Science in the Quran

One of the main advocates of the miraculous revelation of scientific facts in the Quran' position is Maurice Bucaille. In his popular polemic, The Bible, The Quran and Science[8], Bucaille enumerates and expounds selected Biblical and Quranic texts that have relevance to creation, astronomy, the earth, the 'animal and vegetable kingdoms' and human reproduction. Over two thirds of Bucaille's "objective study of the texts"[9] constitutes an assault on the Bible and its alleged scientific errors.[10][11]
Important as that is, this paper is focusing on the claims regarding the Quran and its relation to science. Bucaille opens our discussion with some biographical pontifications:

I had to stop and ask myself: If a man was the author of the Qur'an, how could he have written facts in the Seventh century A.D. that today are shown to be in keeping with modern scientific knowledge?....What human explanation can there be to this observation? In my opinion there is no explanation; there is no special reason why an inhabitant of the Arabian Peninsula should....have had scientific knowledge on certain subjects that was ten centuries ahead of our own.[12]

In their monograph on embryology, the Islamic Information & Da'wah Centre International people answer Dr. Bucailles rhetorical question:

All of this go to show that the Qur'an could not have been the product of the mind of Muhammad....or any other human being living in the 7th century. How could he access information that will not be discovered until the 18th-20th century? How could he or anyone else study the human embryo in its very early stages without using a microscope? Impossible. But then the Qur'an must be from God as it claims.[13]

Other Muslim publications espouse the same position: incredible scientific facts are revealed in the Quran centuries before they were discovered by scientists and this is a sure sign of divine revelation.[14] Bucaille maintains that there are no discrepancies between the Quran and genuine science.[15][16] In spite of this impressive list, there remains a problem inherent in the "scientific argument" a problem epitomized in these verses.
Maurice Bucaille introduces the problem for us in his "Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms" section with a very revealing paragraph:

It will become clear that numerous translations of these passages in the Quran, made by men of letters, must be deemed inaccurate by the scientist. The same holds true for commentaries made by those who do not possess the scientific knowledge necessary for an understanding of the text.[17]

The significance of his hermeneutical principle is profound. He argues explicitly here and elsewhere[18], that scientific phraseology must be used in translating the Quran even though the literal text suggests something else. He acknowledges that older and contemporary commentators and Arabic scholars disagree with the rendering that he advocates. Bucaille blatantly advocates a type of eisigisis over the orthodox method of exegesis. This is a prevailing problem wherever a translator is first and foremost a scientist, or an apologist, and forces their reading on the text. It is no wonder then that one finds scientific details in some translations of the Quran. First our scientist describes or translates a text using scientific language, then he stands back in amazement, surprised at the striking parallels he has found.[19]
In spite of this crippling defect, one may still accept these parallels. I am willing to grant that if the Quran revealed detailed scientific facts to the seventh century Arabians, we have something which did not originate with man. Both Bucaille and Keith Moore draw very concise interpretations from very vague references. Phrases such as "...could refer to..."[20] and "...Is it possible..."[21] are prevalent in their literature. And, I might add, necessarily so. It is also worth noting that there are 'unscientific' passages in the Quran that are dismissed as folklore, or allegorized.[22] And no passage is any more specific in scientific detail than the writings of Euclid, for example, the atomists or the Pythagoreans.

It must be noted that even if this unorthodox method of translating the Quran was allowable, we are still only left with Bucaille's conclusion not the conclusion found in the paper on Dr. Moore. Bucaille states that "All of this go to show that the Qur'an could not have been the product of the mind of Muhammad....or any other human being living in the 7th century." I agree. If detailed evidence were seen, we could safely conclude that Muhammad did not write it. But logically speaking, that only tells us that the Quran would be the product of some superhuman intelligence and that does not lead one to conclude that the information is from God. The Quran speaks of jinns, angels, and a deceiver named Satan. All have been around for many centuries, learning and observing. All have super human intelligence and interestingly, Muhammad had plaguing doubts at first that it was Satan deceiving him. Certainly, this is not compatible with orthodox Islam but then again, neither is the hermeneutic that give us the "scientific revelation".