Bucailleism: Reconciling Modern Science with the Qur'an

“Space outside organized astronomical systems was earlier assumed to be a vacuum. Astrophysicists later discovered the presence of bridges of matter in this interstellar space. These bridges of matter are called plasma, and consist of completely ionized gas containing equal number of free electrons and positive ions…The Qur’aan mentions the presence of this interstellar material in the following verse: “He who created the heavens and the earth and all That is between.” [Al-Qur’aan 25:59]”[1]

That the Qur’an predicted the discovery and composition of interstellar matter is typical of the kind of assertions offered to support the miraculous nature of Islam’s holy book in what is now an exploding phenomenon of research and popular literature dealing with Islam and science. A growing number of Muslims around the world are fascinated with this new literature and consider its methods and findings irresistibly compelling. New books and articles in this apologetic genre appear daily, and speakers such as Dr. Zakir Naik, the author of the above quote, regularly pack auditoriums in the Middle East to give seminars on this material, or to stage public debates where the scientific marvels of the Qur’an can be showcased. This type of literature includes data from numerous scientific fields; in fact, the table of contents from Naik’s book includes chapter headings such as Astronomy, Physics, Geography, Geology, Oceanology, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Medicine, Physiology, and Embryology. In addition to these, the study of Cosmology and “Creation Science” has become its own sub-field within this larger movement.

The tremendous popularity of this movement in Islam itself deserves attention and a closer analysis of it may prove to be of value to the religion-science dialogue. The nature of this attempt to reconcile Islam with science in this literature is indicative of the perceptions of millions of Muslims with regard to science and religion, and though the roots of the apologetic method used to confirm the Qur’an as revelation are historic and traditional, the particular application of science in this literature is a unique phenomenon.

Traditionally, Islam has appealed to the eloquence of the Qur’an as a primary proof of its divine origin. This argument is internal to the text of the Qur’an itself. Sura 2:23 reads: “And if ye are in doubt as to what We have revealed…Then produce a sura like it.”[2] This challenge is repeated several times throughout the Qur’an, and while the argument from eloquence is still a standard Muslim defense of the Qur’an, a new apologetic method has developed which employs modern science as evidence that the Qur’an is the word of God. Naik states this argument in its strongest form: “because we live in an age, where human reason, logic and science are given primacy. Not many would accept the Qur’aan’s extraordinarily beautiful language as proof of its divine origin.”[3] Naik admits that the argument from eloquence is no longer an effective apologetic. While he still affirms the truth of the “challenge to produce a sura” similar to the Qur’an, he reinterprets the terms of the challenge to mean that the inimitability of the Qur’an, which attests to its divine origin, includes not only its eloquence, but also its miraculous scientific accuracy.

The Islamic doctrine of revelation gives the scriptures a uniquely elevated position for Muslims. Traditionally, the Qur’an is understood to be the very speech of God to man. The author, therefore, is not the Prophet Muhammad, but Allah himself. Speech being an attribute of God, the Qur’an is believed to be eternal and uncreated. Islam teaches that the Qur’an was literally “lowered” by God through the angel Gabriel and communicated to Muhammad throughout 23 years. The Arabic word used to describe this lowering is tanzil. A basic knowledge of this Muslim conception of scripture is important in understanding the significance of the claims being made in this literature.

The Founding of Bucailleism
In 1976 the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille published the book, The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science[4], which is credited with founding this genre and launching the movement which today is described as “Bucailleism.” Bucaille had served as chief of the Surgical Clinic at the University of Paris and began to study the relationship between science and Scripture in Islam and Christianity. An event integral to his interest in this subject was having been sent to Cairo to assist in the preservation of the mummy of Ramses II as advisors to the curators of the Cairo Museum. It was apparently during this trip that he was told that the Qur’an contained a passage that alluded to the fact that the body of this pharaoh “would be preserved ‘to be a sign for those who come later’ (10:92).” [5] His interest having been sparked, Bucaille set out to study Islam, including learning Arabic. He was eventually invited to serve as physician to King Faisal of Saudi Arabia and traveled frequently for that purpose.

