Confirmed — and the year science caught up

Celestial bodies are held in their courses by gravitation, which is not a visible support.

1687 — Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica

Not observable in the 7th century. The prevailing model in late antiquity involved physical celestial spheres carrying the planets.

Bodies in space move in curved orbital paths governed by gravitation. The verb sabaha denotes swimming or gliding through a medium, and falak in Arabic denotes something round or a rounded course.

1543-1687 — Copernicus (heliocentric model, 1543), Kepler (elliptical orbits, 1609), Newton (universal gravitation, 1687)

Partly observable. Apparent motion of sun and moon across the sky was universally observed. That the paths are true orbits governed by a force, rather than spheres carried on crystalline shells, was not established until Newton.

Sun and moon follow independent orbital paths that do not intersect, and the day-night cycle is a continuous rotation in which neither phase can precede the other. Orbital mechanics prevents the described collisions.

1687 — Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation

Partly observable. That the sun and moon do not collide was evident. That their paths are governed by a calculable force was not.

The sun is not stationary. It moves through the galaxy toward the solar apex at roughly twenty kilometres per second, and orbits the galactic centre once in about 230 million years. It also has a finite lifetime and a terminal state.

1783 / 20th century — William Herschel determined the solar apex - the sun's motion through space - in 1783; stellar evolution and the sun's finite lifespan established through 20th-century astrophysics

Not observable in the 7th century. Solar motion relative to other stars requires precise stellar astrometry.

The elements composing the human body are drawn from soil through plants and the food chain, and return to the soil after death. Human tissue is, materially, reorganised earth.

1800s — Established through 19th-century organic chemistry and the demonstration of biogeochemical cycling; Liebig's work on plant nutrition (1840)

Not observable in the 7th century. Elemental cycling requires chemistry.

Mountains have deep crustal roots extending below them, and float in isostatic equilibrium on the denser mantle - the visible peak being a fraction of the whole structure, as a tent peg is mostly buried.

1855 — George Airy and John Henry Pratt, independently, from gravitational anomaly measurements in the Himalayas

Not observable in the 7th century. Crustal roots are invisible and were entirely unknown until gravitational survey revealed them.

Precipitation infiltrates the ground and is stored in aquifers, which supply springs and wells. Aquifer storage is finite and can be depleted.

1856 — Henry Darcy established the law governing flow through porous media, founding quantitative groundwater hydrology

Partly observable. Wells and springs were used everywhere; that their water is stored rainfall in porous rock was not understood, and competing theories held that spring water came from the sea or was generated underground.

The prefrontal cortex, situated directly behind the forehead, governs planning, judgement, moral decision-making and the inhibition required to construct a deliberate falsehood.

1848-1868 — Harlow's reports on Phineas Gage, whose personality and judgement changed after prefrontal injury (1848, 1868); systematised by Luria and Fuster in the 20th century

Not observable in the 7th century. Localisation of function in the brain was unknown until the 19th century.

Atmospheric pressure and oxygen partial pressure fall with altitude, producing chest tightness, breathlessness and hypoxia.

1878 — Paul Bert, La Pression Barometrique, founding high-altitude physiology

Partly observable. Breathlessness on high mountains was known to travellers. That it results from reduced atmospheric pressure, and that the effect increases continuously with height, was not.

The bodies of the New Kingdom pharaohs were recovered, preserved, and are now studied and displayed - a literal preservation of the body as a sign to later generations.

1881 and 1898 — The Deir el-Bahari royal cache discovered 1881; the KV35 cache discovered by Victor Loret 1898

Not observable in the 7th century. The royal caches were hidden in antiquity and unknown until the 19th century.

The implanted embryo is anchored in the uterine wall - a protected, stabilised location with an established blood supply. Implantation is the step at which pregnancy becomes secure, and failure of implantation is the commonest cause of very early pregnancy loss.

1827-1900s — von Baer discovered the mammalian ovum (1827); implantation biology developed through the 20th century

Not observable in the 7th century. Implantation is microscopic and occurs before pregnancy is detectable by any pre-modern means.

