Cairo, Egypt
Coordinates: 30.047600, 31.233600
Firawn is referred to Ramesses II who was the third Firawn of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He is believed to be the firawn during the times of Hz. Musa عليه اسلام
However, most of the evidence backed up by verses of the Holy Quran point towards him being Rameses II. The Quran and the Bible [Exodus 14:21-30 and Exodus 15:19-21] state that the Firawn was drowned in the sea.
However, the Qur’an differs from the Bible and it makes a very unique statement that the body of the drowned Firawn was saved as a sign for future generations.
The Quranic statement about rescuing Firawn’s body would be in total agreement with the fact that the body of Rameses II has survived in a mummified form.
It was discovered in 1881 among a group of royal mummies that had been removed from their original tombs for fear of theft. Priests of the 21st Dynasty had reburied them in a cache at Deir al-Bahari on Luxor’s west bank.
Nothing whatsoever was known at the time of the revelation of the Quran about the mummy of Rameses II.
Quran states:
With regards the end point of his life, Allah makes mention in the Holy Quran in Surah Yunus: “We brought the tribe of Israel across the sea, and Firawn and his troops pursued them out of tyranny and enmity. Then, when he was on the point of drowning, he [Firawn] said: ‘I believe that there is no god but Him in Whom the tribe of Israel believes. I am one of the Muslims’ [10:90]
However, this last-minute conversion was not accepted, for it was not sincere. According to the Quran, Allah further exclaimed: “What, now! When previously you rebelled and were one of the corrupters? Today we will preserve your body so you can be a Sign for people who come after you. Surely many people are heedless of Our Signs.” [10:91-92]
Incredible story of Conversion of Dr. Maurice Bucaille
Maurice Bucaille was born to a French parent and, like his family, he grew up a Christian. After his secondary education, he joined Faculty of Medicine, France University.
Later, he became the most renowned and cleverest surgeon ever in modern France, but a story happened to change his life completely.
France is known for its unique interest in archeology and heritage. When French Socialist President François Mitterrand assumed power in 1981, France asked Egypt, late in the 80’s, for the mummy of Egypt’s Firawn so that it would conduct a string of monumental and processing experiments.
Actually the body of Egypt’s most notorious tyrant was transferred to France, and, strangely, the French president and his ministers as well as senior officials in the country lined up near the plane carrying the Firawn’s body and bowed down to him as if he were still alive!
After the ceremonies of the royal-like reception to Egypt’s Firawn were over, the tyrant’s mummy was carried nearly in the same red carpet reception way he received. Then the mummy was transferred to a special wing at the French Monuments Center, and renowned archeologists, surgeons and anatomists started to conduct a study on this mummy in an attempt to delve into its mysteries.
The senior surgeon and the scientist in charge of the study on this mummy of the Firawn was Professor Maurice Bucaille.
While the processors were busy making restoration to the mummy, their head (Maurice Bucaille) was thinking otherwise. He was trying to discover how this Firawn died when, late at night, he concluded his final analyses.
The remains of the salt stuck in his body was a shining evidence that he had drowned and that his body was retrieved from the sea swiftly after he drowned; it was also obvious that they rushed to mummify his body so that his body would remain intact!!
But Maurice Bucaille puzzled over a question: How did this body — to the exclusion of other mummified bodies of other ancient Egyptians — remain that intact although it was recovered from the sea?”
Maurice was busy conducting a final report while thinking as to whether the Firawn’s body was recovered from the sea and mummified immediately after he drowned.
But one of his company whispered in his ear, saying “There is no need to rush about this issue, since the Muslims say that this Firawn did drown.”
At first, he vehemently rejected this and did not believe it, citing that such a discovery would be reached only through sophisticated, modern and accurate computers. Another one accompanying him surprised him more when he told him that the Muslim’s Qur’an narrates the story that says he drowned and that his body remained intact even after he drowned.
He got more surprised and kept on asking” Where did the Qur’an quote these data from while the mummy was not discovered until 1898, i.e. about 200 years only, given that the Qur’an has been recited by Muslims for over 1400 years, and given also that until a few decades ago the entire mankind including Muslims did not know that the ancient Egyptians had mummified their Firawns?
Maurice Bucaille stayed up all this night gazing at Firawn’s body, thinking deeply of what his fellow researcher told him about the Qur’an explicitly establishing that this body was recovered after drowning, while the Christians Gospel (Matthew and Luca) narrated only the story of Firawn when he was chasing Hz. Musa عليه اسلام without mentioning the fate of his body at all.
“Is it believable that Hz. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ knew about this over 1,000 years ago while I have only just known it?” he thought.
Maurice spent a sleepless night, and asked for a version of the Torah. But it only furthered Bucaille’s astonishment; since even Torah did not narrate that the body was recovered and remained intact due to the processing and restoration, which it did undergo.
France sent back the mummy to Egypt in a splendid glass coffin. But, since he knew about the story circulated by Muslims on the intactness of this body, he decided to pack his baggage and travel to Saudi Arabia where a medical conference happened to be held with a galaxy of Muslim anatomists attending.
There, he told them about his discovery, i.e. that Firawn’s body was kept intact even after he drowned.
One of the conferees opened the Qur’an and read out the Ayah in which Allah Almighty said, “So today We will (safely) deliver you with your body that you may be a sign to the ones succeeding you; and surely many among mankind are indeed heedless of Our signs.” (Yunus: 92)
In his excitement, he stood before the attendants and loudly said, “I have converted to Islam and believed in this Qur’an.”
Back to France, Maurice Bucaille spent 10 years conducting a study as to how far the recently scientific facts match that mentioned in the Holy Qur’an, trying to reassure himself that the Qur’an has never contradicted with any single scientific fact, so that he eventually came up with the conclusion that Allah Almighty said of the Qur’an, “Untruth does not come up to it before it nor from behind it; a successive sending down from (One) Ever-Wise, Ever-Praiseworthy.”
He came up with a book on the Holy Qur’an with the title of the book reading, “The Bible, The Qur’an and Science, The Holy Scriptures Examined In The Light Of Modern Knowledge.”
The book sold out and even hundreds of thousands of it were translated from French to Arabic, English, Indonesian, Persian, Turkish and German, extending to include nearly all East and West bookstores; one has come to see it with any Egyptian, Moroccan or Gulf person in the US.
In the preface of his book, Maurice Bucaille said, “These scientific areas which Qur’an established to the exclusion of other Scriptures filled me with deep surprise early on, since it never struck my mind to see such a large amount of scientific issues in such a variable and accurate way that they are a mirror image of what has recently been discovered in a book which has existed for more than 13 centuries.
