Review by Dr. Amr  Mansour El Zawawy of Alexandria University, Egypt

Mr. Akhtar’s book is veritably a truthful investigation of the scientific value of the Qur’an as a source of eternal interest. His thorough study of the different meanings of the words investigated and reliance on arguments of a linguistic nature rightly point to the significance of his effort. His ability to trace the denotations and his reference to Arabic resources of notable renown cannot be underrated. On the linguistic level, the book appears to be a legend, one that even Arab scholars, writing in their native language Arabic, need to emulate. This level of analysis opens up vistas of linguistic research that are direly required, especially with the ever-expanding body of scientific knowledge that ushers to the need for re-pondering the interrelations between the linguistic and scientific in the study and understanding of the Glorious Qur’an, the everlasting miracle of Islam.

Dr. Amr Mansour El Zawawy is an expert in Arabic and English languages.
His Linguistic Fields are Linguistic theories; Psycholinguistics and translation.
He teaches ‘translation and grammar’; essay & language drills; historical linguistics; syntax and morphology etc.

Review in Dawat

Review by Dr. Mousa A. Btoosh, Fahad Bin Sultan University, KSA.

‘In Search of Our Origins: How the Quran Can Help in Scientific Research’ makes a very useful contribution to the literature on the revealed knowledge, in general. The book, which presents a multi-faceted examination of the revealed knowledge in the Quran and other religious scriptures concerning the origin of life and man, and how the revealed knowledge presents an alternative source of knowledge that can help in scientific research, is well-conceived, planned, and executed.
This book is also easy to read and understand. It covers a wide variety of interrelated topics and expands the horizons of this field by focusing on the epistemological study of the relevant Quranic verses. The explanations throughout the book are clear and do not require the reader to have a certain level of religious background or linguistic knowledge.

Dr Mousa  A. Btoosh is an expert in Arabic and English
His Linguistic fields are Applied Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, General Linguistics, Linguistic Theories, Philosophy of Language, Phonology, Text/Corpus Linguistics, History of Linguistics, Forensic Linguistics

Review by Daud Batchelor, a researcher in the fields of Islam and Science & Technology.

Jamshed Akhtar in his “In Search of Our Origins” should be congratulated on his courage to seek insights and a deeper understanding of the scientific information in the Qur’an, particularly from a study of the literal meanings of Arabic words guided by specialists in Arabic language as well through traditional tafsir (commentary) methodology. It is logical that the Source of the Qur’an, Allah Himself, will allude to the real nature of things that may not have been fully or properly comprehended by contemporary Muslims when it was revealed or by classical mufassirun (commentators). Consequently there is the chance to gain new insights facilitated in part by subsequent scientific developments over the centuries. Some notable suggestions from Jamshed’s research on human origins include firstly, that two scenarios exist for the appearance of Adamic humans: they appear either (1) as the end result of a long period of stage by stage biological macro-evolution (Akhtar favours this scenario with life beginning from inorganic crystals), or (2) the first pair was created fully grown and mature; secondly, that Adam and Eve appeared around 60,000 years ago in the Arabian peninsula; and thirdly, a suggestion that Adam and Eve were born of an existing female. I personally researched and had my own paper on “Adam and Eve’s Origins: Harmonising the Scientific Evidence with the Qur’anic Text” peer-reviewed and published in 2017 in a reputable journal without knowing about Jamshed’s book. I was not aware of it until after the article had been accepted for publication. While the three elements cited above coincide in both works, there are very significant differences in the authors’ treatment of details of these as well as other aspects of the subject…

Daud Batchelor’s recent publication is ‘Adam and Eve’s Origin: A Theory Harmonising Scientific Evidence with the Qur’anic Text’.