The Qur'an and Science: The Debate on the Validity of Scientific Interpretations

Abstract

The relationship between the Qur'an and science has generated ongoing debate. Muslims encountered traditional science more than a century ago and responded to it positively. Though a majority of them attempted to include it in Qur'anic exegeses, a few were not in favour of such an approach. Science in its present sense is applied exclusively to its modern Western model, which is historically more or less anti-religious. Modern Muslims, on the contrary, used science to support the validity and miraculous nature of the Qur'an. A rapidly developing field of enquiry called ‘scientific interpretation’ is on the rise. It is possible to identify four approaches in this trend: the modernists, advocates, rejectionists and moderates. Whatever views one takes on the relationship between the Qur'an and science, the related contemporary debate is unlikely to settle or change its course in the near future. This paper attempts to give a brief and critical account of the debate in its traditional and modern forms. It begins with a few remarks on the nature of both the Qur'an and science, and concludes with an overall evaluation.