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In 1976, he published his book, The Bible, The Qur'an and Science which argued that the Qur'an contains no statements contradicting established scientific fact. In 1991, another book by Bucaille, Mummies of the Pharaos: Modern Medical Investigations, was published in English.
In his book, The Bible, The Qur’an and Science, Bucaille aims to prove the Qur’an is in agreement with scientific facts, while the Bible is not. He claims that in Islam, science and religion have always been “twin sisters” (vii). According to Bucaille, there are monumental errors of science in the Bible and not a single error in the Quran (120), whose descriptions of natural phenomena make it compatible with modern science. Bucaille concludes that the Qur’an is the reliable word of God.
The Bible, Qur'an and Science
The Holy Scriptures Examined In The Light Of Modern Knowledge
by
Dr. Maurice Bucaille .
Translated from French
By Alastair D. Pannell and The Author
FINAL CONCLUSIONS:
Quote
At the end of this study, a fact that stands forth very clearly is that the predominant
opinion held in the West on the Texts of the Holy Scriptures we possess today is
hardly very realistic. We have seen the conditions, times and ways in which the
elements constituting the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur'an were collected
and written down: the circumstances attendant upon the birth of the Scriptures for
these three Revelations differed widely in each case, a fact which had extremely
important consequences concerning the authenticity of the texts and certain aspects of
their contents.
The Old Testament represents a vast number of literary works written over a period of
roughly nine hundred years. It forms a highly disparate mosaic whose pieces have, in
the course of centuries, been changed by man. Some parts were added to what already
existed, so that today it is sometimes very difficult indeed to identify where they came
from originally.
Through an account of Jesus's words and deeds, the Gospels were intended to make
known to men the teachings he wished to leave them on completion of his earthly
mission. Unfortunately, the authors of the Gospels were not eyewitnesses of the data
they recorded. They were spokesmen who expressed data that were quite simply the
information that had been preserved by the various Judeo-Christian communities on
Jesus's public life, passed down by oral traditions or writings which no longer exist
today, and which constituted an intermediate stage between the oral tradition and the
definitive texts.
This is the light in which the Judeo-Christian Scriptures should be viewed today,
And tobe objective-one should abandon the classic concepts held by experts in exegesis.
The inevitable result of the multiplicity of sources is the existence of contradictions
and oppositions: many examples have been given of these. The authors of the Gospels
had (when talking of Jesus) the same tendency to magnify certain facts as the poets of
French Medieval literature in their narrative poems. The consequence of this was that
events were presented from each individual narrator's point of view and the
authenticity of the facts reported in many cases proved to be extremely dubious. In
view of this, the few statements contained in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures which
may have something to do with modern knowledge should always be examined with
the circumspection that the questionable nature of their authenticity demands.
Contradictions, improbabilities and incompatibilities with modern scientific data may
be easily explained in terms of what has just been said above. Christians are
nevertheless very surprised when they realize this, so great have been the continuous
and far-reaching efforts made until now by many official commentators to
camouflage the very obvious results of modern studies, under cunning dialectical
acrobatics orchestrated by apologetic lyricism. A case in point are the genealogies of
Jesus given in Matthew and Luke, which were contradictory and scientifically
unacceptable. Examples have been provided which reveal this attitude very clearly.
John's Gospel has been given special attention because there are very important
differences between it and the other three Gospels, especially with regard to the fact
that his Gospel does not describe the institution of the Eucharist: this is not generally
known.
The Qur'anic Revelation has a history which is fundamentally different from the other
two. It spanned a period of some twenty years and, as soon as it was transmitted to
Muhammad by Archangel Gabriel, Believers learned it by heart. It. was also written
down during Muhammad's life. The last recensions of the Qur'an were effected under
Caliph Uthman starting some twelve years after the Prophet's death and finishing
twenty-four years after it. They had the advantage of being checked by people who
already knew the text by heart, for they had learned it at the time of the Revelation
itself and had subsequently recited it constantly. Since then, we know that the text has
been scrupulously preserved. It does not give rise to any problems of authenticity.
The Qur'an follows on from the two Revelations that preceded it and is not only free
from contradictions in its narrations, the sign of the various human manipulations to
be found in the Gospels, but provides a quality all of its own for those who examine it
objectively and in the light of science i.e. its complete agreement with modern
scientific data. What is more, statements are to be found in it (as has been shown) that
are connected with science: and yet it is unthinkable that a man of Muhammad's time
could have been the author of them. Modern scientific knowledge therefore allows us
to understand certain verses of the Qur'an which, until now, it has been impossible to
interpret.
The comparison of several Biblical and Qur'anic narrations of the same subject shows
the existence of fundamental differences between statements in the former, which are
scientifically unacceptable, and declarations in the latter which are in perfect
agreement with modern data: this was the case of the Creation and the Flood, for
example. An extremely important complement to the Bible was found in the text of
the Qur'an on the subject of the history of the Exodus, where the two texts were very
much in agreement with archaeological findings, in the dating of the time of Moses.
Besides, there are major differences between the Qur'an and the Bible on the other
subjects: they serve to disprove all that has been maintained-without a scrap of
evidence-concerning the allegation that Muhammad is supposed to have copied the
Bible to produce the text of the Qur'an.
When a comparative study is made between the statements connected with science to
be found in the collection of hadiths, which are attributed to Muhammad but are often
of dubious authenticity (although they reflect the beliefs of the period), and the data of
a similar kind in the Qur'an, the disparity becomes so obvious that any notion of a
common origin is ruled out.
In view of the level of knowledge in Muhammad's day, it is inconceivable that many
of the statements In the Qur'an which are connected with science could have been the
work of a man. It is, moreover, perfectly legitimate, not only to regard the Qur'an as
the expression of a Revelation, but also to award it a very special place, on account of
the guarantee of authenticity it provides and the presence in it of scientific statements
which, when studied today, appear as a challenge to explanation in human terms.
opinion held in the West on the Texts of the Holy Scriptures we possess today is
hardly very realistic. We have seen the conditions, times and ways in which the
elements constituting the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur'an were collected
and written down: the circumstances attendant upon the birth of the Scriptures for
these three Revelations differed widely in each case, a fact which had extremely
important consequences concerning the authenticity of the texts and certain aspects of
their contents.
The Old Testament represents a vast number of literary works written over a period of
roughly nine hundred years. It forms a highly disparate mosaic whose pieces have, in
the course of centuries, been changed by man. Some parts were added to what already
existed, so that today it is sometimes very difficult indeed to identify where they came
from originally.
Through an account of Jesus's words and deeds, the Gospels were intended to make
known to men the teachings he wished to leave them on completion of his earthly
mission. Unfortunately, the authors of the Gospels were not eyewitnesses of the data
they recorded. They were spokesmen who expressed data that were quite simply the
information that had been preserved by the various Judeo-Christian communities on
Jesus's public life, passed down by oral traditions or writings which no longer exist
today, and which constituted an intermediate stage between the oral tradition and the
definitive texts.
This is the light in which the Judeo-Christian Scriptures should be viewed today,
And tobe objective-one should abandon the classic concepts held by experts in exegesis.
The inevitable result of the multiplicity of sources is the existence of contradictions
and oppositions: many examples have been given of these. The authors of the Gospels
had (when talking of Jesus) the same tendency to magnify certain facts as the poets of
French Medieval literature in their narrative poems. The consequence of this was that
events were presented from each individual narrator's point of view and the
authenticity of the facts reported in many cases proved to be extremely dubious. In
view of this, the few statements contained in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures which
may have something to do with modern knowledge should always be examined with
the circumspection that the questionable nature of their authenticity demands.
Contradictions, improbabilities and incompatibilities with modern scientific data may
be easily explained in terms of what has just been said above. Christians are
nevertheless very surprised when they realize this, so great have been the continuous
and far-reaching efforts made until now by many official commentators to
camouflage the very obvious results of modern studies, under cunning dialectical
acrobatics orchestrated by apologetic lyricism. A case in point are the genealogies of
Jesus given in Matthew and Luke, which were contradictory and scientifically
unacceptable. Examples have been provided which reveal this attitude very clearly.
