Page 35 - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science

Religion Helps Science T o Be Rightly Guided

The answer to this question has been a matter of curiosity since
antiquity. The predominant views are two. The first idea is that there is a
very fine line between animate and inanimate matter, which can easily be

pierced, and that life can spontaneously arise from inanimate matter. This
view is called "abiogenesis" in scientific literature.
The second idea maintains that there is an unsurpassable border
between living and non-living matter. According to this view, it is
impossible for living organisms to develop from non-living materials, and
a life-form can arise only if it comes from another life-form. This view,
summed up as "life comes only from life", is called "biogenesis".
Interestingly, the idea of "abiogenesis" is connected to the materialist
philosophy, whereas the idea of "biogenesis" stems from religious sources.
The materialist philosophy has always argued that non-living materials
can give rise to living organisms. The Greek philosophers believed that
simple life-forms continuously arose from non-living matter.
On the contrary, divine sources state that the only power to give life to
inanimate matter can be God's creative power. The verses of the Qur'an
read:
It is God Who causes the seed-grain and the date stone to split and
sprout. He causes the living to issue from the dead, and He is the One
to cause the dead to issue from the living. That is God: then how are
you deluded away from the truth? (Surat al-An'am: 95)
To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth: It is He
Who gives Life and Death; and He has Power over all things. (Surat
al-Hadid: 2)

In the Middle Ages, when people had a very limited knowledge of
nature, the view of "abiogenesis" prevailed because of certain erroneous
observations. Those who saw that maggots developed on uncovered meat
thought that it happened "spontaneously". They also supposed that mice
appeared spontaneously in wheat grains kept in storage. This belief, also
called "spontaneous generation", was widely accepted until the 17th
century.
Experiments conducted by two important scientists, however, laid the
idea of spontaneous generation in its grave. The first of them was
Francisco Redi. Redi showed, with the experiments he carried out in 1668,

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