Home > Surah 45 - The Crouching
The Quran Verse
Surah 45:12:
It is Allah who subjected to you the sea that ships may sail upon it by His command and that you may seek of His bounty; and perhaps you will be grateful.
The Scientific Critique:
The text frames the mechanics of maritime travel as a direct, ongoing act of divine subjugation—asserting that ships float and sail explicitly "by His command" (bi-amrihi).
The Localized Perspective:
This matches the worldview of ancient Near Eastern mercantile societies, who viewed the open ocean as a chaotic, terrifying supernatural abyss controlled entirely by the whims of a deity.
The Engineering Reality:
In reality, ship navigation and buoyancy are governed by invariant physical laws—specifically Archimedes' Principle (the upward buoyant force exerted on a body immersed in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid the body displaces). A ship floats due to displacement, density, and geometry, completely independent of the moral status or theological compliance of the sailors.
Critics point out that by treating standard fluid dynamics as a localized divine favor, the text betrays a pre-scientific understanding of physics.