Transcript

Man questioning himself on the origin of the human species initially had, at his disposal, reflections, traditions and superstitions passed on generation from generation for which the source material was lost in the darkness of time. In the second stage, before science was in a position to shed some light on this problem, various philosophical systems brought elements of reflections about the creation of man. We must emphasize the influence on the human mind by the teachings of the scriptures of the three monolithic religions. For many centuries they were the source of ideas consisted of notions drawn from them. So divine revelation was initially communicated by word of mouth and then in written form. One can only stipulate the date at which man became aware of the first revelation. We don’t know the manner in which it came to him but we suppose that Noah was the first to bring this subject to the attention of his people. The Bible makes a reference to it and we also take from the Qur’an the idea that the first call to man to meditate on his origin was made by Noah. The most ancient text of Holy Scriptures we have which deals with the human origin as the creative work of God are no doubt the Yahwist and the sacerdotal narratives of the Bible. The Yahwist version of the Bible which is considered to be the most ancient one is thought to be written in the 9th or 10th century before Christ, while the sacerdotal version of the Bible was the work of a priest in the 6th century before Christ. It contains lengthy narratives of the creation which are now placed at the beginning of all the copies of the Bible. Christianity naturally took up these ideas of creation and repeated the biblical teaching concerning the origin of man without offering more details than those contained in the Old Testament. Nevertheless there are some exceptions especially in the Gospel of Luke tracing back to Adam and showing Jesus preceded by 76 generations of human beings.
This is today unacceptable.
Qur’anic revelation has considerably enriched man with knowledge about himself. Just as it did for all the work of God concerning creation of all beings. The human minds in the West fed themselves on the question of the origin of man with the biblical narratives. While in the Islamic world the Qur’an in the meantime brought not only the general idea of creation but also brought further teachings which did not exist in the Bible.
I will come back to this point later.
The next stage was during the 18th century of the Christian era when science registered its initial progress. As soon as man came to possess a sum of scientific knowledge sufficient enough to arrive at a formal conclusion, it nevertheless enabled him to develop various speculations. During this era most of the scientists, by their way of reasoning, strictly applied to the origin of man their findings which were not even of any significance to the animal kingdom. They did it from pure analogy. This fault in drawing conclusions explains what will follow jointly with their fondness of ideologies. Thus the philosophers didn’t hesitate to construct theories which were founded on very fragile basis. This is a thing which is also observed today.

