’
Who are expanding ‘it’.
{51/47}
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Subtitle: Richard Varley, Association of Muslim Police, UK
“What the Quran needs is that more people in the West to see the content of the Qur’an and see the scientific verses so that skepticism of divine revelation can be looked at afresh and people can understand there is a holy book that talks to people and talks to modern science and says that this is the way the universe is. The Qur’an is so much more than the other holy books before it.”
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Subtitle: Seraj Bard, Cineaste – France
“Most people Particularly in the west have lost their birthright.the natural drive to know their creator. Hence highlighting the Scientific signs in the Qur’an seems to be an effective tool to address their reasoning faculties.”
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Just consider this. Isaac Newton, who was perhaps the greatest scientist of all time, once said about his landmark discoveries: “I have been like a boy playing on the sea shore, diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than usual, while the great ocean of truth lay before me, all undiscovered.”
Our understanding of the universe has come an enormously long way during the last three centuries. With Science today at the center of the human experience more opportunities and means are becoming available to help us travel the yet undiscovered realms of Knowledge. Whether these realms are to be visited inside ourselves, in the undiscovered 97% of the Earth’s oceans, or in the wide open universe around us, the human endeavor is ultimately bound for a heavenly contact with the One God of this diversified and unified creation.
One thing is certain; Newton’s ‘great ocean of truth’ lies before us.
All horizons are accessible!
And that is a Heavenly Promise!
Verse 53 Chapter 41 of the Qur’an attests to that:
We shall show them Our signs
In the horizons
And in themselves-
Until it becomes ‘utterly’ clear to them
That this ‘Qur’an’ is, indeed,
The ‘divine’ truth.
Is it not sufficient
That your Lord Himself
Is the Witness over all things?
{41/53}
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Subtitles: Cairo, Egypt 1981
The first Islamic Medical International conference
Prof. Keith L. Moore
Professor of Embryology, University of Toronto – Canada
“Now part of of Surah Al-Baqarah aayat (verse) 223:
‘Your wives are as a tilth onto you’
This Arabic term refers to the plowing of the earth and sowing of the seed in it. This term is used in reference to sexual intercourse (plowing) and implantation of the blastocyst (sowing of the seed). This analogy is a very good one since blastocyst develops root like structures called chorionic villi which derive oxygen and nutrients from the mother’s blood just as the root of the plant shown here drive their nutrients from the soil.
Muhammad (PBUH) could not have known these facts about human development in the 7th century because most of them were not discovered until the 20th century. Muslims and others are justified in concluding that these facts could only have been revealed to Muhammad (PBUH) by the one who knows all about us. Not only how we developed but how we live and function.”
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Then We created the sperm-drop
‘into a clinging thing’.
Then We created the clinging thing
‘into’ a morsel-like lump.
Then We created,
In the morsel-like lump,
bones.
Then We clothed the bones with flesh.
Thus do We bring him forth
as an entirely different creation.
So blessed be God,
The best of creators.
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Subtitles: The existence of scientific signs in the Qur’an is a clear prediction of what yet to come: enhancement of the scientific thinking and methods that render results only based on research and empirical proof. It is the path humanity is heading to where religious belief has to accommodate the power of reason…
Mostafa Saadeq Al-Rafe’ie
Excerpt from “the power of the Qur’an and the prophetic rhetoric” (1912)
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Subtitles: Dr. Gary Miller
A mathematician from the university of Toronto-Canada
Stricken in 1978 by the degree of reason and scientific accuracy of certain signs in the Qur’an.
He reverted to Islam and adopted the name of Abdul-Ahad Omar.
He referred in his book the Amazing Qur’an to Maurice Bucaille’s “the Bible, the Qur’an and Science”
An ex-ardent Christian missionary who has been Deedat’s opponent is now debating next to him. Miller’s main body of work is focused on studying the scientific signs in the Qur’an for Muslims to gain a better understanding of their book. And for non-Muslims to establish a better communication with the Islamic culture.
