A physics paper claimed the Koran had predicted the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Now it has an expression of concern.

Large Hadron Collider, via Flickr

A paper on how the Koran anticipated the discovery of the Higgs Boson — aka the “God particle” — has been hit with an expression of concern.

The article, “God particles in the perspective of The AlQuran Surah Yunus: 61 and modern science,” appeared in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series, which in 2017 published submissions to the 2016 International Conference on Science and Applied Science (Engineering and Educational Science), held in Indonesia. It was authored by Sri Jumini, of the Physics Department Program of Sains AlQuran University in Java.

Being neither particle physicists nor scholars of world religions, we’re not well-equipped to summarize Jumini’s theory, so here’s how he describes the work in the abstract

The Qur’an is the book of Allah revealed to guide human beings, settting the rules of life to enable them to achieve happiness in this world and hereafter. The Qur’an has mentioned various scientific nature detailly and accurately so we are able to find new knowledge which is previously unknown by human being. One was about the God particle (Higgs Boson). This article aims to provide a deeper understanding of the concept of the Higgs Boson, the Higgs Boson explained this concept in detail relatated to 1) Perspective of science 2) Perspective of Al-Qur’an 3) Development of technology or science and technology. This study is a qualitative research using library research (library research) that examines and analyzes the books relating directly or indirectly. The results of the analysis states that 1) The concept of the Higgs Boson particle in terms of basic science is also the reason why almost all elementary particles have a greater mass, 2) The concept of the Higgs Boson in the Qur’an is implied from the results of the comparison interpretation of the commentators in Surah Yunus paragraph 61 related to Atom concepts and smaller particles theory of (Higgs Boson), interpretation of Al-Maraghi, and Al-Misbah. 3) The concept of the Higgs Boson in science and technology provide the most advance technology and it is the greatest achievement in the world of science and technology.

Here’s paragraph 61 of the Surah Yunus:

Whatever you may be engaged in, whether you recite any portion of the Qur’an, or whatever else all of you are doing, We are witnesses to whatever you may be occupied with. Not even an atom’s weight escapes your Lord on the earth or in the heaven, nor is there anything smaller or bigger than that, except that it is on record in a Clear Book.64

A reader flagged the paper for us on June 30, and we asked IOP Publishing, the journal’s publisher owned by the Institute of Physics, about it on July 1. A spokesperson said:

They were already aware of it, and are investigating currently.

On July 15, IOP Publishing let us know that they had added an expression of concern to the paper. According to the notice:

We are issuing an Expression of Concern to raise awareness of a potential problem in this article: This article is currently under investigation following an allegation about the integrity of the content.

Jumini has not responded to a request for comment.

Update, 0000 UTC, 7/23/20: Jumini tells Retraction Watch:

Thank you very much for your attention to my article. sorry, I’m late responding to this email, because this email has not been used for a long time, and I use institutional email more often. Sorry I have not understood the intentions of the publishers’ concerns about the article I wrote in 2015 and I entered it into an international seminar in 2016, and it was published in 2017. The process of reviewing and submitting and updating the article I have done several times in accordance with the advice of the committee . So if there is something missing from my article, please enter it. what is certain is that the review process I have done and the language transfer is also carried out by experts. I appreciate if there are differences of opinion from what I wrote. enter the build I need anyway. thank you for your attention.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make a tax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, add us to your RSS reader, or subscribe to our daily digest. If you find a retraction that’s not in our database, you can let us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at [email protected].

62 thoughts on “A physics paper claimed the Koran had predicted the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Now it has an expression of concern.”

  1. Merely an interpretation which more than likely is pure coincidence rather than a prediction based on psychic knowledge

    1. It doesn’t even fit, it says there’s nothing smaller than an atom. Not even related to the boson. Pure BS.

      1. please remember that this is a book sent down by god almighty and that it cannot be deciphered properly by a mere human being.

        1. Then, at the very least, the choice of journal was poor, and the journal’s editor failed in advising the author of that fact. A physics journal isn’t the right place for devotional literature.

