The relationship between the Quran and science is a
priori a surprise, especially when it turns out to be
one of harmony and not of discord. A confrontation
between a religious book and the secular ideas proclaimed
by science is perhaps, in the eyes of many people today,
something of a paradox. The majority of today's
scientists, with a small number of exceptions of course,
are indeed bound up in materialist theories, and have
only indifference or contempt for religious questions
which they often consider to be founded on legend. In the
West moreover, when science and religion are discussed,
people are quite willing to mention Judaism and
Christianity among the religions referred to, but they
hardly ever think of Islam. So many false judgements
based on inaccurate ideas have indeed been made about it,
that today it is very difficult to form an exact notion
of the reality of Islam.
As a prelude to any confrontation between the Islamic
Revelation and science, it would seem essential that an
outline be given of a religion that is so little known in
the West.
The totally erroneous statements made about Islam in
the West are sometimes the result of ignorance, and
sometimes of systematic denigration. The most serious of
all the untruths told about it are however those dealing
with facts; for while mistaken opinions are excusable,
the presentation of facts running contrary to the reality
is not. It is disturbing to read blatant untruths in
eminently respectable works written by authors who a
priori are highly qualified. The following is an
example taken from the Universalis Encyclopedia
(Encyclopedia Universalis) vol. 6. Under the heading
Gospels (Evangiles) the author alludes to the differences
between the latter and the Quran: "The evangelists
(. . .) do not (. . .), as in the Quran, claim to
transmit an autobiography that God miraculously dictated
to the Prophet . . .". In fact, the Quran has
nothing to do with an autobiography: it is a preaching; a
consultation of even the worst translation would have
made that clear to the author. The statement we have
quoted is as far from reality as if one were to define a
Gospel as an account of an evangelist's life. The person
responsible for this untruth about the Quran is a
professor at the Jesuit Faculty of Theology, Lyon ! The
fact that people utter such untruths helps to give a
false impression of. the Quran and Islam.
There is hope today however because religions are no
longer as inward-looking as they were and many of them
are seeking for mutual understanding. One must indeed be
impressed by a knowledge of the fact that an attempt is
being made on the highest level of the hierarchy by Roman
Catholics to establish contact with Muslims; they are
trying to fight incomprehension and are doing their
utmost to change the inaccurate views on Islam that are
so widely held.
In the Introduction to this work, I mentioned the
great change that has taken place in the last few years
and I quoted a document produced by the Office for
Non-Christian Affairs at the Vatican under the title Orientations
for a Dialogue between Christians and Muslims (Orientations
pour un dialogue entre chrétiens et musulmans). It is a
very important document in that it shows the new position
adopted towards Islam. As we read in the third edition of
this study (1970), this new position calls for 'a
revision of our attitude towards it and a critical
examination of our prejudices' . . . 'We should first set
about progressively changing the way our Christian
brothers see it. This is the most important of all.' . .
. We must clear away the 'out-dated image inherited from
the past, or distorted by prejudice and slander' . . . ,
and 'recognize the past injustice towards the Muslims for
which the West, with its Christian education, is to blame.' [ At a certain period of history, hostility to
Islam, in whatever shape or form, even coming from
declared enemies of the church, was received with the
most heartfelt approbation by high dignitaries of the
Catholic Church. Thus Pope Benedict XIV, who is reputed
to have been the greatest Pontiff of the Eighteenth
century, unhesitatingly sent his blessing to Voltaire.
This was in thanks for the dedication to him of the
tragedy Mohammed or Fanaticism (Mahomet ou le Fanatisme) 1741, a coarse satire that any clever
scribbler of bad faith could have written on any subject.
In spite of a bad start, the play gained sufficient
prestige to be included in the repertoire of the Comédie-Francaise.]
The Vatican document is nearly 150 pages
long. It therefore expands on the refutation of classic
views held by Christians on Islam and sets out the
reality.
Under the title Emancipating ourselves from our
worst prejudices (Nous libérer de nos préjugés les
plus notables) the authors address the following
suggestions to Christians: "Here also, we must
surrender to a deep purification of our attitude. In
particular, what is meant by this are certain 'set judgements' that are all too often and too lightly made
about Islam. It is essential not to cultivate in the
secret of our hearts views such as these, too easily or
arbitrarily arrived at, and which the sincere Muslim
finds confusing."