In the West, the 19th century was the time of the first disputes with religious teachings essentially with those of the Bible particularly bearing the fixity of species through ages which is clearly formulated in the Old Testament. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who introduced his theory of transformation in the beginning of the 19th century, was the first contender of the biblical statements about the fixity of species. But it is all about Darwin who in the second half of 19th century dealt serious blows to biblical data with his book On the Origin of Species. His book appeared in 1859. Darwin had supposed that nature was spontaneously able to bring forth living beings like those whose appearance may be favored by cattle and horse breeders selected for inter-breeding. But in his reasoning Darwin forgot that these breeders cannot produce animals of species different from the species of their parents. Darwin was right when he said that he had observed variations within a species. At no time he found a change in a species which resulted in formation of a new species. In order to explain evolution in the animal kingdom we need to know what gives rise to transformation of one species of one order into another. Darwin himself admitted in a letter that he had failed in explaining evolution. This letter is preserved in the British Library in London. In this letter Darwin wrote and I quote Darwin “But I believe in natural selection not because I can prove in any single case that it has changed one species into another but because it groups and explains well as it seems to me a host of facts in classification embryology, morphology, rudimentary organs, geological succession and distribution”. In this way Darwin confessed that evolution cannot be explained by his theory. All the problems of the value of the work of Darwin lie here. The century of Darwin’s death was commemorated in 1982 by a host of apologetic announcements absolutely out of keeping with the importance of his work in the history of natural sciences. In the section of answers of science and Holy Scriptures of my book What is the Origin of Man I have shown the deficiencies of Darwin’s theory and the misuse of his work made by modern commentators. Today the evolution in the animal kingdom is perfectly demonstrated. The evidence has been given in innumerable cases with many details concerning transformation in the course of time; for example, from reptiles to mammals. But Darwin never proved that man descended from apes. Moreover he didn’t even write it. Among his followers Henry Huxley claimed this without the tiniest argument as no link has been ever found between man and animal lineages. We should come back to this topic later.
Supporters of modern theories like the New Darwinism are doing their best in order to combine farfetched obsolete data of their ideas with the genuine findings of modern knowledge. But in no way they bring together the facts of the problem. In their reasoning they draw conclusions from certain aspects taken from data collected in laboratories. In these laboratories present day microorganisms are studied without taking into account concrete facts of the past events. That is to say facts provided by modern Paleontology, incorporated by other disciplines such as Zoology, Embryology, Comparative Anatomy, Genetics, Cellular and Molecular Biology etc. In fact we observe the birth of theories supported by scholars who described them purely dependent on science but these theories only translate compromises with personal philosophies. In this field in France we are well placed to note to what extent famous specialists in Microbiology like Jack Monroe and François Jacob are worthy to have ever received a Nobel Prize in Medicine? To what extent they could have taken liberty from facts in order to satisfy their materialistic desires. One who knows the fantastic organization which rules the functionality of the cells and commence evolution in the animal kingdom. How can we agree with François who considers evolution as a result of make-shift arrangements in his book The Game of Possibilities? Or can we agree with Jack Monroe who held a theory of chance and necessity for everything. The organization of human being is much more complex than a computer programmer might imagine. I can’t give here numerous details which I have given in several chapters of my book. Nevertheless I must insist upon several data concerning life and functions of cells from general point of view.
Here I should draw your attention to several notions which you may not be aware of and then draw parallel lines between them. This is highly instructive. To assert that life might have occurred spontaneously on the earth is absurdity. To say it came from space is without any scientific base. Most certainly experiments like those of Miller in 1955 were able to demonstrate that very small amount of chemical components having high complexity like amino acids of cellular protein might be produced artificially. A gaseous mass made of hydrogen, ammonia, methane and water vapor under high-intensity electrical discharges might produce samples of these components. But it is not the life which is obtained from all this. The reasoning of Miller is wrong because there is a wide gap between bringing compounds together in a chemically ordered fashion and producing the fantastic complexity, which we call the cell, or even the rudimentary organs. Every cell, if I dare to say, has its computer. The orders for innumerable functions are given by the molecules through which the program is elaborated including reproduction. In the nuclei of the cell there is a proteinic micro molecule called DNA which is the basic element of the system. It has tremendous complexity and produces the catalysts triggering specific chemical reactions. The specificity of the later depends upon the chemical compounds which hook on this basic substance. By this way coded orders are sent by chemical messengers. After the decoding specific enzymes are produced leading to the synthesis of protein essential for life. The enzymes are the segments of DNA to which chemical compounds are appended. Each cell possesses a considerable number of them ordering innumerable activities and so the Genome is constituted. Even in living organisms with no nucleus, like bacteria, such a system of command exists. In the cells there is a tape of DNA folded over it for a great deal of time and by it a thousand kinds of protein are produced, about 3000 for bacteria called Escherichia coli where the length of DNA tape is 1 mm which is 5000 times of the maximum size of bacteria. In the human beings the size of each cell is drawn into a scale of thousands of millimeters. The accumulated length of DNA tape on all the cells might exceed several times the distance between earth and the sun! More exactly today one estimate that accumulated length of all these tapes of DNA in human being might be equal to more than 15 times of the distance between earth and the sun! In other words it is an evaluation made in astronomical terms. It is unconceivable that the precise inventory of genes in man will be drawn up. To accomplish such plan thousands of researchers, doctors and engineers would be required to work on it for 3000 years. Suppose that every chemical basic compound, that is to say in present case every nucleoli, is to be represented by a letter in books containing collected information about only one human being, it will require 200 medium-sized books each with 500 pages! You can imagine the length of book shelves and behold that such a fantastic amount of data is contained in every nucleus of our cells whose size is evaluated at a scale of 1000th of a millimeter. Its volume is so tiny that if the whole generic inheritance of approximately five billion human beings living on Earth is gathered, it’ll form a wall. The total mass of this wall might not exceed a volume of one cubic centimeter!
Is the human mind capable of achieving such miniaturization in computer programming?
The basic characteristic of a living organism is its fantastic organization. The genus puts the functions of every cell in order to help the human being to voluntarily influence central functions of the organs of the body. In animals most of these functions are automatic due to extremely sophisticated programming of the cells. For example, in the navel cells of the birds, there lay very complex migratory plans under the dependencies of prodigious stocking of information including automatic behavior. We know about the extremely reduced volume of the central nervous system where the program is registered. It is an example from which we learn about the capability of a living bird necessitating the existence of a prodigious organization.
Where can we situate the origin of life?
As far as we know the most likely hypothesis is that originated from an aquatic source. Algae and bacteria existed one billion years ago. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Other microorganisms found in rocks are dated back to 3 billion years ago. Pluri-cellular forms of life most probably developed from unicellular forms. The sponges are likely to be the most primitive pluri-cellular beings. From these primitive forms, other forms possessing huge cells and organs may have been derived. That might have acquired nervous and muscular functions. These are likely to be formed less than one billion years ago. The first invertebrates probably appeared 500 or 600 million years ago. The Vertebrates came later roughly 450 million years ago. Likewise certain fishes continued to develop thereafter. The first terrestrial vertebrates or amphibians and reptiles appeared some 350 million years ago and following them the mammals appeared 180 million years ago and the birds 135 million years ago.
This brief summary shows the magnitude of evolution in the animal kingdom in evermore developed and complex forms in a perfectly ordered manner. It suggests that its explanation by chance is impossible. The genetic code which controls the functions of each of our cells is the director having control over all transformation that comes in an orderly non chaotic manner.
New characteristics appear in evolution. This is obligatory to apply on one or more genes. Evolution is perpetually the creator of more complex forms among the animals and the plants. Thus when one reads even very little about living beings it becomes clear to him that everything is entirely programmed at the level of genetic code and it is exercising its control over extremely complicated functions in connection with the anatomic modification.
How the existence of a programmer can be found in compatibility with science? Even furthermore how an objective and impartial scientist of our age can avoid the impossibility of explanation of this extraordinary arrangement of the phenomena of life? Can we adopt the notion of chance formally? Or can we rely on preconceived ideas such as Darwin’s theory of natural selection; a theory which is in no way capable of explaining evolution as we know today? What characterizes a living being is the information recorded in a genetic code. It contains specifications concerning its morphology and functions of every kind. Evolution, as we know, is dependent on processes of successive additions of informational data over the course of time. Scientists can argue on infinite items about causes of determining the fact but they cannot go away from the fact because it is very obvious. Certain of today’s theorists, who claim to have explanation for everything, are at a loss of words when I ask them just where the point of origin of genetic information lies? Lamarck and Darwin didn’t provide explanation of the genesis of broad basic divisions of the plants and animal kingdoms.
All of these events of evolution took place over very long stages. At the beginning there appeared first signs of particular features which were followed by a period of authentication of these phenomena. This is rendered by the phase when creation slowed down and creation of new types finally came to a halt and presently it would appear to be in the final stage. In the case of man transformation came to a halt more recently. All the major organizational types were laid at a very early stage. From the moment all types adopt certain forms that oriented them into a particular direction. No organizational type immerged from these specialized forms. Paul Garaci in his book wrote and I quote “Creative evolution has its roots in prototype forms. Without them no type of organism can ever appear.” At cellular level evolution raise questions which cannot be answered by micro biology or genetics. No new phenomena can occur in the cell without intermediary of DNA molecule which by means of RNA molecule is responsible for the creation of protein which constitutes origin for chemical synthesis. For every important morphological variation the DNA molecule must acquire a new gene thus adding it to a pond of chemical-held information. Modification must occur in gene that already existed. Professor Garaci, who taught evolution in the animal kingdom for thirty years at the university of Paris, emphasized that the most primitive beings could not have had, genuinely and substantially, contained within itself all the genus of animals. Same is applied for the vegetables. For him the obtaining of genus is absolute prerequisite for evolution.
What happened concerning the human being?
Here we must report the findings, not theories, in order to make a comparison with the statements of the Bible and teachings of the Qur’an. According to firmly established notions provided by study of fossils, bones and teeth of the remains of human beings which is identified as of those who existed about 4 million years ago in Africa. They were human beings gifted with intelligence. Because they were not only capable of using tools as could certain animals, but also were capable of making tools. The capacity of invention is achieved by no animal. These first communists were called Australopithecus. I think this designation is not correct as it links with Apes from which they obviously differ. However that may be they had morphology similar to us in numerous respects; for example, posture, although they were much smaller and had a skull capacity of 500 cubic centimeters. According to the knowledge we have today, they represent the most ancient generation. But it should not be excluded that future discoveries might push back the dates of man’s first appearance on Earth. We don’t know when this wave (generations of human beings) dried out. May be one million years before us, we don’t know. The second wave was Homo erectus which was identified in Africa, Asia, Malaysia and Europe. Their size was close to us with larger brain about 900 cubic centimeters in average. They discovered the use of fire. They may have existed in a period from 500.000 to 150.000 years ago. The third wave was Neanderthal man whose remains were found in Africa, Middle East and Java. Their brain size was big than today’s man. This wave was, it seems, of a shorter duration between 150.000 years to 40.000 years. Then the fourth and last wave appeared bringing Homo sapiens of today who seemed to evolve very little to date. We have never found a link joining any of these human waves to any animal linage. We have even not found an intermediate between primates and lineage as I have mentioned. This point was clearly emphasized at the International Congress of Paleontologists held in France in 1982. An obvious evolution has occurred. An impartial person is therefore obliged to recognize the happening of such events through the course of time. There have been modifications in humans but in no way does it signify that we were descended from Apes.
From the Bible I have retained the perfectly valid idea of creation which is emphasized in its text. Nevertheless the two longest narratives of the Bible described creation as I have described in my book The Bible, The Qur’an and Science. Bible states that creation of various animals is fixed through the ages. Moreover the data in the Bible leads to evaluate that creation of the world or appearance of the first man on Earth dated 57 or 58 centuries ago. In 1987 the Hebrew calendar put it as 5747 years ago. None of this statement is acceptable. However I feel for the Bible it could not have been otherwise. When dealing with these subjects the authors of the biblical narratives, who were recognized by believers as inspired by God, committed errors under the influence of myths and superstitions of their times. No light was shed on these errors before modern times. It is therefore not astonishing that 2nd Vatican Council of 1965 declared and I quote “Books of the Old Testament contain material which is incomplete and obsolete.”
The concept of creation is often discussed by those who emphasize resemblances between man and apes and other supposed ancestors based on certain anatomical features and various functions common between man and apes. Drawn from this they conclude that we have descended from apes. But they forget that these similarities were imposed on man. Man in necessity is obliged to live in the same surroundings because he needed oxygen for respiration like animals and has to depend on meat of other animals for nutrition like animals themselves. These shared experiences had led essentially to some kind of similarity of functions; in physiology, biology and a host of common characteristics. Without these functional and physiological resemblances man could not have survived on Earth.
Talking into consideration today’s firmly established scientific data, we cannot find any difference between science and religious teachings about the creation of man. This concept is shared by Islam, Christianity and Judaism. But Islam has brought additional teachings concerning man in the Qur’an. In my book What is the Origin of Man I said that these teachings were which impressed me most from a scientific point of view. I even delivered a lecture on this subject in the French Academy of Medicine in 1976. Now I have fully developed these elements into books. When dealing with the origin of man I can’t forget the method by which the Qur’an tells us, in a more general sense, about the starting point of life. I will quote verse 30, chapter 21 The Prophets (Al-Anbiya):

