THE MIRACLE IN THE IRON Iron is one of the elements highlighted in the Qur'an. In Sura Hadid, meaning Iron, we are informed: …And We sent down iron in which there lies great force and which has many uses for mankind.... (The Qur'an, 57:25) The word "sent down," particularly used for iron in the verse, could be thought of having a metaphorical meaning to explain that iron has been given to benefit people. But when we take into consideration the literal meaning of the word, which is, "being physically sent down from the sky", we realize that this verse implies a very significant scientific miracle. This is because modern astronomical findings have disclosed that the iron found in our world has come from the giant stars in outer space. The heavy metals in the universe are produced in the nuclei of big stars. Our solar system, however, does not possess a suitable structure for producing iron on its own. Iron can only be produced in much bigger stars than the Sun, where the temperature reaches a few hundred million degrees. When the amount of iron exceeds a certain level in a star, the star can no longer accommodate it, and eventually it explodes in what is called a "nova" or a "supernova". As a result of this explosion, meteors containing iron are scattered around the universe, and they move through the void until attracted by the gravitational force of a celestial body. All this shows that iron did not form on the Earth, but was carried from exploding stars in space via meteors, and was "sent down to earth", in exactly the same way as stated in the verse: It is clear that this fact could not have been scientifically known in the 7th century, when the Qur'an was revealed.

THE PAIRS IN CREATION Glory be to Him Who created all the pairs: from what the earth produces and from themselves and from things unknown to them. (The Qur'an, 36:36) Although the concept of ''pair'' or "couple" commonly stands for male and female, the statement of ''from things unknown to them'' has wider implications. Today, one of the implications of the verse has been revealed. The British scientist Paul Dirac, who proposed that matter is created in pairs, was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1933. This discovery, called ''parité'', maintains that matter is paired with its opposite: anti-matter. Anti-matter carries the opposite properties to matter. For instance, as opposed to matter, the electron of anti-matter is positively charged and its protons are negatively charged. This fact is stated in a scientific source in this way: ...every particle has its antiparticle of opposite charge… …and the uncertainty relation tells us that pair creation and pair annihilation happen in the vacuum at all times, in all places.8