One extremely important view of this kind is the
attitude which leads people to repeatedly use the term
Allah' to mean the God of the Muslims, as if the Muslims
believed in a God who was different from the God of the
Christians. Al lâh means 'the Divinity' in
Arabic: it is a single God, implying that a correct
transcription can only render the exact meaning of the
word with the help of the expression 'God'. For the
Muslim, al lâh is none other than the God of
Moses and Jesus.
The document produced by the Office for Non-Christian
Affairs at the Vatican stresses this fundamental point in
the following terms:
"It would seem pointless to maintain that Allâh
is not really God, as do certain people in the West! The
conciliar documents have put the above assertion in its
proper place. There is no better way of illustrating
Islamic faith in God than by quoting the following
extracts from Lumen Gentium [ Lumen Gentium is the title of a document produced
by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1966)]. 'The Muslims
profess the faith of Abraham and worship with us the sole
merciful God, who is the future judge of men on the Day
of Reckoning . . .'"
One can therefore understand the Muslims' protest at
the all too frequent custom in European languages of
saying 'Allâh' instead of 'God' . . . Cultivated
Muslims have praised D. Masson's French transition of the
Quran for having 'at last' written 'Dieu' [ God.]
instead of
'Allah'.
The Vatican document points out the following:
"Allâh is the only word that Arabic-speaking
Christians have for God." Muslims and Christians
worship a single God.
The Vatican document then undertakes a critical
examination of the other false judgements made on Islam.
'Islamic fatalism' is a widely-spread prejudice; the
document examines this and quoting the Quran for
support, it puts in opposition to this the notion of the
responsibility man has, who is to be judged by his
actions. It shows that the concept of an Islamic legalism
is false; on the contrary, it opposes the sincerity of
faith to this by quoting two phrases in the Quran that
are highly misunderstood in the West:
"There is no compulsion in religion"
(sura
2, verse 256)
"(God) has not laid upon you in religion any
hardship" (sura 22, verse 78)
The document opposes the widely-spread notion of
'Islam, religion of fear' to 'Islam, religion of
love'-love of one's neighbor based on faith in God. It
refutes the falsely spread notion that Muslim morality
hardly exists and the other notion, shared by so many
Jews and Christians, of Islamic fanaticism. It makes the
following comment on this: "In fact, Islam was
hardly any more fanatical during its history than the
sacred bastions of Christianity whenever the Christian
faith took on, as it were, a political value." At
this point, the authors quote expressions from the Quran
that show how, in the West, the expression 'Holy War' [ Translators of the Quran, even famous ones, have
not resisted the secular habit of putting into their
translations things that are not really in the Arabic
text at all. One can indeed add titles to the text that
are not in the original without changing the text itself,
but this addition changes the general meaning. R. Blachère, for example, in his well-known translation
(Pub. Maisonneuve et Larose, Paris, 1966, page 115)
inserts a title that does not figure in the Quran:
Duties of the Holy War (Obligations de la guerre sainte).
This is at the beginning of a passage that is
indisputably a call to arms, but does not have the
character that has been ascribed to it. After reading
this, how can the reader who only has access to the
Quran via translations fail to think that a Muslim's
duty is to wage holy war?] has been mis-translated; "in Arabic it is Al
jihâd fî sabîl Allâh, the effort on God's
road", "the effort to spread Islam and defend
it against its aggressors." The Vatican document
continues as follows: "The jihâd is not at
all the Biblical kherem; it does not lead to
extermination, but to the spreading of God's and man's
rights to new lands."-"The past violence of the
jihâd generally followed the rules of war; at the
time of the Crusades moreover, it was not always the
Muslims that perpetrated the worst slaughters."
Finally, the document deals with the prejudice
according to which "Islam is a hide-bound religion
which keeps its followers in a kind of superannuated
Middle Ages, making them unfit to adapt to the technical
conquests of the modern age." It compares analogous
situations observed in Christian countries and states the
following: "we find, (. ..) in the traditional
expansion of Muslim thought, a principle of possible
evolution in civilian society ."
