THE QURAN, SCIENCE, AND BUCAILLEISM
DAWAH HAS BEEN A DRIVING FORCE for Muslims since the time of Muhammad, but the twentieth century saw the Islamic ethos of proselytization powered by an unexpected fuel: modern science. Even more surprising, this vogue came at the hands of a secular Frenchman.
Maurice Bucaille, gastroenterologist and personal physician to a king of Saudi Arabia, fertilized a budding field of Islamic apologetics when he wrote his 1976 work, The Bible, The Qur’an, and Science. This seminal work argues that the Bible is rife with scientific errors, while the Quran stands in contradistinction as miraculously precocious and flawless. He concludes that the Quran is so scientifically advanced that it must be the work of God.
“Epochal” only approximates the book’s impact on Muslim proselytism. Much like the Martin Lings phenomenon, a Western intellectual siding with Islam after critically scrutinizing evidence served as a war cry for dawah-oriented Muslims. This scenario was all the more gratifying because Bucaille roundly denounced the Bible in the process.
The technique of referring to the Quran for miraculously advanced scientific truths soon became so commonplace that a term for the method was coined: Bucailleism.
Bucailleism: The technique of referring to the Quran for miraculously advanced scientific truths in order to defend its divine origin
An example of one such argument involves the subject of human reproduction. Bucaille declares, “The Quranic description of certain stages in the development of the embryo corresponds exactly to what we today know about it, and the Quran does not contain a single statement that is open to criticism from modern science.”98 The implication is obvious: only God knew anything about embryology when the Quran was revealed. Thus, God must be the author of the Quran.
Within a few years of publication, Bucaille’s arguments perfused the more apologetically minded Muslim world, which was the world I was born into. His arguments were a staple of our religious discussions, whether eating around the dinner table, visiting with guests, or reading a book written by jamaat leaders. We were swept up in the elegance and erudition of the arguments, and just like most of what I knew as a Muslim, the fulsome and unanimous reception of Bucailleism was a part of our culture.
We were convinced science confirmed the divine origin of the Quran. This was such a widely held point of pride among Muslims that no one tested it.
When I finally did test it, another foundational pillar of my worldview cracked. I pored over Bucaille’s arguments as a student of both medicine and religion. I saw many problems with his exegesis, his reasoning, and his scholarship.
We were convinced science confirmed the divine origin of the Quran. This was a widely held point of pride among Muslims.
Turning back to his assessment of human reproduction, most academicians would consider Bucaille’s unreserved praise as too unctuous to be scholarly, at least by Western standards. But quite apart from his fawning adulation, there are scientific problems with the very Quranic verses Bucaille quotes as miraculous, some rather obvious to physicians and others rather obvious to everyone.
For example, 23:13 – 14 reads, “Then we made him a sperm in a fixed lodging. Then we made the sperm a hanging (thing), then we made the hanging into a chewed (thing), then we made the chewed into bones, then we clothed the bones with flesh, then we developed it into another creation, so blessed be Allah, the best of creators.”
To a student of developmental biology, this verse is singularly unimpressive. Even Bucaille begins his assessment by remarking that, at face value, the scientific statements are “totally unacceptable to scientists specializing in this field.”99 However, he explains that the problem is the seventh-century vocabulary the Quran was forced to use. Once we substitute modern scientific vocabulary (such as “uterus” for “lodging”) the problems are more than resolved.100
As a Muslim who grew up with somewhat fluid interpretations of the Quran, I conceded Bucaille’s point. But as a student of medicine, I realized that no matter how much we substituted the words, one aspect of this verse was simply inaccurate. The verse explains the sequential development of an embryo, but the sequence is incorrect. An embryo does not first become bones to be later clothed with flesh. One layer of an embryo, the mesoderm, differentiates into bone and flesh at the same time.
I investigated responses to this critique. Most argued that it is a pedantic objection, but even as a Muslim, I disagreed. The very point Bucaille was making by referring to this verse is that the sequence of embryonic development is miraculously accurate; but the sequence is incorrect. This was serious, and though Bucaille treated this verse with some depth, he glossed over the difficulty.
That this inaccuracy is found in the clearest section of the verse, the easiest to understand, only compounds the problem. The first part of the verse requires us to substitute appropriate scientific concepts for the incorrect terms captured by the Arabic. So if we have to fix the first half of the statement and ignore the latter half, what is left to be scientifically miraculous?
I then realized that this verse could not defend the inspiration of the Quran. Far from it, we had to assume the inspiration of the Quran to defend this verse.
More obvious problems arose in the Quran as I continued my search, even in the subfield of human reproduction. Verses 86:6 – 7 state that sperm gushes “from between the backbone and the ribs.”
Believing that it was impossible for the Quran to say something so obviously incorrect, I began looking online for answers. Once again, I found a similar procedure to defend the verse: redefine the words and gloss over the difficulties.
And that was the pattern that emerged. Whether proclaiming scientific miracles or defending scientific inaccuracies, the protocol always called for redefining the clear statements of the Quran to say something they did not say and then glossing over any strain.
After I recognized the pattern, it struck me that Bucailleism was very much like studying the life of Muhammad. I could defend my Islamic beliefs if I approached the issue as a partisan Muslim, willing to redefine certain terms and emphasize certain points in favor of my position. But if I tried to build a case as an objective investigator reading the text at face value, there simply was no scientifically miraculous knowledge in the Quran.
At that point, I did not dismiss the possibility of scientific knowledge in the Quran, but I concluded that something far stronger had to anchor a defense of its divine inspiration. With unrelenting confidence, I now turned to the deepest of all my roots: my faith in the perfect preservation of the Quranic text.