THE CHALLENGE OF THE QUR’AN

The Challenge of The Qur’an ~ 288 ~ sustenance available, ushering in an age of famine in which countless people would starve to death. Malthus’s book made a powerful impression on human thought, 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 Dyer has summarised this research in an article which appeared in The Hindustan Times (New Delhi) on December 28, 1984. The provocative headline read: ‘Malthus: The False Prophet.’ In it he wrote: 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.