I am certain that this defense of Islam by the Vatican
will surprise many believers today, be they Muslims, Jews
or Christians. It is a demonstration of sincerity and
open-mindedness that is singularly in contrast with the
attitudes inherited from the past. The number of people
in the West who are aware of the new attitudes adopted by
the highest authorities in the Catholic Church is however
very small.
Once one is aware of this fact, it comes as less of a
surprise to learn of the actions that sealed this
reconciliation: firstly, there was the official visit
made by the President of the Office for Non-Christian
Affairs at the Vatican to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia;
then the official reception given by Pope Paul VI to the
Grand Ulema of Saudi Arabia in the course of 1974.
Henceforth, one understands more clearly the spiritual
significance of the fact that His Grace Bishop Elchinger
received the Grand Ulema at his cathedral in Strasbourg
and invited them during their visit to pray in the choir.
This they did before the altar, turned towards Makka.
Thus the representatives of the Muslim and Christian
worlds at their highest level, who share a faith in the
same God and a mutual respect for their differences of
opinion, have agreed to open a dialogue. This being so,
it is surely quite natural for other aspects of each
respective Revelation to be confronted. The subject of
this confrontation is the examination of the Scriptures
in the light of scientific data and knowledge concerning
the authenticity of the texts. This examination is to be
undertaken for the Quran as it was for the
Judeo-Christian Revelation.
The relationship between religions and science has not
always been the same in any one place or time. It is a
fact that there is no writing belonging to a monotheistic
religion that condemns science. In practise however, it
must be admitted that scientists have had great
difficulties with the religious authorities of certain
creeds. For many centuries, in the Christian world,
scientific development was opposed by the authorities in
question, on their own initiative and without reference
to the authentic Scriptures. We already know the measures
taken against those who sought to enlarge science,
measures which often made scientists go into exile to
avoid being burnt at the stake, unless they recanted,
changed their attitude and begged for pardon. The case of
Galileo is always cited in this context: he was tried for
having accepted the discoveries made by Copernicus on the
rotation of the Earth. Galileo Was condemned as the
result of a mistaken interpretation of the Bible, since
not a single Scripture could reasonably be brought
against him.
In the case of Islam, the attitude towards science
was, generally speaking, quite different. Nothing could
be clearer than the famous Hadith of the Prophet:
"Seek for science, even in China", or the other
hadith which says that the search for knowledge is a
strict duty for every Muslim man and woman. As we shall
see further on in this section, another crucial fact is
that the Quran, while inviting us to cultivate science,
itself contains many observations on natural phenomena
and includes explanatory details which are seen to be in
total agreement with modem scientific data. There is no
equal to this in the Judeo-Christian Revelation.
It would nevertheless be wrong to imagine that, in the
history of Islam, certain believers had never harboured a
different attitude towards science. It is a fact that, at
certain periods, the obligation to educate oneself and
others was rather neglected. It is equally true that in
the Muslim world, as elsewhere, an attempt was sometimes
made to stop scientific development. All the same it will
be remembered that at the height of Islam, between the
Eighth and Twelfth centuries A.D., i.e. at a time when
restrictions on scientific development were in force in
the Christian world, a very large number of studies and
discoveries were being made at Islamic universities. It
was there that the remarkable cultural resources of the
time were to be found. The Calif's library at Cordoba
contained 400,000 volumes. Averroës was teaching there,
and Greek, Indian and Persian sciences were taught. This
is why scholars from all over Europe went to study at
Cordoba, just as today people go to the United States to
perfect their studies. A very great number of ancient
manuscripts have come down to us thanks to cultivated
Arabs who acted as the vehicle for the culture of
conquered countries. We are also greatly indebted to
Arabic culture for mathematics (algebra was an Arabic
invention), astronomy, physics (optics), geology, botany,
medicine (Avicenna) etc. For the very first time, science
took on an international character in the Islamic
universities of the Middle Ages. At this time, men were
more steeped in the religious spirit than they are today.
but in the Islamic world, this did not prevent them from
being both believers and scientists. Science was the twin
of religion and it should never have ceased to be so.
