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Stefano Bigliardi (born May 11, 1981) is an Italian scholar specializing in the study of religion and science including Islam and modern science, new religious movements and science and ancient astronauts literature. He is an associate professor at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. [1]
Bigliardi pursued his degree in philosophy at the University of Bologna, completing it in 2004 with a thesis centered on Kantian aspects in the philosophy of language of Robert B. Brandom, under the supervision of Eva Picardi. [1] [2] He obtained his PhD in Philosophy of Science in 2008 at the same university with a thesis supervised by Maria Carla Galavotti and Wolfgang Spohn. [1] [3] [4] Bigliardi also received a 2011 scholarship from the Excellence Cluster of the University of Konstanz EXC-16 “The Cultural Foundations of Integration” and worked as a researcher and instructor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University (2011-2013), the Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Santa Fe, (Mexico City) (2013-2015) and the Foundation for Interreligious and Intercultural Research and Dialogue (FIIRD), Faculty of Theology, University of Geneva (2015-2016). In 2016 he joined Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane. [1] [2]
In 2021, he began co-editing the Cambridge University Press Elements series titled "Islam and the Sciences" with astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum. [1] [5] In 2024 he began co-editing with the scholar Adam J. Chin the Wuhan Journal of Cultic Studies, founded by James R. Lewis. [6] In 2025 together with Nidhal Guessoum he obtained a grant from the Templeton Religion Trust for the project “Islam and Science in Translation.” [7]
Bigliardi is the author of several books and numerous academic and popular articles on Islam and modern science, new religious movements and science, literature on ancient aliens, religion and pseudoscience, science fiction, and esoteric authors and authors of literature on ancient aliens, such as Mauro Biglino, Robert Charroux, Erich von Däniken, Peter Kolosimo, Jean Sendy, Brinsley Le Poer Trench, and Manly P. Hall. Other authors on whom Bigliardi has published include Abdus Salam, Mehdi Golshani, Morteza Motahhari, Maurice Bucaille, Harun Yahya, Sherif Gaber, and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis. In the field of new religions, he has studied Scientology, the Raelian Movement, Falun Gong, Satanism (the Italian group Bambini di Satana), Santa Muerte, and Santo Daime (the Italian group Stella Azzurra). In the field of science fiction studies, Bigliardi has studied the cinema of Antonio Margheriti, Michael Crichton’s Westworld , Boris Sagal’s The Omega Man , and Italian sociological science fiction films.
In the field of religion and science Bigliardi works from two perspectives: sometimes he reconstructs the history of an author’s or movement’s ideas and practices as a historian of ideas and ethnographer; other times, as a scholar of philosophy of science, he critiques such positions and ideas. [8] Bigliardi states that he is not religious, [8] [5] but also that he is not interested in having others abandon their faith; [5] as an educator, he is interested in collaborating with other educators and scholars, both religious and non-religious, in the critique of pseudoscience. [8] [5]
In his publications on Islam and pseudoscience, Bigliardi criticizes ideas and phenomena such as Islamic creationism, the “scientific miracle” of the Quran, and prophetic medicine or traditional Islamic medicine. [8] [5] Bigliardi notes, however, that these ideas and practices are also criticized by Muslim scientists such as Nidhal Guessoum and Ziauddin Sardar. [5] According to Bigliardi, pseudoscience combined with religion is a global phenomenon that should not be ascribed solely to Islam. Indeed, it presents similar structures and arguments under different cultural guises, partly because the same myths and distortions are often transmitted from culture to culture. [5] [9] Bigliardi has often worked with the Italian association CICAP (Italian Committee for the Control of Claims on Pseudoscience), for which he has published numerous articles and given talks. [10] Bigliardi argues that a clear ethical and pedagogical model must be developed for the collaboration of religious and non-religious critics of pseudoscience. [5] [8]
In the debate on Islam and modern science, Bigliardi identifies the emergence of certain authors such as Mehdi Golshani, Nidhal Guessoum, Bruno Guiderdoni, and Mohammed Basil Altaie, whom he calls the "new generation." Despite their differences, the authors of the "new generation," compared to those studied by Islamologist Leif Stenberg, [11] are less interested in the "scientific miracles of the Quran," have a strong background in natural sciences, are not interested in "Islamizing" the scientific method, have an interreligious perspective, and are more open to reconciling religion and evolution. [12]
Regarding Abdus Salam’s views on the harmony of Islam and science, Bigliardi argues that they are not particularly coherent or profound, and that they were advanced by Salam primarily to assert his own Muslim identity in the face of his critics and to provide young Muslims with a reassuring role model. [13]
Regarding the position called Adamic exceptionalism, advocated by authors such as Shoaib Ahmed Malik and David Solomon Jalajel, Bigliardi argues that it is not a strictly pseudoscientific idea, but is based on serious epistemological distortions and oversimplifications. [14]
Bigliardi emphasizes that the literature on ancient astronauts is rife with pseudoscientific concepts, conspiracy theories, and racist/racialist views; however, he believes that the authors of this literature are interesting to study as a cultural phenomenon that overlaps with religion and science fiction. [15]
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