John's Gospel has been given special attention because there are very important
differences between it and the other three Gospels, especially with regard to the fact
that his Gospel does not describe the institution of the Eucharist: this is not generally
known.
The Qur'anic Revelation has a history which is fundamentally different from the other
two. It spanned a period of some twenty years and, as soon as it was transmitted to
Muhammad by Archangel Gabriel, Believers learned it by heart. It. was also written
down during Muhammad's life. The last recensions of the Qur'an were effected under
Caliph Uthman starting some twelve years after the Prophet's death and finishing
twenty-four years after it. They had the advantage of being checked by people who
already knew the text by heart, for they had learned it at the time of the Revelation
itself and had subsequently recited it constantly. Since then, we know that the text has
been scrupulously preserved. It does not give rise to any problems of authenticity.
The Qur'an follows on from the two Revelations that preceded it and is not only free
from contradictions in its narrations, the sign of the various human manipulations to
be found in the Gospels, but provides a quality all of its own for those who examine it
objectively and in the light of science i.e. its complete agreement with modern
scientific data. What is more, statements are to be found in it (as has been shown) that
are connected with science: and yet it is unthinkable that a man of Muhammad's time
could have been the author of them. Modern scientific knowledge therefore allows us
to understand certain verses of the Qur'an which, until now, it has been impossible to
interpret.
The comparison of several Biblical and Qur'anic narrations of the same subject shows
the existence of fundamental differences between statements in the former, which are
scientifically unacceptable, and declarations in the latter which are in perfect
agreement with modern data: this was the case of the Creation and the Flood, for
example. An extremely important complement to the Bible was found in the text of
the Qur'an on the subject of the history of the Exodus, where the two texts were very
much in agreement with archaeological findings, in the dating of the time of Moses.
Besides, there are major differences between the Qur'an and the Bible on the other
subjects: they serve to disprove all that has been maintained-without a scrap of
evidence-concerning the allegation that Muhammad is supposed to have copied the
Bible to produce the text of the Qur'an.
When a comparative study is made between the statements connected with science to
be found in the collection of hadiths, which are attributed to Muhammad but are often
of dubious authenticity (although they reflect the beliefs of the period), and the data of
a similar kind in the Qur'an, the disparity becomes so obvious that any notion of a
common origin is ruled out.
In view of the level of knowledge in Muhammad's day, it is inconceivable that many
of the statements In the Qur'an which are connected with science could have been the
work of a man. It is, moreover, perfectly legitimate, not only to regard the Qur'an as
the expression of a Revelation, but also to award it a very special place, on account of
the guarantee of authenticity it provides and the presence in it of scientific statements
which, when studied today, appear as a challenge to explanation in human terms.
You may also see:
1]
Quote
Maurice Bucaille, who worked as chief of the Surgical Clinic, University of Paris, was deeply interested in the correspondences between the teachings of Scripture and modern secular knowledge. After a decade-long study, Dr. Maurice Bucaille addressed the French Academy of Medicine in 1976 concerning the existence in the Qur’an of certain statements on physiology and reproduction. He reasoned that: "...our knowledge of these disciplines is such, that it is impossible to explain how a text produced at the time of the Qur’an could have contained ideas that have only been discovered in modern times…"
That year, Maurice Bucaille published La Bible, le Coran et la science. The book proved to be enormously popular and has been translated into languages spoken throughout the Muslim world. Enthusiasts consider this work as one of the most important ever on Islam and science discourse. The opponents of this approach label this trend as "Bucaillism". The book analyzes the scriptures in the light of modern scientific knowledge and identifies contradictions between established scientific facts and scriptures. The author analyzes creationism vs. evolution, astronomy, the conception in the womb, separation of water in subterranean oceanic rivers, and other issues, and attempts to document each point he makes. The general contents of The Bible, the Qur’an and Science are:
#
The Old Testament – examines the origins of the Bible, describes the books of the Old Testament, highlights evidence of science in the Old Testament (i.e. creation of the world, date of creation and appearance of mankind, the flood), critically examines scientific error.
#
The Gospels – explores sources and history of the text of the gospels, genealogy of Jesus, modern science and the gospels, contradictions and improbabilities in descriptions in the gospels.
#
The Qur’an and Modern Science – examines the authenticity of the Qur’an, identifies scientific phenomena described in the Qur’an (creation of heavens and earth, astronomy, earth science, water cycle, animal and plant kingdoms, human reproduction).
#
Qur’anic and Biblical Narrations – draws parallels between the Qur’anic and Bibilical texts and modern knowledge, dealing specifically with the narrations of the Flood and the Exodus
#
Qur’an, Hadiths and Modern Science
#
General Conclusions
#
List of Quotations from the Qur’an
Bucaille’s other work, "Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations" (St. Martins Press, 1990), won a History Prize from the Académie Française and another prize from the French National Academy of Medicine.
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a number of social, political and economic factors contributed to the spread and popularity of such literature. Various state-sponsored institutions have organized conferences and seminars in which scientists link specific verses of the Qur’an to specific data and theories of modern science to prove (i) that the Qur’an is really a book of God, revealed to the Prophet of Islam because such specific scientific information was unknown during his life and (ii) that the Qur’an contains all scientific knowledge and it is for science and scientists to discover this knowledge. This approach is encumbered with an emotional, psychological, even political, baggage and has been opposed and challenged by serious scholarship. But its mass popularity remains uncontestable. This has given rise to a great deal of apologetic literature, including hundreds of websites which attempt to prove that the Qur’an is, in fact, the word of God because it contains scientific theories and facts which modern science has only recently discovered.
Bibliography:
The Bible, The Qur’an and Science,Translated from the French by Alastair D. Pannell and the author, (Islamic Call Society, Tripoli, 1976)
What is the Origin of Man (Seghers, 1988)
The Qur’an and Modern Science n.d.
Réflexions sur le Coran by Mohamed Talbi & Maurice Bucaille (Seghers, 1989)
Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations (St. Martins Press, 1990)
Moses and Pharaoh, the Hebrews in Egypt, (NTT Mediascope Inc, 1994)
Book Review by Muhammad al-Ghazali in Islamic Studies, vol.40, no.2. Summer 2001
Maurice Bucaille. The Bible, The Qur’an and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge. Translated from the French by Alastair D. Pannell and the author. Tripoli: Islamic Call Society, n. d. Pp. 252. Paperback edition.
That year, Maurice Bucaille published La Bible, le Coran et la science. The book proved to be enormously popular and has been translated into languages spoken throughout the Muslim world. Enthusiasts consider this work as one of the most important ever on Islam and science discourse. The opponents of this approach label this trend as "Bucaillism". The book analyzes the scriptures in the light of modern scientific knowledge and identifies contradictions between established scientific facts and scriptures. The author analyzes creationism vs. evolution, astronomy, the conception in the womb, separation of water in subterranean oceanic rivers, and other issues, and attempts to document each point he makes. The general contents of The Bible, the Qur’an and Science are:
#
The Old Testament – examines the origins of the Bible, describes the books of the Old Testament, highlights evidence of science in the Old Testament (i.e. creation of the world, date of creation and appearance of mankind, the flood), critically examines scientific error.
#
The Gospels – explores sources and history of the text of the gospels, genealogy of Jesus, modern science and the gospels, contradictions and improbabilities in descriptions in the gospels.
#
The Qur’an and Modern Science – examines the authenticity of the Qur’an, identifies scientific phenomena described in the Qur’an (creation of heavens and earth, astronomy, earth science, water cycle, animal and plant kingdoms, human reproduction).
#
Qur’anic and Biblical Narrations – draws parallels between the Qur’anic and Bibilical texts and modern knowledge, dealing specifically with the narrations of the Flood and the Exodus
#
Qur’an, Hadiths and Modern Science
#
General Conclusions
#
List of Quotations from the Qur’an
Bucaille’s other work, "Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations" (St. Martins Press, 1990), won a History Prize from the Académie Française and another prize from the French National Academy of Medicine.