One of Miller’s booklets, devoted to the portrayal of his scientific approach to the Qur’an, is titled “The amazing Qur’an”. In a lecture based on this book he shows why is Qur’an is amazing and points out his interview with Keith Moore…
“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim. Assalaam o Alikum and Welcome. The title advertised was the ‘Amazing Qur’an’. I would suggest first of all that to call the Qur’an amazing is something that is not done simply by Muslims who may have an appreciation for the Qur’an and very pleased with it but the Book has been called amazing by the non-Muslims. Non-Muslims, in fact people who are very filled with dislike for Islam has been still surprised by the Qur’an. They have been amazed by what it has to say. I had the pleasure just about a week ago of interviewing him for a Television presentation (Interviewing Prof. Keith Moore…). We talk a great deal about this. He illustrated by slides and so on. He mentioned that in fact some of things Qur’an said about the growth of human being were not know 30 years ago. In fact when was asked how do you explain this information in the Qur’an? How did it get there? His explanation was it can only be revealed. Now that is a non-Muslim but a man who knows. That’s all he has to say.”
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Have those who disbelieve
Not seen ‘by the knowledge they acquire’
That the heavens and the earth
Were conjoined as ‘one’ mass,
Then We clove them to spilt
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Subtitles: Dr. Zaghloul Al Najjar
Prof. of Geology
“The existence of scientific signs in the Qur’an is an absolute proof of the Qur’anic precedence. The book contains a great deal of scientific facts that were totally unknown at the time of revelation and only proven in the last two centuries and some of it only in the later decades of the 20th century.”
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Subtitles: Geologist Farouk El-Baz Served at NASA since 1968. He was assigned the job of training the would-be moon walkers to execute their geological tasks on the lunar surface.
Farouk El-Baz
Center for remote sensing
Boston University / US
“In general if you think about Qur’an there are all kinds of signs in it. And all kinds of indications of importance of knowledge and importance of investigation and importance of seeking to know more about God’s creations. You cannot take what is in the Qur’an as a fait accompli, as a something that has been completed and this is it and this is all the science there is and you do not need to study anything else if you read the Qur’an. That can be dangerous and is wrong.”
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Subtitles: Islam’s greatest virtue lies in its openness to all gates of knowledge. It vehemently urges Muslims to earn a pass through those gates and excel in their pursuit while keeping abreast with new discoveries and advancements in science and technology.
Islam does not condone excluding scientific thinking and avoiding the knowledge path under the pretext of ‘we have it all in the Qur’an’
Abbas Al Aqqad
“Qur’anic Philosophy” (1947)”
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Subtitles: Dr. Maurice Bucaille, Gastroenterologist and Author
“In many books I found a lot of things which are the speculations of the mind and sometimes extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous.”
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Subtitle: Richard Varley, Association of Muslim Police, UK
“As a scientist when you are dealing with scientific methods, you do it with absolute proofs. This does this and I can prove it and I can show it. So you are not likely to refer to Qur’an because it is not within your scientific culture. And I think that is right. What I am doing is approaching Qur’an in a way. I have approached in a scientific way saying it purports to be the word of God and these things in it are reveled to be right. If I was studying the properties of Polonium 210 I would not have need to refer it the Qur’an because that is not evidence in terms of scientific evidence because it is not measurable in the context of itself. We can say it was written then, it was written by that person or it was revealed to Prophet Muhammad but we cannot. There are some signs around the actual signs of the Qur’an but a scientist wouldn’t say ooh I found this or by the way I am using proof the fact that it is mentioned in the Qur’an because it is not the scientific method works. And I don’t think it would have the way scientific method worked even in the years when there was a happy union between Science and Islam. Islamic scientists would have said is it not amazing that it is revealed in Quran but can’t use Qur’an as a proof because this is not the way science works.”
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By the heaven
Streaked with fabric
‘interwoven threads’!
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Subtitles: From UK
“Assalaamo Alikum everyone. I am trying to give you a little introduction of why I became Muslim & how it just came about really? I got a book few months ago. It is called “The Bible, The Qur’an and Science”. That book is so great. It is by an author called ‘Maurice Bucaille.