          1. My guess is that this is an unintended consequence of agreeing to publish the proceedings of a conference as an issue of a journal. There are many things which are of interest to physicists, and which might quite legitimately be given as talks at a conference of physicists, but which are not scientific talks on physics as such. This seems to be one of them.

      2. The phrasing is a tad ambiguous, at least in English, but it says “not even an atom” but then adds that anything bigger or smaller is included too. So it can be taken to mean that something smaller than atom may exist but does not necessarily.

        It’s poetry, and it just means “everything.” The conception of the “atom” here would not be the same as ours; it’s not a statement of any theory of physics. It just says God sees everything.

        In any case, this article would properly belong in a journal of theology rather than physics, though the author would need to make a really strong case (unlikely) that this passage refers to the Higgs boson, or it wouldn’t belong in a theology journal either.

        1. …does it reference the idea that there is nothing smaller or bigger than the element God? Love

      3. You missed the meanings of the complete sentence. Nothing smaller or bigger than atoms except had been written by god far before it happen

      4. Ha! KR is correct. The author should take his pen out and bury it in the sand, or better yet, put more thought into it next time. We don’t need no education, especially when you have no fact behind your assumption and no literal explaination for the reader.

        1. I read somewhere… Love is the answer… an element we are discovering that operates in a way we do not understand… yet.

          An element that redeems restores renews…

      5. you didnt understand it says that Allah knows the weight of every atom and particles smaller than an atom and larger than an atom

      6. God did not say that, rather He said that nothing is hidden from Him, even if it is the size of an atom, or smaller than it, or greater than it

    1. to us it might seem supernatural… how the universe chooses to engage us to produce the desired effect… it may not be your time… yet.

  2. Quran is for all humankind . Prophet Mohammad (pbuh) too was the last messenger of Allah ( God ) and sent as merciful to all the humankind. The quran was revealed more than 1400 years ago when there was no technology and inventions of today. Even microscopes were not invented that time. Despite that the development of foetus inside the womb has been explained so accurately and correctly. Refer to the book human embryology by Keith Moore and we will understand.

    These examples of the ” God Particle “, and ” Human Embryology ” , also mentioned that ” the water of 2 seas doesn’t mix with each other ” and many more things like this are mentioned in Quran.

    So what does it explain ? It’s the words of God. It’s not possible for an illiterate person to predict or mention such things of scientific knowledge more than 1400 years ago. Hence Higg boson is the word of God and not by prophet Mohammad ( Pbuh) .

    So I request everyone to read Quran with meaning and unbiased mind so as to enlighten us.

    Best regards.

    1. Gods are just aliens that created religions so that humans fight against each other.

      Of course that aliens would know some physics if they could get here in the first place.

    2. In addition to the embryo example you cited, many other claims of a scientific nature are proposed as evidence of Muhammad’s authority.
      I have not investigated all claims, but have found reasonable refutations of those I have studied.

    3. The Quran is the obsulote truth , in it is the only way to reach the Love have Allah for us ,if humans do not accept this fact too sad , we will be blind in the heart for ever,we have A TRaeture at hand to fix all human kind problems and the wide knowledge to discover the universe

  3. Koran particles what Greek atom so how about neutrinos u can’t catch them go thru everthing so my term of words “SUPER GHOSTS” not ordinary ghost see on earth spooky .These SG are makes the heaven invisible can’t even see it with the Telescope ,brought water to earth from solar system ice moons,created Adam & Eve,they deliberately expend so you don’t see dead end .So Super Ghost were before GOD & Bid Bang itself the SG blew them shelve up start universe creation, Even Einstein formula energy can’t be created or destroyed . So are SG cannot created or destroyed BOO U.

  4. The Qur’an is not a book of science. It is simply foolish to look for scientific explanation, theory, etc in the Qur’an. It was revealed for practical guidance. The Muslims had recognise this for their own sake.

  5. Even set aside the highly questionable conclusion, this ‘scientific’ article clearly doesn’t meet scientific standards. For starters, use proper sentences in proper English. It should have been dismissed before publication.

