evolution islamica

8/6/2019 Evolution Islamica

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/evolution-islamica 1/6

Evolution Islamica

There are plenty of Muslims who are against the scientific concept of evolution, and I would like to take

this opportunity to state my opinion on the matter. I am neither a scholar of Islam nor am I a scholar of

biology, but I am a Muslim, and I have taken a university course that deals directly with evolution

(entitled Human evolution.)

The Myths:

Just a theory

I dont know why, but I find this one the most annoying and it is the one that I am

tackling first for just that reason. Many intelligent Believers have told me while talking about

evolution that it is just a theory, after all, why should they teach it in school? The following

things are Just theories: gravity, light, existence, harmony, psychology, 90% of history, all

scholarly opinion, atoms, time, the list goes on and on. Yes, many of these theories will be

thrown out with new scientific evidence, and, yes, many of these theories are replacements for

old ones, but there is something to them that does not get replaced. The Darwinian theory of

evolution specifically may collapse and others may come to replace it (as they have) but like

gravity the actual phenomenon is not what is in question, it is the explanation for it. The

Theory of Evolution (as we shall soon see) has been around forever, Darwin came up with a

very interesting take that radically altered the Western world and has thus been pushed on

everyone as the pinnacle of reasoning and given the title The theory of evolution, but it really

is just A theory of evolution. Just because Darwin has been proven wrong (if that is even the

case) doesnt mean there is no evolution. The ancient Greeks had proposals about how rust

works and in the Dark ages the common idea was that maggots came from within meat, and yet

the theories of rust and maggots still stand even though we explain them in completely

different ways.

Survival of the fittest

Darwin never said this; a racist named Herbert Spencer said this. This myth is that

evolution is some sort of mystical complicated idea. Here comes the basic theory of evolution:

If you mate black horses they will have black babies. If you mate black horses with white horses

there will be a mix in the offspring (along with some grey). Thats it. Remember when I said the

theory goes really far back? People have been breeding animals for 6000 years, weve been

breeding grains for even longer, and we were using evolutionary theory to get better yield even

before we were using metal ploughs. How? Breed big grains, get big grains. Some of your

siblings are bigger, some smaller. Some are bigger than your parents, some smaller. By breeding

only the qualities you want (usually bigger) and eating the rest (moving back to the grain



example, of course) you will gradually make the whole crop bigger. Forget the whole survival

of the fittest thing. It was not Darwin and if you dont get evolution, it will not help you.

Random Chance

What happens when a doctor of biology tells a 3rd

grader all about the implications that

Quantum theory1 has on DNA analysis? The 3rd grader chalks it up to Random chance. The drivers of

evolution are r eally complicated, but this idea of complete random chance comes from a few theories

being mix-mashed together and poorly understood. First: You will randomly have a hairy monkey baby,

or a monkey randomly had a freak human baby. This makes no sense to anti-evolution people who then

use this absurdity to poo-poo evolution. The whole concept of where this idea came from totally blows

the minds of pro-evolution people, so lets just drop it. The only part of this that is sort-of correct is that

your siblings all have different heights, weights, eye colour there are variations in genes that can

essentially be chalked up to random change but this is only one theory used for a series of very

specific changes such as eye colour and even then there are scientists working on understanding it who

say it is not random at all. No one says you will have a monkey baby or a monkey will have a man-baby.

There are a lot of things that affect evolution. A lot . If you really want to poo-poo evolution for its

random chance problem you should try to understand it first, and let me tell you, that Human

Evolution course was ONE FULL SEMESTER OF EXPLAINING THE COMPLEXITIES OF THE DRIVERS OF

EVOLUTION. Just for claritys sake, and to demonstrate just how complicated these theories are I will

explain one of over a dozen that can all be acting at the same time.

Big heads caused by developmental changes: Humans have freaky-big heads for apes. In fact our

heads are so big that they dont even completely form before were born and we end up with a very

large hole in them (soft-spot in babies). Furthermore, unlike most apes this hole does not close quickly,

it takes over a year of avoiding attacks from above. In most apes there is a big ridge like on a dragon or

something running down the middle of their skull. Freaky, right? But heres a funny bit of info: people

used to tie boards to their kids heads and squeeze them as they grew. Over the first few years of skull-

strapping the head would form into an egg shape and stay that way permanently, with little brain

damage. (Too weird to be true? Google it!) Now think of what your baby eats. Milk, mush and then soft

fruits etc. An ape baby will quickly be weaned and start eating hard nuts, insects, chew on branches etc,

creating very big, strong muscles to chew up that stuff. Now, feel your temples and bite down really

hard then open your mouth. Those are the muscles that pull your jaw up into your face, making you

bite. Imagine if at birth (or very soon afterwards) those muscles grew to be 3 times bigger and much

stronger. The bones that surround them (your cheek bones, go ahead and feel that) would be pushed

out and the head compressed like those egg-head babies, but in a different way. This, some evolutionary

biologists think, is how the head of an ape could change drastically: the ape changes his diet, softening

the muscles in the babys head and allowing it to grow more bubble-shaped rather than squished in

toward the jaw and crammed together in the middle. Voilà, one random change that could

theoretically explain a dramatic change in evolution. This is only one of many concepts that could all be

happening at the same time, and in order to fully understand how it works and its implications youd

1Quantum theory is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of the dual particle-like and wave-

like behaviour and interaction of matter and energy. If you dont know what that means, thats my point.



have to go off and study ape and human cranial anatomy for 3 hours

(just before the exam). I cannot stress enough that this is only one,

poorly explained, exceedingly brief explanation for dramatic

evolutionary change, but I hope you can see its not all chalked up to

random chance.