أَوَلَمْ يَرَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَاهُمَا وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَاء كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ أَفَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ {21/30}
Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth
were joined together,
then We clove them asunder
and We made every living thing out of water.
Will they still not believe (?)

Who does not know today that the origin of life is aquatic? Furthermore I believe that I distinguished in the Qur’an an allusion to human morphology taking place in sequence in different stages as modern science demonstrates. These verses have only become understandable in modern era. Ancient commentators and today’s translations cannot and couldn’t grasp the real meaning of certain verses which only a scientist can explain. I shall not emphasize on the well known spiritual sense attached with the creation of man from earth but the Qur’an tells about the 2nd stage after creation when God gave form to man. In a part of verse 7, chapter 11, The Heights (Al Araaf) we read:
وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ صَوَّرْنَاكُمْ ثُمَّ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلآئِكَةِ اسْجُدُواْ لآدَمَ فَسَجَدُواْ إِلاَّ إِبْلِيسَ لَمْ يَكُن مِّنَ السَّاجِدِينَ {7/11}
We created you and thereupon
We fashioned you and thereupon
We told the angels to bow down to Adam…

Man was fashioned harmoniously such is the mention of the method applied to man in chapter, The Pilgrimage (Al Hajj) and moreover in verses 7 and 8, chapter The Splitting (Al Infitar) we read:
الَّذِي خَلَقَكَ فَسَوَّاكَ فَعَدَلَكَ {82/7} فِي أَيِّ صُورَةٍ مَّا شَاء رَكَّبَكَ {82/8}
God is The One who created you
and fashioned you harmoniously
and in due proportion in whatsoever form He willed.

I will continue with verses of the Qur’an which speak for themselves. Chapter (Al Tean)
لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنسَانَ فِي أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ {95/4}
I have translated it in these words:
We fashioned man according to the best organizational plan.

The Arabic word تَقْوِيمٍ means to plan something in an organized way.
Moreover verse 14, chapter 71, Noah,
وَقَدْ خَلَقَكُمْ أَطْوَارًا {71/14}
states that God crated you, man, in stages. I suggested in my book that that word أَطْوَارًا (stages) which appeared only once in the Qur’an could be related to the transformations which the human species had undergone.
Finally bearing in mind the data provided by fossils concerning the successive waves in our spices, one could not resist projecting these findings to verse 28, chapter 76, Man (Al Insaan)
نَحْنُ خَلَقْنَاهُمْ وَشَدَدْنَا أَسْرَهُمْ وَإِذَا شِئْنَا بَدَّلْنَا أَمْثَالَهُمْ تَبْدِيلًا {76/28}
Verily We created them
and strengthened their ‘physical’ compositions.
And if We so will,
We can replace them and their likes entirely.

This verse emphasizes the probable disappearance of certain communities and the replacements that could have happened according to the will of God through the ages. What better compatibility one can find between the Qur’an and well-established data of paleontology and many other disciplines.

Let us remember that these ideas were absolutely unknown at the time the Qur’an came to the knowledge of man. Such are important lessons a scientist must draw from these facts to have a valid knowledge of the origin of the man.

How could we come to another conclusion?

Transcript

Introducing the Lecturer

It is my great pleasure and honor to introduce to you Dr. Maurice Bucaille who is a prominent scientist. Dr. Maurice is a native of France who got interested in the study of Quran at some time in his life. He read the Quran in a French translation. When he later read the Quran in an English translation he noticed the inadequacies of the translations. As a result he learned Arabic at the age of fifty and he, being a scientist, took it upon himself to scrutinize the biblical narratives and the Quran under the light of modern science. He wrote his first book in French back in 1976 which was later translated and published in English in the late 70’s. The name of the book is The Bible, the Quran and Science. It is an excellent book. Then he came across the controversy of evolution and creation. He tackled that problem and wrote the book What is the Origin of Man. He has written a third book which is in the process of publication. That is Medicine and the Mummies of Pharaohs, in which he has brought out the identification of Pharaoh at the time of Moses (Mussa peace be upon him), when he was born, and the Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus.

Dr. Bucaille

Ladies and gentlemen, Assalaam-o-Alikum.

There is no human work prior to modern times that contains statements which equaled on the state of knowledge at the time they appeared that could be compared to the Quran. There is perhaps no better example of the close links between Islam and science than Prophet’s saying:

اطلبوا العلم ولو في الصين

“Seek knowledge even in China”

Which is an invitation to man to unleash his thirst for knowledge. More significant, if it is possible, is the Prophet’s famous saying

مداد العلماء أفضل من دماء الشهداء

“The scholar’s ink is more precious than the martyr’s blood.”

It comes as no surprise therefore that religion and science have always been considered as twin sisters in Islam. Today at a time when science has taken such great strides, they still continue to be associated and furthermore the scientific data is now used for better understanding of the Qur’anic text. What is more remarkable to see is that in a century, where for many, science has dealt blows to religious beliefs; it is precisely the discoveries of science that have highlighted the supernatural character of all aspects of the Quran. Generally speaking, science now seems, in spite of what people may say, highly conducive to the existence of God. Once we start to ask ourselves in an unbiased and unprejudiced way about the metaphysical lessons to be derived from today’s knowledge, for example the knowledge of the infinity, we indeed discover many reasons of thinking along these lines. When we think about the remarkable organization presiding over the birth and maintenance of life, it surely becomes that likelihood of it being the outcome of a chance get less and less as our knowledge expands in this field. To me it seems that scientific progress, in understanding the fantastic complexity of the human being, provides strong arrangements in the favor of opposite theory. In other words the existence of extreme methodical organization is presiding over the remarkable phenomena of life. In many parts of it, the Quran leads in simple terms to this kind of reflection. It contains more precise data which is directly related to the facts discovered by modern science. These are which attract the attention of today’s scientists.