The sun is a self-luminous body producing energy by nuclear fusion. The moon is not luminous; it reflects sunlight. The Qur'an consistently uses diya' or siraj (lamp) for the sun and nur or munir for the moon.

c.450 BCE / 1920s — Anaxagoras proposed lunar reflection c.450 BCE; solar energy by nuclear fusion established by Eddington (1920) and Bethe (1939)

Partly observable. That the moon's light differs from the sun's was inferable from the phases and from eclipses, and was argued by Greek philosophers a millennium earlier. The mechanism of solar luminosity was not known until the 20th century.

The sun is a source of light and heat - a lamp. The moon is illuminated - it gives light without generating it. The Qur'an maintains this distinction consistently across its occurrences.

c.450 BCE / 1920s — Anaxagoras on lunar reflection; solar fusion established by Eddington and Bethe

Partly observable. Inferable from the phases and from eclipses, and argued by Greek philosophers a millennium earlier.

Frontal systems are preceded by characteristic wind shifts, which is why wind change reliably signals approaching rain. Clouds transport enormous water mass; a single cumulonimbus can hold hundreds of thousands of tonnes.

1919-1920s — The Bergen School (Bjerknes and colleagues) established frontal theory, explaining why wind shifts precede precipitation

Partly observable. That wind precedes rain was folk knowledge everywhere. That clouds carry a measurable heavy load of water, and why wind shifts signal fronts, are modern.

Water evaporates from the surface, condenses, and returns as precipitation - a closed cycle. Separately, the ionosphere reflects certain radio frequencies back to the surface.

1674 / 1902-1924 — Perrault established the rainfall cycle quantitatively (1674); the ionosphere predicted by Heaviside and Kennelly (1902) and confirmed by Appleton (1924)

Partly observable. Rain returning is observable; the closed cycle was not understood and was actively disputed.

Sexual reproduction with paired forms is ubiquitous across plants and animals; chromosomes occur in pairs; and in physics, particles have corresponding antiparticles.

1694 / 1932 — Camerarius for plant sexuality (1694); Carl Anderson discovered the positron, confirming Dirac's antimatter prediction (1932)

Partly observable. Animal sexual pairing was obvious; plant sexuality and antimatter were not.

The described sequence - wind-driven lifting, horizontal spreading, fragmentation into cells, precipitation from within the mass - matches the observed life cycle of rain-bearing cloud systems.

1940s — Systematised through 20th-century cloud physics and the Thunderstorm Project (1946-49)

Partly observable. The stages are visible from the ground; their causal ordering was not established.

Embryonic tissue at the somite stage comprises both differentiated and as-yet-undifferentiated regions simultaneously - a genuinely accurate description of a partly-formed state.

1827-1942 — von Baer (1827); Streeter's staging (1942)

Not observable in the 7th century. Microscopic.

Human embryonic development proceeds through implantation, a somite and lump stage, cartilage and bone formation, and muscle development.

1827-1942 — von Baer discovered the mammalian ovum (1827); Streeter established the standard embryonic staging (1942)

Not observable in the 7th century. Early embryonic stages are microscopic.

Cumulonimbus formation proceeds exactly in this order: separate cumulus cells are driven together, merge, build vertically into towering heaps, and precipitation falls from within the mass. Hail forms in the upper reaches of these mountain-like structures.

1940s-1950s — The Thunderstorm Project (Byers and Braham, 1946-49), the first systematic aircraft and radar study of thunderstorm structure

Partly observable. Cloud building and rain are visible from the ground. The internal structure, the merging sequence and hail's formation aloft required aircraft and radar.

The Marib Dam in Yemen was one of the great engineering works of the ancient world, sustaining the agriculture of the Sabaean kingdom. Its repeated breaches and eventual final collapse are recorded in Sabaean inscriptions and evidenced archaeologically.

