Foreword
In his objective study of the texts, Maurice Bucaille clears way many preconceived ideas about the old Testament. the Gospels and the
Qur’an. He tries, in this collection of Writings, to parate
what belongs to Revelation from what is the product of error or human
interpretation. His study sheds new light on the Holy Scriptures. At the end of
a gripping account, he places the Believer before a point of cardinal
importance: the continuity of Revelation emanating from the same God, with
modes of exression that differ in the course of time.
It leads us to meditate upon those factors which, in our day, should
spiritually unite-rather than divide-Jews, Christians and Muslims.
As a surgeon, Maurice Bucaille
has often been in a situation here he was able to examine not only people’s
bodies, but their souls. This is how he was struck by the existence of Muslim
piety and by aspects of Islam which remain unknown to the vast majority of
non-Muslims. In his search for explanations which are otherwise difficult to
obtain, he learnt Arabic and studied the Qur’an. In it, he was surprised to
find statements on natural phenomena whose meaning can only be understood
through modern scientific knowledge.
He then turned to the question of the authenticity
of the writings that constitute the Holy Scriptures of the monotheistic
religions. Finally, in the case of the Bible, he proceeded to a confrontation
between these writings and scientific data.
The results of his research into the Judeo-Christian
Revelation and the Qur’an are set out in this book.
Introduction
Each of the three monotheistic religions possess its own collection of Scriptures. For the
faithful-be they Jews, Christians or Muslims-these documents constitute the
foundation of their belief. For them they are the material transcription of a
divine Revelation; directly, as in the case of Abraham and Moses, who received
the commandments from God Himself, or indirectly, as in the case of Jesus and
Muhammad, the first of whom stated that he was speaking in the name of the
Father, and the second of whom transmitted to men the Revelation imparted to
him by Archangel Gabriel.
If we take into consideration the objective facts of
religious history, we must place the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur’an
on the same level as being collections of written Revelation. Although this
attitude is in principle held by Muslims, the faithful in the West under the
predominantly Judeo-Christian influence refuse to ascribe to the Qur’an the
character of a book of Revelation.
Such an attitude may be explained by the position
each religious community adopts towards the other two with regard to the
Scriptures.
Judaism has as its holy book the Hebraic Bible. This
differs from the Old Testament of the Christians in that the latter have
included several books which did not exist in Hebrew. In practice, this
divergence hardly makes any difference to the doctrine. Judaism does not however admit
any revelation subsequent to its own.
Christianity has taken the Hebraic Bible for itself
and added a few supplements to it. It has not however accepted all the
published writings destined to make known to men the Mission of Jesus. The
Church has made incisive cuts in the profusion of books relating the life and
teachings of Jesus. It has only preserved a limited number of
writings in the New Testament, the most important of which are the four Canonic Gospels. Christianity takes no account of any
revelation subsequent to Jesus and his Apostles. It therefore rules out the
Qur’an.
The Qur’anic Revelation appeared
six centuries after Jesus. It resumes numerous data found in the Hebraic Bible
and the Gospels since it quotes very frequently from the “Torah” and the
‘Gospels.’ The Qur’an directs all Muslims to believe in the Scriptures that
precede it (sura 4, verse 136). It stresses the
important position occupied in the Revelation by God’s emissaries, such as
Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Prophets and Jesus, to whom they allocate a special
position. His birth is described in the Qur’an, and likewise in the Gospels, as
a supernatural event. Mary is also given a special place, as indicated by the
fact that sura 19 bears her name.
The above facts concerning -Islam are not generally
known in the West. This is hardly surprising, when we consider the way so many
generations in the West were instructed in the religious problems facing
humanity and the ignorance in which they were kept about anything related to
Islam, The use of such terms as ‘Mohammedan religion’ and ‘Mohammedans’ has
been instrumental-s-even to the present day-in maintaining the false notion
that beliefs were involved that were spread by the work of man among which God
(in the Christian sense) had no place, Many cultivated people today are
interested in the philosophical, social and political aspects of Islam, but
they do not pause to inquire about the Islamic Revelation itself, as indeed
they should.
In what contempt the Muslims are held by certain
Christian circles! I experienced this when I tried to start an exchange of
ideas arising from a comparative analysis of Biblical and Qur’anic
stories on the same theme. I noted a systematic refusal, even for the purposes
of simple reflection, to take any account of what the Qur’an had to say on the
subject in hand, It is as if a quote from the Qur’an
were a reference to the Devil!