For many centuries man was unable to understand them because he did not possess sufficient scientific means. It is only today that the understanding of the verses of the Quran, dealing with natural phenomena, has become comprehensive. Reading all the commentaries shows the inability to grasp the total meaning of such verses in spite of the knowledge the authors of these commentaries may have in their times. I shall go even so far to say that in this 20th century, which has all its compartmentalization of ever increasing knowledge, it is not easy for an average scientist to understand what is in the Quran about such subjects without having to recourse to specialized research. It means that in order to understand all such verses of the Quran, one is required to have absolutely an encyclopedic knowledge. By which I mean the one which encompasses many disciplines.

The Quran is a religious book which has no scientific purpose and whenever man is invited to reflect upon the works of creation and numerous natural phenomena, the apparent intention is to stress the divine source of the book. In these reflections we find illustrations of data connected with firmly established scientific knowledge. These findings clearly appeared in modern times. One must take in account carefully the meanings of Quranic text while making its comparison to scientific knowledge. There is a tragic example of the common translation of verse 54 in chapter 7, The Heights (Al Araaf) about the creation of the universe:

إِنَّ رَبَّكُمُ اللّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضَ فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ…

Your lord is the One Who created the heavens and the Earth in six days…

Nevertheless we know that the Arabic word أَيَّامٍ, which is usually translated as days, appeared in the Quran as a very long period of time instead of a twenty-four-hour-day. Other examples are mentioned in my book; The Bible, the Quran and Science. What appears to be of fundamental importance to me is that, in contrast to the narration contained in the Bible, the Quran does not lay down a sequence for creation of the earth and the heavens.
The major notion to be derived from the Quran is a concomitance in the celestial and terrestrial realms with the fundamental details about an initial unique gaseous mass the elements of which were fused together but subsequently separated. These notions are described in a part of verse 11, chapter 41, The Lucidly Distinct (Fussilat)

ثُمَّ اسْتَوَى إِلَى السَّمَاء وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ…

Then God turned to heaven when it was a smoke…

Also in a part of verse 30, chapter 21, The Prophets (Al-Anbiya):

أَوَلَمْ يَرَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَاهُمَا…

Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth were joined together, then We clove them asunder

This separation process resulted in the formation of multiple worlds. This notion has appeared a dozen times in the Quran like in the second verse of chapter 1, The Opening (Al Fatiha):

الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds.

All this is in prefect agreement with modern ideas on the existence of a primary nebula and the process of the secondary separation of elements which were in the initial unique mass. The separation resulted in formation of galaxies and then it divided into stars from which plants were to be born. All this is in perfect agreement to the modern notions concerning the history of the universe. Moreover, a reference is made in the Quran to an intermediary creation between the heavens and the earth. In a part of verse 59, chapter 25, The Criterion (Al Furqaan)

الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا…
We have created the heavens and the earth and what is between them.

This intermediary creation corresponds to the modern discovery of matter which is described as “prisons” outside organized astronomical systems. Can we imagine that a man, much more than a thousand years ago, would be in a position to write such reflections which are in total agreement to the general concepts, about the universe, formed centuries after his death?
This means that the Quran is the word of God.

In the Quran we find notions about the nature and movement of celestial formations for example, the Sun and the Moon, which may have been previously defined as “luminary rays” in the Bible. Both bodies have been distinguished in the Quran by using different terms like light (Noor) for the Moon and torch (Siraaj) for the sun. Presently we know that the Moon is an inert body which reflects light while the Sun is a celestial formation which is in a state of permanent combustion and is a source of heat and light. The word Star (Najam) in the Quran is accompanied with another adjective which indicates that it burns and consumes itself as it peers through the shadows of the night. The word used for this is (Thaqib). The word (Kawakeb) definitely means “planets” which are celestial formations that reflect light but do not produce it. Today we know that celestial organization is balanced by the position of the stars in defined orbits and interplay of gravitational forces related to the mass of the stars and speed of their movement. Each is with its own motion. Orbit and own motions are the foundation of this balance. They are precisely what the Quran describes in verse 33, chapter 21, The Prophets, (Al-Anbiya):

وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ كُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ
God is the One Who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. And each one is traveling in an orbit with its motion.
{21/33}

These movements are expressed with the word (yasbahoon). The primitive meaning of the word (yasbahoon) carries the idea of movement which comes from any moving body. For example, the movement of legs of the runner or the action of the swimmer in water is described by the word (yasbah). The sequence of day and night is expressed in terms that are highly significant nowadays.
The Quran uses the verb (kawwara) in a part of verse 5, chapter 39, The Groups, (Az-Zumar) to describe the way the night ‘winds’ or ‘coils’ itself around the day and the day around the night:

…يُكَوِّرُ اللَّيْلَ عَلَى النَّهَارِ وَيُكَوِّرُ النَّهَارَ عَلَى اللَّيْلِ…

He coils the night upon the day
and the day upon the night.

The original meaning of the verb (yokawwer) is to coil a turban around the head. This is a totally valid comparison; yet at the time the Quran was revealed, the astronomical data necessary to make this comparison were unknown.
The evolution of the heavens and the notions of a settled place for the Sun are also mentioned in the Quran. All these notions are in perfect agreement with the well established modern ideas. More than that, the Quran seems to have alluded to the expansion of the universe. The conquest of space is also mentioned in the Quran. This has been undertaken thanks to remarkable technological progress and has resulted in man’s journey to the Moon. This surely springs to mind when we read verse 33, chapter 55, The Compassionate (Ar-Rahmaan):

يَا مَعْشَرَ الْجِنِّ وَالْإِنسِ إِنِ اسْتَطَعْتُمْ أَن تَنفُذُوا مِنْ أَقْطَارِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ فَانفُذُوا لَا تَنفُذُونَ إِلَّا بِسُلْطَانٍ {55/33}
O assembly of men and jinn
if you can penetrate the reigns of the heavens and earth,
then penetrate them
but you cannot do so except with a power.

This power comes from the Almighty. The use of word power (Sultan) is an invitation to recognize God’s blessing on man.
Let us now come back to Earth and among many verses let us quote the verses of the Quran concerning the mountains. Modern geology has told us about the phenomena of folding which form the mountain ranges. The stability of mountains is linked with phenomena since the folds provide foundation for the reliefs that constituted the mountains. In verses 6 and 7 of chapter The Great Tiding, (An-Naba) we read:

أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا {78/6} وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا {78/7}
Have we not made the Earth an expanse
and the mountains stakes(?)

These “stakes” (أَوْتَادً), which are put into the ground like those used to anchor the tents, are deep foundations of geological folds. The same harmony with modern scientific knowledge is noticed in the case of numerous reflections in the Quran concerning the water cycle on Earth. This is a topic which is very well known today and the verses of the Quran referring to it seem to express ideas which are now totally self evident. But if we consider the ideas prevalent at the time of the revelation fourteen centuries ago, were a mere mixture of philosophical reasoning and superstitions than facts. But now those, who study and observe these ideas and similar other topics as well, admit that any wrong notion on such ancient ideas never appeared in the Quran. Let us quote a part of verse 21, chapter 39, The Groups, (Az-Zumar):

أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ أَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاء مَاء فَسَلَكَهُ يَنَابِيعَ فِي الْأَرْضِ ثُمَّ يُخْرِجُ بِهِ زَرْعًا مُّخْتَلِفًا أَلْوَانُهُ…

Haven’t you seen that God sends down water from the sky
and leads it through the ground
and then He causes crops of different colors to grow.

