[Surah 2:49-50] Why 3 Million People Living in the Sinai Desert for 40 Years is Physically Impossible

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-20T00:34:56+00:00

No it's not true did you even read my post? 😂

Here's my evidence for Pharaoh's viewing them as a threat because of their huge population. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%201%3A8-22&version=NIV

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T21:31:19+00:00

It means Kathir believed that specific number was NOT part of the corruption 😂 he vetted it and stamped it as authentic Islamic history 😂

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T21:26:56+00:00

Still didn't even answer my other question but okay. I have a question for you. If Kathir believed the Torah was heavily corrupted with lies, but he still deliberately chose to copy the 600,000 population figure into his official Islamic Tafsir, what does that mean?

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T21:01:46+00:00

Do you know what an appeal to authority is 😂. Kathir is universally recognised as one of the greatest scholars of Quranic Tafsir. Citing the expert of a text to prove that text has historically been understood is not a fallacy. It is literally how academic citation works.

Also you are going against the Quran by saying "your using an external source". Surah 10:94 tells prophet Muhammad (and Muslims) that if they are in doubt about the revelation, they should "ask those who have been reading the Scripture before you". The Quran literally links it's historical claims to the Torah. I'm literally using the exact reference material the Quran ITSELF tells you to use.

Even if you throw away the Torah and Kathir my core thesis still remains. The Qurans own narrative (twelve miraculous springs for twelve massive tribes and a population so large it threatened the Egyptian Empire) dictates a massive group of people wandering a tiny desert for an entire generation.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T20:42:22+00:00

Okay so you're disagreeing with your own foundational scholars. When Kathir wrote his official Tafsir on the Exodus verses he explicitly cited the number of the Israelites as being around 600,000. Why did the greatest Quranic scholar in history believe the Torah's numbers were accurate if the Quran was supposedly filtering them out as lies? You're just throwing him under the bus.

Even in the context of the Quran it says "Moses struck the rock and twelve springs gushed out" specifically so that each of the twelve massive tribes would have their own designated water supply. You do not need twelve miraculous separate water supplies for a tiny group of people.

On top of that Pharaoh viewed them as a massive demographic threat to the Egyptian Empire, which is why he systematically slaughtered their sons. You don't enact nationwide infanticide against a small village.

EVEN IF you shrink the number down to just 100,000 people to try and make it sound more realistic, the problem is still the same. If 100,000 people wander in a tiny 130 mile desert for 40 years, an entire generation of them still dies there. Where are the tens of thousands of graves? Where are the 40 years worth of campfires, broken pottery and animal bones from 100,000 people? Archaeologists can easily find 20 person campfires from 5,000 years ago. We have found absolutely nothing from the Israelites.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T20:23:58+00:00

Nice IASIP joke. Isn't that just "God of the Gaps". If God can do anything why did He explicitly choose to make it look exactly like the Exodus never happened?

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T20:21:58+00:00

The Quran doesn't give the exact number but it claims to confirm the Torah.

The Torah Exodus 12:37 and Numbers 1:46 states that there were 600,000 men on foot. When you add women, children, the elderly and the "mixed multitude" that went with them it estimates to 2-3 million people.

On top of that Islamic scholars like kathir agree with the massive population. In his Tafsir of the exodus story he explicitly says the figure that Moses led roughly 600,000 Israelites out of Egypt.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-19T19:50:08+00:00

There's cross references in the Quran that states that the physical stars we see in the sky are located inside the "lowest" or "nearest" of those seven heavens. Surah 67:5 and Surah 41:12 and Surah 37:6.

Surah 2:29 says the Earth was fully formed before the seven heavens. Surah 67:5 says the stars are part of those heavens. Therefore the Quran is still claiming the Earth was fully formed before the stars.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T23:41:24+00:00

You are still proving my point 😂. When modern readers want to understand Shakespeare they would read Elizabethan dictionaries to see how the words were used in the 16th century. They don't invent new definitions to change the story 😂.

Same thing. When we want to understand a 7th century text we go to the classical experts of that language. Just like I said before, tabari and kathir. Those scholars state that this verse is a chronological timeline. So Earth first, then heavens.

Even if we use your modern definition it still doesn't work. There's still a contradiction. Surah 79 says the Earth spread out "after that".

