the scientific miracles found in the Qur'an

https://www.cicap.org/new/prodotto.php?id=3895

The book is published by CICAP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CICAP) and it is aimed at a non-specialist audience. It deals with the different kinds of pseudoscience, antiscience, and conspiracist thinking popular in the Muslim world (broadly defined), emphasizing the strong analogies with similar phenomena and narratives in the Western/Christian world but also how such pseudo-scientific theories are criticized and opposed by Muslim intellectuals.

The Crescent and the Splitting Moon – Islam, Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

Table of Contents

Introduction

1.      The “Scientific miracles” of the Qur’an

2.      The Islamization of Science

3.      Qur’anic Healing and Anti-medicine

4.      Harun Yahya, Islamic Creationism, and the Teaching of Evolution in the Muslim World

5.      Contemporary Supernatural Miracles

6.      Pseudo-history and Conspiracist Theories

7.      Extraterrestrials and UFOs

8.      Pseudotechnology

9.      Pseudoarticles

10.  The Flat Earth and Geocentrism

11.  The Dispute over Ramadan

12.  The Splitting Moon

Concluding Remarks

Glossary

Abstract: This paper discusses the work of two French authors who advocate a “scientific” exegesis of the sacred scriptures: the physician Maurice Bucaille (1922-1998) and the religious leader Claude Vorilhon (alias Raël – b. 1946). Bucaille argues that the Qur’ān’s divine origin is demonstrated by its accuracy about natural phenomena and “scientific facts,” whereas the Bible does not stand up to a “scientific” examination. Vorilhon supposedly received a revelation regarding the creation of humanity by an alien race, the Elohim. Part and parcel of such revelation is a biblical exegesis that identifies in numerous passages of the Old and the New Testament allusions to the Elohim’s technological interventions in the history of humanity.  It is argued that, despite apparent differences, the textual strategies respectively followed by the two authors while blending “science” and scriptures display substantial similarities and that they are influenced by narrative and philosophical patterns deeply rooted in French culture.

Stefano Bigliardi, drawing upon the research that resulted in his 2014 monograph Islam and the Quest for Modern Science and in his recent article "The 'Scientific Miracle of the Qur’ān,' Pseudoscience, and Conspiracism" (Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 52-1, March 2017) will discuss a precise classification of the exegetical trend known as iʿjāz ʿilmī, as well as the criticism leveled at it on behalf of Muslim authors and scientists.