We must compare one of the aspect of water cycle, to which this verse alludes and other details about it in the Quran, with the other ideas prevailing long ago. The first coherent description of water cycle dated back to 16th century with Bernard Palissy. Prior to this people talk theory whereby the water of ocean under the effective winds was thrust to the interior of the continents. They then returned to the oceans via the great abyss, which, since Plato’s time was called the Tartarus. In the 17th century, great thinkers such as Descartes still believed in this myth. Even in the 19th century there was talk of a theory according to which water was condensed in cool mountain caverns and formed underground lakes that fed springs. Today, we know that it is the infiltration of rain water into the ground that is responsible for this. If one compares the facts of modern hydrology with the data found in numerous verses of the Quran on this subject, one cannot fail to notice the remarkable degree of agreement between the two.

More than anything else I was impressed by the statements in the Quran relating the human beings, the animal and vegetable kingdoms especially with the origin of man and reproduction. It is a blessing of our time that scientific progress has made the context of many verses of the Quran comprehensive to us. The ancient commentators presented them according to their apparent meanings, which of course was very important since it invoked divine Omni power, but they could not give a review of their real meanings due to the lack of scientific knowledge which is necessary to understand these verses of the Quran. Even today numerous translations and commentaries, made by men with only a literary background, give a mistaken view of the verses real meanings. Only a scientist can give their explanation. The biological expressions given in the Quran are highly significant. Such is the case with verse 30, chapter 21 The Prophets (Al-Anbiya):

أَوَلَمْ يَرَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا أَنَّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَاهُمَا وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ الْمَاء كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ أَفَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ {21/30}
Do the unbelievers not realize that the heavens and the earth
were joined together,
then We clove them asunder
and We made every living thing out of water.
Will they still not believe (?)

It is the affirmation of modern idea that the origin of life is aquatic.
Progress in botany at the time of Muhammad was not advanced enough in any country for scientists to know that plants have both male and female parts. Nevertheless, we may read the following in a part of verse 53, chapter 20, Taha:

…وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ السَّمَاء مَاء فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِ أَزْوَاجًا مِّن نَّبَاتٍ شَتَّى {20/53}
God is the One who sent down rain from the sky
and with it brought forth a variety of plants in pairs.

Today we know that fruit comes from plants that have sexual characteristics even when they come from unfertilized flowers, like bananas. In a part of verse 3, chapter 13, Thunder (Ar-Ra‘d) we read the following:

…وَمِن كُلِّ الثَّمَرَاتِ جَعَلَ فِيهَا زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ…
…and of all fruit (God) placed (on earth)
two elements of a pair…

In the field of physiology, there is one verse which appears extremely significant to me. To understand this verse, it must first be known that chemical reactions occur inside the intestines releasing substances (nutrients) extracted from food into the blood stream. Blood stream then transports the nutrients to all the organs of the body, among which are the milk-producing mammary glands. This is precisely what is said in verse 66, chapter 16, The Bees, (An-Nahl):

وَإِنَّ لَكُمْ فِي الأَنْعَامِ لَعِبْرَةً نُّسْقِيكُم مِّمَّا فِي بُطُونِهِ مِن بَيْنِ فَرْثٍ وَدَمٍ لَّبَنًا خَالِصًا سَآئِغًا لِلشَّارِبِينَ {16/66}
Verily in cattle there is a lesson for you.
We give you a drink from their insides,
coming from a conjunction between the digested contents
(of the intestines ) and the blood,
milk pure and pleasant for those who drink it.

The constituents of milk are secreted by the mammary glands which are nourished by the product of food digestion brought to them by the bloodstream. The initial event which sets the whole process in motion is the conjunction of the contents of the intestine and blood at the level of the intestinal wall itself.
The Quran considerably enriches man with data about himself as we shall see. But its teachings have been clearly understood in modern times. As a medical doctor, I was naturally attracted to natural sciences and physiology. I must confirm that when I read the Qur’an in its original language for the first time, these data about man was among those which impressed me most. That’s why as soon as I finished my study of Arabic; I delivered a lecture in the French Academy of Medicine with a special reference to the verses about the human reproduction in the Quran. In order to carry out a valid comparison it must be remembered that a lot of superstitions and myths were present in old times about this topic. Still we don’t find any reference to such myth or superstition in the Quran. Let us now isolate, from all these verses, precise ideas concerning the complexity of male fertilizing liquid – the semen, and the fact that an infinitely small quantity of it is required to ensure fertilization. This can also be expressed by the word; quintessence, if I have correctly translated the Arabic word (Sulalah) as extraction of elements from something else. The implementation of egg inside the female genetic organ is perfectly described in many verses by the word (Alaq) (عَلَقٍ). In the second verse revealed to the Prophet the word appears. Verse 2, chapter 96, The Clinging Thing, (Alaq) reads as follows:

خَلَقَ الْإِنسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ

God created man from something which clings.

{96/2}

I do not think there is any reasonable translation of the word (Alaq) other than to use it in the primitive meaning. It is a mistake to speak of a ‘blood clot’ here. It is a derivative meaning which is not appropriate in this context

The evolution of the embryo inside the maternal uterus is only briefly described, but the description is accurate, because the simple words referring to it correspond exactly to fundamental stages in its growth. This is what we read in a part of verse 14, chapter 23, The Believers, (Al-Mu’minoon):

ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا…

We fashioned the sperm drop into something which clings
into a chewed lump of flesh
and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones
and We clothed the bones with intact flesh.

The term ‘chewed flesh’ (mudghah) corresponds exactly to the appearance of the embryo at a certain stage in its development. It is known that the bones develop inside this mass and that they are then covered with muscle. This is the meaning of the term ‘intact flesh’ (lahm).We know today that the embryo passes through a stage where some parts are in proportion and others out of proportion with what is later to become the newly born human. This is the obvious meaning of a part of verse 5, chapter 22, The Pilgrimage, (Al Hajj) which reads as follows:

…ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ مِن مُّضْغَةٍ مُّخَلَّقَةٍ وَغَيْرِ مُخَلَّقَةٍ…

We fashioned you from something which clings,
then into a lump of flesh in proportion and out of proportion.

In verse 9, chapter 32, The Prostration, (Al Sajda) there is a reference to the senses and internal organs of the body:

… وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ…

God appointed for you senses of hearing, sight and hearts.

All these illustrations are in complete harmony with what was to be discovered centuries after the death of Prophet Muhammad. It is inconceivable that many statements in the Quran, which are connected with science, could be a work of a man. It is therefore perfectly legitimate to not only regard the Quran as an expression of divine revelation but also to be awarded very special place on account of guarantee of authenticity it provides and the reflections contained in it.

When we study the Qur’an even today it appears as a challenge to the human knowledge.

