Part of Dr. Bucaille’s visit to Chicago in 1987 was to deliver lectures on subjects which he had attained an authority status. Hence the following lecture dedicated to fathom the intertwined relationship of the Gracious Qur’an to Modern Science.
Introduction by the host
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 the Qur’an at some time in his life and he read the Qur’an in French translation. Later he read the Qur’an also in English translation and he noticed the inadequacies of the translations. As a result he learned Arabic at the age of fifty and he, being a scientist, took upon himself to express biblical narratives, the Qur’an and the science. He wrote his first book in French back in 1971 which was later translated and published in English in late 70’s. The name of the book is “The Bible, the Qur’an 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 “Mummies of the Pharaohs: Modern Medical Investigations” in which he has brought out the identification of Pharaoh at the time of Moses when he was born, and the Pharaoh at the time when he was exiled.
Lecture on “The Qur’an and Modern Science by Dr. Maurice Bucaille
Ladies and gentlemen Assalamu Alaikum…. There is no human work prior to modern times that contains statements which equaled on the state of knowledge at the time they appeared and which might be compared to the Qur’an. There is perhaps no better example of close links between Islam and science than Prophet’s hadeeth (pbuh):
اطلبوا العلم ولو في الصين
“Seek Science (Knowledge) even if it were in China”.
Which is an inevitable invitation to man to unleash his quest for knowledge? More significantly, if it is possible, is the famous hadeeth:
مداد العلماء أفضل من دماء الشهداء
“The scholars’ ink is more precious than the martyrs’ blood.”
It comes as no surprise therefore that religion and science have been always 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 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 Qur’an. Generally speaking, science now seems, in spite of what people may say, highly conducive to the existence of the 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 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 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 Qur’an 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 possessed sufficient scientific means. It is only today that the understanding of the verses of the Qur’an, dealing with natural phenomena, has become comprehensive. Readings of all the commentaries shows the inability to grasp the total meanings 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 Qur’an about such subjects without having recourse to specialized research. It means that in order to understand all such verses of the Qur’an, one is required to have absolutely an encyclopedic knowledge. By which I mean the one which impresses very many disciplines.