Creationism - National Center for Science Education

to “internal” evidence, Islamic creationism has traditionally emphasized internal
evidences: proofs derived from the text of the Qur’an itself.
In particular, various numerological studies and schemes have been proposed as
proof of the supernatural origin of the Qur’an. Like similar exercises directed at the
Torah and the Christian Bible, these are usually versions of “gematria”: “the ancient
system of assigning numbers to each letter of the Hebrew alphabet, then adding up
biblical words and phrases to obtain curious mathematical correlations” 28 (Gardner
1983:355). (The computerized mathematical analysis of Michelson and Aish Ha’Torah’s
Pathways to the Torah is somewhat different, though the style and intent is very much the
same. It consists of searches for “clusterings”: statistically unusual distributions of
particular words found at certain distances in the text from selected subject words.)
Rashid Khalifa, a Moslem creationist, has developed a numerological system for
the Qur’an which is quite similar to the Jewish and Christian schemes based on gematria.
Khalifa, who was born in Egypt and has a biochemistry Ph.D. from UC Riverside, heads
the pesticide residue section of the Arizona chemist’s office. He also heads Masjid
(Mosque) Tucson, and is editor of its newsletter Muslim Perspective. Khalifa made his
own translation of the Qur’an, which he insists is absolutely inerrant: each individual
letter is true and unalterable (important because of the numerical values assigned to
letters). All other translations are false and heretical, he claims (Khalifa 1987). Using his
perfect translation, Khalifa discovered amazing mathematical relationships, which he has
pursued with computer analysis. There is a secret code in the Qur’an based on the
number 19. For instance, the verse with which each sura (chapter) opens contains 19
letters; each word in the verse occurs in the entire Qur’an in some multiple of 19. Khalifa
first announced his discovery of this code in a privatelypublished booklet called Number
19: A Numerical Miracle in the Koran (1972; cited in Gardner 1980:22). He has since
developed this in books such as Qur’an: The Final Scripture, The Computer Speaks:
God’s Message to World, and others. Khalifa declares that this secret, miraculous
numerical code is “physical, verifiable and indisputable proof” that the Qur’an is “God’s
final message to the world.” “Remember, there is no interpretation, opinion, or guess.
These are absolutely physical facts” (Let the World Know).
The mathematical relationship of all these letters proves that the Koran cannot be human-made. This is the
first physical evidence for God, and it may take several generations to be appreciated. This marks a new
era in religion. You don’t need to have faith anymore. [Quoted in J. Smith 1983]
In 1982 Khalifa’s Islamic Productions published his book Creation: Why We
Must Teach It in the Schools. In 1984 Khalifa filed a $38 million lawsuit against the
National Academy of Sciences for their (1984) booklet Science and Creationism, which
the NAS sent to every public high school in the country. Khalifa accused NAS of
spreading “deliberately distorted information” and of suppressing academic freedom
(news release flyer from Khalifa’s Renaissance Institute, n.d). He alleged that the NAS
damaged his business, which involves selling creationist books and materials concerning
28 Jerry Lucas, former All-American basketball player, teamed up with fundamentalist author Del
Washburn to write Theomatics: God’s Best Kept Secret Revealed (1977), which uses gematria to show that
there is intricate mathematical design in the Bible. “Theomatics scientifically proves that God wrote the
Bible.” The authors claim that God is revealing, via theomatics, this truth during these End Times in order
to refute the prevalent view which denies that “God created all things by direct and personal action” and the
assumption that the world is governed by impersonal laws of nature.