The foregoing has indicated my ambivalence about the viability of scientific exegesis of the Qur'an. Despite my reservations, however, I do not think that such exegesis is impossible in principle. I say this for three reasons.
As noted above, many Qur'anic verses make reference to phenomena that seem to have potential for "scientific" interpretation. Just as a jurist reading the Qur'an is likely to pay more attention to its legislative verses and draw out their implications, so a biologist reading the Qur'an can be expected to show greater interest in and study more deeply the verses that speak of, for example, the growth of the fetus in the womb. The jurist's interest, in other words, is not privileged over the biologist's.
From a linguistic standpoint, it is quite possible for a word, phrase, or statement to have more than one layer of meaning, such that one layer would make sense to one audience in one age and another layer of meaning would, without negating the first, be meaningful to another audience in a subsequent age. An example is the word sabh ("to swim, to float") in a verse like al-Anbiya': 33: wa huwa lladhi khalaqa l-layla wa-n-nahara wa-sh-shamsa wa-l-qamara kullun fi falakin yasbahuna (And He is the One Who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon--each swimming in an orbit). The word yasbahun in the verse made good sense to seventh-century Arabs observing natural phenomena with the naked eye; it is equally meaningful to us in light of today's scientific findings.
It is quite possible that the suspected inviability of tafsir 'ilmi may be due not so much to the project's inherent limitations but to the fact that no credible scientific exegesis of the Qur'an has so far been produced, there being no reason why such exegesis cannot be produced in the future. After all, it took several centuries for Sufism to become integrated into the so-called mainstream Islam. Like Sufism, tafsir 'ilmi may have to wait for its Ghazali; it may eventually establish itself as a reality on the ground and those who are trying to prove its inviability may find themselves in the same position as the physician in Voltaire's story Zadig, who was unable to cure the abscess in the hero's eye, but who wrote a book to argue that the abscess, which subsequently healed of itself, should not have so healed.

I would like to make a few observations by way of conclusion:

1. Two motives seem to underlie the advocacy of tafsir 'ilmi. The first, negative in character, can be described as the wish to demonstrate that there is no conflict between the Qur'an and scientific findings. The second motive, positive in character, can be described as the wish to prove what is termed the Qur'an's i'jaz ilmi ("scientific inimitability")--that is, the wish to prove that the presence of verifiable scientific information in the Qur'an will establish the Qur'an as the Word of God, since such a book could have emanated only from a Divine source. In the end, of course, the two motives are like two sides of the same coin. I would like to say a word about each.
The project of establishing compatibility (muwafaqah) between the Divine Word and scientific findings is, by definition, defensive in character. Muslim thinkers first engaged in a similar exercise in muwafaqah during the Abbasid period, when they felt constrained to reconcile Greek thought with Islamic religion. The arena of discussion at that time was theology; today, it is science, but the nature of the exercise is essentially the same. The challenge that modern science initially posed to Christianity has now been posed to all religions--to the very idea of religion itself. Muslims naturally feel the force of the challenge, whether or not they understand its exact nature, and some of them think that it would be an adequate defense of Islam to demonstrate that there is no conflict between the Qur'an and science or, going a step further, that the Qur'an prefigures modern science.
As for i'jaz 'ilmi, I am afraid I regard the attempts to establish it as mistaken in principle. The theme of Qur'anic i'jaz has fascinated generations of Muslim scholars and has led to the production of many works, but I suspect that the Qur'anic challenge that those who doubt the Divine origin of the Book should produce the like of it was aimed at the Qur'an's first, disbelieving Arab audience, and the failure of that audience to produce the like of the Qur'an closed the chapter of i'jaz for good, there being no need to reopen it in every subsequent age. The view that advances made in knowledge over time will bear out the Qur'an is not contravened by the position taken in this paper--namely, that the Qur'an cannot be held hostage to a changing science.

2. It is a curious fact that, in the early centuries which witnessed intense Muslim scientific activity, the major Qur'an commentaries are, generally, free of references to science, whereas today, when Muslim scientific activity has declined, many Muslims have supposedly found in science an ally and a defender of the faith of Islam. Today, the mainstay of tafsir 'ilmi is modern science, which, regardless of its lineage and of the history of its development, is a product of Western civilization. (12) The question, whether science is value-free or value-laden is an important one. There are strong reasons to believe that, both in its conception and in its prosecution, a scientific culture is inextricably tied to the matrix of the civilization that produces it. Science is not an abstract or faceless phenomenon; it is based on a set of presuppositions derived from a social and cultural framework, and it has a character, a temper, and an identity. (13) In its present form, tafsir 'ilmi, I suspect, seeks to baptize Western science in the name of Islam. In other words, it lacks authenticity of origin. In our context, authenticity of origin may be defined as indigenousness of impetus, perspective, and structure. Much of the "scientific" exegesis of the Qur'an would fail to measure up to this definition.

3. Any view of the so-called scientific data in the Qur'an must be consistent with one's view of the rest of the Qur'anic data--the historical data, for example. Chapter 30 of the Qur'an, entitled al-Rum (The Romans), makes a well-known prediction that came true--namely, that the Romans, who had been defeated by the Iranians, would soon turn the tables on the latter. But the fact that the Qur'an made a specific prediction which turned out to be true does not necessarily imply that the Qur'an contains information about all future events. No one would claim that the Qur'an makes reference to Tariq ibn Ziyad's invasion of Spain in 711, to Salahuddin's victory over the Crusaders at Hattin in 1187, or to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. After all, if the Qur'an contains--to use a popular phrase--'ilm al-awwalin wa-l-akhirin ("knowledge of the first and the last generations")--then this should be true of history no less than of science. If the Quran cannot be claimed to be a repository of all the events that would ever happen in historical time, it cannot be claimed to be a repository of all the scientific inventions and discoveries that would ever be made.

4. Following the above-stated principle--namely, that our view of the so-called scientific verses in the Quran should be consonant with our view of its non-scientific verses--one can legitimately argue that the Qur'an encourages scientific study of nature. The Qur'an, though not a book of history as such, can yet be said to have encouraged study of history--and one can make a similar argument for law and other subjects. The Qur'an not only lays down the law or narrates historical anecdotes, but also inspires. It inspired the earlier generations of Islam with a vision and a drive, which led Muslims to establish a distinctive intellectual tradition. In founding that tradition, Muslims were also stimulated by their environment, which included the then dominant currents of thoughts and movements of ideas. I see no harm in Muslims receiving, today, a similar stimulus from the modern intellectual environment, of which science forms such an important component. The Qur'anic exhortation to reflect on the ubiquitous signs of God (al-Baqarah: 164; Yunus: 6, 101; al-'Ankabut: 20; al-Jathiah: 3-5; and passim) has not lost its force. That Muslims need to respond to the Qur'anic call for a reflective study of nature must be admitted. But they must ensure that they are adequately prepared to make such a response. The preparation includes becoming well-versed in the longstanding and rich Muslim tradition of knowledge, learning to respect that tradition, and working from within that tradition to open up fresh horizons of learning and scholarship. (14) The project of tafsir 'ilmi, unless it can give evidence of authenticity of origin, will never be truly viable in Islam.

Notes