Islamset - The Origin of Man and the Holy Scriptures in the light of modern knowledge

THE ORIGIN OF MAN AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURES IN
THE LIGHT OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
Dr. Maurice Bucaille
FRANCE

During thousands of years, man, questioning himself on the origin of his species, had at his disposal for reflection, only those elements drawn from religious teaching and various philosophical systems. But, prior to this period, there must have existed another, even earlier, wherein superstitions or traditions, passed on from generation to generation and for which the origin is lost in the darkness of time, must have been present.

Then comes the divine revelation, initially passed on by word of mouth and then in written form of the scriptural texts, we will consider only those relating to monotheistic religions.

One can only speculate on the date at which man became aware of the first revelations. As to the manner in which they came to him, are we not permitted to suppose that Noah was the first to bring this subject to the attention of his people? The Bible makes no reference to this fact. However, we may take from the Quran the idea that the first call to man to meditate on his origins, was made by Noah.

Do we not read in the Sura, which concerns God:

HE CREATED YOU IN (DIFFERENT) STAGES

(S.71: V.14)

I will return later to the meaning I believe should be given to which appears only in the Quran in the Sura. This Sura deals with God's mercy towards the guilty people of Noah, and lists the blessings, which God nevertheless bestowed upon them; it evokes the creation of heaven and earth by insisting through this verse on the fact that man owes his existence to God. Finally, it deals with the punishment to come for the unbelievers. (This will be the flood, reserved for the people of Noah with the exception of a very small number).

Everything leads to suggest according to the Quran as to the Bible, that Noah was the most ancient of the prophets. According to the Quran, he alone evoked in his preaching that man is the work of the Almighty God.

The most ancient texts of the Holy Scriptures that we possess and which deal with human origins, created work of God, are, without doubt, based on that which we know today the two Yahvist and Sacerdotal narratives of the Bible. Both are included in the Pentateuch, the collection of the first five books of the Bible, inserted in the Book of Genesis. The Yahvist version, the most ancient, is today considered to be a work written in the ninth or tenth century before Christ. But nothing allows us the slightest hint as to its degree of popularization in this era. It would seem however, that the more recent version, the Sacerdotal version, the work of priests of the sixth century before Christ, which contains the lengthy narrative of the creation placed at the beginning of all Bibles, had a certain diffusion in its time. It is indisputable, from the references made to it by the authors of the Gospels, that the sacerdotal version, at the time of Jesus, was well known in Jewish circles. It should be noted that at the time of the Sacerdotal version of the Bible, in the Greek world there ruled the conception of a universe which had no beginning and no end. Thus plato and Aristotle considered that the world had existed for all eternity.

In truth, the impatience of man to put forward theories on that which he nevertheless does not dominate but which he believes he dominates is such that, in ancient times, many ideas had been advanced on the question which preoccupies us. And yet, I must mention the birth, in the middle of many wanderings, of certain philosophical conceptions, which later revealed themselves to be exact. Here, I am thinking less of Empedocle's fantasies on evolutionism in general, the fruit of a rather delirious imagination, than of the possibility of an evolution in the animal kingdom, intuitively suggested by Anaximandre of Milletus in opposition to the ideas of his contemporaries of the sixth century before Christ.

Christianity naturally took up the idea of creation and repeated, on the origin of man, Biblical teachings, but without offering more details on this issue than those contained in the Old Testament, with the exception of the genealogies of Jesus, especially Luke's tracing back to Adam, showing Jesus being preceded by seventy six generations of humans, which, today is untenable.

The Quranic revelation will considerably enrich man with data about himself, as it did otherwise for all the works of God concerning the creation and organization of the inanimate world as well as the living world. Its teachings insist on the numerous manifestations, seen by man, of the omnipotence of God, religious teachings that must be drawn from the Holy Scriptures before all other considerations.