We shall show them Our signs on furthest horizons
and within themselves
until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.
Qur’an, verse 53, chapter 41, The Lucidly Distinct, (Fussilat)
Then God turned to heaven when it was smoke.
Qur’an, verse 11, chapter 41, The Lucidly Distinct, (Fussilat)
Don’t the unbelievers see that the heavens and earth
were joined together
and then We spilt them apart.
Qur’an, verse 30, chapter 21, The Prophets, (Al-Anbiya)
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.
Qur’an, verse 2, chapter 1, The Opening, (Al-Fatiha)

(Computer generated sequence showing the Big Bang and the creation of the universe)
You have just seen a visual interpretation of the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe widely accepted by scientists today. The words you listened to were from the Qur’an that is the holy book of Islam recorded over 1400 years ago.
The Qur’an is the heart and soul of Islam. Muslims believe it to be the wisdom of God revealed for all mankind through His Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). It would seem to make no sense to look for scientific factual information in a book that offers spiritual and social guidance through revelation. Yet within the Qur’an, many verses contain descriptions of the physical world that are remarkably similar to those of modern science. These verses span a wide range of subjects from the vast workings of the universe to the minute affairs of life on Earth.
And We created every living thing out of water.
Qur’an, verse 30, chapter 21, The Prophets, (Al-Anbiya)
It is in the way Qur’an approaches knowledge that it differs so much from modern science. The scientific approach is to isolate and analyze the specific, whereas, the Qur’anic revelation always refers to specifics in relation to and as a part of the whole pattern of creation.
Today science can explain many of the complex interactions which maintain the cycle of life on our planet. It is well understood that how insects, animals and wind carry pollens from stamen of one plant to the ovules of another. This process of fertilization in plants nearly always depends upon the existence of definite sexual characteristics: male stamen and female ovules. It is common knowledge today but at the time of Qur’anic revelation such detailed information was not known. Yet in the Qur’an we read:
…and of all fruits (God) placed (on the earth) two of a pair.
Qur’an, part of verse 3, chapter 13, The Thunder, (Ar-Ra‘d)
God is the One Who sent water down from the sky
and thereby brought forth pairs of plants
each separate from another.
Qur’an, verse 53, chapter 20, (Taha)
The Qur’an describes this particular aspect in order to further man’s understanding of the unity of all things and his place within the creation. In the light of this approach we should perhaps expect to discover that any detailed observation made in the Qur’an should accord with modern science.
It was the discovery of a relationship within his own field that led Dr. Maurice Bucaille to make a scientific study of the Qur’an.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille: “As a medical doctor and particularly attracted to physiology and natural sciences, I must confess that in 1972, when I read the Quran in the original text for the first time, the data concerning man were those which impressed me the most. As in view of knowledge in days of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) it is inconceivable that many of the statements in the Quran, which are connected with science, could have been the work of any man”.
This film is based on the research made by Dr. Bucaille and published in two books The Bible, The Quran and Science and What is the Origin of Man. Dr. Bucaille’s initial interest developed into a general study of all the scientific references in the Qur’an. He realized that he had to develop a grasp of many specialized scientific disciplines to fully understand these references. As his study progressed he found that every description of the material world in the Qur’an correlated with established scientific facts.
Dr. Maurice Bucaille: “It is therefore perfectly legitimate to not only regard the Quran as the expression of revelation but also to award it a very special place on account of guarantee of authenticity it provides and the presence in it of reflections which when studied today appear as a challenge to human explanation”.
How is it possible for a book recorded in the 7th century to preempt so much of today’s hard earned scientific information? To understand this we need to look into the nature of the Qur’anic revelation and examine its authenticity.

Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula is the center of Muslims. Mecca has always been a holy place. It was a center of pilgrimage long before the period of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). It was here that Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was born and grew up to be a highly respectable member of the community and a successful merchant trader. It was his habit to retreat to nearby mountains for a period of meditation and contemplation. In the cave of Hira’ he received his first revelation at the age of forty on the 6th of August in the year 610 AD.
Read! In the name of your Lord Who created.
Who created man from something which clings.
Read! Your Lord is the most Noble,
Who taught by the pen.
Who taught man what he did not know.
Qur’an, verses 1- 5, chapter 1, The Clinging Thing, (Al-‘Alaq)
The revelation continued for a period of 23 years up to the death of the Prophet (pbuh) in the year 632. The Prophet (pbuh) being unable to read or write called upon his literate companions and dictated to them. So he supervised the transcription and proper recording of the revelations. These recordings were later assembled as the Quran. Altogether they are 114 Souras or Chapters composed of more than 6000 verses. Within 15 years of the Prophet’s death a final Qur’an had been compiled and authenticated by the Prophet’s companions who had been present throughout the revelations. This was achieved during the Caliphate of Ottoman of the town of Medina where the Prophet(pbuh) is buried.
When Muhammad (pbuh) brought his message to Mecca many of its people turned against him and he was forced to flee with his followers. He was given refuge in Medina and it was here that first Muslim community was founded and Islam developed its social form. From that time the Qur’an never changed. The same Qur’an word for word and in its original language Arabic is used today across the Muslim world from Morocco to Malaysia.
The Muslims believe that Qur’an is the book of wisdom which guides every aspect of man’s existence. It deals not only with the individual’s inner spiritual development but also his outward behavior and social life in the community. The form which governs all Islamic life is apparent in both the complex urban society, like a city of Lahore in Pakistan, and in the traditional village community. The foundation stone of any community, no matter how large or small, is the individual. It is the behavior of the individual which determines the social pattern and its strength or weakness. There are many verses in the Qur’an which guide the individual’s behavior and which deals with his responsibility towards others. In any Muslim community, whether urban or rural, this is learned and understood from a very early age. The Qur’an describes this individual responsibility as a trust that God has given to man. Implicit in this trust is a three-fold responsibility that is to oneself, to others and to the natural world. In this way the individual sees himself as belonging as a part of whole rather than separate.
Through the reading of the Qur’an, even the most routine aspects of daily life are given meaning. The Qur’an was revealed 600 years before the Muslim scientist Ibn An-Nafees discovered the circulation of blood and William Harvey brought this understanding to Western science after 1000 years of revelation of the Qur’an. Yet the process of digestion and distribution of nutrients to different organs and glands through blood is described in this verse.
Truly, in the cattle there is a lesson for yon.
We give you to drink
from what is inside their bodies,
coming from a conjunction
between the digested contents (of the intestines)
and the blood,
milk pure and pleasant for those who drink it. Qur’an, verse 66, chapter 16, The Bees, (An-Nahl)
The individual becomes strong by accepting the responsibility for life. From his sense of identity and belonging grows the strength of the village community and from this the strength of larger community of the world. The Qur’an is of course far more than a guide to social and moral behavior. The acceptance of the revelation essentially means believing in God, The Creator. It also means believing in his prophets. The Qur’an is quite literally regarded as the word of God. It is well known that a Muslim prays five times a day but less often understood that his prayer should not end as he leaves the mosque. But it should be carried with him coloring the awareness with which he undertakes all of his daily activities. In this way he attempts to maintain a prospective on his mortality and to live the world but not be of it.
Today there are more than one billion Muslims in the world living in many different countries and divided by language, culture and politics, but joined together through their common belief in God and teachings of the Qur’an. And this in an age when many people, particularly in the West, feel that scientific progress has cast irrefutable doubt on the value of spiritual teachings, Islam itself never considered that there is any real contradiction between science and religion. The late professor Ismail Faruqi was a highly respected authority on Islamic studies.
Dr. Ismail Faruqi: “To be a Muslim is to be a scientist because you can’t be a Muslim if you don’t fulfill the terms of Khilāfa (Man’s trusteeship and stewardship on Earth). The terms of Khilāfa are that you deal with nature and you transform the nature within you and the nature in other human beings and nature outside like the trees, the mountains, the rivers and everything, the whole of creation. So you have to study nature in order to know its laws and its secrets to deal with it and transform it. Another reason is that nature is the creation of Allah (God) and He has planted His patterns in it. Therefore, to discover patterns of nature is to discover patterns of Allah and therefore to glorify Him. So there are these two reasons why every Muslim must be a scientist. That is why Muslims have done wonders in science. Therefore, Muslims study nature not because nature is an enemy, like for instance the Greeks did. Muslims study nature not because there is a jinni in nature which is trying to master or subdue. Not at all, Muslims study nature because it is a gift from Allah which Allah has made subservient to man so man may live and may fulfill the commandments of Allah.
By observing nature man has always learned to adapt it to his needs. Ancient agricultural systems are perfect examples of man’s turning observation into practical knowledge. It is necessary to have scientific understanding of nature to develop such basic technology”.
In Europe, it was not until the 16th century that Bernard Palissy presented the first coherent description of the water cycle. He described how water evaporates from the oceans and cools to form clouds. The clouds move inland where they rise, condense and fall as rain. The rain gathers in lakes and streams and flow back to the ocean in a continuous cycle. This picture is familiar to us today. But the ideas prevalent at the time of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), added to myths and speculations than to observed facts. In the seventh century before Christ, Thales of Mellitus believed that surface spray from the ocean was picked by the wind and carried inland to fall as rain. It was thought that water returned to ocean through a great abyss which Plato called the Tartarus. Whereas, Aristotle imagined that the water vapor from the soil was condensed in cooled mountain caverns and formed underground lakes that fed springs. The Quran, far from reflecting the common misconceptions of the time, is in close agreement with facts of modern hydrology.
Have you not seen that God makes the clouds move gently,
and then joins them together,
then makes them a heap
and you see rain drops issuing from within them.
Quran, verse 43, chapter 24, The Light, (An-Noor)
It is God who sends the winds
and they raise the clouds
and then He spreads them in the sky as He wills,
breaking them into fragments,
until you see rain drops falling from within them,
then when He has made them to reach those of His servants as He wills,
see how they rejoice even though before they received the rain,
they were dumb with despair.
Qur’an, verses 48 – 49, chapter 30, The Byzantines, (Ar-Roum)
While science is the study of the material world and the way in which nature works, religious teachings, as in the Qur’anic revelation, present an overview.
Have you not seen that Allah sent rain down from the sky
and caused it to penetrate the ground
and come forth as springs,
then He caused crops of different colors to grow…
Qur’an, verse 21, chapter 39, The Groups, (Az-Zumar)
And among His signs He shows you the lightning,
by the way of both of fear and hope,
and He sent down rain from the sky
and with it gives life to earth after it is dead ,
truly in that are sings for those who are wise.
Qur’an, verse 24, chapter 30, The Byzantines, (Ar-Roum)