Originally published in French, The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science, came to be translated into English and has become very influential, particularly as the foundation for this new apologetic literature which seeks to find evidence of modern scientific discoveries within the Qur’an. Bucaille’s book is seen as a “watershed in the history of publications on the relationship between Islam and modern natural sciences.”[6] Muzaffar Iqbal, the president of the Center for Islam and Science in Alberta, Canada, adds that this “enormously popular book… [has been] translated into every language spoken in the Muslim world.”[7]

The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science—Content and Methodology
The book itself begins with critical descriptions of the Old Testament and the Gospels. Bucaille highlights what he considers to be contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and scientific errors. He draws on historical critical scholarship and concludes that the text of the Bible is largely unreliable. This polemic against the Bible is continuous with a larger tradition in some Islamic circles of appropriating Western biblical scholarship and employing it as evidence of the Bible's inferiority to the Qur’an. For example, he concludes that the Gospels actually predict the coming of another prophet after Jesus. This assertion is based on his interpretation of the “paraclete” of John 14. While Bucaille doesn’t explicitly attribute this to a prediction by Jesus of the coming of Muhammad, this is an historically widespread polemic element in Muslim literature.

This analysis is followed by the section titled “The Qur’an and Modern Science,” which is the heart of the book and the reason for Bucaille’s fame and influence. This section begins with an introduction in which Bucaille concludes that, “If a man was the author of the Qur’an, how could he have written facts in the Seventh century A.D. that today are shown to be in keeping with modern scientific knowledge?”[8] Similarly, he writes that, “for me, there can be no human explanation to the Qur’an.”[9] This conclusion frames the content of the remainder of the book and summarizes its conclusion. Bucaille offers a defense of the authenticity of the Qur’an in terms of its transmission and preservation and then proceeds to outline various scientific areas of study, contrasting the Bible’s scientific errors with the inexplicable scientific accuracy of the Qur’an.

He divides his observations in this section into five headings: “The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth”; “Astronomy in the Qur’an”; “The Earth”; “The Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms”; and “Human Reproduction.” Each heading addresses several topics in which, according to Bucaille’s interpretation, the Qur’an accurately describes current scientific knowledge.
In the first area he analyzes several verses of the Qur’an and concludes that it is scientifically accurate and miraculously predictive with regard to the origins of the Earth. For example, the Qur’an is described as accommodating a scientifically accurate view of the age of the earth, based on the flexibility of the Arabic term yaum, “day.”[10] He also claims that the Qur’an accurately depicted the universe has having been composed of “a gaseous mass with fine particles” before the planets came to be. This is based on sura 41:11, which reads (in Bucaille’s translation), “Moreover (tumma) He turned to heaven when it was smoke and said to the earth: come willingly or unwillingly!”[11] This verse, along with the verse cited in the introduction to this paper (25:49) is also used by Bucaille as evidence for the existence of interstellar matter.[12]

Interestingly, he concedes that although the Qur’an teaches that there are seven heavens and seven earths, he interprets the number seven to be an “indefinite plurality.” Still the problem of “multiple earths” suggests other planets which are “similar to ours”, according to Bucaille. He solves this with the assertion that this “is an idea that arises in the text of the Qur’an but has not yet been demonstrated to be true by science; all the same, specialists consider this to be quite feasible.”[13]

These examples are typical of the author’s use of the Qur’an and can serve as a template for describing his method, which has been adopted and modified by the dozens of authors who have contributed to this genre subsequently. Although Bucaille doesn’t characterize them in this way, his interpretation of verses pertaining to science can be divided into three categories. 1) The Qur’an is said to be free from any contradiction with modern scientific knowledge, even when such a contradiction is apparent in a verse. For example, the verses which suggest that the Earth was created in six days are said to be compatible with an old Earth by interpreting the language of the verse, in this case the word yaum for “day”, symbolically or in a broadened sense. 2) The Qur’an is said to predict modern scientific discoveries centuries in advance. This is the case with the verse that describes the heavens as “smoke”. In many of these examples, Bucaille attempts to show that the actual meaning of the words or phrases is only fully understood in the light of modern scientific discovery. In this way he is able to see the Arabic for “smoke” as descriptive of the “gaseous mass with fine particles” which constituted the state of the universe before the appearance of the planets. 3) Finally, with regard to the verses which make clear claims that cannot be verified by science, Bucaille appeals to the incomplete nature of scientific discovery to date, thus leaving the door open for science to confirm what the Qur’an has been teaching since the seventh century. For example, in the verses which describe the seven heavens and seven earths, Bucaille employs the same strategy as with the word yaum to interpret the number seven symbolically, meaning simply an “indefinite plurality”, and then affirms that while science has already discovered other galaxies (allowing for a fulfillment of the multiple heavens), it has yet to discover multiple “earths”, or planets similar to ours. While a firm definition of Bucailleism has yet to be offered, any method which exhibits these three characteristics might be described by this designation.