Thus, during many centuries, on the question of its origin, the human mind in the west, fed itself, if I may say so, on Biblical teachings, whereas in the Islamic world, the Quranic texts brought, in the mean-time, not only the general idea of the Divine Revelation common to the three monotheistic religions, but also, further teachings concerning man himself, new teachings, since non-existent in the Bible, and to which I will refer later.

Up to the eighteenth century of the Christian era, at which time science registered its initial major progress, man had at his disposal for reflection, only the data provided in the Scriptures. But, as soon as man came to possess scientific knowledge, even rudimentary and wholly insufficient to arrive at any formal conclusion thus nevertheless led him to develop various speculations. Thus those who were known as "Philosophers" did not hesitate to construct theories which were founded on very fragile bases.

It was in the West, at this time, that arose the first disputes with religious teachings, essentially with those of the Bible, bearing particularly on the fixity of the species through the ages, clearly formulated in the Old Testament. In France, Buffon was a very apprehensive contender, but Lamark was less so with his theory of the transformism, which he exposed at the beginning of the nineteenth century when he protested against Biblical fixism. But it was, above all, Darwin in the second half of the nineteenth century who, with the theory of natural selection, supported in his book "On the Origin of species", dealt a severe blow to Biblical facts, in my opinion more as a result of his follower's use of the theory than that which the theory itself explained. In fact, in contradiction to that which many have said, even more so today, Darwin never demonstrated the transformation of one species into another: he acknowledged this himself. Darwinism, which appears, at present, to be rather lacking in solid scientific bases, was more a philosophical speculation under the influence of Malthus. In my recent book, "WHAT IS THE ORIGIN OF MAN? THE ANSWER OF SCIENCE AND THE HOLY SCRIPTURES", I believe I have shown the deficiency of Darwin's theory and the abuse of those, who, amongst contemporary scholars, have built, around the undemonstrated assumption of natural selection, a so-called "Synthetic theory" of evolution. I qualify it "so-called" because, in no way, does it bring together all facets of the problem, but it draws conclusions from certain aspects, taken from laboratories where present day micro-organisms are studied or arising from mathematic calculations on the spread of populations, but without taking into account the concrete facts of past events, that is to say the documents provided by paleontology corroborated by other disciplines. Today's Darwinism has no sounder a base than had the original Darwinism, despite an apparent richness of arguments.

Since the beginning of my medical studies in 1937, I have very closely followed all that scientific progress has offered on the origin of man. The accumulation of knowledge required to judge the question is considerable. Few are those who possess it. Eminent specialists on these subjects, such as Professor P.P. GRASSE in France, are few and far between. Authors often arrive at hasty conclusions with the help of very few really determinant basic elements. Yet today, we possess very precious data drawn from genetics or molecular biology, which could be used with more circumspection, but we see them and it is a great shame presented, without being confronted by the elements of other disciplines. One thus observes the birth of theories, supported by scholars as depending purely on science, but which, in fact, translate the compromises with their personal philosophy. On this point, in France, we are well placed to recognize just how a very great specialist in molecular biology, Jacques MONOD- worthy however to have received a Nobel Prize for medicine could take his materialistic desires for realities, by dealing with animal evolution and the origin of man in his book "The random and the necessity". "(Le hasard et la necessite", I included in my last work and this after several others severe criticism in respect to scholars putting forward certainties which are only hypotheses convenient to their metaphysic conceptions but which have no solid scientific bases.

The greatest harm is done in the United States, by specialists, undoubtedly eminent in their field, but who are not aware that, to judge the origin of man and the evolution of the animal kingdom, it is necessary to possess global knowledge truly encyclopaedic, bearing on very diverse disciplines such as botany, embryology, paleontology, genetics, molecular biology and others which are also most important. We now see, for example, paleontologists make deductions, formal, but wrongly so, from a fragment of a skull or a mandible, dating from several million years, and present to us, in exhibitions, life-size models which, according to them, would constitute a well defined link between the apes and the human species.

