Science and the Qur’an
Muhammad, (pbuh) was unlettered. He could neither read nor write, and he grew up in Mekkah where there were no schools. He lived tar away from the circles of science and scholars that existed in Syria, Alexandria, Athens, or Rome. Moreover, the scientific facts mentioned in the Qur’an were not known in that time, i.e. in the Seventh Century AC. Having studied and examined the Arabic text of the Qur’an, Dr. Bucaille marvels:
I could not find a single error in the Qur’an. I had to stop and ask myself: if a man were the author of the Qur’an, how could he have written facts in the Seventh century AC. That today are shown to be in keeping whit modern scientific knowledge? I had to acknowledge the evidence in front of me: the Qur’an did not contain a single statement that was assailable from a modern scientific point of view. I repeated the same test for the Old Testament and the Gospels, always preserving the same objective outlook. In the former, I did not have to go even beyond the first book, Genesis, to find statements totally out of keeping whit what modern science considers to be indisputable facts.
Dr. Bucaille studied many scientific facts mentioned in the Qur’an such as the creation of the universe, astronomy, the animal and vegetation kingdoms, human reproduction, and other related issues. We shall select, for the sake of brevity, only two of the above issues to draw the attention of the reader to one of the objectives of this booklet.
1. The Creation of the Heavens and Earth
Man’s knowledge of the origin of the universe is very limited. Scientist have proposed hypotheses and theories of evolution centered around one theme: the primordial fireball and the primordial era of matter and antimatter. According to these theories, the universe consisted mainly of strongly interacting particles. The primordial matter and antimatter eventually annihilated each other and those particles that survived formed the present universe. This theory is given further credence because it conforms to the basic process of the development of the universe as presented very simply in the Qur’an. Allah commands
His Messenger Muhammad (pbuh) to ask the unbelievers:
Say (to them): Do you disbelieve in Him Who created the earth in two days? And yet you set up equals to Him, Who is the Rubb of the worlds.
And He placed therein firm mountains above its (the earth’s) surface and blessed it, and in four days equitably apportioned the means of subsistence to all who would seek it. Then (Allah) turned to the heaven when it was smoke (yet only gaseous) and said to it and to the earth: Submit willingly or unwillingly! They both said:”we submit in willing obedience.” Then He decreed that they become seven heavens in two days, and imparted to each (of the seven) its function. And We decorated the heaven nearest to earth whit lights and made them secure. Such is the decree of the all Mighty, the All-knowing. (Qur’an: 41: 9-12)
And Allah says: Are the unbelievers not aware that the heavens and the earth were once a single entity which We then separated, and that We made every living thing out of Water? Will they not then (begin to) believe? (Qur’an: 21:30)
The concept of rending one unit into two or more, and the celestial “smoke” referred to in the above, confirms what is considered to be factual scientific data. The English physicist and astronomer, Sir James Jeans, wrote:
We have found that, as Newton first conjectured a chaotic mass of gas of approximately uniform density and of very great extent would be dynamically unstable: nuclei would tend to form in it, around which the whole of matter would ultimately condense. On the basis of this theory he proposed that all celestial objects originated by a process of fragmentation.
The space program helped verify the homogeneity of the substances of which the moon, the earth, and other planets are formed. “Such statements in the Qur’an concerning the creation, which appeared nearly fourteen centuries ago” Dr. Bucaille concluded, “obviously do not lend themselves to a human explanation.”
2. Human Reproduction
The complexities of human reproduction were decoded and understood only after the invention of the microscope, which was invented hundreds of years after the death of Muhammad (pbuh). But the Qor’an refers to all the stages through which the human embryo passes, As Allah says:
Verily, We created man from the quintessence of mud. Then We placed him as a drop of sperm in a safe depository. Then We fashioned the drop of sperm into a thing that clings, and then We fashioned the thing that clings into a chewed lump (of flesh), and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones. Then We clothed the bones with (intact) flesh. Then We developed it into a different (from of) creation. So blessed be Allah, the best of creators. (Qur’an:23:12-14)
The observations of modern science indicate the stages of human reproduction are:
Fertilization of an ovule, which takes place in the Fallopian tubes. The fertilizing agent is the male sperm.
The implantation of the fertilized egg, which takes place at a precise spot in the female reproductive system. It descends into the uterus and lodges in the body of the uterus. Once the embryo begins to be observable to the naked eye, it looks like a small mass of flesh. It grows there in progressive stages well known today, which lead to the bone structure, the muscles, the nervous and circulatory system, and the viscera, etc.
In conclusion, Dr. Bucaille ascertains:
More than a thousand years before our time, at a period when whimsical doctrines still prevailed, men had a knowledge of the Qur’an. The statements it contains express in simple terms primordial truths that man has takes centuries to discover by himself.