Kuwait Hosts 8th Science in Qur'an Conference

From a total of 83 papers presented at the conference about 60 percent will cover topics related to medicine and healing. According to the conference program, the opening ceremony will be followed by a series of 5 papers focusing on the role of prophetic medicine in the treatment of cancer, AIDS, and Hepatitis C virus in children and adults. Other papers focusing on medicine will talk about the role of honey in suppressing low density Lipoproteins, managing macular edema in diabetics using the high density fiber Talbina, and the treatment of Psoriasis (a skin disease) using cactus.

Conference topics fall under four main categories this year: astronomy and space sciences, Earth and sea sciences, social and legal sciences, in addition to medicine and biological sciences. Papers presented in none medical fields include a paper on the role of marine bacteria in photosynthesis, a paper presenting models in applying moral values in political economy, and a paper comparing the existence of pastureland and rivers running through Arabia in the past and the future.

Matters of Scientific Standards

The irregularly-held conference, organized by the International Commission on the Scientific Signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah in cooperation this time with the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs in Kuwait, aims at showing the coherence between the natural sciences as they are understood today and their presentation in the Qur'an and Sunnah (prophetic tradition.) Researchers are encouraged to probe into the meanings presented by these two primary sources of the Islamic creed and to analyze them in the light of modern scientific research and discoveries.

Call-for-papers guidelines, as they appear on the Commission's official website, highlight the importance of strictly following agreed upon interpretations of Qur'anic verses as well as referring to well established scientific facts. The last conference had been criticized for including papers that fell below acceptable scientific standards. Dr. Kawthar El-Ibgy, one of the participants of this and the previous conference, told IslamOnline.net that this might be due to the greater attention being given by reviewers to the accuracy of scriptural interpretations rather than the papers' scientific content.

"It's not that these researches were incorrect, it's just that some of them were a bit superficial. Such research has to be based on scientific methodology especially that these papers touch upon matters of the Islamic faith," she said.

She added that since most of those presenting papers at the conference are University professors, they are expected to stick to proper scientific standards when presenting research.

The Commission on the Scientific Signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah was established in 1984 by a decree from the World Supreme Council for Mosques, after which it was changed into the International Commission on the Scientific Signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah by a decree from the Muslim World League in April of 2002.

Previous conferences on the scientific signs in the Qur'an and Sunnah were held in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1988, Cairo, Egypt in 1989, Dakar, Senegal in 1992, Moscow, Russia in 1993, Pandang, Indonesia in 1994, Nouakchott, Mauritania in 1998, Beirut, Lebanon in 2000 and Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 2004.

Tamer El-Maghraby is an editor of the Health & Science Section of IslamOnline.net. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in computer science and psychology from the American University in Cairo and is studying for a master's degree in sociology-anthropology at the same university. You can reach him at tamer.elmaghraby@iolteam.com.