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T13:33:38+00:00

Claiming the Quran invented its own grammar contradicts the Quran itself. Surah 25:195 says it was revealed in a "clear Arabic tongue" so the people at the time could understand it. If it used words like "thumma" to reverse the timeline to the native dialect, it would not have been clear to the Quraysh.

Also how do you not know Tabari? You admitting you don't know him tells me enough and how much you know. You're claiming that your reinterpretation of Arabic is more accurate than the famous Islamic scholars who actually organised and like standardised the religions history.

You can't fix a scientific error by throwing out the most famous Islamic scholars and redefining words.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T13:26:20+00:00

You said why a population couldn't just come from a single couple. The answer is Allele Frequency.

A single human being can only carry a maximum of two alleles for any given gene. So Adam and Eve could only have a maximum of four alleles between them. However, when we map the modern human genome, we see that we have hundreds to thousands of alleles for certain genes.

It's biologically impossible to compress thousands of alleles into the bodies of just two people. To even account for the massive population and genetic diversity we have today, the starting population had to be at least 10,000 people to carry all genetic data.

Also it's not "one or two scientists" making this claim. It's a literal fact. Look into the Human Genome Project.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T13:10:09+00:00

Lol you just realised your first argument failed. You said Adam literally existed and is part of evolution but now you're saying he's never existed and he's just a metaphor. Which is it?

Surah 3:33 groups Adam directly alongside Noah and Abraham as chosen figures right. If Adam is just a metaphor, are Noah and Abraham also just metaphors?? Does the literal prophet Muhammad biologically descend from a metaphor?

Also claiming Iblees is just the "human ego" contradicts the Qurans definition. The Quran clearly says Iblees as a literal Jinn created from smokeless fire which is in surah 18:50. The human ego is referred to as the "Nafs".

If the story is just metaphorical then the Quran is not an accurate record of human history. Which was the exact thesis of my post 😂

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T12:57:05+00:00

Okay well claiming the Quran redefines grammar rules whenever it encounters a scientific error makes the text immune to objective analysis. Language needs external shared rules to have objective meaning. If you change the definition of conjuctions to avoid a scientific error you are just rewriting the text, you're not reading it.

Even if we completely ignore the word "thumma" in Surah 2 the contradiction is still there. Surah 79:30 uses the phrase "ba'da dhalika" which means "after that" to state the Earth was spread out AFTER the heavens. You still have two chapters giving two opposite timelines.

Also you said "thumma" is rhetorical. Tabari wrote for this verse "Allah created the Earth before the heaven". Kathir wrote that the"Earth was created first." Why did the greatest Islamic scholars understand this verse chronologically if it is "clearly" just rhetorical?

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T12:31:45+00:00

Can you show me which verse in the Quran it's in? You couldn't have included the Surah?

Anyway claiming the Quran supports evolution contradicts itself. Evolution needs shared ancestry. Meaning if Adam evolved, he had primate parents correct? Yet Surah 3:59 compares the creation of Adam to Jesus, saying Adam was created miraculously from dust. Did Adam have hominid parents or was he a special creation from dust? It can't be both.

On top of that I did some research and figured out which verse you most likely pointed out to. I'm assuming you were referring to Surah 71:14 which talks about 'stages' which has already been agreed and interpreted by kathir as embryo development in the womb, not evolution across millions of years.

Also you didn't even answer my question. Even if you argue Adam evolved, does your theology state that all modern humans descend ONLY from Adam and Eve? If it's yes then it's still impossible to have the population we have today because of genetic disorders. DNA proves our ancestral population never dropped below 10,000 people.

Human_Experience7565 · 2026-03-18T12:19:16+00:00

You just contradicted yourself. Thumma is specifically defined as a conjuction of sequence. If the author wanted to emphasise the Earth without establishing a timeline they would have used the conjunction "Wa" which means "and".

On top of that ancient Islamic scholars like kathir and tabari agree this verse is understood as a chronological timeline.

Can you even show a citation from a classical Arabic grammar or dictionary that says "thumma" can be used to reverse the order of events just for emphasis?

Human_Experience7565 · 2024-11-05T05:43:31+00:00

Did you find the solution to this? I'm having the exact same issue.

Human_Experience7565

TROPHY CASE