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a number of social, political and economic factors contributed to the spread and popularity of such literature. Various state-sponsored institutions have organized conferences and seminars in which scientists link specific verses of the Qur’an to specific data and theories of modern science to prove (i) that the Qur’an is really a book of God, revealed to the Prophet of Islam because such specific scientific information was unknown during his life and (ii) that the Qur’an contains all scientific knowledge and it is for science and scientists to discover this knowledge. This approach is encumbered with an emotional, psychological, even political, baggage and has been opposed and challenged by serious scholarship. But its mass popularity remains uncontestable. This has given rise to a great deal of apologetic literature, including hundreds of websites which attempt to prove that the Qur’an is, in fact, the word of God because it contains scientific theories and facts which modern science has only recently discovered.
Bibliography:
The Bible, The Qur’an and Science,Translated from the French by Alastair D. Pannell and the author, (Islamic Call Society, Tripoli, 1976)
What is the Origin of Man (Seghers, 1988)
The Qur’an and Modern Science n.d.
Réflexions sur le Coran by Mohamed Talbi & Maurice Bucaille (Seghers, 1989)
Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations (St. Martins Press, 1990)
Moses and Pharaoh, the Hebrews in Egypt, (NTT Mediascope Inc, 1994)
Book Review by Muhammad al-Ghazali in Islamic Studies, vol.40, no.2. Summer 2001
Maurice Bucaille. The Bible, The Qur’an and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light of Modern Knowledge. Translated from the French by Alastair D. Pannell and the author. Tripoli: Islamic Call Society, n. d. Pp. 252. Paperback edition.
http://www.cis-ca.or...bucaille-mn.htm
ALSO:
Quote
This work appeared some twenty-five years ago in its original French version. Later it was translated into English and in a short time earned a wide readership of enthusiastic admirers. It was also very soon translated into several other mainly Muslim languages including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Malay and some other languages of the east and the west. The writer is a well-known medical practitioner of Paris. During the last days of his life, the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (d.1395/1975) was under his treatment and for that purpose he was frequently invited to stay in Saudi Arabia for long periods. The present reviewer had the chance to meet the author in September 1980 in Algiers in an International Seminar on Islamic Thought.
The background in which Dr. Maurice Bucaille was prompted to write the book predates his contact with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Prior to that he happened to visit Cairo in connection with an official task assigned to a team of experts. They were invited by the Government of Egypt to help preserve the famous mummy of Ramses II (R.1304-1237 BC). They were asked to advise the curators of the Cairo Museum on the latest techniques of protecting this valuable treasure of history from decay. In the course of his work, Dr. Bucaille learnt from some Egyptian acquaintances that the Qur’an, while referring to the incident of the drowning of Pharaoh in the ocean, records the fact that his body will be preserved "to be a sign for those who come later". (10: 92). Dr. Bucaille was struck by this information supplied by his Egyptian friend for he knew that before the 19th century, when some British archaeologists had discovered the mummy of Ramses II by deciphering the inscriptions of the old Phoenician language, nobody in the whole world knew about the existence of this mummy.
This made Dr. Bucaille curious to find out the exact wording of the Qur’an on this subject and to explore the other contents of the Qur’an that might have any bearing on the themes of modern science. He was also intrigued by the fact that despite a detailed description of this story in the Old Testament, there is no mention there of the preservation of the body of Ramses. This observation led him to carefully compare the Bible and the Qur’an from the point of view of modern scientific knowledge.
Dr. Bucaille was, however, not prepared to be satisfied with the translated version of the Qur’an which was then available to him. At that time, however, he was completely innocent of any knowledge of Arabic. Soon thereafter, he happened to be invited by late King Faisal and struck a personal friendship with him. This liaison with King Faisal and sojourn in Saudi Arabia afforded him an opportunity to know more about Islam through his discussions with the late king who also helped him learn the Arabic language (p.126). Dr. Bucaille thereafter seriously devoted his time and attention to learning Arabic so as to be able to study the Qur’an and to satisfy his scientist’s curiosity about its contents. Prior to this, thanks to his upbringing as a Christian, he had studied the Bible and other scriptures and had also examined their contents from a scientist’s viewpoint.
The Bible, The Qur’an and Science is thus an outcome of a long and sustained effort of the author. In a significant sense, it represents the sum-total of his life-long investigation about science and scriptures and their mutual relationship. His thorough understanding of the Biblical lore in its historical evolutionary background provided him with a firm grounding to proceed with the scientific evaluation of the scriptures. In his introduction to this work, Dr. Bucaille deplores the negative and hostile attitude of the Christian West which has been portraying Islam and the Muslims as a fanatic force of cultural retrogression in history.
The author, however, notes with a degree of optimism that the trend of the past prejudice of Christians toward Islam is now changing for the better. The most prominent portent of this new trend, according to him, is visible in the improving official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward Islam and its recently growing interest in the Muslim-Christian dialogue. He refers in this regard to the document issued by the Vatican wherein it has deplored the old prejudices against Islam and has recognized the need for an honest and objective approach to its understanding. He sees his own work as an endeavor to project a positive, honest and objective image of Islam through a scientific understanding of the scripture of Muslims. This understanding, in his view, could be arrived at by recognizing the Divine origin of the Qur’an, of which an overwhelming internal evidence is available in the Qur’an itself. At the same time, he also shows readiness to admit any flaw in the Biblical texts that might show any apparent inconsistency with the findings of modern scientific knowledge. In this way, the author hopes to atone for the past excesses committed by the Christians in their prejudiced projection of Muslims and their religion. This honesty of approach, this readiness to undertake an objective study of each other’s religion would, in the author’s opinion, pave the way for a better understanding between the three scriptural religions Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The author, however, does not discuss the position of the Jewish scholars regarding the scriptures and their views about the scriptures of Christianity or Islam.
Since the author does not claim to be a scholar of Islam, he should be allowed the occasional oversight and lack of proper appreciation of Muslim religious tradition in its fullness. He shows this lack of understanding on several occasions in his book. To cite just one instance: "The notion that science and religion are incompatible is as equally prevalent in countries under Judeo-Christian influence as in the world of Islam especially in scientific circles" (p. 14).
To include Islam in the sweep of this statement is obviously devoid of any foundation. Historically, there did not come a moment in the life of Muslim community when even the most rigid advocates of orthodoxy contemplated any inconsistency between Islam and science. In fact when the author develops his main thesis in this book that the Islamic scripture shows no incongruence with the axioms of empirical knowledge, he is merely stating the obvious, for the essential harmony between reason and revelation is a self-evident truth which has always been affirmed by the Muslims throughout their history. Men like Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 505/111), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210), Ibn Timiyyah (d. 728/1328) and Ibn Rushd (d. 551/1157) were among the first exponents of Islam who wrote extensively to establish this harmony. Another error committed by the author is to equate hadith with the gospels in as much as the former were authored by men who did not witness the events they related, just as had been the case with the authors of the Gospels (p.15). The author has either ignored or did not find the opportunity to educate himself in the science of Hadith that developed an elaborate system of judging the authenticity of ahadith by tracing relevant historical data and examining related biographical information to ascertain the uninterrupted chain of narrators concerning every individual hadith. It is through this elaborate mechanism that each hadith is traced to its original source. And the original source is nothing short of an eyewitness the incident reported in the hadith. In the absence of the chain traceable to the eyewitness, a report loses its value in terms of authenticity.
On another occasion, the author says "... science and reason should always be referred to, if necessary, to deprive them (i.e. ahadith) of their authenticity". This statement could partly have some weight, but gives the impression that no other criterion is available to assess the veracity ahadith.
