La mezzaluna e la Luna dimezzata. Islam, pseudoscienza e paranormale by Stefano Bigliardi (review)

Stefano Bigliardi is an Italian scholar of religions teaching in a Moroccan university. His personal experiences with Moroccan students function as the starting point for a book intended for a popular audience and published as a supplement to the magazine of CICAP, the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences. The latter is the Italian equivalent of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, formerly CSICOP), both being associations of "professional skeptics," whose aims are to debunk alleged paranormal phenomena, miracles, and what they regard as pseudoscience. As many (including myself) have noted, associations such as CSI and CICAP are advocacy groups based on a somewhat naïve understanding of science, ignoring often that "science" is itself a socially constructed and politically negotiated label. Ultimately, as Jeffrey J. Kripal explained in his recent book Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions (2017), the claim that miracles and paranormal phenomena cannot exist is in itself a dogmatic statement of (secular) faith and is part of belief rather than "science." And despite the worthy efforts of several scholars mentioned in Bigliardi's book, the whole concept of "pseudoscience" remains problematic.

However, the exercise of reading Bigliardi's book is worth the effort of going beyond the skeptical jargon—and the annoying and emphatic propaganda for CICAP (by the publishers, not the author) in the last pages. To start with, the book is well-written and entertaining. And Bigliardi, while not a scholar of Islam, collected such a significant number of examples of Islamic "pseudoscience" that the book rises beyond the merely anecdotical.

The most significant part of the study deals with the "scientific miracles in the Qur'an," a matter of considerable interest for many Muslims today, including mainline leaders of the religion and even politicians and heads of states. The label refers to the widespread theory that the Qur'an anticipated and described, in veiled or symbolic terms, discoveries that scientists would make only several centuries after Muhammad, including the Big Bang theory, the speed of light, and microbiology. Bigliardi traces the origins of these theories back to Egyptian high school teacher Tantawi Jawhari (1862–1940), although whether he really intended to "prove" the divine origin of the Qur'an through its "anticipation" of modern science is unclear.

Although Bigliardi rejects the label, some call the theory of "scientific miracles" in the Qur'an "Bucaillism," from the name of a well-known French gastroenterologist, Maurice Bucaille (1920–1998). While there is no evidence that Bucaille ever converted to Islam, according to Bigliardi, he did publish in 1976 The Bible, the Qur'an, and Science, which became, and remains, a bestseller in the Muslim world. In the book, Bucaille argued that the Qur'an was more accurate than the Bible when dealing with science, a conclusion largely based on the French doctor's own examination of the mummy of pharaoh Ramses II. Bucaille concluded that the pharaoh might have died by drowning in the Red Sea, as the Qur'an, which also promised that his body would not be destroyed, described more accurately than the Bible.

Although recently some Muslim scholars understood that claiming that science "proves" the truth of the Qur'an dangerously exposes Islam to reactions by skeptics arguing that in fact it disproves it, so-called "Bucaillism" is still extremely popular both in mainline Islam and in Islamic new religious movements, such as the Ahmadiyya and the different organizations led by Turkish flamboyant preacher Harun Yahya. The account of a nighttime interview Yahya granted to Bigliardi in Istanbul in 2011 is among the most entertaining parts of the book.

Bigliardi goes on to examine claims that either the Qur'an or sayings attributed to Muhammad endorse controversial medical practices, such as alternative cures of AIDS or cupping, i.e. the alleged cure of various illnesses through vacuum cups applied on areas of the skin previously cut so blood can be aspirated. Others...