The Miracle of (Boiling) Water
ح م م (Ha–Meem–Meem)
Lane’s Lexicon (his ‘Arabi root word dictionary) gives the following definition for this triliteral root:
To heat, become hot or very hot, melt, to be affected with fever, boiling (e.g. water).
Of course by extension, applying it conceptually, it means:
To be loyal and show affection to a companion/friend/ or object of love or passion, anxiously love or have affection for someone, Loyal/close friend/relative.
This word occurs 21 times in the qur’an, in two derivations. One of them (black smoke) we can discount. The other 20 split between meaning ‘close/intimate friend’, and ‘boiling water’.
Here follows the list of all the mentions of boiling water I could locate in the qur’an:
6:70
10:4
22:19
37:67
38:57
40:72
44:46
44:48
47:15
55:44
56:42
56:54
56:93
78:25
I
could go on to translate them, but I will leave that for my second post in this thread. Suffice it to say, every single one of those verses refers to boiling water, but
only in the context of punishment in the afterlife!
In the hostile conditions of Muhammad’s time, situations played somewhat similar to that of the old Jews in days long past: no guarantee of clean water, no decent sanitation, a life of extreme hardship. This also, incidentally, explains why Jews (including Jesus) immersed themselves in a culture which included drinking alcohol. Alcohol kills the impurities and harmful bacteria, hence why it proved preferable to unclean drinking water.
As we know from countless health recommendations when going abroad, as well as survival tips from experts, boiling water serves to kill harmful bacteria and make the water safe to drink. So why, for a people for whom water proved so essential in their ultraharsh environment, do these (supposedly sacred) revelations contain nothing about boiling water to purify it?
I presume people will riposte with something along the lines of how muslims already knew to boil water, and mentioning it even once would amount to a redundancy. Yet allah supposedly chose Muhammad as a messenger in order to remind people of what they knew, and to herd them back to sirat al–Mustaqim (the right path).
The fact remains, while muslims insist on twisting their holy writings to fit current scientific thinking, the qur’an does not even contain something as indispensable for survival as boiling water to make it drinkable. It only ever mentions it in the context of hellish punishment.
Topic: My Favourite Qur'anic Scientific Miracle;