Notwithstanding such lapses here and there the main contention of the author that no inconsistency with the established facts of science was discernible in the Qur’an has been elaborately discussed and clearly articulated throughout the book. This consistency between the Qur’an and findings of human reason and empirical observation, however, is not something unnoticed in the scholarship of the Qur’an prior to Dr. Bucaille. We have already alluded to the fact that the essential harmony between reason and revelation (‘aql and naql) had been postulated much earlier by Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazali, al-Razi, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Rushd. And this theological position had been more or less consistently held by all the mainstream scholars of Islam. In the Indian subcontinent the most celebrate exponents of Islam starting from Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d.1034/1624) and Shah Wali Allah (d.1176/1762) to Maulana Fazl-i Haq Khayrabadi (d.1278/1861), Maulina Muhammad Qasim Nanautvi (d.1297/1880), Maulani Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi (d.1362/1943), and Muhammad Iqbal (d.1357/1938) subscribed to this view and contributed to its substantiation in one way or the other.
This much is quite well known in the academic circles of the Muslim world and there is little basis for questioning this axiomatic truth about the Qur’an. The Qur’an itself urges its readers to use their intellectual faculties to reflect and deliberate over the vast phenomena of nature - both nature within and nature without - to strengthen their conviction about the cardinal truth of tawhid expressed in the Revelation. A person of sound mind and healthy instincts will find overwhelming evidence of this cardinal Truth manifested in the entire phenomena of this cosmos, as it is articulated in the express Divine relation namely the Qur’an.
The problem, however, arises with regard to the other part of his thesis, namely, that the Qur’an contains elements of scientific knowledge which were recovered by man centuries after its revelation. However, even in this respect, Dr. Bucaille is not the first to see in the Qur’an such a foretelling of scientific facts. For with the increasing contacts between Muslims and Westerners, the comparison between the Qur’anic descriptions of natural phenomena and the discoveries of science received the attention of many Muslim scholars. During the nineteenth century, this trend became more and more visible in the studies of the Qur’an especially among those writers who were not specialized in tafsir. Those who were enthused by the apparent confirmation of independent human discoveries of this phenomenal world of time and space, by the statements of the Qur’an pertaining to them or vice versa had been mostly scientists rather than exegetes. We also find that the mainstream scholars of the Qur’an have either not taken this aspect of the Qur’an’s commentary too seriously or even at times addressed a word of caution against over-stretched interpretation of Qur’anic verses to fix or fit their meaning within the reductionist constraints of modern scientific knowledge.
In this respect it would be profitable to quote here a long passage by one of the most leading scholars of the Muslim tradition in India, Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi. He was among those exegetes who issued a warning in the most clear and explicit terms that the Qur’anic text should not be subjected to temporal and mutable scientific ideas. Thus we find that the attempts of interpreting the Qur’an in the light of science went side by side with this warning. Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi, in his book, al-Intibahat al-Mufidah ‘an al-Ishhtibahat al-Jadidah, had the following to say while warning the students of the Qur’an against subjecting its verses to scientific interpretation:
... The second error [concerning the Qur’an] is the attempt to show that the Qur’an contains themes of science as one comes across nowadays in many journals and reviews. As soon as some people hear or see any new finding of science by the Europeans, they try in one way or the other to posit such finding as a connotation of some verse of the Qur’an. They reckon this as a great service to Islam, a cause of pride for the Qur’an, and a sign of their own ingenuity. Many an educated person is found involved in this error. One aspect of their error is that they think that it was a proof of Qur’an’s perfection to contain themes of science. The source of this error is that their attention was diverted from the real subject-matter of the Qur’an. Since the Qur’an essentially contains a spiritual healing, its being free from these themes does not divest this Book of its inherent value. Rather than that, this fact proves its perfectness in a way. However, if by the demands of this spiritual treatment, a part of these themes finds mention in the Qur’an, then this is also meant to fulfil the real purpose of this Book. However, going by the principle: ‘the necessary is measurable by the degree of the necessity’, this part will not be mentioned beyond the limits of necessity. For instance to establish tawhid, which is the greatest source of the guidance of spirits, the easiest and nearest means is the analogy of creatures. Occasional mention, therefore, is to be found of the creation of the skies, earth, man and animal. Since this did not warrant any detail, it was not mentioned. In short, the themes of science are not among the aims of the Qur’an per se. However, by the necessity of supporting the aim, whatever is mentioned here in the form of a manifest and clear connotation is certainly and evidently true. It would be wrong to believe otherwise by some other reasoning. If any argument is against it, then that will be assailable after investigation or would give rise to a conflict. Nevertheless, it is possible that the connotation of the verse is not explicit and manifest and there is some other valid argument which is admissible against it, then the text of the Qur’an could be interpreted in such a way that its direct connotation is abandoned in favour of the other interpretation supported by a valid argument.
He goes on to say: ... the second error, as indicated above, is that such issues are not the objects per se of the Qur’an, but these are merely auxiliaries for the object and it is obvious that the argument should contain premises acceptable to the listener or these should be self-evident or could be proved to him by reasoning, otherwise the argument would fail to achieve its purpose in bringing home the point to the listener. When this much is evident, then it should not escape the mind that if these modern discoveries are contented to be the connotations of the Qur’an, then certainly the Arab people who were the first addresses of the Qur’an, were not aware of these discoveries. This leads, as a corollary, to the conclusion that the whole argument is founded on unacceptable, unobvious and unknown premises. Hence, the argument becomes void on this very basis. And this kind of reasoning would seriously injure the mode of Qur’anic argument. The third error is that these findings [of science] also prove wrong at times. Therefore, if these were designated as connotations of the Qur’an, and these findings were disproved at some later period, and the acceptance of the followers of Islam was already registered in favour of this particular purport of the Qur’an, then any ordinary atheist would easily be able to falsify the Qur’an and show that this particular content of the Qur’an was untrue. And the falsity of a part would lead to the falsity of the whole. How difficult then would be our position! If someone suggests, as contended by some people, that the greatness of the Qur’an lies in the ability of its words to be applicable to the themes of every age, then this would mean that no connotation of the Qur’an is reliable for its words would always contain the possibility of an opposite connotation.
He finally rounds off the discussion by saying:
The fourth flaw in this approach is that it is against the dignity of the Muslims that the scholars of Europe should claim that the Qur’an which was revealed long time ago, yet its contents were not comprehended even by the Prophet (peace be on him) himself, and you owe it to us that you have understood its tafsir because of us, then what is going to be our answer? (‘Ali Thanvi Maulana Ashraf, Islam awr "Aqliyyat, ed., Muhammad Mustafa Bijnauri, Lahore: Idarah Islamyat, 1994, 403-421).
In respect of falling back on the independent findings of human knowledge for interpreting the text of the Qur’an, there have been on the whole two kinds of approaches among Muslims. While one group of writers, who are mostly non-specialists in tafsir, enthusiastically opened the door of the liberal use of the scientific material to assign precise meanings to Qur’anic verses with a view to prove its miraculous nature and Divine origin, the other group almost totally closed this door. The first group maintains that the miraculous ness of the Qur’an is not a fixed idea. Rather, in their opinion, the Qur’an is a living miracle in as much as it continues to supply fresh evidence of its Divine origin in the unfolding of endless empirical exploits of man. The other group insists that the Qur’an, in order to be valid for all times and climes, must be exclusively concerned with such spiritual and moral issues of eternal validity that will never lose their relevance for human felicity and bliss.
The above-cited passage of Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi, however, seems to contain elements of a possible third and more moderate view: that although the Qur’an is not concerned with issues of science, per se, yet for the sake of pointing to a supportive argument to establish its contentions, it may contain reference to such signs as lend further strength to those contentions.
It is, however, for the scholars of the Qur’an who are well-versed in tafsir to address themselves earnestly to this issue, for it involves serious questions that need to be answered before taking a definite position in this regard. The central issue involved in the whole debate is: to what extent, and by what standards, can knowledge derived from sources external to the Qur’an be employed to interpret and apply the Divine words to space-time situations? It is evident that this is not an issue that could casually and summarily be settled within the limitations of a brief review or even one monograph or two. In my humble opinion there is a degree of merit in the contentions of both groups identified above. The truth perhaps lies somewhere between the two positions. Allah indeed knows best.