One wishes to link everything to Darwin and a subtle amalgam is made between the best-established modern discoveries and the scientifically poor reflections on evolution of the English naturalist. It is then said that Darwinism and evolution are identical, and yet one may be perfectly convinced of the existence of evolution in the animal kingdom which is as near as demonstrated today and reject the unfounded explanations of the mechanism of evolution, so dear to Darwin and the Neodarwinians of our age. Amongst the latter, those in the United States who follow Wilson and his sociobiology are materialists, infinitely dangerous towards their fellow-men with their pretension of privilege to modify the human species as they see fit through genetic manipulations.

Unfortunately, here, I can not enlarge on the errors of certain modern scholars on these points, which I have developed in my book "What is the origin of man?"

But we should not reject all that is advanced by the evolution specialists of our era. There are facts that no educated man may deny, that is, that there have been, through the ages, transformations of the human form. I will say, right away, that these transformations are perfectly compatible with the concept of creation by God, present in all three monotheistic religions, and that nothing in the texts of the Quran opposes the idea of modification of the initial human form on the contrary, I think that the Quran alludes clearly to this.

But let us first sketch-out what we are taught with certainty by modern knowledge on the subject, and we will then cover that which, successively, the Bible and the Quran have taught us on this subject.

Before putting questions about Man, it is necessary for a better understanding of the problems. To answer two preliminary interrogations:

1. Is the life in general the result of random?
2. Does the evolution exist in the animal kingdom?Was it demonstrated?

When we know the utmost level of complexity in the structures and functioning of living organisms, to say that life might have occurred spontaneously is an absurdity.

Most certainly, experiments like those of Miller in 1955 were able to demonstrate that very small amounts of chemical components having high complexity, like the amino acids of the cellular proteins, might be produced artificially. In a gazeous atmosphere made of hydrogene, ammonia, methane and water, electrical discharges of high intensity are able to produce samples of those components. But it is not the life, which is obtained for all that. The reasoning of Miller is erroneous. It suggests a similarity with what follows:

We have in Paris the Eiffel Tower, more than 300 meters high, which is built with intersecting metallic girders. We know that very high temperatures made possible the production of parcels of metal, made from iron ore and carbon. Might this fact bring somebody to suggest the possibility of a spontaneous gathering of metallic girders in order to erect the tower? And we must note that its structure is much less complex than the most simple living cell.

Each cell possesses, if I dare say, its computer. The orders for innumerable functions are given by molecules through, which a program of functioning is elaborated, including the reproduction. In the nuclei of the cells, a proteinic macro-molecule, the deoxyribonucleic acid (or D.N.A.) is the base to register the orders through other chemical components. By this way, coded orders are sent by chemical messengers, and, after decoding, specific enzymes are produced, leading to the synthesis of proteins, which are necessary to life. Each cell possesses a considerable number of genes, segments of D.N.A., ordering innumerable activities: so, the genetic code is constituted. Even the living organisms, which have not a nucleus, like the bacteria, have such a system of command. In the cells there is a tape of D.N.A., feld over on itself a great deal of times. By this way, thousands of different kinds of proteins may be produced (3.000 for bacteria like Escherichia Coli). In the case of Escherichia Coli, the length of tape of D.N.A. is one millimeter, i.e. 5.000 times the maximum size of the bacteria. In human beings, where the size of each cell is down to a scale of thousandths of a millimeter, the cumulated lengths of the tapes of D.N.A. of all the cells of the body is approximately the distance between Earth and Sun.

The basic characteristic of the living organisms is the fantastic organization. The genes order the functions of every cell. While man is able voluntarily to influence certain aspects of functions of the organs, in the animals most of the functions are totally automatic, due to an extremely sophisticated programming in certain cells, in the nervous cells of the birds for example. The very complicated migrations are under the dependence of a prodigious stocking of information, inducing automatic behaviors. We know the extremely reduced volume of the Central nervous system where the program is registered. Through such an example we have an idea of the capability of the living matter, necessitating a prodigious organization.

Where the origin of life might be situated?

