Miraculous
Improbabilities

You know,

there was a time when the great muslim thinkers were known as polymaths,

seeing no opposition between their studies of Islam

and their studies of medicine

or astronomy, or mathematics.

How many thought that soon

study of Islam would be reduced to an introverted speciality

repetitive and traditionalist

with little wish to expand its borders.

But in the late 1970s

those of an exclusively traditionalist viewpoint

could not avoid facing a mathematical intruder

from outside the traditionalist fold

as a muslim academic had decided to use one of those new-fangled computers

to examine the words and letters of the Qur'an

to see if there were any previously unknown patterns to be found.

What transpired was at first greeted with great rejoicing in the muslim world

as it seemed that the strange Qur'anic mention of the number 19 in Sura 74

was a key to unlock various letter patterns in the Qur'an

that were so miraculously improbable,

so incalculably far beyond the ability of any human to devise,

that it displayed for all time God's Power in the revelation.

These mathematical patterns acted like

an authoritative seal of Divine authorship of the text

independent of the word meanings.

Excitement was such

that the South African muslim polemicist Ahmad Deedat

had many tens of thousands of pamphlets

summarising the findings

printed and distributed around the world,

which were freely available in most Scottish mosques.

Then, suddenly

a short time later, any mention of what they contained

was quickly greeted with

"no, it was all a mistake

the subject is not to be discussed any more",

and with that the apparent proof of the miraculous nature of Qur'an

quickly vanished from any mention amongst muslim circles.

How could that happen?

And why?

How could something

that was mathematically true one week

be untrue a few weeks later?

What could possibly have happened to the numbers?

Well,

the numbers didn't change,

but their gleeful acceptance by the muslim world did

as that gathering of muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia

met to discuss Salman Rushdie

and declare him apostate on literary hearsay

and then they suddenly realised

that those mathematical patterns

newly visible in the Qur'an

actually raised several previously unrecognised challenges

to their literary and historical

academic perceptions.

The patterns challenged their entrenched perspectives

requiring them to think outside their traditionalist constraints

and not having that capacity

they decided instead

to deny the message in its entirety,

and to demonstrate

that discussion of these numerical patterns was now anathema

by apostatising and assassinating the messenger

Since when they also seem to have managed

to kill the conversation.

Now,

in fact it was not all the patterns that they objected to.

Most of the extraordinarily improbable nature of the patterns involved

were not a problem,

but the very few that did challenge their understandings

were serious enough for them to be quite happy

to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

How bad did those problems have to be

for them to throw out the mathematical seal of Divine authorship to avoid them?