The Medieval period was, for the Christian world, a
time of stagnation and absolute conformity. It must be
stressed that scientific research was not slowed down by
the Judeo-Christian Revelation itself, but rather by
those people who claimed to be its servants. Following
the Renaissance, the scientists' natural reaction was to
take vengeance on their former enemies; this vengeance
still continues today, to such an extent indeed that in
the West, anyone who talks of God in scientific circles
really does stand out. This attitude affects the thinking
of all young people who receive a university education,
Muslims included.
Their thinking could hardly be different from what it
is considering the extreme positions adopted by the most
eminent scientists. A Nobel prize winner for Medicine has
tried in the last few years to persuade people, in a book
intended for mass publication, that living matter was
able to create itself by chance from several basic
components. Starting, he says, with this primitive living
matter, and under the influence of various external
circumstances, organized living beings were formed,
resulting in the formidable complex being that
constitutes man.
Surely these marvels of contemporary scientific
knowledge in the field of life should lead a thinking
person to the opposite conclusion. The organization
presiding over the birth and maintenance of life surely
appears more and more complicated as one studies it; the
more details one knows, the more admiration it commands.
A knowledge of this organization must surely lead one to
consider as less and less probable the part chance has to
play in the phenomenon of life. The further one advances
along the road to knowledge, especially of the infinitely
small, the more eloquent are the arguments in favor of
the existence of a Creator. Instead of being filled with
humility in the face of such facts, man is filled with
arrogance. He sneers at any idea of God, in the same way
he runs down anything that detracts from his pleasure and
enjoyment. This is the image of the materialist society
that is flourishing at present in the West.
What spiritual forces can be used to oppose this
pollution of thought practised by many contemporary
scientists?
Judaism and Christianity make no secret of their
inability to cope with the tide of materialism and
invasion of the West by atheism. Both of them are
completely taken off guard, and from one decade to the
next one can surely see how seriously diminished their
resistance is to this tide that threatens to sweep
everything away. The materialist atheist sees in classic
Christianity nothing more than a system constructed by
men over the last two thousand years designed to ensure
the authority of a minority over their fellow men. He is
unable to find in Judeo-Christian writings any language
that is even vaguely similar to his own; they contain so
many improbabilities, contradictions and
incompatibilities with modern scientific data, that he
refuses to take texts into consideration that the vast
majority of theologians would like to see accepted as an
inseparable whole.
When one mentions Islam to the materialist atheist, he
smiles with a complacency that is only equal to his
ignorance of the subject. In common with the majority of
western intellectuals, of whatever religious persuasion,
he has an impressive collection of false notions about
Islam.
One must, on this point, allow him one or two excuses:
Firstly, apart from the newly-adopted attitudes
prevailing among the highest Catholic authorities, Islam
has always been subject in the West to a so-called
'secular slander'. Anyone in the West who has acquired a
deep knowledge of Islam knows just to what extent its
history, dogma, and aims have been distorted. One must
also take into account the fact that documents published
in European languages on this subject (leaving aside
highly specialized studies) do not make the work of a
person willing to learn any easier.
A knowledge of the Islamic Revelation is indeed
fundamental from this point of view. Unfortunately,
passages from the Quran, especially those relating to
scientific data, are badly translated and interpreted, so
that a scientist has every right to make criticisms-with
apparent justification-that the Book does not actually
deserve at all. This detail is worth noting henceforth:
inaccuracies in translation or erroneous commentaries
(the one is often associated with the other), which would
not have surprised anybody one or two centuries ago,
offend today's scientists. When faced with a badly
translated phrase containing a scientifically
unacceptable statement, the scientist is prevented from
taking the phrase into serious consideration. In the
chapter on human reproduction, a very typical example
will be given of this kind of error.
Why do such errors in translation exist? They may be
explained by the fact that modern translators often take
up, rather uncritically, the interpretations given by
older commentators. In their day, the latter had an
excuse for having given an inappropriate definition to an
Arabic word containing several possible meanings; they
could not possibly have understood the real sense of the
word or phrase which has only become clear in the present
day thanks to scientific knowledge. In other words, the
problem is raised of the necessary revision of
translations and commentaries. It was not possible to do
this at a certain period in the past, but nowadays we
have knowledge that enables us to render their true
sense. These problems of translation are not present for
the texts of the Judeo-Christian Revelation. the case
described here is absolutely unique to the Quran.