The Growth of Bucailleism
Since the publication of The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science, a flood of literature has emerged in this genre, and many others have adopted the conclusions of Bucailleism as part of their interpretation and presentation of Islam. For example, Shabir Ally, the president of the Islamic Information and Dawah Centre in Toronto, Ontario, is a prominent author, debater, and spokesperson for a significant segment of Muslims in the West who employs this type of method, sometimes quoting from Bucaille himself[14]. Zakir Naik, who is mentioned above is also a physician and has become an influential author and speaker. A disciple of Ahmed Deedat, the pioneer of modern Muslim Apologetics, Naik’s “Islamic Research Foundation” has become a prominent vehicle for Bucailleism in the Muslim world, particularly in India.[15] A prominent example from the Middle East is Professor Zaghloul El-Naggar whose popular weekly television show regularly presents the “scientific facts in the Quran.”[16]

The profusion of new authors and the expanding popularity of this literature have corresponded to a significant increase in the influence that Bucailleism has gained in the Muslim world. Muzaffar Iqbal was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article, “All over the Arab world, in the universities, you will find people who hold onto this line of thought more and more. It has more credence there than creationism has here. In the Muslim world, there is no organized opposition to it.”[17] The same article notes that this methodology is “widely taught in Islamic secondary schools.” Similarly, “Dubai's medical school recently introduced a compulsory course for all students: Islamic Medicine. The program seeks to link all modern medicine, including genetics, to the Koran.”[18]

A one-time protegé of Prof. Zaghloul El-Naggar, Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, a Yemeni, is also an influential promoter of Bucailleism. Zindani is the recently retired founder of the “Commission on Scientific Signs in the Qur’an and Sunnah” in Saudi Arabia. The Commission, under Zindani, has funded and organized conferences, videos, and publications for distribution all over the world. Their video “This is the Truth” has been one of the single most influential elements in the Bucailleist movement[19]. It includes interviews with several Western scientists who seem to give support to the scientific evidence for the divine origins of the Qur’an. However, many of those scientists have since retracted their statements and claim to have been manipulated or pressured into delivering their endorsements.[20]

Zindani has received much of his funding from the Muslim World League and from Osama bin Laden, another Bucailleist, who helped fund the publication of a textbook. Bin Laden apparently became interested in the scientific confirmation of the Qur’an upon hearing a lecture by Sheikh Zindani.[21] Interestingly, Zindani was recently declared a terrorist by the United States Treasury Department[22], which caused a “massive backlash at every level of Yemeni society,”[23] as well as in the West. Daniel Golden credits Zindani’s activities at King Abdulaziz University beginning in 1980 with providing the initial momentum for Bucailleism.

In any case, the movement finds itself well-entrenched and propagated in the Muslim world today. The internet is largely responsible for the dissemination of Bucailleism today, and the number of resources available continues to increase at a staggering rate. Hundreds of websites contain articles, movies, entire books, and links to other websites where well-designed pages with beautiful graphics and animation are devoted to presenting the scientific miracles in the Qur’an. Despite the obvious cost involved in producing such books and maintaining websites, almost all of the publishers offer the material for free online with no copyright restrictions. This fact alone contributes to the regular repackaging and distributing of materials in ever improving formats. It is also a testimony to the conviction and fervor of Bucailleists regarding Islam and the Qur’an. In 2000, Basit Kareem Iqbal and Elma Harder, having recognized this phenomenon, published an article titled “Islam and Science Online,” which provides a brief survey of the types of materials being presented on the internet. They discovered that websites related to Bucailleism, or “proving the Qur’an through science,” constituted the single largest segment of types of sites dealing with science and Islam. This article is also one of the first published sources to designate this movement as “Bucaillism” (as they spelled it).[24]

Embryology
Of the many scientific areas that this literature addresses, embryology is common to nearly all of it and often has a particularly prominent place. This is explained by the apparent conviction that the Qur’an is thoroughly descriptive of the development of the human embryo and fetus, and that this description is particularly miraculous.

