“Some thinkers and writers believed that reason and science, not religion, would advance human progress” (Cowie: 1989, p.400). This quotation refers to a period in the 18th century in Europe known as the epoch of the Enlightenment. People became more interested in reason “science” than in faith “religion”. Thus the gap between science and religion widened. Man thought that he could stand alone. He made a great jump in various fields-technological and scientific fields developed in such a terrific way. The end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th knew a serious revolt against religion. It seemed to man that he is the lord of this universe, since he denied the existence of God. Though he made a lot of victories in facilitating the conditions of life, he fell in the cobweb of egoism, self-love and materialism. Consequently, humanity experienced two great wars, which tattooed not only the pages of this century, but those of history as well.
These waves of atheism and doubt in religion contaminated both the human mind in general and the Muslim mind in particular. A lot of Muslims dropped their faith in Islam and followed the European way of living and thinking, thinking that this is really the path of true civilization, the path of true happiness.
But in the course of the second half of the 20th century, and with the terrific advance of science, man realized that he is still turning around and around in the whirlwind of various problems due to the absence of the spiritual life. The West and even the Communist bloc succeeded in making progress in plenty of fields, most of them materialistic; but, on the other hand, failed to solve a lot of crucial problems-social, ecological, economic, medical, etc…-simply because they have left the spiritual side without care. Thus the phantom of materialism has reigned, since then, over their societies.
“Atheism has prevailed, agony has spread and the family has been dissolved. These have pushed the Occidentals to throw themselves either in the abyss of whims and animalistic desires, or in drinking alcohol, or becoming addict to tranquillizers…” (Al Fandi: 1976, p.6)
This critical situation has pushed some thoughtful scientists and thinkers, such as Dr James Jeans, Dr Witz, Dr Irving Williams, and others, to make objective and deep research which have led them to the natural and obvious reality: “Man Does Not Alone” as stated by Mr Cressy Morrison (1986, p.206). In other words, they all put the emphasis on the existence of God. So return to religion -the spiritual side- has been urgent. If not, man would destroy his existence.
In the meantime, the attack on Islam through its Holy Book, the Qur’an, and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), reached the apogee. So Muslims were obliged to defend their religion against both the atheists who deny the existence of God, and the Christians and Jews who are still trying to prove that the Qur’an is not the word of Allah, God of the Worlds, but is only a copy of the Bible written by Mohammed (p.b.u.h.).They also claim that the latter is not the last Prophet.
“…The movement of the scientific writings concerning the Qur’anic Miracles began when the creep of anti-movement against Islam started to appear and spread. The atheists and the sceptics used all their efforts to talk nonsense about the Holy Qur’an…Hence the law of the Muslim’s thought awoke to enter the battlefield armed with a great bulk of fiducial, rational and scientific consciousness, so as to face these waves of attack, and push them back, and also to deepen the bright facet of the Qur’anic miracles in the Muslims’ minds.” (Al Azb: 1977, p.31)
Of course the Qur’anic miracles are various and numerous. Still we can classify them under three main categories:
§the rhetorical miracles
§the legislative miracles
§the scientific miracles
The latter will be the core of my monograph in which I am going to talk about the relationship between many verses of the Glorious Qur’an and the scientific truths that are worldly known, and which have been, as Dr Bucaille (1989, p.3) states, “soundly established.” I will show that the verses of the Qur’an, which were sent to the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) fifteen centuries ago, are pregnant with scientific data that have been discovered only in modern times. The Muslim doctor Bucaille (1985, p.129), from the French Academy of Medicine, states that:
“What initially strikes the reader confronted for the first time with a [Qur’anic] text of this kind is the sheer abundance of subjects discussed : the Creation , astronomy , the explanation of certain matters concerning the earth, 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 Qur’an.”
Of course as my topic is so large to tackle, I will limit myself to the major themes of “The Scientific Miracles In The Glorious Qur’an”, excluding the animal and vegetable kingdoms and to some extent cytology. I have even been obliged to exclude some ideas from the second part where the following points will be discussed:
§Qur’an and Modern Astronomy
§Qur’an and Geographical Phenomena
§Qur’an and Modern Science
This second part will be preceded by the first one in which I will talk about Islam’s view on science: a brief account of Islam and science.
This is the plan of my monograph. In what concerns the aims behind writing such a monograph, I think they can be summarized in three main points
As Dr Diab (1988, p.3) says: “It is the duty of the Moslems to spread [the scientific miracles in the Holy Qur’an] all over the world to show the scientific researchers who have no religion or those who follow religions other than Islam from what source we have taken our Islamic religion.
To show that the Qur’an is really the word of God, since it was impossible to discover such scientific truths in the epoch of the Prophet (p.b.u.h.), when science was still floundering blindly in an ocean of ignorance and superstition.
To continue what a few students have began before when they have decided to deal with Islamic studies and comparative religions. So I would like, as well, to put a brick on theirs in order to build a strong edifice of elaborated and objective research to enrich the Islamic studies and comparative religions in general, and the Qur’anic sciences in particular.
I think that the main problem I have encountered was that most of the references, from which I took my material, are written in Arabic. So I was obliged to translate the quotations from Arabic into English by myself, using Dr Rohi Baalabaki’s Al Mawrid in my translation.
Eventually, there is a little point that should be clear before starting on the gist of my monograph. This concerns the use of the word “Allah” or “God”. Dr Bucaille (1985, p.122-23) explains this problematic when he says:
“One extremely important view…is the attitude leads people to repeatedly use the term ‘Allah’ to mean which the God of the Muslims, as if Muslims believed in a God who was different from the God of the Christians. Allah means ‘the Divinity’ in Arabic: it is a single God… For the Muslim Allah is more other than the God of Moses and Jesus…Muslims and Christians worship a single God.”
This means that when I use “Allah” or “God”, the idea remains the same. But still, when using the word “God”, I will reject the Christian background that lies behind; that is to say the philosophy of the Trinity and masculinity!