Written by a French surgeon, this work — one of the most important ever produced on Islamic and Christian studies — analyzes the scriptures in the light of modern scientific knowledge, looking for contradictions between established scientific facts and scriptural implication.
The author examines creationism against evolution, astronomy, conception in the womb, the separation of waters in subterranean oceanic rivers, and other issues. A thoroughly engrossing treatise, full of information and documented throughout.
Why the Author Matters Here
Maurice Bucaille was a practicing surgeon rather than a theologian, and he came to the subject from medicine. That background is what gives the embryology chapters their force — he is describing stages of foetal development he had observed professionally and comparing them with what the texts say.
He also examined both scriptures by the same standard, which is unusual and is the reason the book was taken seriously outside Muslim circles.
A Word of Caution
This book founded a whole genre of "scientific miracle" literature, much of it considerably less careful than the original. Some of Bucaille's own claims have been contested, and science itself moves — an argument built on the state of a field in 1976 is not a permanent foundation.
Read as one line of evidence among many, it is valuable. Read as the main argument for Islam, it rests on ground that shifts.
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