This prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Badr, when Abu Jahl spurred his horse and raced it to the front line, saying, "We will gain a victory over Mul:lammad and his companions." But God destroyed him and his troops, and clarified the truth and raised its beacon and promoted its message. Hence, the rejecters of faith were routed, and the Muslims triumphed over them at a time when no one even imagined that ٣١٣ men, without equipment, and with only one or two horses and somseventy camels, would defeat a large and well-equipped horde. How could that handful of people overcome such a large number so that their power was scattered like ashes blown by the wind, if it had not been for the command of God, the accuracy of the prophecy, and the truthfulness of the intentions?
Another verse of this type is Gods saying:

The power of Abu Lahab will perish, and he will perish. His wealth and gains will not exempt him. He will be plunged into flaming fire, and his wife, the wood-carrier, will have around her neck a halter of palm fiber (Q. Ill: l-٥).

This verse discloses the information that Abu Lahab and his wife shall enter the Fire. In other words, it foretells that they shall die without accepting Islam, and this is what actually happened.

The Quran and the Mysteries of the Creation

The Quran speaks, in more than one of its verses, about the order of the universe, the laws of nature, the celestial bodies, and other subjects that could not be under‌ stood at the beginning of Islam, except through divine revelation. Although some of these laws were known to the ancient Greeks and other nations of that time that had had prior experience with the sciences, the Arabian Peninsula was far from knowing about them. Moreover, some of the things which the Quran informed about did not become known till after scientific learning had advanced and discoveries multiplied. This type of information abounds in the Quran and we shall treat them in our exege‌ sis of the relevant verses, God willing.
The Quran was judicious in disclosing these matters. It disclosed them when it was appropriate to do that, and alluded to them when that was more commendable. The reason is that some of these matters were hard to accept for the minds of the people of that time; therefore, it was prudent that they should be alluded to in a way
• which would become clear for the people of future ages, when science would have
progressed and discoveries would have proliferated.
One of the mysteries that were uncovered by the Quran, and to which later scholars drew attention, is contained in the following verse:

And the earth have We spread out, and placed therein firm hills and caused each thing to grow therein, well proportioned (Q. ١٥:١٩).

This passage points to the fact that everything that grows in the earth has a spe‌ cific weight. It has been established lately that each species of vegetation is made up of particular parts, each with a specific weight. If any change of weight were to occur in the parts of the plant, it would become a different organism. Furthermore, the pro‌ portional relationship between the various parts of a single plant is so minute that it