A Brief Illustrated Guide for Understanding Islam[25] is a booklet which relies heavily on the interviews and script from Zindani’s video, “This is the Truth”, and may be the most widely circulated piece of Bucailleist literature in the world since The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science. The first of several “scientific miracles in the Qur’an” detailed in the book is the apparent treatment of embryology. Similarly, Zakir Naik’s book as well as Bucaille’s book include extended treatments of this subject.

These authors assert that the Qur’an accurately described the stages of embryonic development 1400 years before modern science would confirm them. The primary Qur’anic verses underlying these assertions are:

“We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into an alaqah (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a mudghah (chewed substance) (Quran, 23:12-14)” (in the translation from the Brief Illustrated Guide).[26]

The contention is that these verses accurately describe embryonic development with scientific precision that would not have been available to Muhammad by natural means. In the Brief Illustrated Guide, the emphasis is placed on the two descriptive words which are left in transliteration above: alaqah and mudghah. The word alaqah is said to have three distinct meanings: “(1) leech, (2) suspended thing, and (3) blood clot,” followed by an explanation of how each meaning accurately describes the embryo during what is simply called the “alaqah stage.” The embryo is said to resemble a leech in appearance and in its dependence on its host for nourishment. It is said to be a “suspended thing” within the uterus, and finally, it is said to resemble a blood clot “due to the presence of relatively large amounts of blood present in the embryo at this stage.”

The next description in the verse uses the word mudghah which is translated as “chewed substance,” and is said to represent the embryo in a further stage of development. To validate the description of the embryo as a “chewed substance,” it is compared to a chewed piece of gum, “this is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that somewhat resemble teethmarks in a chewed substance.” In this way the Qur’an is said to have predicted what has only been discovered recently through science.

Also common to most of the descriptions of embryonic development in the Qur’an is the name of the anatomist Keith Moore, professor emeritus from the University of Toronto and author of a well-known embryology textbook. A student of Sheikh Zindani presented Moore with a leech in order illustrate the similarity with an embryo at an early stage of development. Moore was said to be impressed by the similarity and has since promoted this fact on videos and at conferences as well as in the special edition of his textbook which he endorsed for publication in the Muslim world. It is in the acknowledgements of this textbook that the name of “Sheikh Osamah bin Laden” appears as a benefactor. Today, Moore’s name appears in countless Bucailleist books, pamphlets, videos and websites as a Western scholar who confirms the scientific miracles of the Qur’an.

It is interesting to note that none of the translations of the Qur’an which I consulted contained “leech” as a translation for alaqah, neither did any of them translate mudghah as a “chewed substance.” For example, A.J. Arberry’s translation renders the passage this way:

We created man of an extraction of clay,
then We set him, a drop, in a receptacle secure,
then We created of the drop a clot
then We created of the clot a tissue
then We created of the tissue bones
then We garmented the bones in flesh;[27]

In this translation it seems as if what is being described is simply the growth of a child in the womb (perhaps from a small piece of clay).

Islamic Creationism in Turkey
A significant, corollary development since the rise of Bucailleism is the advent of the new Islamic Creationism, particularly as it has emerged in Turkey. This movement shares much in common with its American counterpart, but is clearly an outworking of a Bucailleist view of the relationship between science and Islam.

The major contributor to this genre, particularly in Turkey, is Adnan Oktar, who writes under the pseudonym, Harun Yahya. While some have speculated that one person could not be responsible for the sheer volume of publications that are attributed to him, the publications clearly present Yahya as the sole author of the literally hundreds of articles, booklets, and books which deal with this topic and many other Bucailleist issues including the standard presentation of scientific miracles in the Qur’an. His books are extravagantly produced with sophisticated full-color photos and use high quality materials. Similarly, his website, http://www.harunyahya.com/, is wonderfully designed and organized. His books, The Evolution Deceit, and Darwinism Refuted have become extremely influential in Turkey and have since been distributed throughout the Muslim world and the West.[28] In fact, The Evolution Deceit was recently mailed to several opponents of creationism in the United States.[29]

In terms of the actual scientific support for creationism, the Turkish creationist movement borrows nearly all of its research from the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a conservative, evangelical Christian organization that promotes scientific creationism in the United States. While there is some irony in the fact that such a conservative Muslim movement would borrow much of its material from evangelical Christians, the connections between the two movements are profound. In fact, prominent American creationists from ICR such as John Morris and Duane Gish have been invited to speak at conferences in several Turkish cities organized by the Bilim Arastirma Vakfi, (BAV) “The Science Research Foundation.”