These scientific considerations, which are very
specific to the Quran, greatly surprised me at first. Up
until then, I had not thought it possible for one to find
so many statements in a text compiled more than thirteen
centuries ago referring to extremely diverse subjects and
all of them totally in keeping with modern scientific
knowledge. In the beginning, I had no faith whatsoever in
Islam. I began this examination of the texts with a
completely open mind and a total objectivity. If there
was any influence acting upon me, it was gained from what
I had been taught in my youth; people did not speak of
Muslims, but of 'Muhammadans', to make it quite clear
that what was meant was a religion founded by a man and
which could not therefore have any kind of value in terms
of God. Like many in the West, I could have retained the
same false notions about Islam; they are so widely-spread
today, that I am indeed surprised when I come across
anyone, other than a specialist, who can talk in an
enlightened manner on this subject. I therefore admit
that before I was given a view of Islam different from
the one received in the West, I was myself extremely
ignorant.
I owe the fact that I was able to realize the false
nature of the judgements generally made in the West about
Islam to exceptional circumstances. It was in Saudi
Arabia itself that an inkling was given to me of the
extent to which opinions held in the West on this subject
are liable to error.
The debt of gratitude I owe to the late King Faisal,
whose memory I salute with deepest respect, is indeed
very great: the fact that I was given the signal honour
of hearing him speak on Islam and was able to raise with
him certain problems concerning the interpretation of the
Quran in relation to modern science is a very cherished
memory. It was an extremely great privilege for me to
have gathered so much precious information from him
personally and those around him.
Since I had now seen the wide gap separating the
reality of Islam from the image we have of it in the
West, I experienced a great need to learn Arabic (which I
did not speak) to be sumciently well-equipped to progress
in the study of such a misunderstood religion. My first
goal was to read the Quran and to make a
sentence-by-sentence analysis of it with the help of
various commentaries essential to a critical study. My
approach was to pay special attention to the description
of numerous natural phenomena given in the Quran; the
highly accurate nature of certain details referring to
them in the Book, which was only apparent in the
original, struck me by the fact that they were in keeping
with present-day ideas, although a man living at the time
of Muhammad could not have suspected this at all. I
subsequently read several works written by Muslim authors
on the scientific aspects- of the Quranic text: they
were extremely helpful in my appreciation of it, but I
have not so far discovered a general study of this
subject made in the West.
What initially strikes the reader confronted for the
first time with a text of this kind is the sheer
abundance of subjects discussed: the Creation, astronomy,
the explanation of certain matters concerning the earth,
and the animal and vegetable kingdoms, human
reproduction. Whereas monumental errors are to be found
in the Bible, I could not find a single error in the Quran. I had to stop and ask myself: if a man was the
author of the Quran, how could he have written facts in
the Seventh century A.D. that today are shown to be in
keeping with modern scientific knowledge? There was
absolutely no doubt about it: the text of the Quran we
have today is most definitely a text of the period, if I
may be allowed to put it in these terms (in the next
chapter of the present section of the book I shall be
dealing with this problem). What human explanation can
there be for this observation? In my opinion there is no
explanation; there is no special reason why an inhabitant
of the Arabian Peninsula should, at a time when King
Dagobert was reigning in France (629-639 A.D.), have had
scientific knowledge on certain subjects that was ten
centuries ahead of our own.
It is an established fact that at the time of the
Quranic Revelation, i.e. within a period of roughly
twenty years straddling Hegira (622 A.D.), scientific
knowledge had not progressed for centuries and the period
of activity in Islamic civilization, with its
accompanying scientific upsurge, came after the
close of the Quranic Revelation. Only ignorance of such
religious and secular data can lead to the following
bizarre suggestion I have heard several times: if
surprising statements of a scientific nature exist in the Quran, they may be accounted for by the fact that Arab
scientists were so far ahead of their time and Muhammad
was influenced by their work. Anyone who knows anything
about Islamic history is aware that the period of the
Middle Ages which saw the cultural and scientific upsurge
in the Arab world came after Muhammad, and would not
therefore indulge in such whims. Suggestions of this kind
are particularly off the mark because the majority of
scientific facts which are either suggested or very
clearly recorded in the Quran have only been confirmed
in modern times.
