Yesterday I received a disturbing message from a young man in Yemen who fears for his life – not because of the tragic war there but because of something that he wrote.
Twenty-year-old Mohammed Atboush (seen in the video above) is a medical student in Aden and the son of a judge. He also takes an interest in philosophy, which led him to write a book about the conflict between science and religion in Islam.
His book, "Critique of Scientific Inimitability", was published last February by Masarat Publishing & Distribution in Kuwait and has been featured at book fairs in several Arabic countries, including Yemen. It looks critically at claims that the Qur'an is a "scientific miracle" – claims which are also included in the Yemeni school curriculum.
The "scientific miracle" claim is a fairly recent invention and not part of Islamic tradition. It originated in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s and is based on the idea that the Qur'an contains scientific information which could not have been known in the time of the Prophet – thus reinforcing belief that the holy book must have come from God. [al-bab.com] Read more