A noticeable change seems however to be under way
these days at the highest levels of the Christian world. The Office for
Non-Christian Affairs at the Vatican has produced a document resulting from the
Second Vatican Council under the French title Orientations pour
un dialogue entre Chretiens et
Musulmans
(Orientations for a Dialogue between Christians and
Muslims), third French edition dated 1970, which bears witness to the profound
change in official attitude. Once the document has invited the reader to clear
away the “out-dated image, inherited from the past, or distorted by prejudice
and slander” that Christians have of Islam, the Vatican document proceeds to
“recognize the past injustice towards the Muslims for which the West, with its
Christian education, is to blame”. It also criticizes the misconceptions
Christians have been under concerning Muslim fatalism, Islamic legalism,
fanaticism, etc. It stresses belief in unity of God and reminds us how
surprised the audience was at the Muslim University of Al Azhar,
Cairo, when Cardinal Koenig proclaimed this unity at the Great Mosque during an
official conference in March, 1969. It reminds us also that the Vatican Office
in 1967 invited Christians to offer their best wishes to Muslims at the end of
the Fast of Ramadan with “genuine religious worth”.
Such preliminary steps towards a closer relationship
between the Roman Catholic Curia and Islam have been followed by various
manifestations and consolidated by encounters between the two. There has been,
however, little publicity accorded to events of such great importance in the
western world, where they took place and where there are ample means of
communication in the form of press, radio and television.
The newspapers gave little coverage to the official
visit of Cardinal Pignedoli, the President of the
Vatican Office of Non-Christian Affairs, on 24th April, 1974, to King Faisal of
Saudi Arabia. The French newspaper Le Monde on 25th April, 1974, dealt with it in a few
lines. What momentous news they contain, however, when we read how the Cardinal
conveyed to the Sovereign a message from Pope Paul VI expressing “the regards of His Holiness, moved by a
profound belief in the unification of Islamic and Christian worlds in the
worship of a single God, to His Majesty King Faisal as supreme head of the
Islamic world”.
Contents
Introduction |
i |
Old
Testament |
1-42 |
The
Gospels |
44-107 |
The
Qur’an and Modern Science |
110-207 |
Qur’anic and Biblical Narrations |
211-239 |
Qur’an,
Hadiths and Modern Science |
242 |
General
Conclusions |
249 |
Transliteration
of the Arabic into Latin Characters |
252 |
Foreword
In his objective study of the texts, Maurice Bucaille clears way many preconceived ideas about the old Testament. the Gospels and the
Qur’an. He tries, in this collection of Writings, to parate
what belongs to Revelation from what is the product of error or human
interpretation. His study sheds new light on the Holy Scriptures. At the end of
a gripping account, he places the Believer before a point of cardinal
importance: the continuity of Revelation emanating from the same God, with
modes of exression that differ in the course of time.
It leads us to meditate upon those factors which, in our day, should
spiritually unite-rather than divide-Jews, Christians and Muslims.
As a surgeon, Maurice Bucaille
has often been in a situation here he was able to examine not only people’s
bodies, but their souls. This is how he was struck by the existence of Muslim
piety and by aspects of Islam which remain unknown to the vast majority of
non-Muslims. In his search for explanations which are otherwise difficult to
obtain, he learnt Arabic and studied the Qur’an. In it, he was surprised to
find statements on natural phenomena whose meaning can only be understood
through modern scientific knowledge.
He then turned to the question of the authenticity
of the writings that constitute the Holy Scriptures of the monotheistic
religions. Finally, in the case of the Bible, he proceeded to a confrontation
between these writings and scientific data.
The results of his research into the Judeo-Christian
Revelation and the Qur’an are set out in this book.
Introduction
Each of the three monotheistic religions possess its own collection of Scriptures. For the
faithful-be they Jews, Christians or Muslims-these documents constitute the
foundation of their belief. For them they are the material transcription of a
divine Revelation; directly, as in the case of Abraham and Moses, who received
the commandments from God Himself, or indirectly, as in the case of Jesus and
Muhammad, the first of whom stated that he was speaking in the name of the
Father, and the second of whom transmitted to men the Revelation imparted to
him by Archangel Gabriel.
If we take into consideration the objective facts of
religious history, we must place the Old Testament, the Gospels and the Qur’an
on the same level as being collections of written Revelation. Although this
attitude is in principle held by Muslims, the faithful in the West under the
predominantly Judeo-Christian influence refuse to ascribe to the Qur’an the
character of a book of Revelation.
Such an attitude may be explained by the position
each religious community adopts towards the other two with regard to the
Scriptures.
