Introduction to the Quran and Modern Science
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, indeed bound up in materialist theories, and has
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 judgments 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, it is mentioned the great change
that has taken place in the last few years and 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 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
judgments’ 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 consular 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 judgments 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" (Chapter 2, verse 256) "(God) has
not laid upon you in religion any hardship" (Chapter 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 . 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.”
Certainly, 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 practice,
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 harbored 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
practiced 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.
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,
might be surprising at first. Up until then, it could not be thought
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.
For One to examine and understand the texts of the Quran with a completely open
mind and a total objectivity, one must abandon any source of influence
acting upon which might have been gained from what had been taught
in 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. Many
people from the West retain the same false notions about Islam; they are
so widely-spread today.
Our first goal should be 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. Our approach must be as 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.
It will struck us by the fact that they are in keeping with present-day
ideas, although a man living at the time of Muhammad could not have
suspected this at all.
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, we can not find
a single error in the Quran. We must stop and ask ourselves: 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? 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 we 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.
Had this study been made thirty years ago, it would have been necessary
to add a 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 analyze facts and envisage 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, 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 favor. As for observed facts such as the
evolution of the human embryo, it is quite easy to find the different
stages described in the Quran and compare them with the data of modern
embryology and find complete concordance between modern science and the
verses of the Quran referring to this subject.
An examination has, for example, been made in the case of the Creation
and of the Flood. We can find a 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 some undefiened.
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 preaching: 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 judgment 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.
The
above observations regarding scientific facts listed in the Quran 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.
Furthermore, there can be no human explanation to the Quran.
Isn't this quite startling!!!