  6. as a practicing And conservative muslim who is at the same time very much interested in science I am really ashamed for such an article… and I really wonder if some people purposefully write them in order to make the muslims look stupid.
    Science, in general and in principle, is not about ‘truth’ or ‘proofs’ of ‘reality or natural phenomena’. Science has its own methodology(s) and principles and scientific ‘knowledge’ is in general always a work ‘in progress’. Scientific ‘proofs or truths’ run contrary to basic scientific principles (falsifiability; scientific method etc…).

    Islam has its own methods and is based on its own ‘Axiomatic system’.
    Similarly to mathematics, Islam is concerned with absolute truths and methods of prooving statements according to the axioms and other established truths.

    So when someone tries to ‘proove’ something in the Quran with the scientific method, then the result is invalid, because Islamic methodology does not allow such interference. Obviously, how can you proove the truth of the Quran with something that is always a work in progress (science)? The truthvalues of scientific statements cannot be determined so how can you proove the truth of a Quranic statement with another statement from science whose truthvalue is unknown?

    í absolutely believe in the truth of the Quran.

    I love science for its usefullness and I’m really sorry for people who don’t understand that the Quran is not a science textbook, but divine revelation.

    May Allah guide you to the light.

    1. So you’re NOT willing to subject quranic verses to evidential scrutiny, stating with assurity that 1500 yr old texts written in poety and/oe metaphor is complete knowledge, but because scientific information and discovery ever grows you call it incomplete (truth value is unknown” and invalidate everything ever discovered. Given a question:
      Science – using rational logic determines the likely answer – with ability to adjust or modify the answwr if new information
      becomes known.
      Theology – the answer is already provided in ancient text(s) and, therefore cannot contradict traditional / historic beliefs. The intellectual pursuit is to justify ignoring evidence to the contrary ( chiefly by villifying such evidences as temptations by evil spirits or entities.
      Example:
      I watched a video on the internet some time ago which followed the flight of a model rocket launch. The video is the view from a camera mounded on the rocket looking down towards the earth. At the apex of the flight there’s a bang and the rocket sections separate and drift back down attached by elastics to each other.
      The voice over reports that this is evidence of the model rocket hitting the interior of the hard shell celestial sphere which separates the heavens from the earth consistent with Genesis I. This is obviously a theological explanation forcing a rediculous answer. It
      ignores how model rockets engines work – the final pulse of combustion gasses directed upward within the hollow rocket tube to disconnect the sections and release the parachute for soft decent. A parachute that being above the rocket was out of frame of the downward pointing
      camera.
      Of course the author of the video voice over never bothered to report easily obtainable information or let the videos run until at ground the parachute becomes visible and the rocket engine removed to show it burnt through both bottom and top.
      Not to mention the thousands of existing videos showing the deployment of the parachute and separation model rocket sections or the assembly and operations instructions. For all those things are lies and fabrications of demons and the devil tempting mankind away from god’s 3,000 year old absolute truth. “In the beginning man developed the intellect and curiosity to wonder about the natural world. The dark of night, light of day, rains, flood, rainbows, volcanoes and natural gas seeps in the desert where flames dance over the sand yet nothing, not even a bush is being burnt to sustain the flame. “And God said, The answer is everything is my creation, I work in mysterious ways and to determine how things really work is blasphemy because you wouldn’t need me to satisfy your hunger for the fruits of knowledge….

      1. some of you guys obviously didn’t understand what I wrote.
        Quite strange.

        My basic assumptions which can easily be deduced from my text are:

        1. Science and Religion are not mutually exclusive.
        2. Don’t mix scientific methodology with Islamic exegesis or methodology. Because this would result in invalid scientific understanding of ‘reality’ and it would spoil the original purity of religion.

        it really baffles me how you could not understand this.
        Probably you did not understand words/concepts like ‘axiom, axiomatic system, formal logic, truth value etc.’
        I deduce this from the fact that you write something about ‘rational logic’;
        but there is no such thing as rational logic… there is for example ‘propositional logic, predicate logic, modal logic, lambda calculus, fuzzy logic etc…’
        All of those, especially the first two, are typically used in Mathematics and the mathematical moddeling of ‘reality’.

