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Several Quran verses use the word "heart" where it should instead use "brain", while this can be explained off as a metaphor, phrases like this are used today e.g. "change of heart" which means "change of mind" or "a heart to heart talk" the heart doesn't literally talk it pumps blood, the real problem lies in the Hadith.

For example, this Hadith is transmitted in a few of the books and is graded Sahih.

Beware, in the body there is a piece of flesh; if it is sound, the whole body is sound, it is the heart.(Sahih Muslim 1599a)

The Hadith says that the "the piece of flesh"(physical heart) controls the whole body, which contradicts science, which says the "brain" controls the whole body. We also can't say that it is the soul that lies in the heart, because this Hadith is referring to the physical heart. How do we deal with the fact that Islam gets the simple function of body parts so wrong?

Please no bs answers like, "we feel emotion in our heart so emotion is from our heart"(we also feel pain in our fingers too, does our finger have a mind of its own?)

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    I only see a wrong interpretation on your side. The heart is important as the topic is faith and believe.
    – Medi1Saif ♦
    Jun 10 at 14:57
  • I don’t see the mistake here. If you interpret it physically, then the healthy Heart is indeed essential to pump blood around the rest of the body
    – Hisham
    Jun 10 at 20:28

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First off, the hadith doesn't say the heart controls the body, but just that the heart being healthy is the condition of the healthiness of the body:

"if it is sound, the whole body is sound"

It seems that the Quran is mistaken about the role of the heart, as seen in these verses :

"And do not pursue that of which you have no knowledge. Indeed, the hearing, the sight and the heart - about all those [one] will be questioned." 17:36

"Do they not then reflect on the Quran? Or are there locks upon their hearts?" 17:36

But in some other verse, Allah talks about the brain :

"A lying, sinning forelock." 96:16

We know today because of science that the prefrontal cortex is were thinking comes from, and were lies come from. And we also know that it is located above the eyes, in the front of our brains.

The Quran perfectly says here that lies come from the brain, so seemingly contradicting with the other verses.

The contradiction is here a paradox which solution is that the heart is a condition of thinking and not the actual organ used to think with. The Quran doesn't get the functions confused.

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