The background in which Dr. Maurice Bucaille was prompted to write the book predates his contact with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Prior to that he happened to visit Cairo in connection with an official task assigned to a team of experts. They were invited by the Government of Egypt to help preserve the famous mummy of Ramses II (R.1304-1237 BC). They were asked to advise the curators of the Cairo Museum on the latest techniques of protecting this valuable treasure of history from decay. In the course of his work, Dr. Bucaille learnt from some Egyptian acquaintances that the Qur’an, while referring to the incident of the drowning of Pharaoh in the ocean, records the fact that his body will be preserved "to be a sign for those who come later". (10: 92). Dr. Bucaille was struck by this information supplied by his Egyptian friend for he knew that before the 19th century, when some British archaeologists had discovered the mummy of Ramses II by deciphering the inscriptions of the old Phoenician language, nobody in the whole world knew about the existence of this mummy.
This made Dr. Bucaille curious to find out the exact wording of the Qur’an on this subject and to explore the other contents of the Qur’an that might have any bearing on the themes of modern science. He was also intrigued by the fact that despite a detailed description of this story in the Old Testament, there is no mention there of the preservation of the body of Ramses. This observation led him to carefully compare the Bible and the Qur’an from the point of view of modern scientific knowledge.
Dr. Bucaille was, however, not prepared to be satisfied with the translated version of the Qur’an which was then available to him. At that time, however, he was completely innocent of any knowledge of Arabic. Soon thereafter, he happened to be invited by late King Faisal and struck a personal friendship with him. This liaison with King Faisal and sojourn in Saudi Arabia afforded him an opportunity to know more about Islam through his discussions with the late king who also helped him learn the Arabic language (p.126). Dr. Bucaille thereafter seriously devoted his time and attention to learning Arabic so as to be able to study the Qur’an and to satisfy his scientist’s curiosity about its contents. Prior to this, thanks to his upbringing as a Christian, he had studied the Bible and other scriptures and had also examined their contents from a scientist’s viewpoint.
The Bible, The Qur’an and Science is thus an outcome of a long and sustained effort of the author. In a significant sense, it represents the sum-total of his life-long investigation about science and scriptures and their mutual relationship. His thorough understanding of the Biblical lore in its historical evolutionary background provided him with a firm grounding to proceed with the scientific evaluation of the scriptures. In his introduction to this work, Dr. Bucaille deplores the negative and hostile attitude of the Christian West which has been portraying Islam and the Muslims as a fanatic force of cultural retrogression in history.
The author, however, notes with a degree of optimism that the trend of the past prejudice of Christians toward Islam is now changing for the better. The most prominent portent of this new trend, according to him, is visible in the improving official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward Islam and its recently growing interest in the Muslim-Christian dialogue. He refers in this regard to the document issued by the Vatican wherein it has deplored the old prejudices against Islam and has recognized the need for an honest and objective approach to its understanding. He sees his own work as an endeavor to project a positive, honest and objective image of Islam through a scientific understanding of the scripture of Muslims. This understanding, in his view, could be arrived at by recognizing the Divine origin of the Qur’an, of which an overwhelming internal evidence is available in the Qur’an itself. At the same time, he also shows readiness to admit any flaw in the Biblical texts that might show any apparent inconsistency with the findings of modern scientific knowledge. In this way, the author hopes to atone for the past excesses committed by the Christians in their prejudiced projection of Muslims and their religion. This honesty of approach, this readiness to undertake an objective study of each other’s religion would, in the author’s opinion, pave the way for a better understanding between the three scriptural religions Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The author, however, does not discuss the position of the Jewish scholars regarding the scriptures and their views about the scriptures of Christianity or Islam.
Since the author does not claim to be a scholar of Islam, he should be allowed the occasional oversight and lack of proper appreciation of Muslim religious tradition in its fullness. He shows this lack of understanding on several occasions in his book. To cite just one instance: "The notion that science and religion are incompatible is as equally prevalent in countries under Judeo-Christian influence as in the world of Islam especially in scientific circles" (p. 14).
To include Islam in the sweep of this statement is obviously devoid of any foundation. Historically, there did not come a moment in the life of Muslim community when even the most rigid advocates of orthodoxy contemplated any inconsistency between Islam and science. In fact when the author develops his main thesis in this book that the Islamic scripture shows no incongruence with the axioms of empirical knowledge, he is merely stating the obvious, for the essential harmony between reason and revelation is a self-evident truth which has always been affirmed by the Muslims throughout their history. Men like Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (d. 505/111), Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1210), Ibn Timiyyah (d. 728/1328) and Ibn Rushd (d. 551/1157) were among the first exponents of Islam who wrote extensively to establish this harmony. Another error committed by the author is to equate hadith with the gospels in as much as the former were authored by men who did not witness the events they related, just as had been the case with the authors of the Gospels (p.15). The author has either ignored or did not find the opportunity to educate himself in the science of Hadith that developed an elaborate system of judging the authenticity of ahadith by tracing relevant historical data and examining related biographical information to ascertain the uninterrupted chain of narrators concerning every individual hadith. It is through this elaborate mechanism that each hadith is traced to its original source. And the original source is nothing short of an eyewitness the incident reported in the hadith. In the absence of the chain traceable to the eyewitness, a report loses its value in terms of authenticity.
On another occasion, the author says "... science and reason should always be referred to, if necessary, to deprive them (i.e. ahadith) of their authenticity". This statement could partly have some weight, but gives the impression that no other criterion is available to assess the veracity ahadith.
Notwithstanding such lapses here and there the main contention of the author that no inconsistency with the established facts of science was discernible in the Qur’an has been elaborately discussed and clearly articulated throughout the book. This consistency between the Qur’an and findings of human reason and empirical observation, however, is not something unnoticed in the scholarship of the Qur’an prior to Dr. Bucaille. We have already alluded to the fact that the essential harmony between reason and revelation (‘aql and naql) had been postulated much earlier by Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazali, al-Razi, Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Rushd. And this theological position had been more or less consistently held by all the mainstream scholars of Islam. In the Indian subcontinent the most celebrate exponents of Islam starting from Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (d.1034/1624) and Shah Wali Allah (d.1176/1762) to Maulana Fazl-i Haq Khayrabadi (d.1278/1861), Maulina Muhammad Qasim Nanautvi (d.1297/1880), Maulani Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi (d.1362/1943), and Muhammad Iqbal (d.1357/1938) subscribed to this view and contributed to its substantiation in one way or the other.
This much is quite well known in the academic circles of the Muslim world and there is little basis for questioning this axiomatic truth about the Qur’an. The Qur’an itself urges its readers to use their intellectual faculties to reflect and deliberate over the vast phenomena of nature - both nature within and nature without - to strengthen their conviction about the cardinal truth of tawhid expressed in the Revelation. A person of sound mind and healthy instincts will find overwhelming evidence of this cardinal Truth manifested in the entire phenomena of this cosmos, as it is articulated in the express Divine relation namely the Qur’an.
The problem, however, arises with regard to the other part of his thesis, namely, that the Qur’an contains elements of scientific knowledge which were recovered by man centuries after its revelation. However, even in this respect, Dr. Bucaille is not the first to see in the Qur’an such a foretelling of scientific facts. For with the increasing contacts between Muslims and Westerners, the comparison between the Qur’anic descriptions of natural phenomena and the discoveries of science received the attention of many Muslim scholars. During the nineteenth century, this trend became more and more visible in the studies of the Qur’an especially among those writers who were not specialized in tafsir. Those who were enthused by the apparent confirmation of independent human discoveries of this phenomenal world of time and space, by the statements of the Qur’an pertaining to them or vice versa had been mostly scientists rather than exegetes. We also find that the mainstream scholars of the Qur’an have either not taken this aspect of the Qur’an’s commentary too seriously or even at times addressed a word of caution against over-stretched interpretation of Qur’anic verses to fix or fit their meaning within the reductionist constraints of modern scientific knowledge.