The Qur’an asks man to look for the science within him and on the horizons. To attain understanding man must use his eyes, his mind and his heart. Any part of knowledge demands an act of faith but not, as it is commonly misunderstood, blind faith. True seekers of knowledge expect their ideas and their faith in those ideas to be continually tested.
In the short history of modern science many ideas and concepts have been presented only to be discarded as new evidence points to a different truth. Nevertheless, there are many scientific discoveries that can be said to be undisputed facts. This fact is commonly known and widely accepted today that the Sun is a direct source of light and the moon, having no light of its own, is merely a reflective body. Such specific details were not commonly known 1400 years ago. Yet in the Qur’an moon light is described as “munir”, a word which means “reflected light”. The Sun is compared to a blazing lamp (Wahhaj in Arabic) or a torch (Seraj), a precise and accurate description of the difference between Sun light and moon light.
Blessed is the One Who placed the constellation in heaven
and placed therein a lamp and a moon giving light.
Qur’an, verse 61, chapter 25, The Criterion, (Al-Furqan)
For a long time, European philosophers and scientists believed that Earth stood still in the center of the universe and every other planetary body, including the Sun, moved around it. In the West, this theory of geocentricism went unchallenged from the time of Ptolemy, in the 2nd century before Christ, right through the 16th century AD when Copernicus asserted that it is Earth which moves around the Sun. In 1609, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler published the Astronomia Nova in which he concluded that not only the planets move in orbits around the Sun but they also rotate upon their axis at irregular speeds. With this knowledge it became possible for European scientists to explain correctly many of mechanisms of our Solar System including the process of night and day.
In explaining the sequence of night and day the Qur’an used the Arabic verb (kawwara) to describe the way the night ‘winds’ or ‘coils’ itself around the day and the day around the night. It fits perfectly with the cycle of night and day produced by the spinning of Earth upon its axis.
He coils the night upon the day
and the day upon the night.
Qur’an, verse 5, chapter 39, The Groups, (Az-Zumar)
It is He Who created the night and day,
the sun and the moon,
all the celestial bodies traveling in an orbit each with its own motion.
Qur’an, verse 33, chapter 21, The Prophets, (Al- Anbiya)
Revelation goes much further than science in its unified vision of creation. Yet those aspects of it which particularly describe the material world agree with well-established scientific facts. Also there is no observation in the Qur’an which is contradicted by scientific facts.