        You guys are probably people who read the scientifically obsolete books of Dawkins and the like, who make millions with you and laugh their heads of about you who follow them without questioning’.

        It is generally accepted that Science or scientific theories are works in progress. It is never possible to confirm if they are true (=100% certainty). If something happens to be true then it is by definition no longer a part of science.
        That does not mean that science is useless. I made it abundantly clear that I do appreciate science; furthermore I have a background in speech acoustics and biology of language myself.

        There is no reason to attack me, I’ve done nothing to you.

        I simply stated basic principles of science and religion.
        Both are built on different methodologies and religions are concerned with something called absolute truths (by virtue of their most basic principles), whereas science is not and was never about absolute truths but rather about gaining a more practical and ever more precise knowledge about the world.

        In my religion it says God exists, it’s one of the basic axioms. There is nothing to proove, it is simply considered true.
        Thats the inherent thing about Axioms.
        And I don’t have to bring evidence or proof; because the simple thing is, either you accept the existence of God or you don’t.
        If you don’t, well feel free to base your life on something else,… like Dawkins, or people who do not exist according to Atheism(Hawking, Darwin, Marx…).

    2. So you think the Koran is the sole representation of absolute truth?
      I suggest you consider your answer to two questions.
      Is it possible there is a god in some form?
      Is it possible there is no god at all?
      Provide evidence for your answers.

    3. I have read the entire koran (English translation). While i could agree with some statements contained therein, I also found much of it excessively repetative and sometimes contradictory.

    4. How did you arrive at your conclusions? Do you recognize your underlying assumptions? Just because you believe something does not make it an absolute truth.

  7. I think I understand. There was nothing of modern science that long ago, so, by using the word ‘Atom’ and then explaining in such a basic way in the same sentence kinda makes it seem manipulated by modern man. Scientific vocabulary didn’t exist at that time because science didn’t exist. For that one word to be explained to people that long ago, the whole concept of science would have to be explained as well. We would be far more advanced as a species if the teachings of ‘Science’ came about that long ago.

    1. Michelle G: Science has existed ever since ancient Babylon, around 2000 BC, more than 2600 years before the Qu’ran. The Greeks used the term “atom” for the smallest particles of matter. However, I do have issues with the claims of this article.

      1. The scientific method, which is the basis of science, most definitely did not exist until about the 19th century. Read Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn for some good info on that. The word “atom” e.g. meant something very different in antiquity than now, because subatomic particles had not been discovered, or even posited. There are a lot of things in this world that are uncertain and ambiguous. This is not one of them.

        1. Is it possible that people were using the scientific method before it was formally recognized as a discipline?

        2. This is simply untrue. The scientific method did not appear, like venus on the half-shell. It had a long, and sometimes paradoxical evolution. We slowly get better at it.

    1. Some or all of them are. They’re mostly just aliens with what looks like superpowers to us. Their science and consciousness is only much more advanced and for some reason some of them wanted to create religions so that humanity fights against each other.

      Unfortunately, we’re just fools in their games.

  8. Rather than debating the Islamic theology of atoms, could somebody explain what “an allegation about the integrity of the content” means, please?

    1. Perhaps another way to say it would be – there is a concern about the source of the information presented.

  9. I hope that space aliens invade, beam up to the mother ship, place me on a panel of glass, and probe all of my bodily orifices. I, for one, will welcome our new alien overlords.

    The Koran states that the sun is rotating, which is a truth. However, it misses the obvious stuff, like planets orbiting around the sun, the earth is 3 planets out, and that Brittney Spears cant sing. Hence, I have trusting the science from a source that appears to be quite spotty. Leave science to scientists using the scientific method, and not religious texts.

  10. It is true that with Qur’an the knowledge of the past, present and future will be well understood

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.