The formula of the genius of the lamp: scientific miracles in the Quran in the last quart of the XX century

Abstract

Contrary to prevailing ideas about the supposed secularity of modernity, attempts to reconcile science and religion are abundant. In the Muslim areas the struggle between supporters and opponents of this conciliation has generated a new episode around the issue of the so-called scientific miracles of the Quran. The argument of its defenders was already planted in the nineteenth century debates but it is during the last quarter of the twentieth century when this rhetoric has been reconstituted, coinciding with Islamic revitalization processes. This rhetoric suggests that the findings achieved by science had already been anticipated by Quran revelation, as an expression of divinity. Thus, many authors both in Muslim and in Western countries come to establish links between scientific theories and Quran verses, as in the proof of the existence of the jinn or the various forms of Prophetic medicine revitalization. The case keeps striking similarities with other movements from the late nineteenth century which tried to prove spiritual phenomena by a naturalist thought, in times of major social and political transformations.