In this respect it would be profitable to quote here a long passage by one of the most leading scholars of the Muslim tradition in India, Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi. He was among those exegetes who issued a warning in the most clear and explicit terms that the Qur’anic text should not be subjected to temporal and mutable scientific ideas. Thus we find that the attempts of interpreting the Qur’an in the light of science went side by side with this warning. Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi, in his book, al-Intibahat al-Mufidah ‘an al-Ishhtibahat al-Jadidah, had the following to say while warning the students of the Qur’an against subjecting its verses to scientific interpretation:
... The second error [concerning the Qur’an] is the attempt to show that the Qur’an contains themes of science as one comes across nowadays in many journals and reviews. As soon as some people hear or see any new finding of science by the Europeans, they try in one way or the other to posit such finding as a connotation of some verse of the Qur’an. They reckon this as a great service to Islam, a cause of pride for the Qur’an, and a sign of their own ingenuity. Many an educated person is found involved in this error. One aspect of their error is that they think that it was a proof of Qur’an’s perfection to contain themes of science. The source of this error is that their attention was diverted from the real subject-matter of the Qur’an. Since the Qur’an essentially contains a spiritual healing, its being free from these themes does not divest this Book of its inherent value. Rather than that, this fact proves its perfectness in a way. However, if by the demands of this spiritual treatment, a part of these themes finds mention in the Qur’an, then this is also meant to fulfil the real purpose of this Book. However, going by the principle: ‘the necessary is measurable by the degree of the necessity’, this part will not be mentioned beyond the limits of necessity. For instance to establish tawhid, which is the greatest source of the guidance of spirits, the easiest and nearest means is the analogy of creatures. Occasional mention, therefore, is to be found of the creation of the skies, earth, man and animal. Since this did not warrant any detail, it was not mentioned. In short, the themes of science are not among the aims of the Qur’an per se. However, by the necessity of supporting the aim, whatever is mentioned here in the form of a manifest and clear connotation is certainly and evidently true. It would be wrong to believe otherwise by some other reasoning. If any argument is against it, then that will be assailable after investigation or would give rise to a conflict. Nevertheless, it is possible that the connotation of the verse is not explicit and manifest and there is some other valid argument which is admissible against it, then the text of the Qur’an could be interpreted in such a way that its direct connotation is abandoned in favour of the other interpretation supported by a valid argument.
He goes on to say: ... the second error, as indicated above, is that such issues are not the objects per se of the Qur’an, but these are merely auxiliaries for the object and it is obvious that the argument should contain premises acceptable to the listener or these should be self-evident or could be proved to him by reasoning, otherwise the argument would fail to achieve its purpose in bringing home the point to the listener. When this much is evident, then it should not escape the mind that if these modern discoveries are contented to be the connotations of the Qur’an, then certainly the Arab people who were the first addresses of the Qur’an, were not aware of these discoveries. This leads, as a corollary, to the conclusion that the whole argument is founded on unacceptable, unobvious and unknown premises. Hence, the argument becomes void on this very basis. And this kind of reasoning would seriously injure the mode of Qur’anic argument. The third error is that these findings [of science] also prove wrong at times. Therefore, if these were designated as connotations of the Qur’an, and these findings were disproved at some later period, and the acceptance of the followers of Islam was already registered in favour of this particular purport of the Qur’an, then any ordinary atheist would easily be able to falsify the Qur’an and show that this particular content of the Qur’an was untrue. And the falsity of a part would lead to the falsity of the whole. How difficult then would be our position! If someone suggests, as contended by some people, that the greatness of the Qur’an lies in the ability of its words to be applicable to the themes of every age, then this would mean that no connotation of the Qur’an is reliable for its words would always contain the possibility of an opposite connotation.
He finally rounds off the discussion by saying:
The fourth flaw in this approach is that it is against the dignity of the Muslims that the scholars of Europe should claim that the Qur’an which was revealed long time ago, yet its contents were not comprehended even by the Prophet (peace be on him) himself, and you owe it to us that you have understood its tafsir because of us, then what is going to be our answer? (‘Ali Thanvi Maulana Ashraf, Islam awr "Aqliyyat, ed., Muhammad Mustafa Bijnauri, Lahore: Idarah Islamyat, 1994, 403-421).
In respect of falling back on the independent findings of human knowledge for interpreting the text of the Qur’an, there have been on the whole two kinds of approaches among Muslims. While one group of writers, who are mostly non-specialists in tafsir, enthusiastically opened the door of the liberal use of the scientific material to assign precise meanings to Qur’anic verses with a view to prove its miraculous nature and Divine origin, the other group almost totally closed this door. The first group maintains that the miraculous ness of the Qur’an is not a fixed idea. Rather, in their opinion, the Qur’an is a living miracle in as much as it continues to supply fresh evidence of its Divine origin in the unfolding of endless empirical exploits of man. The other group insists that the Qur’an, in order to be valid for all times and climes, must be exclusively concerned with such spiritual and moral issues of eternal validity that will never lose their relevance for human felicity and bliss.
The above-cited passage of Maulana Ashraf ‘Ali Thanvi, however, seems to contain elements of a possible third and more moderate view: that although the Qur’an is not concerned with issues of science, per se, yet for the sake of pointing to a supportive argument to establish its contentions, it may contain reference to such signs as lend further strength to those contentions.
It is, however, for the scholars of the Qur’an who are well-versed in tafsir to address themselves earnestly to this issue, for it involves serious questions that need to be answered before taking a definite position in this regard. The central issue involved in the whole debate is: to what extent, and by what standards, can knowledge derived from sources external to the Qur’an be employed to interpret and apply the Divine words to space-time situations? It is evident that this is not an issue that could casually and summarily be settled within the limitations of a brief review or even one monograph or two. In my humble opinion there is a degree of merit in the contentions of both groups identified above. The truth perhaps lies somewhere between the two positions. Allah indeed knows best.
http://www.cis-ca.or...bucaille-mn.htm
2] ANOTHER VIEW:
Quote
The Quran and Modern Science
In contrast to the Bible, statements about scientific phenomena made in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences, states French surgeon, Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Qur'an; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.
Misconceptions
As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Qur'an; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Qur'an simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.
This description of the origins of the Qur'anic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Qur'an! This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Qur'anic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.
In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Qur'anic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.
Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Qur'an of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations. This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilisations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Qur'an to the communication of the Qur'an to man.
Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Qur'an.
When this aspect of the Qur'an is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Qur'an which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.
This is a very judicious remark. Muslim - and indeed non-Muslim - translators who have produced a French version of the Qur'an are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading. A further point is that translators - especially those mentioned above - - may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge - nor indeed had anybody else at that time. They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Qur'an dealing with the same subject - a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Qur'an that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.
Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Qur'anic text in the original language.
Scientific Errors
On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible - such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Qur'an. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Qur'an since the time they first became apparent: well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Qur'an, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Qur'an (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes. Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.
In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.
As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Qur'an in quite a different fashion.
When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras(chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book: the Qur'an. The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Qur'an, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day.
Uncorrupted Nature of the Quran
In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Qur'an stems from the following factors:
First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Qur'an itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.) In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Qur'an is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Qur'an to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura. This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.) The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions.
Text of Quran Uncorrupted
After Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Qur'an did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire. Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (former U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.
Today's editions of the Qur'an are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Qur'an, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.
If the origin of the Qur'an had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certain opinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarised above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Qur'an.
But having said this, we should note that the Qur'an is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasise that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Qur'an has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Qur'an.
Unexpected Discoveries
It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Qur'an in the original that I realised the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding. With my basic ideas on the Qur'an - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.
Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Qur'an and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Qur'an any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.
In La Bible, le Coran et la Science (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academie de Médecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Qur'an; the title of the lecture was Données physiologiques et embryologiques du Coran (Physiological and Embryological Data in the Qur'an). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarise below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Qur'an:
*
a concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe;
*
statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies;
*
a prediction of the conquest of space;
*
notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.