The new Turkish creationism differs somewhat in scientific content and even more in terms of religious and political underpinnings. Any Christian concepts are removed or replaced with Islamic counterparts and references to the Bible are exchanged for appeals to the Qur’an. Perhaps the largest difference in scientific content between the two “creationisms” is the omission of “flood geology” from the Turkish version. Flood geology, which has been called “ICR’s signature doctrine,” is used by creationists to demonstrate he feasibility of a global flood based on evidence in geology. Turkish creationists, however, are not concerned to defend a “young Earth” position since the Qur’an does not present a chronology of salvation history in the way that the Bible does.[30]

This version of Islamic creationism also attacks evolution on slightly different grounds, arguing that all mutations are harmful, because organisms are said to have been created perfect and have remained without flaw to this day.[31] This contrasts with ICR and biblical creationists who argue that all of creation bears the corrupting effects of sin.

The political nature of creationism in Turkey is of particular significance. In the literature itself, Darwinism is associated with Marxist ideologies, and Masons and Jews are credited with driving the evolutionist agenda.[32] While there is no parallel to this claim in the Christian creationist literature, attributing Masons and Jews with global conspiracies is a characteristic feature of some Islamic apologetic literature. In fact, Harun Yahya is also the author of The Holocaust Hoax, which denies the historicity of the holocaust.

Negatively portraying Marxism, Freemasonry, and Judaism, however, are only the rhetorical foils for the active Islamist agenda associated with Turkish creationism. Since the founding of the Refah party in 1983 Turkey’s Islamist movement has included anti-Darwinism as a “solid plank in the Islamist platform.”[33] Darwinism became associated with Communism, atheism, and even Jews and Freemasons, thus, a refutation of Darwinism on scientific grounds appealed to the masses as an Islamic cause justified by modern science. The rise of Islamic creationism in Turkey has coincided with the recent success of the Islamist party (AK partisi) in local and national elections, further cementing the association of Bucailleism with the Islamist agenda.

The rhetorical fervor associated with Islamism is also evident in the Bucailleist Turkish creationism. This is an element which further distinguishes Turkish creationism from its American counterpart. The level of discourse is markedly more political. While there are groups within Turkey which oppose at least some forms of creationism, such a stance can be seen as dangerous. As Taner Edis, a Turkish author in the United States, notes, “criticizing the faith not only puts the individual’s soul at risk but is also a treachery against the community. When a prominent Islamist newspaper (Akit, December 2, 1998) published the names of the signatories of the TUBA statement [note: TUBA is the Turkish Academy of Sciences which published a statement opposing creationism] on its front page, suggesting they trespassed against Islam, this had overtones of an invitation to violence.”[34]

Evaluating the Methodology
The doctrine of divine inspiration has led to the close scrutiny of sacred texts in several religions. Scriptures are often said to be flawlessly accurate in terms of history and science, and by modern standards. With this in mind, adherents are often seeking to show that the text does not conflict with modern knowledge. While this is the case with segments of both Christianity and Islam, Bucailleism is unique in seeking to validate its scriptures by showing that verses presaged scientific facts which could only have been known by divine revelation.

This method raises several problems as a model for reconciling science with religion. Critiques have been leveled from within the Muslim community and from outside of it as well. In terms of its science, the facts described are anecdotal in nature and completely lack a thorough treatment. The seemingly arbitrary arrangement of “scientific miracles” seems difficult to explain since it violates the systematic and organized approach of modern science. Also, many, if not most, of its proponents do not have a depth of understanding of the science which they employ to confirm the Qur’an. This irony is further compounded by the fact that many of the Western scholars which they invoke deny the claims of the Bucailleists regarding the Qur’an.

Theologically, proposing that the meanings of verses of the Qur’an are only available in the light of modern scientific discovery ultimately places science in the place of authority over the Qur’an. Since it is science which must be used to verify the content of a verse, science stands in a position of judgment over revelation, which violates the essence of the doctrine of scripture in Islam. In critiquing Bucailleism on this level, Muslim authors often place it in the category of “scientism,” which may be defined as “consider[ing] modern science to be the most valuable or the only valuable part of human learning.” The danger may be that looking for this type of scientific confirmation of the Qur’an may imply a scientism which would then discredit verses that clearly could not be verified by science as less certain or authoritative.[35]

Similarly, this methodology completely disregards the original impact of the verses on their audience as well as its context within the sura, or chapter. Why would God hide the intended meaning of a verse in a way that would be completely inaccessible to its readers for 1400 years? This also presents a problem with regard to the tradition of interpretation and commentary on the Qur’an. If the verses in question truly address modern scientific discoveries, then the Sahaba, or companions of the prophet, the Hadith compilers, and the recognized early commentators on the Qur’an were all ignorant of the true meaning of significant portions of revelation. The traditions built on this literature, therefore were all constructed on an incomplete framework of Quranic understanding.

