Not So Miraculous After All
The Qur'anic 'Chest Pressure' Miracle Debunked
Muslim apologists triumphantly claim in books, pamphlets, and online that the following verse of the Qur’an contains a so-called scientific miracle. As such, it is presented as proof of the divine inspiration of the Muslim holy book:
Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens their heart to Islam.1 But whoever He wills to leave astray, He makes their chest tight and constricted as if they were climbing up into the sky. This is how Allah dooms those who disbelieve. Qur’an 6:125
The argument goes that Muhammad could never have known about altitude sickness and ‘chest compression’ (a misnomer as explained below) and that this must therefore have been revealed to him by Allah. Let us briefly examine this claim.
Firstly, it is clear that this is a figurative verse that does not deal with physical realities. I will, however, for the sake of providing a rebuttal take the claim that it describes chest compression at face value.
Let us now consider the characteristics of altitude sickness of which ‘chest compression’ would be a sign. Symptoms will start to occur for most healthy persons when they ascend 2500 meters above sea level. See here for a fuller discussion of the phenomenon of altitude sickness here.
If we can prove that people in Muhammad’s region could ascend above 2500 meters the whole ‘miracle’ would disappear since it would then be likely that he had contact with people who experienced altitude sickness and could report the effects to him. Remember that the Arab were nomads who criss-crossed their region. Muhammad himself was a trader who would have had contacts with people who travelled far and wide.
It turns out that there are several places in the Middle East where you can rise above 2500 meters, including:
Jabal an Nabi Shu'ayb in Yemen at 3,666 meters (12,028 feet) Cheekha Dar in Iraq at 3,611 meters (11,847 feet)
Qurnat as Sawda' in Lebanon at 3,088 meters (10,131 feet) Jabal Sawda in Saudi Arabia at 3,000 meters (9,843 feet)
Mount Hermon (Jabal el-Sheikh) in Syria at 2,814 meters (9,232 feet)
Therefore if the Qur’an is describing altitude sickness here it is simply describing something that would have been a well-known phenomenon to the wandering Arabs.
If you study the phenomenon of altitude sickness scientifically you will find that your chest does not really tighten. It simply feels that way because of the atmospheric pressure. Air can be compressed to the weight of all the air above us compresses the air around us and in our lungs. As you go up a mountain there is less air ‘above’ you meaning that the air around you becomes thinner as there is less weight pushing down on it. This means that the same volume of air will contain fewer molecules on a mountain than at sea level.
So how does altitude sickness happen? The percentage of air that is oxygen remains constant at 21%. Since there are fewer molecules in any given volume of air on a mountain (due to lower atmospheric pressure) you will have to take in larger volumes of air in order to extract the 21% of oxygen. This means that you breathing will become more laboured as your lungs try to take in more air.
What happens in the lung/chest area when pressure is lowered? The laws of physics dictates that as pressure falls a gas will expand. You can try this at home by placing your finger on a bicycle wheel pushing down and letting go. The bit that you push down will jump back as the pressure is released and the air expands. The same thing happens in your lungs as you ascend above 2,500 meters. The air in your lungs begins to expand as the pressure decreases. This explains the tightness in your chest as your lungs struggle to expand and therefore takes up more space. The whole phenomenon therefore has nothing to do with chest tightness but with lung expansion. If this is a ‘miracle’ why did Allah not know this?
For much more about the claim that the Quran contains ‘scientific miracles’, and the truth-claims of Islam in general, please see my book ‘Questioning Islam - Tough Questions and Honest Answers About the Muslim Religion’.
Kind regards,
Peter
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