It is easy to see therefore how for centuries
commentators on the Quran (including those writing at
the height of Islamic culture) have inevitably made
errors of interpretation in the case of certain verses
whose exact meaning could not possibly have been grasped.
It was not until much later, at a period not far from our
own, that it was possible to translate and interpret them
correctly. This implies that a thorough linguistic
knowledge is not in itself sufficient to understand these
verses from the Quran. What is needed along with this is
a highly diversified knowledge of science. A study such
as the present one embraces many disciplines and is in
that sense encyclopedic. As the questions raised are
discussed, the variety of scientific knowledge essential
to the understanding of certain verses of the Quran will
become clear.
The Quran does not aim at explaining certain laws
governing the Universe, however; it has an absolutely
basic religious objective. The descriptions of Divine
Omnipotence are what principally incite man to reflect on
the works of Creation. They are accompanied by references
to facts accessible to human observation or to laws
defined by God who presides over the organization of the
universe both in the sciences of nature and as regards
man. One part of these assertions is easily understood,
but the meaning of the other can only be grasped if one
has the essential scientific knowledge it requires. This
means that in former times, man could only distinguish an
apparent meaning which led him to draw the wrong
conclusions on account of the inadequacy of his knowledge
at the time in question.
It is possible that the choice of verses from the
Quran which are to be studied for their scientific
content may perhaps seem too small for certain Muslim
writers who have already drawn attention to them before I
have. In general, I believe I have retained a slightly
smaller number of verses than they have. On the other
hand, I have singled out several verses which until now
have not, in my opinion, been granted the importance they
deserve from a scientific point of view. Wherever I may
have mistakenly failed to take verses into consideration
for this study that were selected by these writers, I
hope that they will not hold it against me. I have also
found, on occasion, that certain books contain scientific
interpretations which do not appear to me to be correct;
it is with an open mind and a clear conscience that I
have provided personal interpretations of such verses.
By the same token, I have tried to find references in
the Quran to phenomena accessible to human comprehension
but which have not been confirmed by modern science. In
this context, I think I may have found references in the
Quran to the presence of planets in the Universe that
are similar to the Earth. It must be added that many
scientists think this is a perfectly feasible fact,
although modern data cannot provide any hint of
certainty. I thought I owed it to myself to mention this,
whilst retaining all the attendant reservations that
might be applied.
Had this study been made thirty years ago, it would
have been necessary to add another fact predicted by the
Quran to what would have been cited concerning astronomy
, this fact is the conquest of space. At that time,
subsequent to the first trials of ballistic missiles,
people imagined a day when man would perhaps have the
material possibility of leaving his earthly habitat and
exploring space. It was then known that a verse existed
in the Quran predicting how one day man would make this
conquest. This statement has now been verified.
The present confrontation between Holy Scripture and
science brings ideas into play, both for the Bible and
the Quran, which concern scientific truth. For this
confrontation to be valid, the scientific arguments to be
relied upon must be quite soundly established and must
leave no room for doubt. Those who balk at the idea of
accepting the intervention of science in an appreciation
of the Scriptures deny that it is possible for science to
constitute a valid term of comparison (whether it be the
Bible, which does not escape the comparison unscathed-and
we have seen why-or the Quran, which has nothing to fear
from science). Science, they say, is changing with the
times and a fact accepted today may be rejected later.
This last comment calls for the following observation:
a distinction must be drawn between scientific theory and
duly controlled observed fact. Theory is intended to
explain a phenomenon or a series of phenomena not readily
understandable. In many instances theory changes: it is
liable to be modified or replaced by another theory when
scientific progress makes it easier to analyse facts and
invisage a more viable explanation. On the other hand, an
observed fact checked by experimentation is not liable to
modification: it becomes easier to define its
characteristics, but it remains the same. It has been
established that the Earth revolves around the Sun and
the Moon around the Earth, and this fact will not be
subject to revision; all that may be done in the future
is to define the orbits more clearly.