Also, since science is regularly changing and even correcting itself in the light of new discoveries, the verses of the Qur’an, in this system, may be subject to a change in meaning as well. Many of the firmly established “scientific facts” which we affirm today are likely to be refuted or corrected in the future with explanations which are better or more accurate. For this reason, dogmatically asserting that a verse contains a prediction of a specific discovery could lead to the problematic position of having a verse that predicts a scientific “fact” which eventually proves to be false.

Given the limited number of verses with a possible scientific interpretation, and the proliferation of the literature on this subject, it is likely that every such verse will have its scientific interpretation assigned in the very near future. If this is the case, then the best that could be said about the Qur’an is that it predicted the scientific discoveries up to the early 21st century. This short-sighted approach would have to either correct some of its interpretations or assert that the Qur’an could not predict any further discoveries.[36]

Hermeneutically, there doesn’t seem to be any way to justify taking the “scientific” meaning of a verse over the meaning which is more plainly suggested by its context. Usually the two do not correspond perfectly and often a more context-based interpretation renders the verse, along with the supposed scientific vocabulary, much more intelligible. This is further validated by the testimony of 1400 years of tradition and historic interpretation of the verses of the Qur’an, which has not included the Bucailleist sense that verses are claimed to have in this system.

Alternatively, many Muslims have conceived of the relationship between Islam and science in much more sophisticated and satisfactory ways. Perhaps the most well-known example is Seyyed Hossein Nasr, whose own view seeks to preserve the authority of revelation by maintaining the element of mystery, rather than trying to explain it by way of modern natural science. He finds confirmation for his view in the fact that science, particularly cosmology, is regularly updating and contradiction itself, so that it should not be used to confirm or deny the teaching of divine revelation. This type of view may serve as a helpful corrective to the excesses of Bucailleism. In Nasr’s own words, “the cosmological doctrines of Islam, or any other traditional religion, are based on a total vision of reality, a reality not only of God but also what we call the angelic or nonmaterial levels of reality which are not at all, in any way, affected by whatever we may discover about physical aspects of the cosmos.”[37]


Bibliography

Ali, Yusuf. The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 1987.

Arberry, A.J. trans. The Koran Interpreted. New York: Touchstone, 1955.

Bannister, Andy, “Can ‘Modern Science’ be found in the Qur’an?” http://www.answering-islam.org/Andy/fallacies.html.

Bucaille, Maurice. The Bible the Qur’an and Science. first U.S. edition. trans. Alistair D. Pannell and the author Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc, 2003.

Campbell, William Dr. The Qur'an and the Bible in the Light of History & Science
Second Edition. Arab World Ministries. 2002.

The Center for Islam and Science http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/b/bucaille-mn.htm

Edis, Taner “Cloning Creationism in Turkey,” Reports of the National Center for Science Education. vol. 19. iss. 6.

Golden, Daniel. “Strange Bedfellows: Western Scholars Play Key Role in Touting ‘Science’ of the Quran.” The Wall Street Journal. 23 January 2002.

Goodwin, J. Price of Honor – Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World. Penguin, 1995.

Ibrahim, I.A. A Brief Illustrated Guide for Understanding Islam. Houston: Darussalam, 1996.

Iqbal, Basit Kareem and Elma Harder, “Islam and Science Online.” Islamic Studies. vol.39. no. iv, 2000.

Iqbal, Muzaffar. “Islam and Modern Science” in God Life and The Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives. ed. Ted Peters, Muzaffar Iqbal, and Syed Nomanul Haq Burlington: Ashgate, 2002.

Naik, Zakir. The Qur’aan and Modern Science. Islamic Research Foundation, http://www.irf.net/books3.zip, 2000.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. “Islam, Science, and Muslims” Islam and Science. vol. 1. iss. 1. June 2003.