As far as we know, the most likely hypothesis is an aquatic origin. Algae and bacteria existed one billion of years ago (the earth is 4 billions and a half years old). Other microorganisms were found in rocks dating back to 3 billions of years. According to what we know about the complexity of the organization in living organisms, the hazard is unimaginable.

A first point: the concept of creation by God can be refuted by no scientific argument.

A second point: on the contrary, one can not deny-paleontology demonstrates that in Africa, at least four or even five million years ago, there existed living beings gifted with intelligence, not only making use of tools (certain animals are capable of this) but even making tools to be used (a capacity of invention achieved by no animal). These first hominids had a morphology similar to ours, although smaller and having a much smaller skull capacity (about 500 cc). They were the Australopithecus; who constituted the most ancient generation, formally recognized as belonging to the Hominides, but it may not be excluded that future discoveries will push even further back the date of man's appearance on earth. It is difficult to say exactly when this first wave died out. Today we posses no fossil proof of the existence of Australopithecus dating prior to a million years for some, 600,000 years for others. The second wave was that of the Pithecanthropus, which have been identified in Africa, Asia, Indonesia and perhaps in France. Their size was closer to ours, with a larger brain (on average 900 cc); and they discovered the use of fire. They would have existed during periods falling between 500,000 and 150,000 years before our time. With Neanderthal man, whose remains are found in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Java, the brain developed to exceed even in volume the human brain of today. This third wave, it seems, was of a shorter duration; remains have been found in ground dating from between 100,000 and 40,000 years. At around this latter age, the fourth and last wave appeared bringing in today's Homo Sapiens who seems, to date, to have evolved very little.

We have never found the link formally joining anyone of these forms to animal lineage, even an intermediate between primates and the lineages I have just mentioned.

Modifications of the human species through the ages have not given rise to the formation of races properly speaking. Anatomic characteristics differentiate, for example, by certain measurements of the head and by the colour of the skin, the geographic groups of a particular aspect, but they all belong to the same species. The today's simple notion of groups, differing by certain characteristics, is the best proof that, starting with our common ancestor, modifications must have taken place for us to end up with different types of the same species. Within this species, an obvious evolution has taken place. An impartial observer is therefore obliged to recognize that throughout the course of history there have been modifications of the human form, but in no way does this signify that we descend from apes as the adepts of Darwin have claimed.

Furthermore, all that we learn from the study of evolution of the animal kingdom, a perfectly orderly evolution, suggests that its explanation by the hazard of random genetic mutation is impossible.

The genetic code, which controls the function of each of our cells, is the director having control over all transformations, which arrive in an orderly, not chaotic, manner. When a new characteristic appeared in evolution, this was the obligatory reply to an order from one or more specific genes. Evolution has perpetually been the creator of increasingly complex forms. Thus, when one studies the infinitely small in the living, one arrives at the notion that everything is entirely programmed at the level of the genetic code exercising its control over extremely complex functions in connection with anatomic modifications. How can the existence of a programmer be found incompatible with science? Even further, how can an objective and impartial scientist of our age avoid the impossibility of explanation of this extraordinary arrangement of the phenomena of life, which would depend on the notion of accident? How then can one rely on preconceived ideas such as Darwin's natural selection, which in no way explain what we know today of evolution?

Jaques MONOD had invented the random and the necessity to explain everything. We have just said what we must think about the accident or random. And, if we must consider the necessity when we evoke the origin of man and his successive transformations as well as the evolution in the animal kingdom - I find that, faced with the well established facts of science, it would be the idea of a creation by God which would seem to constitute the most satisfactory explanation, in conformity with logic: as taught by the holy books of the three monotheistic religions. The objective scientist can not but be satisfied with receiving this teaching.

