Expanding universe predicted in Qur'an!

 Abdur Raheem Green, author of iERA's latest cloying dawah initiative, The man in the Red Underpants, seems unconcerned with little things like intellectual honesty. We have examined thus far two examples of Abdur's willingness to leave out salient facts and mislead his readers all in the name of growing the ummah. We shall look at one more example (although there are many, many more) because, to be honest, it's a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, and I want to return to my exchange with "Kevin" - a much more worthy debating opponent.
Here's what Abdur has to say about the wonderful miraculous signs regarding the universe in the Qur'an:

“And it is We who have constructed the heaven with might, and

verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.” [The Quran; Chapter

51 - The Winds That Scatter, verse 47]

When Einstein was conjuring up his theories, the consensus among

scientists was that the universe was static and had been like that

forever, but new observations made it clear that this was not the

case and that in fact galaxies were moving away from each other

at a constant rate. In other words, the universe is expanding. More

than strange is how these things came to be found in a book 1400

years old.

At first sight this looks pretty convincing and there are many naive and trusting readers who will take this at face value and, together with other apparently equally convincing "signs" mentioned in this duplicitous little rag, use it to build an argument in favour of converting.
However, you will notice there is no mention of the translator chosen by our friend. Perhaps it would be enlightening to look at some alternative renderings of these lines then...

YUSUFALI: With power and skill did We construct the Firmament: for it is We Who create the vastness of pace.
PICKTHAL: We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof).
SHAKIR: And the heaven, We raised it high with power, and most surely We are the makers of things ample.

Hmm...no mention of "steadily expanding" you'll notice. In fact no translation PRIOR to the discovery of the big bang and the fact that the universe is expanding mentions expanding BECAUSE THE ARABIC VERSE CONTAINS NO SUCH VERB.

So here's my question to Abdur Raheem Green and his friends at iERA: if the Qur'an is full of miraculous scientific signs, why do you feel obliged to pick one which requires such obvious FIDDLING WITH THE FACTS?

If iERA would like to take me up on this I'd be delighted to debate in the comments section....

"The man in the red underpants" and other cunning ploys from the shameless iERA

iERA have released the latest attempt in their "One Reason" campaign to get the poor ignorant population of the UK to convert to Islam. Disarmingly called "The Man in the Red Underpants", it's a folksy examination, in the emetic style of Yusuf Estes, of the the reasons why belief in Allah is philosophically logical. It can, at best, be described as intellectually dishonest. 
 I'm going to take a break from relating my discussions with "Kevin" to examine this publication in detail over the next few posts.
Here's a flavour of the introduction:
"What would you do if a man in a pair of red underpants came knocking on your door saying that he’d come to read the gas meter?" See? You thought it was going to be scary stuff about burning in Hell for eternity if you don't believe, didn't you? Shucks, now that's old style dawah.
"Would you believe him without thinking and let him into your house? Just ‘have faith?’ Or would you think about the situation, ask some questions and apply reason?" Did you see what they did there?
"I’m pretty sure it’s the last one. Even if you told him to “Get lost you weirdo!”, you’d use reason, logic and common sense to make sense of the man in red underpants, just as we do for most things that happen in our lives" ... And that's what we're going to do here, iERA.


Let's start with a nice easy one from the section entitled "Amazing level of information"...
"Actually what is remarkable about the Quran is not only that it does not contain any contradictions (er, yes it does), but in fact it seems to be making statements about history, theology, philosophy, law and the natural world that defies a normal human explanation... OK, hit me with the best evidence you have, iERA...
"Science is a very fickle fellow. (Pass me a bucket...) Things which scientists all agree upon at one time are turned on their heads and are shown to be contradicted by observations at another time, so perhaps it’s not the best thing to judge a book by. Still, there are some things that seem to have been observed so often and so much that it becomes some sort of ‘fact’." ...er, like evolution, you mean? ...Here's an erudite Islamic cleric discussing just that topic. The reason for choosing this particular sheik will become clear...

"One of these things is the embryonic development of humans." ah - that old chestnut....