Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

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Islam and Modern Science: Contemporary Issues • 195understand the meaning of these QurāĀnic statements abouthuman development, based on current scientific knowledge.(Moore 1982, 10)During the Seventh Medical Conference held by the Commissionat Dammam, Saudi Arabia, in 1981, Moore said that “it has been agreat pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the QurāĀn abouthuman development. It is clear to me that these statements must havecome to Muhammad from God, because almost all of this knowledgewas not discovered until many centuries later. This proves to methat Muhammad must have been a messenger of God.” During thequestion session, when Moore was asked, “Does this mean that youbelieve that the QurāĀn is the word of God?” he replied, “I find nodifficulty in accepting this.”Similar state-sponsored programs were initiated in Pakistan,Jordan, and other Muslim countries. A precursor to this was thework of a French physician, Maurice Bucaille, who published hisenormously popular book La Bible, le Coran et la science : Les écrituressaintes examinées à la lumière des connaissances modernes (The Bible,the QurāĀn, and Science: The Holy Scriptures Examined in the Light ofModern Knowledge) in 1976. Bucaille’s book has been translated intoevery language spoken in the Muslim world and hundreds of websitesrefer to it. Bucaille, who was the family physician of the Saudi KingFaisal, attempted to show that the QurāĀn contains scientificallycorrect information about the creation of the heavens and earth,human reproduction, and certain other aspects of the natural worldwhereas the Bible does not. His book became the main source fordozens of other secondary works on Islam and science. Bucaille’s workis a forerunner to numerous other works that attempt to interpretthe QurāĀn on the basis of modern scientific knowledge. In all suchworks, the QurāĀnic vocabulary is placed within the framework ofmodern science and its verses are interpreted to show the existence of“scientifically correct” knowledge in the QurāĀn.The creation of the heavens and earth is a popular theme in thisstrand of Islam and science, where certain verses of the QurāĀn arechosen to demonstrate that the QurāĀn contains modern scientificdata. The two most often cited verses are Q. 21:30 and Q. 41:11. Theformer states, Do the disbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth
196 • The Making of Islamic Sciencewere joined together, then We clove them asunder and We created everyliving thing out of water. Will they then not believe? The latter reads, Godturned toward the heaven and it was smoke… In the first verse, the twokey Arabic words are ratq and fatq; the former is translated as “fusingor binding together” and the latter as the process of separation.These two key words are then used to support the Big Bang model.Other verses pertaining to creation mention “six days” during whichthe heavens and the earth and all that is between them were createdby God. The six days are shown to mean six indefinite periods oftime (Bucaille 1976, 149).There seems to be no problem with the interpretation of six daysas six periods, for the QurāĀnic usage supports this, but numerousproblems begin to surface when this QurāĀnic data is superimposedon specific data arising from modern science. Bucaille chose tointerpret “smoke” (dukhan), mentioned in verse 11 of chapter 41, as“the predominantly gaseous state of the material that composes[the universe, which] obviously corresponds to the concept of theprimary nebula put forward by modern science” (Bucaille 1976, 153).It is this one-to-one correspondence that begins to stretch QurāĀnichermeneutics. The entire enterprise remains conjectural, as no proofscan be found for such an interpretation. As the narrative proceeds,the desire to reveal “science” in the QurāĀn makes the task ofinterpretation even more difficult: “The existence of an intermediatecreation between ‘the heavens’ and ‘the earth’ expressed in theQurāĀn may be compared to the discovery of those bridges of materialpresent outside organized astronomic systems” (Bucaille 1976, 153).The foregone conclusion of this approach toward the relationshipbetween the QurāĀn and science is thatalthough not all the questions raised by the descriptions inthe QurāĀn have been completely confirmed by scientific data,there is in any case absolutely no opposition between the datain the QurāĀn on the Creation and modern knowledge on theformation of the universe. This fact is worth stressing for theQurāĀnic Revelation, whereas it is very obvious that the presentdaytext of the Old Testament provides data on the same eventsthat are unacceptable from a scientific point of view. (Bucaille1976, 153–54)
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LJThe Making of Islamic Science is
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The Making ofIslamic ScienceMuzaffa
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ContentsPrefaceChronology of Events
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xii • The Making of Islamic Scien
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Preface • xvFor these and other r
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L1JIntroductionIt can be said that
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Introduction • 3had spread throug
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Introduction • 5QurāĀn) had eme
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Introduction • 7with respect to b
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Introduction • 9placed at the hea
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L2JAspects of Islamic Scientific Tr
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Aspects of Islamic Scientific Tradi
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L3JFacets of the Islam andScience R
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The Mosque, the Laboratory, and the
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L5JIslam, Transmission, andthe Decl
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Annotated BibliographyAhmad, S. Maq
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Annotated Bibliography • 267Trans
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Annotated Bibliography • 269Dante
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Annotated Bibliography • 279Rashe
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IndexAAbbasids xvii, xxiii, xxv, 9-
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Index • 285caliphate 9-11, 157Can
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Index • 287183-89, 191, 193, 194,
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Index • 28941, 61, 62, 66-69, 89,
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Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

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