Ouda, Abdul-Aziz. “Sheikh al-Zindani added to U.S. terrorist suspect list.” Yemeni Observer. February 29, 2004

Rehman, Jalees. “Searching for scientific facts in the Qur’an: Islamization of Knowledge or a new form of scientism?” Islam and Science. , vol. 1. iss. 2, December 2003.

Shapiro, Arthur. “Fundamentalist Bedfellows: Political Creationism in Turkey.” The New Leader. March/April, 2000.

Stratford, Jeffrey. “Emergence of the Islamic Creationists.” Cladistics. vol. 20. 2004.

“United States Designates bin Laden Loyalist”, JS-1190, February 24, 2004 – document from the United States Treasury Department: www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1190.htm
[1] Dr. Zakir Naik, The Qur’aan and Modern Science, (Islamic Research Foundation, http://www.irf.net/books3.zip, 2000), 15.
[2] Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation, and Commentary,(Elmhurst: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 1987), 21
[3] Naik, 6.
[4] Maurice Bucaille, The Bible the Qur’an and Science, first U.S. edition, translated from the French by Alistair D. Pannell and the author (Elmhurst, New York: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, Inc, 2003)
[5] http://www.cis-ca.org/voices/b/bucaille-mn.htm (The website of the Center for Islam and Science)
[6] Jalees Rehman, “Searching for scientific facts in the Qur’an: Islamization of Knowledge or a new form of scientism?”, Islam and Science, December 2003, v1, i2, p. 245.
[7] Muzaffar Iqbal, “Islam and Modern Science” in God Life and The Cosmos: Christian and Islamic Perspectives, ed. Ted Peters, Muzaffar Iqbal, and Syed Nomanul Haq (Burlington: Ashgate, 2002), 15.
[8] Bucaille, 129
[9] Bucaille, 132
[10] Bucaille, 141
[11] Bucaille, 142
[12] Bucaille, 152
[13] Bucaille, 153
[14] See www.ShabirAlly.com
[15] See www.irf.net
[16] Daniel Golden, “Strange Bedfellows: Western Scholars Play Key Role in Touting ‘Science’ of the Quran”, The Wall Street Journal, 23 January 2002.
[17] Golden, 1
[18] J. Goodwin, Price of Honor – Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World (Penguin, 1995), 145.
[19] At the time of writing this paper, the now famous website http://www.it-is-truth.org/ was not functioning. See Basit Kareem Iqbal and Elma Harder, “Islam and Science Online”, The Islamic Studies, Number 4, Winter 2000, for more information and websites.
[20] Golden, 2.
[21] Golden, 2.
[22] “United States Designates bin Laden Loyalist”, JS-1190, February 24, 2004 – document from the United States Treasury Department: www.treas.gov/press/releases/js1190.htm
[23] Abdul-Aziz Ouda, “Sheikh al-Zindani added to U.S. terrorist suspect list”, Yemeni Observer, February 29, 2004.
[24] Basit Kareem Iqbal and Elma Harder, “Islam and Science Online,” Islamic Studies. (Vol.39, no. iv, 2000), 685-691.
[25] I.A. Ibrahim, A Brief Illustrated Guide for Understanding Islam (Houston: Darussalam, 1996)
A copy can be found at http://www.islam-guide.com/
[26] I.A. Ibrahim, A.) “The Qur’an on Human Embryonic Development”
[27] A.J. Arberry, trans. The Koran Interpreted (New York: Touchstone, 1955), 37
[28] Jeffrey Stratford, “Emergence of the Islamic Creationists,” Cladistics,2004, vol 20, 215
[29] Arthur Shapiro, "Fundamentalist Bedfellows: Political Creationism in Turkey," The New Leader, 2000, March/April, 13
[30] Taner Edis, “Cloning Creationism in Turkey,” Reports of the National Center for Science Education, 1999, 19 (6), 30
[31] Stratford, 215
[32] Edis, 33
[33] Shapiro, 15
[34] Edis, 32
[35] Jalees Rehman, “Searching for scientific facts in the Qur’an: Islamization of Knowledge or a new form of scientism?” Islam and Science (December 2003, v1. i2.) , 2.
[36] Andy Bannister, “Can ‘Modern Science’ be found in the Qur’an?”, http://www.answering-islam.org/Andy/fallacies.html
[37] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “Islam, Science, and Muslims” Islam and Science (June 2003, vol. 1, iss. 1.), 5