A regard for the changing nature of theory is, for
example, what made me reject a verse from the Quran
thought by a Muslim physicist to predict the concept of
anti-matter, a theory which is at present the subject of
much debate. One can, on the other hand. quite
legitimately devote great attention to a verse from the
Quran describing the aquatic origins of life, a
phenomenon we shall never be able to verify, but which
has many arguments that speak in its favour. As for
observed facts such as the evolution of the human embryo,
it is quite possible to confront different stages
described in the Quran with the data of modern
embryology and find complete concordance between modern
science and the verses of the Quran referring to this
subject.
This confrontation between the Quran and science has
been completed by two other comparisons: one is the
confrontation of modern knowledge with Biblical data on
the same subjects; and the other is the comparison from
the same scientific point of view between the data in the Quran, the Book of Revelation transmitted by God to the
Prophet, and the data in the Hadiths, books narrating the
deeds and sayings of Muhammad that lie outside the
written Revelation.
At the end of this, the third section of the present
work, the detailed results of the comparison between the
Biblical and Quranic description of a single event are
given, along with an account of how the passage fared
when subjected to the scientific criticism of each
description. An examination has, for example, been made
in the case of the Creation and of the Flood. In each
instance, the incompatibilities with science in the
Biblical description have been made clear. Also to be
seen is the complete agreement between science and the
descriptions in the Quran referring to them. We shall
note precisely those differences that make one
description scientifically acceptable in the present day
and the other unacceptable.
This observation is of prime importance, since in the
West, Jews, Christians and Atheists are unanimous in
stating (without a scrap of evidence however) that
Muhammad wrote the Quran or had it written as an
imitation of the Bible. It is claimed that stories of
religious history in the Quran resume Biblical stories.
This attitude is as thoughtless as saying that Jesus
Himself duped His contemporaries by drawing inspiration
from the Old Testament during His preachings: the whole
of Matthew's Gospel is based on this continuation of the
Old Testament, as we have indeed seen already. What
expert in exegesis would dream of depriving Jesus of his
status as God's envoy for this reason? This is
nevertheless the way that Muhammad is judged more often
than not in the West: "all he did Was to copy the
Bible". It is a summary judgement that does not take
account of the fact that the Quran and the Bible provide
different versions of a single event. People prefer not
to talk about the difference in the descriptions. They
are pronounced to be the same and thus scientific
knowledge need not be brought in. We shall enlarge on
these problems when dealing with the description of the
Creation and the Flood.
The collection of hadiths are to Muhammad what the
Gospels are to Jesus: descriptions of the actions and
sayings of the Prophet. Their authors were not
eyewitnesses.. (This applies at least to the compilers of
the collections of hadiths which are said to be the most
authentic and were collected much later than the time
when Muhammad was alive). They do not in any way
constitute books containing the written Revelation. They
are not the word of God, but the sayings of the Prophet.
In these books, which are very widely read, statements
are to be found containing errors from a scientific point
of view, especially medical remedies. We naturally
discount anything relating to problems of a religious
kind, since they are not discussed here in the context of
the hadiths. Many hadiths are of doubtful authenticity.
they are discussed by Muslim scientists themselves. When
the scientific nature of one of the hadiths is touched
upon in the present work, it is essentially to put into
relief all that distinguishes them from the Quran itself
when seen from this point of view, since the latter does
not contain a single scientific statement that is
unacceptable. The difference, as we shall see, is quite
startling.
The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by
those who see Muhammad as the author of the Quran quite
untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become
the most important author, in terms of literary merit, in
the whole of Arabic literature? How could he then
pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other
human being could possibly have developed at the time,
and all this without once making the slightest error in
his pronouncements on the subject?
The ideas in this study are developed from a purely
scientific point of view. They lead to the conclusion
that it is inconceivable for a human being living in the
Seventh century A.D. to have made statements in the
Quran on a great variety of subjects that do not belong
to his period and for them to be in keeping with what was
to be known only centuries later. For me, there can be no
human explanation to the Quran.