1950s onward — Systematic archaeological investigation of Marib from the mid-20th century; the site has been excavated and the Sabaean inscriptions recording dam repairs read

Partly observable. The dam's collapse was within cultural memory in Arabia, so this is historical rather than concealed knowledge. Its value is verification of a historical claim, not disclosure of an unknown one.

Ants communicate chemically through pheromones, including alarm signals that trigger retreat into the nest, and are organised in colonies with division of labour.

1959 — E. O. Wilson identified and characterised ant trail and alarm pheromones

Partly observable. Ant colonies and coordinated behaviour are visible; chemical signalling as the mechanism was unknown.

The camel is among the most specialised large mammals known: it tolerates body temperature swings that would kill most mammals, has oval red blood cells that resist rupture on rapid rehydration, produces highly concentrated urine, recovers moisture from exhaled breath through its nasal passages, and stores fat rather than water in its hump.

1950s-1960s — Knut and Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen's field physiology of the camel

Partly observable. Camels' endurance was universally known in Arabia. The physiological mechanisms behind it were not established until the mid-20th century.

The observable universe expanded from an extremely hot, dense initial state; structure - galaxies, stars, planets - condensed out of an initially undifferentiated condition.

1927-1965 — Lemaitre proposed the primeval atom (1927); Hubble measured expansion (1929); Penzias and Wilson detected the cosmic microwave background (1965), confirming the hot early phase

Not observable in the 7th century. Entirely inaccessible without 20th-century instrumentation.

Before stars formed, the universe consisted of diffuse neutral gas - hydrogen and helium - with no luminous structure.

1965 — Confirmed by the detection of the cosmic microwave background (Penzias and Wilson, 1965), establishing the hot diffuse early phase

Not observable in the 7th century. Wholly inaccessible before radio astronomy.

Earth's crust is fractured into tectonic plates separated by rifts, and is split along a globe-encircling system of mid-ocean ridges where new crust forms.

1912-1968 — Wegener proposed continental drift (1912); Hess proposed seafloor spreading (1962); plate tectonics established as consensus (1967-68)

Partly observable. Surface fissures, faults and rift valleys are visible. The global fracture system and its mechanism were unknown until the 1960s.

Human populations vary continuously in pigmentation and in language, and both are presented as natural signs rather than as grounds of hierarchy.

1972 — Richard Lewontin demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of human genetic variation occurs WITHIN populations rather than between them

Plainly observable then. Human variation in colour and language is directly observable. The scientific content is the finding that this variation does not partition humanity into discrete biological races.

Continental plates carrying mountain ranges move continuously at rates of a few centimetres per year - imperceptible to observation but real and now measured directly.

1912-1968 / 1980s — Wegener (1912); plate tectonics consensus (1968); direct measurement by satellite geodesy and GPS from the 1980s

Not observable in the 7th century. Plate motion is far too slow for unaided observation and was denied by geologists as recently as the 1950s.

Many animal species live in structured societies with social learning, transmitted traditions, and communication systems - properties once thought uniquely human.

1999 — Whiten and colleagues documented distinct cultural traditions across chimpanzee populations in Nature (1999); subsequently extended to cetaceans, corvids and others

Partly observable. Herds, flocks and colonies are visible. Culture, social transmission and referential signalling are not, and were denied by science for most of the 20th century.

Human activity has measurably altered terrestrial and marine systems - ocean acidification, eutrophication, fisheries collapse, deforestation and land degradation.

1960s-2000s — Modern environmental science from Carson (1962) onward; ocean acidification quantified from the 1990s-2000s

Partly observable. Local degradation was observable; planetary-scale anthropogenic change was not conceivable before the industrial era.

Language is the trait most sharply distinguishing humans from other animals. No other species has open-ended, recursive, symbolic language, and the capacity is anatomically and neurologically supported by structures unique to humans in their configuration.

1861-2001 — Broca localised speech production (1861); Wernicke comprehension (1874); the FOXP2 gene linked to speech and language disorder (2001)

Partly observable. That humans speak and animals do not was obvious. That the capacity has specific neural and genetic substrates was not.