All of these data are bound to amaze anyone who approaches them in an objective spirit. They add a much wider dimension to the problem studied in the present work. The basic point remains the same , however: we must surely be in the presence of facts which place a heavy strain on our natural propensity for explaining everything in materialistic terms, for the existence in the Qur'an of these scientific statements appears as a challenge to human explanations.
That does not mean to say, however, that the statements in the Qur'an - especially those concerning man - may all of them be examined in the light of the findings of modern science. The creation of man as described in both the Bible and the Qu'ran totally eludes scientific investigation of the event per se.
Similarly, when the New Testament or the Qur'an informs us that Jesus was not born of a father, in the biological sense of the term, we cannot counter this Scriptural statement by saying that there is no example in the human species of an individual having been formed without receiving the paternal chromosomes that make up one half of its genetic inheritance. Science does not explain miracles, for by definition miracles are inexplicable, thus, when we read in both the Qur'an and the Bible that man was moulded from the ground, we are in fact learning a fundamental religious principle: Man returns from where he came, for from the place he is buried, he will rise again on the judgment.
Side by side with the main religious aspect of such reflections on man, we find in the Qur'an statements on man that refer to strictly material facts. They are quite amazing when one approaches them for the first time. For example, the Qur'an describes the origins of life in general and devotes a great deal of space to the morphological transformation undergone by man, repeatedly emphasizing the fact that God fashioned him as He willed. We likewise discover statements on human reproduction that are expressed in precise terms that lend themselves to comparison with the secular knowledge we today possess on the subject.
Interest to Men of Science
The many statements in the Qur'an that may thus be compared with modern knowledge are by no means easy to find. In preparing the study published in 1976, I was unable to draw on any previous works known in the West, for there were none. All I could refer to were a few works in Arabic dealing with themes treated in the Qur'an that were of interest to men of science - there was, however, no overall study. Over and above this, research of this kind requires scientific knowledge covering many different disciplines. It is not easy, however, for Islamologists to acquire such knowledge, for they possess a mainly literary background. Indeed, such questions hardly seem to occupy a place in their field of classic Islamology, at least as far as the West is concerned. Only a scientist, thoroughly acquainted with Arabic literature, can draw comparisons between the Qur'anic text - for which he must be able to read Arabic - and the data supplied by modern knowledge.
There is another reason why such statements are not immediately apparent: Verses bearing on a single theme are scattered throughout the Qur'an. The book is indeed a juxtaposition of reflections on a wide variety of subjects referred to one after the other and taken up again later on, often several times over. The data on a precise theme must therefore be collected from all over the Book and brought together under a single heading. This requires many hours' work tracking down verses, in spite of the existence of thematic indexes provided by various translators, for such lists may perhaps be incomplete and indeed, in many cases, they often are.
In contrast to the Bible, statements about scientific phenomena made in the Qur'an are perfectly in conformity with the modern sciences, states French surgeon, Dr. Maurice Bucaille.
As most people in the West have been brought up on misconceptions concerning Islam and the Qur'an; for a large part of my life, I myself was one such person. Let me cite one or two specific examples to indicate the kind of inaccurate ideas generally current.
Misconceptions
As I grew up, I was always taught that 'Mahomet' was the author of the Qur'an; I remember seeing French translations bearing this information. I was invariably told that the 'author' of the Qur'an simply compiled, in a slightly different form, stories of sacred history taken from the Bible; the 'author' was said to have added or removed certain passages, while setting forth the principles and rules of the religion he himself had founded. There are moreover Islamic scholars today in France whose duties include teaching and who express exactly these views, although perhaps in a more subtle form.
This description of the origins of the Qur'anic text, which is so out of touch with reality, might lead one immediately to assume that if there are scientific errors in the Bible, there must also be errors of this kind in the Qur'an! This is the natural conclusion to be drawn in such circumstances, but it is based on a misconception. We are well aware that at the time of Muhammad - the Qur'anic Revelation took place between 610 and 632 A.D - scientific obscurantism prevailed, both in the Orient as well as in the West.
In France, for example, this period corresponded roughly to the reign of King Dagobert, the last of the Mrovingians. This approach to what was supposedly the Qur'anic text may on first sight seem logical, but when one examines the text with an informed and impartial eye, it becomes clear that this approach is not at all in keeping with reality. We shall see in a moment the truth of this statement, which is obvious from the texts.
Whenever there is textual proof of the existence in the Qur'an of statements that are in agreement with modern knowledge, but which in the Bible are related in a manner that is scientifically unacceptable, the stock response is that, during the period separating the two Scriptures, Arab scientists made discoveries in various disciplines which enabled them to arrive at these supposed adaptations. This approach takes no account whatsoever of the history of the sciences. The latter indicates that the great period of Islamic civilisations, during which, as we know, science made considerable progress, came several centuries after the communication of the Qur'an to the communication of the Qur'an to man.
Furthermore, scientific history informs us that, as far as the subjects dealt with in this present book are concerned, no discoveries were made during, the period separating the Bible from the Qur'an.
When this aspect of the Qur'an is mentioned in the West, however, we are likely to hear it said that while this may indeed be so, nowhere is this fact referred to in the translations of the Qur'an which we possess today, or in the prefaces and commentaries that accompany them.
This is a very judicious remark. Muslim - and indeed non-Muslim - translators who have produced a French version of the Qur'an are basically men of letters. More often than not, they mistranslate a passage because they do not possess the scientific knowledge required to understand its true meaning. The fact is, however, that in order to translate correctly, one must first understand what one is reading. A further point is that translators - especially those mentioned above - - may have been influenced by notes provided by ancient commentators often came to be regarded as highly authoritative, even though they had no scientific knowledge - nor indeed had anybody else at that time. They were incapable of imagining that the texts might contain allusions to secular knowledge, and thus they could not devote attention to a specific passage by comparing it to other verses in the Qur'an dealing with the same subject - a process that often provides the key to the meaning of a word or expression. From this results the fact that any passage in the Qur'an that gives rise to a comparison with modern secular knowledge is likely to be unreliably translated.
Very often, the translations are peppered with inaccurate - if not totally nonsensical - statements. The only way to avoid such errors is to possess a scientific background and to study the Qur'anic text in the original language.
Scientific Errors
On the subject of man, as well as the other topics mentioned earlier, it is not possible to find any corresponding data in the Bible. Furthermore the scientific errors contained in the Bible - such as those describing man's first appearance on earth, which, as we have seen, may be deduced from the Genealogies that figure in Genesis are not to be found in the Qur'an. It is crucial to understand that such errors could not have been 'edited out' of the Qur'an since the time they first became apparent: well over a thousand years have elapsed since the most ancient manuscripts and today's texts of the Qur'an, but these texts are still absolutely identical. Thus, if Muhammad were the author of the Qur'an (a theory upheld by some people), it is difficult to see how he could have spotted the scientific errors in the Bible dealing with such a wide variety of subjects and have proceeded to eliminate every single one of them when he came to compose his own text on the same themes. Let us state once again, that no new scientific facts had been discovered since the time the Bible was written that might have helped eliminate such errors.
In view of the above, it is imperative to know the history of the texts, just as it is essential to our understanding of certain aspects of the Bible for us to be aware, of the conditions in which it was written.
As we have noted earlier, experts in Biblical exegesis consider the books of Old and New Testaments to be divinely inspired works. Let us now examine, however, the teachings of Muslim exegetes, who present the Qur'an in quite a different fashion.
When Muhammad was roughly forty years old, it was his custom to retire to a retreat just outside Mecca in order to meditate. It was here that he received a first message from God via the Angel Gabriel, at a date that corresponds to 610 A.D. After a long period of silence, this first message was followed by successive revelations spread over some twenty years. During the Prophet's lifetime, they were both written down and recited by heart among his first followers. Similarly, the revelations were divided into suras(chapters) and collected together after the Prophet' death (in 632 A.D.) in a book: the Qur'an. The Book contains the Word of God, to the exclusion of any human additions. Manuscripts dating from the first century of Islam authenticate today's text, the other form of authentication being the recitation by heart of the Qur'an, a practice that has continued unbroken from the time of the Prophet down to the present day.