Judaism has as its holy book the Hebraic Bible. This
differs from the Old Testament of the Christians in that the latter have
included several books which did not exist in Hebrew. In practice, this
divergence hardly makes any difference to the doctrine. Judaism does not however admit
any revelation subsequent to its own.
Christianity has taken the Hebraic Bible for itself
and added a few supplements to it. It has not however accepted all the
published writings destined to make known to men the Mission of Jesus. The
Church has made incisive cuts in the profusion of books relating the life and
teachings of Jesus. It has only preserved a limited number of
writings in the New Testament, the most important of which are the four Canonic Gospels. Christianity takes no account of any
revelation subsequent to Jesus and his Apostles. It therefore rules out the
Qur’an.
The Qur’anic Revelation appeared
six centuries after Jesus. It resumes numerous data found in the Hebraic Bible
and the Gospels since it quotes very frequently from the “Torah” and the
‘Gospels.’ The Qur’an directs all Muslims to believe in the Scriptures that
precede it (sura 4, verse 136). It stresses the
important position occupied in the Revelation by God’s emissaries, such as
Noah, Abraham, Moses, the Prophets and Jesus, to whom they allocate a special
position. His birth is described in the Qur’an, and likewise in the Gospels, as
a supernatural event. Mary is also given a special place, as indicated by the
fact that sura 19 bears her name.
The above facts concerning -Islam are not generally
known in the West. This is hardly surprising, when we consider the way so many
generations in the West were instructed in the religious problems facing
humanity and the ignorance in which they were kept about anything related to
Islam, The use of such terms as ‘Mohammedan religion’ and ‘Mohammedans’ has
been instrumental-s-even to the present day-in maintaining the false notion
that beliefs were involved that were spread by the work of man among which God
(in the Christian sense) had no place, Many cultivated people today are
interested in the philosophical, social and political aspects of Islam, but
they do not pause to inquire about the Islamic Revelation itself, as indeed
they should.
In what contempt the Muslims are held by certain
Christian circles! I experienced this when I tried to start an exchange of
ideas arising from a comparative analysis of Biblical and Qur’anic
stories on the same theme. I noted a systematic refusal, even for the purposes
of simple reflection, to take any account of what the Qur’an had to say on the
subject in hand, It is as if a quote from the Qur’an
were a reference to the Devil!
A noticeable change seems however to be under way
these days at the highest levels of the Christian world. The Office for
Non-Christian Affairs at the Vatican has produced a document resulting from the
Second Vatican Council under the French title Orientations pour
un dialogue entre Chretiens et
Musulmans
(Orientations for a Dialogue between Christians and
Muslims), third French edition dated 1970, which bears witness to the profound
change in official attitude. Once the document has invited the reader to clear
away the “out-dated image, inherited from the past, or distorted by prejudice
and slander” that Christians have of Islam, the Vatican document proceeds to
“recognize the past injustice towards the Muslims for which the West, with its
Christian education, is to blame”. It also criticizes the misconceptions
Christians have been under concerning Muslim fatalism, Islamic legalism,
fanaticism, etc. It stresses belief in unity of God and reminds us how
surprised the audience was at the Muslim University of Al Azhar,
Cairo, when Cardinal Koenig proclaimed this unity at the Great Mosque during an
official conference in March, 1969. It reminds us also that the Vatican Office
in 1967 invited Christians to offer their best wishes to Muslims at the end of
the Fast of Ramadan with “genuine religious worth”.
Such preliminary steps towards a closer relationship
between the Roman Catholic Curia and Islam have been followed by various
manifestations and consolidated by encounters between the two. There has been,
however, little publicity accorded to events of such great importance in the
western world, where they took place and where there are ample means of
communication in the form of press, radio and television.
The newspapers gave little coverage to the official
visit of Cardinal Pignedoli, the President of the
Vatican Office of Non-Christian Affairs, on 24th April, 1974, to King Faisal of
Saudi Arabia. The French newspaper Le Monde on 25th April, 1974, dealt with it in a few
lines. What momentous news they contain, however, when we read how the Cardinal
conveyed to the Sovereign a message from Pope Paul VI expressing “the regards of His Holiness, moved by a
profound belief in the unification of Islamic and Christian worlds in the
worship of a single God, to His Majesty King Faisal as supreme head of the
Islamic world”.
Contents
Introduction |
i |
Old
Testament |
1-42 |
The
Gospels |
44-107 |
The
Qur’an and Modern Science |
110-207 |
Qur’anic and Biblical Narrations |
211-239 |
Qur’an,
Hadiths and Modern Science |
242 |
General
Conclusions |
249 |
Transliteration
of the Arabic into Latin Characters |
252 |