From the Bible, I have retained as perfectly valid only the idea of the creation, which is exposed. As to the present value of the integrality of its narratives of the event, something entirely different is considered. The longest Biblical narrative on the creation (in fact there are two of them in the Bible), describes, as I have exposed in "The Bible, the Quran and Science", the creation by God of the animals by presenting the various species as fixed through the ages. Moreover, according to the chronological data of the Bible, one may evaluate at about 57 or 58 centuries ago, the age of creation of the world and the appearance of man on earth. At the end of 1981, the Hebrew calendar places them at 5742 years ago. None of this is scientifically acceptable. However, one readily conceives that, for the Bible, it could not have been otherwise when dealing with such subjects. The Biblical authors of these narratives (ninth and sixth centuries before Christ) are recognized by the Christian exegetes themselves as indeed inspired by God as far as the truths of faith are concerned, but having written following the ideas, traditions, superstitions or myths of their age. How, in these circumstances, can they have not committed errors concerning facts on which no scientific light was shed prior to the modern era.

It is not, therefore, astonishing that the Second Vatican Council (1961-1965) declared that certain parts of books of the Old Testament included imperfections or were null and void.

As to the Quran, I repeated in my last book "L'homme, d'ou vientil", 'What is the origin of man?", that which I had already expressed in my previous work, that is that these statements on man were those that impressed me most as a scientist, I mean. I even delivered a lecture on this subject in 1976 at the French Academy of Medicine.

When dealing with the origin of man, I cannot fail to evoke how the Quran teaches us, in a more general sense, on the starting point of life. I will quote only the verse of the Sura:

DO NOT THE UNBELIEVERS SEE THAT THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH WERE
JOINED TOGETHER, THEN WE CLOVE THEM ASUNDER AND WE GOT EVERY
LIVING THING OUT OF THE WATER. WILL THEY THEN NOT BELIEVE?

(S.21: V.30)

Who today does not know that the origin of life is aquatic?

Even though the Quran evokes in this same Surate in verse 53 the elements of couples (male and female) amongst plants, it deals with man at several points, offering for our meditation data on reproduction, conforming to modern embryology, which naturally, were strictly unknown at the time of the prophet.

Furthermore, I believe I distinguish in the Quran allusions to transformations of man's morphology, taking place in sequence, in different phases, as modern science demonstrates. These verses have become accessible to human understanding, only in the modern era: the ancient commentators, as well as today's translators and commentators could not and cannot grasp the real meaning: only a scientist understands.

I will not repeat here the deep spiritual sense attached to the creation of man, from the ground exposed in many verses. But the Quran evokes, after the creation, a second phase wherein God gave form to man. The Sura:

WE CREATED YOU AND THEREUPON WE FASHIONED YOU;
THEREUPON WE TOLD THE ANGELS: BOW DOWN TO ADAM...

(S.7: V.11)

To fashion man was realized with harmony. Such is the meaning of which applies to man in the Sura (S.15: V.28 and 29) and the Sura (S.38: V .72). Moreover, in the Sura it is specified that:

(GOD) IS WHO CREATED YOU, THEN FASHIONED YOU HARMONIOUSLY AND IN DUE PROPORTION; INTO WHATSOEVER FORM HE WILL HE MADE YOU OUT OF COMPONENTS.

(S.82: V.7 & 8)

I will follow with the quotation of verses, which speak for themselves, if I may so Sura:

WE CREATED MAN ACCORDING TO THE BEST ORGANIZATION PLAN.

(S.95: V.4)

I suppose that such is the sense of I quoted at the beginning of this paper the following verse: Sura:

HE CREATED YOU IN (DIFFERENT) STAGES.

(S.71: V.14)

I suggested in my last book that which appears only once in the Quran could well be related to the transformations undergone by the human species throughout the ages. Indeed, all those who have studied embryology are well aware that it is in the uterus of the mother where is outlined then settled all morphologic transformations which will fully develop in the adult. The stages through which the embryo passes in uterus (to which one generally relates the word) are just as applicable to all the human lineage.