This is no genuine quarrel between the religion’s search for wisdom and the scientific search for truth. It is dogmatism which creates this illusion. Religious dogmatism leads to denial of much genuine scientific discoveries. Scientific dogmatism often arises through an inability to distinguish between fact and theory. Nowhere does this become more apparent than in the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution.
For most of us the concept of evolution conjoins up the name of Charles Darwin.
(A teacher showing the statue of Charles Darwin to his students in a museum)
Teacher: Now here is Charles Darwin and we want to remember him because he was the first to think of a convincing mechanism to explain how the evolution might have occurred. He called this mechanism natural selection and he described it in his book. Does anybody remember the name of his book?
Student: He wrote the book On the Origin of Species.
Teacher: Right. He sailed in ocean to a group of islands, called the Galapagos Islands, in his ship. Does anybody remember the name of his ship?
Student: Beagle
Teacher: Right. HMS Beagle
On the Galapagos Islands, Darwin found living proofs of an evolutionary process at work. He found, for instance, that there were considerable variations in the beaks of Finches, each having evolved to exploit the different ecological niche. But all these variations occurred within the same species. Darwin was unable to find any evidence to support his theory that one species could evolve into another. He expressed his misgivings in a letter written to Thomas Thompson in 1861.
“But I believe in natural selection not because I can prove in any single case that it has changed one species into another but because it groups and explains well, as it seems to me, a host of facts in classification embryology, morphology, rudimentary organs, geological succession and distribution.”
Despite his misgivings Darwin’s work had such a powerful impact that it has colored most of the scientific research on this subject. Since the popular image of evolution, that mankind evolved from apes, has been so widely embraced that it is now taught to us as being a fact rather than a theory. More than a century of scientific research has failed to prove this theory.
For a long time the major line of research was Paleontology, the study of fossils. Here very limited and random evidences were given unlimited amount of speculation. In 1971 Professor Grasse, who held the chair of evolutionary studies at Sorbonne University in Paris for thirty years, wrote:
“In the history of the primates we must be careful not to take the face value of the reconstructions of our ancestors based on few skeleton vestiges that were put forward in all seriousness by highly imaginative paleontologists.”
This explains why genealogical trees of man are quickly devised and just as quickly discarded. The most recent work on this subject appears to be fairly mediocre. Even though they concern new and interesting discoveries, the researchers engaged in these studies have neither the knowledge nor the good sense to interpret the discoveries correctly.
The fossil evidence has shown that there had been several stages in the development of mankind. But a link to join any of these hominid forms to any other animal lineage has never been found. Speculations like the famous Piltdown man demonstrate the single-mindedness of paleontologists in seeking this speculative missing link.
The oldest near complete fossil of a hominid form is Lucy who is thought to be nearly 3.5 million years old. The bone structure showed that Lucy walked upright on two legs like us and not like an ape. Lucy and her kind, the Australopithecines, died out some time during the first ice age.
He created you in stages.
Qur’an, verse 14, chapter 24, The Light, (Al-Noor)
Fossils found in Africa, Asia and Europe showed that there was another wave of hominids which was closer to our size with a brain capacity similar to modern man. This wave, the Homo erectus, seems to have disappeared between 500.000 years and 150.000 years ago.
We created man according to the best organizational plan.
Qur’an, verse 4, chapter 95, The Fig, (At-Teen)
The next wave, the Neanderthal man, was even closer to us in structure and probably also in appearance. They died out between 100.000 years to 40.000 years ago.
If God wills He destroys you
and in your place appoints who He wills as successor
just as he brought you forth from the descendants of other people.
Qur’an, verse 133, chapter 3, The Cattle, (Al-Anaam)
Neanderthal man was succeeded by the fourth wave, Cro-Magnon man who is the direct ancestor of modern man. No clear link has been found between any of these different stages.
Verily We created them and strengthened all of them
and when We willed We replaced them completely
by people who were of the same kind.
Qur’an, verse 28, chapter 76, Man, (Al-Insaan)
Once again the overview of the Qur’an and the facts discovered by research seem to match. But here the similarity stops. The Qur’an does not agree with the theories and the speculations of the paleontologists.
The latest support for the theory of evolution of species comes through molecular biology particularly from the studies of chromosomes and the genetic code. In multi cellular organisms the complete genetic code is contained within the nucleus of each and every cell of the body. An individual inherits the exact copies of genes from the parents; so passing on information from one generation to another. The only way a gene can change is through mutation during the duplication process. Geneticists have shown how this process of mutation can account for major physical changes within a short time span but this is far from proving that one species can evolve into another. It is even further from providing an explanation for myriad life forms on this planet. For Multi-cellular organs to change their nature and functions, many different features have to evolve together. This needs fantastically genetic co-ordination and to tribute such coordination to random or chance mutation is a severe stretch of the imagination. Francis Crick, who dominated the field of genetic research from the very beginning, acknowledges the severe limitations of the molecular approach. In one way you can say that all the genetic molecular biological work of the last sixty years could be considered as a long interlude. Now that program has been completed. We have come full circle back to the problems left behind unsolved. How a wounded organ regenerates to exactly the same structure it had before? How does the egg form the organism? Almost nothing is known of the way the genes communicate, cooperate and organize themselves to develop a complex organism like man. An attempt of explaining life solely in terms of random molecular mechanisms is too simplistic. It fails to deal with fundamental questions behind the process of creation.
We created you and thereupon We fashioned you
and thereupon We told the angels to bow down to Adam.
Qur’an, verse 11, chapter 7, The Heights, (Al-Araaf)
The spiritual concept behind the creation of man from clay or earth is well known. Science has also shown that there is also a physical reality in it. The chemical components which form the human body are present to a greater or lesser quantity in the ground.
God is the One Who created you
and then fashioned you harmoniously
and in due proportion into whatever form He willed.
He made you out of components.
Qur’an, verses 7- 8, chapter 82, The Splitting, (Al-Infitar)

The creation of mankind as a species can be seen in microcosm with the creation of each individual human being. The Qur’anic verses, dealing with the fertilization and development of human embryo, are stunning in their clarity and precision.
(Footage pertaining to conception and human development inside the womb)
What you are watching is the actual journey of male sperm to the egg, photographed for the first time inside a female body.
God fashioned the two of a pair,
the male and female,
from a small quantity of sperm when it is poured out.
Qur’an, verses 45 – 46, chapter 53, The Star, (Al-Najam)
Then We placed man as a small quantity of sperm
in a safe lodging firmly established.
Qur’an, verse 13, chapter 23, The Believers, (Al-Mu’minoon)
Once fertilized, the egg moves to the womb where it clings to the wall of uterus to draw nourishment.
Read in the name of your Lord Who fashioned.
Who fashioned man from something which clings.
Qur’an, verses 1-2, chapter 1, The Clinging Thing, (Al-Alaq)
We fashioned the thing which clings
into a chewed lump of flesh
and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones
and We clothed the bones with intact flesh.
Qur’an, verse 14, chapter 23, The Believers, (Al-Mu’minoon)
As embryo grows, it passes through stages where many of its parts are out of proportion.
We fashioned (humans) into something which clings,
then into a lump of flesh in proportion
and out of proportion.
Qur’an, verse 5, chapter The Pilgrimage, (Al-Hajj)
…and (God) gave you ears, eyes and hearts.
Qur’an, verse 9, chapter 32, The Prostration, (As-Sajdah)

Today we are born into an age of great scientific accomplishment. We have learned many of nature’s infinitely complex mechanisms. When we think about the remarkable organization presiding over the birth and maintenance of life, it becomes less and less possible to consider it as a result of chance. As the scientists delve deeper into the cellular and sub atomic worlds and outwards in the mysteries of the universe, they reach new and baffling frontiers of knowledge. The classical mechanistic view of life ceases to work and the scientists are confronted with questions which have traditionally been seen as belonging to the room of spiritual and religious beliefs.
It is certain that science, being a relative form of knowledge, would never be able to answer these questions.
O assembly of Jinns and men,
if you can penetrate the regions of the heavens and the earth,
then penetrate them!
You will not penetrate them except with authority.
Qur’an, verse 33, chapter 55, The Compassionate, (Ar-Rahmaan)
The realization of life could only and truly be understood in terms of its interrelatedness and interdependences which is the starting point of all religious and spiritual knowledge. The Qur’anic revelation is the most recent in the long tradition of revealed wisdom. It presents an overview within which all other ways of seeking knowledge, including science, can be guided towards a fuller and more complete understanding. The world is already seeing and suffering from the consequences of its lack of this unified vision.