Uncorrupted Nature of the Quran
In contrast to the Bible, therefore, we are presented with a text that is none other than the transcript of the Revelation itself; the only way it can be received and interpreted is literally. The purity of the revealed text has been greatly emphasized, and the uncorrupted nature of the Qur'an stems from the following factors:
First, as stated above, fragments of the text were written down during the Prophet's lifetime; inscribed on tablets, parchments and other materials current at the time. The Qur'an itself refers to the fact that the text was set down in writing. We find this in several suras dating from before and after the Hejira (Muhammad's departure from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D.) In addition to the transcription of the text, however, there was also the fact that it was learned by heart. The text of the Qur'an is much shorter than the Old Testament and slightly longer than the New Testament. Since it took twenty years for the Qur'an to be revealed, however, it was easy for the Prophet's followers to recite it by heart, sura by sura. This process of recitation afforded a considerable advantage as far as an uncorrupted text was concerned, for it provided a system of double-checking at the time the definitive text was written down. This took place several years after the Prophet's death; first under the caliphate of Abu Bakr, his first successor, and later under the caliphate of Omar and in particular that of Uthman (644 to 655 A.D.) The latter ordered an extremely strict recension of the text, which involved checking it against the recited versions.
Text of Quran Uncorrupted
After Muhammad's death, Islam rapidly expanded far beyond the limits of the area in which it was born. Soon, it included many peoples whose native language was not Arabic. Very strict steps were taken to ensure that the text of the Qur'an did not suffer from this expansion of Islam: Uthman sent copies of his entire recension to the principal centers of the vast Islamic empire. Some copies still exist today, in more or less complete form, in such places as Tashkent (former U.S.S.R) and Istanbul. Copies have also been discovered that date from the very first centuries after the Hejira; they are all identical, and all of them correspond to the earliest manuscripts.
Today's editions of the Qur'an are all faithful reproductions of the original copies. In the case of the Qur'an, there are no instances of rewriting or corruption of the text over the course of time.
If the origin of the Qur'an had been similar to those of the Bible, it would not be unreasonable to suppose that the subjects it raised would be presented in the light of the ideas influenced by certain opinions of the time, often derived from myth and superstition. If this were the case, one might argue that there were untold opportunities for inaccurate assertions, based on such sources, to find their way into the many and varied subjects briefly summarised above. In actual fact, however, we find nothing of the kind in the Qur'an.
But having said this, we should note that the Qur'an is a religious book par excellence. We should not use statements that have a bearing on secular knowledge as a pretext to go hunting after any expression of scientific laws. As stated earlier, all we should seek are reflections on natural phenomena, phrases occasioned by references to divine omnipotence and designed to emphasise that omnipotence in the eyes of mankind throughout the ages. The presence of such reflections in the Qur'an has become particularly significant in modern times, for their meaning is clearly explained by the data of contemporary knowledge. This characteristic is specific to the Qur'an.
Unexpected Discoveries
It was not until I had learnt Arabic and read the Qur'an in the original that I realised the precise meaning of certain verses. Only then did I make certain discoveries that were astounding. With my basic ideas on the Qur'an - which to begin with were inaccurate, just as those of most people in the West - I certainly did not expect to find in the text the statements that I in fact uncovered. With each new discovery, I was beset with doubt lest I might be mistaken in my translation or perhaps have provided an interpretation rather than a true rendering of the Arabic text.
Only after consultations with several specialists in linguistics and exegesis, both Muslim and non-Muslim, was I convinced that a new concept might be formed from such a study: the compatibility between the statements in the Qur'an and firmly established data of modern science with regard to subjects on which nobody at the time of Muhammad - not even the Prophet himself - could have had access to the knowledge we possess today. Since then, I have not found in the Qur'an any support given to the myths or superstitions present at the time the text was communicated to man. This is not the case for the Bible, whose authors expressed themselves in the language of their period.
In La Bible, le Coran et la Science (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science), which first appeared in the original French in 1976 and which subsequently appeared in English in 1978, I set forth the main points of these findings. On November 9, 1976, I gave a lecture to the Academie de Médecine (French academy of Medicine) in which I explored the statements of the origins of man contained in the Qur'an; the title of the lecture was Données physiologiques et embryologiques du Coran (Physiological and Embryological Data in the Qur'an). I emphasised the fact that these data - which I shall summarise below - formed part of a much wider study. The following are some of the points which arise from a reading of the Qur'an:
*
a concept of the creation of the world which, while different from the ideas contained in the Bible, is fully in keeping with today's general theories on the formations of the universe;
*
statements that are in perfect agreement with today's ideas concerning the movements and evolution of the heavenly bodies;
*
a prediction of the conquest of space;
*
notions concerning the water cycle in nature and the earth's relief, which were not proven correct until many centuries later.
All of these data are bound to amaze anyone who approaches them in an objective spirit. They add a much wider dimension to the problem studied in the present work. The basic point remains the same , however: we must surely be in the presence of facts which place a heavy strain on our natural propensity for explaining everything in materialistic terms, for the existence in the Qur'an of these scientific statements appears as a challenge to human explanations.
That does not mean to say, however, that the statements in the Qur'an - especially those concerning man - may all of them be examined in the light of the findings of modern science. The creation of man as described in both the Bible and the Qu'ran totally eludes scientific investigation of the event per se.
Similarly, when the New Testament or the Qur'an informs us that Jesus was not born of a father, in the biological sense of the term, we cannot counter this Scriptural statement by saying that there is no example in the human species of an individual having been formed without receiving the paternal chromosomes that make up one half of its genetic inheritance. Science does not explain miracles, for by definition miracles are inexplicable, thus, when we read in both the Qur'an and the Bible that man was moulded from the ground, we are in fact learning a fundamental religious principle: Man returns from where he came, for from the place he is buried, he will rise again on the judgment.
Side by side with the main religious aspect of such reflections on man, we find in the Qur'an statements on man that refer to strictly material facts. They are quite amazing when one approaches them for the first time. For example, the Qur'an describes the origins of life in general and devotes a great deal of space to the morphological transformation undergone by man, repeatedly emphasizing the fact that God fashioned him as He willed. We likewise discover statements on human reproduction that are expressed in precise terms that lend themselves to comparison with the secular knowledge we today possess on the subject.
Interest to Men of Science
The many statements in the Qur'an that may thus be compared with modern knowledge are by no means easy to find. In preparing the study published in 1976, I was unable to draw on any previous works known in the West, for there were none. All I could refer to were a few works in Arabic dealing with themes treated in the Qur'an that were of interest to men of science - there was, however, no overall study. Over and above this, research of this kind requires scientific knowledge covering many different disciplines. It is not easy, however, for Islamologists to acquire such knowledge, for they possess a mainly literary background. Indeed, such questions hardly seem to occupy a place in their field of classic Islamology, at least as far as the West is concerned. Only a scientist, thoroughly acquainted with Arabic literature, can draw comparisons between the Qur'anic text - for which he must be able to read Arabic - and the data supplied by modern knowledge.
There is another reason why such statements are not immediately apparent: Verses bearing on a single theme are scattered throughout the Qur'an. The book is indeed a juxtaposition of reflections on a wide variety of subjects referred to one after the other and taken up again later on, often several times over. The data on a precise theme must therefore be collected from all over the Book and brought together under a single heading. This requires many hours' work tracking down verses, in spite of the existence of thematic indexes provided by various translators, for such lists may perhaps be incomplete and indeed, in many cases, they often are.
http://www.islamfort.../bucaille01.htm
3] VIDEO LECTURE BY Dr.Maurice Bucaille
http://www.quranands...irectlink&id=32
This post has been edited by absalih: 04 September 2010 - 03:02 AM
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