Finally, when one has in mind the paleontologic data concerning the successive waves of humans in the history of our species, how can one not compare these two verses of the Quran:

Sura where God speaks of men:

VERILY WE CREATED THEM AND STRENGTHENED ALL OF THEM. AND WHEN WE WILL, WE REPLACED THEM COMPLETELY BY PEOPLE WHO WERE OF THE SAME KIND.

(S.76: V.28)

Sura:

IF (GOD) WILLS, HE DESTROYS YOU AND IN YOUR PLACE APPOINTS WHOM HE WILLS AS SUCCESSORS, JUST AS HE BROUGHT YOU FORTH FROM THE POSTERITY OF OTHER PEOPLE.

(S.6: V.133)

These two verses consequent emphasize the disappearance of certain communities and their replacement by others, in accordance with the will of God, through the ages.

What greater compatibility can one find between Quranic teachings and the perfectly established data of science in the fields of paleontology and many others. Let us remember that they were absolutely unknown at the time the Quran was brought to the knowledge of man.

Such is the important lesson that any objective scientist must draw from these facts.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Dr. Ahamed Ansari

I thank you Dr. Maurice Bucaille for this very nice talk. In fact you have covered most of the points, which I had, in mind before you started your talk. We have here Sheikh al-Khalid. He always says that when you are reciting the Quran, you are not pronouncing it properly. I do not know if he has any comments, because it is very difficult for those who do not speak Arabic to pronounce Quran perfectly all right. So, I ask Sheikh al-Khalid to give his comments, if he has any.

Sheikh Al-Khalid

I think, the lecturer has exerted his great efforts in this lecture and he has dealt with the question that is always repeated. 'What is the origin of man and how he has been developed and evolved?' If we are to say anything, we would like to thank him very much. As for the Quranic Verses, of course, we do appreciate the fact that he is dealing with Islam and that he cannot speak proper Arabic and of course, we know that Arabic language is quite a difficult language for beginners. Even when the earlier Muslims used to learn they used to make such mistakes and they always found such a difficulty. The Islamic Shariah has given credit to all those who are trying to do so. I think that these verses should have been punctuated, but of course, we do appreciate the difficulty he had in reading out these verses and of course, we hope that he would resume his learning of the Arabic language and we wish him very good luck.

Dr. G.M. Karim,

I am from South Africa and I am a General Practitioner. I would like to comment on Dr. Bucaille's talk and I may perhaps elaborate on an aspect that was not commented on by him. That is, that in Quran there is no link between the apes, the primates and man. In other words if Darwin's theory was to hold, then there should be a continuity between the apes going onto man. Now, in Sura Bakara there is an Ayah of Quran, which gives an explanation for the existence of the apes and for the sub-human type of creations, that is to say, the primates. And that verse is that is when a group of human beings transgressed Almighty Allah's laws.

He cursed them and they became apes. Now these apes, we say that it was a mutable type of human being and it is the law of genetics, that mutations do not survive, that you have them dying out and this is the reason, why we have different shapes. For example, we have humanoids with small brains. Then suddenly the brains went big, but these were mutant forms of man-kind and therefore, what the scientists call, what the anti-hropologists call 'The missing link', will never be found, because this will be contrary to the Wahi or to the revelation of the Holy Quran. And regarding the modification of the early initial human for, as outlined by Dr. Bucaille, I would like to say that the genetic of the phenotype, the genetic, the genes never change, because Almighty Allah has programmed us to be in a certain form and the genes will never change, but certainly the morphology, that is to say the outside shape can be determined by the environmental factors, e.g. we will find that certain races are darker in colour, to protect them from the harmful rays of the sun and in certain countries people are absolutely white skinned, because they don't need that protection. In fact, in my country, where there is considerable dis-crimination between black and white, we say that Allah has given the black people something in addition to the whites and there fore, they are superior. And going on to this factor, we find that the skulls of the African people in South Africa, are thinner in size than the skulls of European, that is to say that the people descendant from Europe, the white skinned people. And although the skin of the skull is thinner in the black people, it is far stronger than the skulls of the white people. So, I would like to conclude my comment here, but I