And then he also goes on to say that the Qur’an can not be explained in modern knowledge and therefore it must be the word of God because the things happened hundred and hundred years ago cannot be explained today. How they knew this sort of things and it is great book. You should check it out. It is really good.”
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Subtitles: Dr. Maurice Bucaille, Gastroenterologist and Author
“For the Qur’an I see that I could not find something in contradiction to science.”
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Subtitles: From Finland
“I studied Islam for 6 months before I converted to Islam. After few months of studying it, I started to look up into the scientific & mathematical miracles of the Qur’an. And I started thinking to myself that if people say that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) would have wrote this book, how is this possible that he knew things that we have discovered 10 years ago. That is when I started to think that it must be God’s word.”
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Subtitles: Same Finnish at Hyde park London
How long you have been Muslim?
Three years
Of course the thing that got me to believe was the scientific miracles of Qur’an. I can’t really name that many of them, they are many.
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Subtitles: From US
However, I discovered the Quran’s amazing accuracy on scientific statements in the fields of embryology, geology, astronomy and Physics etc. This let me to logically and rationally conclude that Qur’an must be God’s word because Mohammad (PBUH) was illiterate but Qur’an is accurate in statements, which were only scientifically discovered in modern times.
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.Farouk is 17, a Muslim convert from London Subtitles:
How long have you been a Muslim?
Five months Insha’Allah!
Five months?
There is no God but Allah and Muhammad (pbuh) is His messenger.
What attracted you towards the Muslim faith?
It was Science what made me really revert to Islam
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Alhamdulillah! My little brother here, he accepted Islam as well. Alhamdulillah
Subtitles: Meet Essa a young convert.
What is your name?
Eassa
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Let me finish please then you can argue with me.
When I read in the Qur’an about the production in the womb, I could not comprehend it. Do you know why? Because in order to know the womb, sperm and egg inside the womb and what happens once they join together we have to get microscope or some scanner to look on it. The only reason we know it that we looked it with the microscopes. Right, in the Qur’an 1400 years ago, 1000 years before the microscope was invented, it has been written in the Qur’an how it happens.
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Scientist Freeman Dyson once wrote: “The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming.”
Indeed! The universe was notified of our coming. A multitude of Verses in the Qur’an would attest to that; prepping our planet for the advent of Man: the successor of God on Earth.
One instance from Verse 20 Chapter 31:
Do you not see , ‘O humans,’
That God has subjugated for you
All that is in the heavens
And all that is in the Earth
And has showered you with His blessings-
Manifest and hidden?
{31/ 20}
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Yes professor Dyson! The universe knew we were coming on a privileged chariot!
Or that is what Verse 70 Chapter 17 of the Qur’an tells us:
Very truly,
We have so honored
The Children of Adam:
For We have carried them
Through the land and the sea.
And We have provided them
With all that is wholesome ‘in life.
And We have so favored them
Above most of what We have created
With ‘such immense’ preference.
{17/70}
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Science writer Bill Bryson sums it all up confirming Man’s ultimate privilege in the cosmos. In his trademark style he addresses us:
“The only thing special about the atoms that make you is that they make you. That is of course the miracle of life”.
If we, I, you, they, the Sun, the Earth and the entire 4% of matter in the observable universe are all created of the same atoms of cosmic dust, we couldn’t aspire for a tighter bond. One creation of One Creator. It is that organic bond that tells us that we still have yet to learn a great deal about ourselves from our heavenly components. In so doing, while celebrating the merits of life on Earth, we should never cease commuting to the heavens hopefully to reach for more answers and ultimately for the big meaning. That is a quest befitting for Man taking us, for years and probably centuries to come, right through the very thresholds of those heavenly gates…The Gates of Heaven.
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Subtitles:
Highly Exalted is God
All praise is for God alone
There is no God but Him alone
To Him alone belongs all dominion
All praise is for God alone
God is the All-Overpowering One
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Subtitles: From US
Religion is not something that you should follow blindly. If you have questions, you should do research and find answers.
It is the uncorrupted way to worship God.
So I hope that insh’Allah you’ll find my web page helpful.
So assalamu alaikum wa barakatu and peace be upon you.
