Now we turn to external inconsistency. External inconsistency in a literary work occurs when what it asserts is contradicted by some reality in the outside world. Since man's speech and writing occur within the sphere of his own knowledge, which is marked by human limitations, what he writes or says fails to conform to the external reality. We produce here a few comparative examples to illustrate this point.

Certain ancient Arab tribes sometimes killed their children, in most cases female babies, for fear of being unable to feed a large family. It was in this context that the following verses were revealed:

Do not kill your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Truly, the killing of them is a great sin. (17:31)

Inherent in this pronouncement of the Qur'an was the claim that the growth in population, whatever its extent and degree, would not create a problem of sustenance for man on the earth; that there would be a constant favourable balance of sustenance and human population; that there would be an adequate provision of sustenance tomorrow just as there is today.

Throughout the ages, Muslims have been endorsing this claim as a matter of faith. They have left this matter to God, the great Provider.

One thousand years after this claim made by the Qur'an, the British economist, Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834) published in 1798 his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, in which he set forth his famous theory on the growth of population. 'Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.'

Simply stated, growth in population and growth in sustenance are not naturally equal. Human population grows geometrically, that is at a ratio of 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 1 6 - 32, while the growth of food supplies maintains an arithmetical ratio: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 – 7 - ' 8. Sustenance, therefore, cannot keep up with the astronomical growth in human population. The only solution to this problem, according to Malthus, was for mankind to control its birth-rate. The population should not be allowed to exceed a certain limit, failing which the number of people on earth would become disproportionate to the amount of sustenance available, thereby ushering in an age of famine in which countless people would starve to death.

Malthus's book made a powerful impression, winning substantial support among writers and thinkers, and leading to the launching of birth control and family-planning schemes. Recently, however, researchers have come to the conclusion that Malthus was quite wrong in his calculations. Gwynne Dwyer has summarized this research in an article, provocatively entitled 'Malthus: The False Prophet,' which appeared in The Hindustan Times (New Delhi) on December 28, 1984:

It is the 150th anniversary of Malthus' death, and his grim predictions have not yet come true. The world's population has doubled and redoubled in a geometrical progression as he foresaw, only slightly checked by wars and other catastrophes, and now stands at about eight times the total when he wrote. But food production has more than kept pace, and the present generation of humanity, is on average the best fed in history.

Malthus was born in an age of 'traditional agriculture.' He was unable to envisage the approach of an age of 'scientific agriculture,' in which amazing advances in production would become possible. Over the 150 years since Malthus's death, methods of cultivation have been radically altered. Crops under cultivation are chosen for their particularly high yield. Cattle are able to produce a far higher amount of dairy food than before. New methods have been discovered to increase the fertility of land. Modern machinery has brought vast new areas under cultivation. In technologically advanced countries of the world there has been a 90% fall in the number of farmers: yet at the same time a tenfold increase in agricultural produce has taken place.

As far as the third world is concerned, 3 billion people inhabit these under-developed countries, but the third world also possesses the potential to produce food for 33 billion-ten times the present population. According to F.A.O. estimates, if the increase in the population of the third world continues unabated, reaching over the 4 billion mark by the year 2000 A.D., there will still be no cause for alarm. The increase in population will be accompanied by an increase in production: the means will be available to provide food for 1 ½ times more than the number of people who have to be fed. And this increase in food production will be possible without deforestation. So there is no real danger of a food crisis, either on a regional or on a universal scale. Gwynne Dwyer concludes his report with the following words: 'Malthus was wrong. We are not doomed to breed ourselves into famine.'

Where Malthus's book on population and sustenance – the work of a human mind working within the confines of time and place – was very far out in its predictions for the human race, (and this was proved to the world just 150 years after the author's death) the Qur'an, on the other hand – the work of a superhuman mind – still bears out external realities to this very day.