Origin of Life

The theory of evolution does not attempt to nor does it

have to explain the origin of life. A theory of evolution

without a theory of origin is like a house without its

foundation.2

No, a theory of evolution without a theory of

origin is like a house without a neighbouring corner store. If you trace evolution back far

enough it gets to a point where you end up with really simple life forms. Perhaps a theory of evolution could extend back to intersect with a theory of origin, but it doesnt have to. When

breeding Rottweilers you do not need to know the origin of life to know that they are going to

have baby Rottweilers. The theory of evolution in its most basic form needs no origin. Some

theories of evolution might start with a theory of origin, or they might intersect with or even

depend on a certain theory of origin, but the basic principle that fuels animal and plant

breeding, the basic idea of evolution needs no origin, nor does it say anything scientifically

about our origin (more on that later).

Denial of God

Both theists and atheists are guilty of making this great mistake. The theory of evolution

does not magically answer the theory of God. Kalam, (theology as a science) does not rest solely

on the findings of biology, just as astronomy, physics or math do not rest on one another. If

astronomers estimate the Earth to be 6 billion years old and geologists only find evidence for

the earth being 4.6 billion years old is one of them wrong? No. They both report what their

evidence shows them and someone creates a theory to reconcile them (the Earth was a molten

mass of magma for 1.4 billion years, thus it existed astronomically but had no rocks to be

found). How is this done? Simple logic: The astronomical evidence pre-dates the physical

evidence therefore if they are both correct there must be a period in which there was nophysical evidence being produced. From that figure out a way that would happen and propose

that. Then search for some evidence that your theory would be correct, like that all rocks 4.6

billion years old are made from cooling magma and not sand deposits in water. If there is a 4.6

billion year old sandstone found it will not disprove the existence of astronomy. (see how you

2This is from an edition of Watchtower Magazine entitled The Origin of Li fe.



had to read that twice because it seems so non-sequitir?). Similarly, Kalam states that God

created the Earth, one astronomical theory states that the Earth was created when a swirling

mass of debris around the newly formed Sun eventually balled together into a planet.

Therefore, theoretically, God created the Earth by creating circumstances under which a

swirling ball of debris collected into a planet, Earth. Simple, logical. Finally: Biology states thattwo hummingbirds will have a baby hummingbird with similar characteristics, though they may

vary slightly for several very complicated reasons. Kalam states nothing about this theory

except that God could if he wanted create a humming bird from nothing or make humming

birds have a baby beluga wale. Biology has nothing to say about divine intervention, so there is

no conflics.

Holes in the Theory

I saved the best for nearly last. If you google Quran evolution you will get 2.7 million

pages of people poking holes in the theory of evolution with the Quran. First of all, unless youare a Quran scholar and an evolutionary biologist you arent going to have the final word on

this (and my ears are closest to my mouth here). Second: there are holes in the theory of

evolution. If there werent there would be no evolutionary biologists. Oh yeah, they need to

get paid to research something! There are also holes in the theories of time, gravity and light

(to name only 3). Third: nowhere in the Quran does it explicitly say evolution is unscientific, or

false according to the principles of the scientific theory. Therefore it is useless to use the

scientific theory to try to disprove evolution through the Quran. If you REALLY want to continue

though, the argument of complexity is usually a big stumbling block.

The idea that there are jumps in the evolutionary path of creatures is only one

explanation, one theory. There are disagreements on how exactly evolution works on the large

scale, on how animals fit into evolutionary patterns, on all sorts of things. The thing is, these

disagreements are not arguments that any person with a high school education can jump into.

Remember the example of the theory on why humans have a big head? Thats only one theory

using one example of a driver of evolution, there are dozens more. We dont know why humans

have freakishly big heads for sure, but we do know several circumstances under which the

process of growing a freakishly big head could occur. If you had an ice cream cone from Dairy

Queen just sitting in your dining room you could conceive of tonnes(lol) of ways it got there,

and any one of those ways could be possible, but just because one of those ways points to

divine intervention doesnt mean the other ways are not valid. Yes, the cone is complex, yes it

needs to stay cool, so it must have been transported quickly, yes to all the circumstances of

your investigation, but just because you have more than one answer, or even if you have no

answer at all it doesnt automatically mean it was direct divine intervention (though it was still

through Gods will it could have occurred by many different means). On that note, scientists



would do themselves and the world a huge favour by taking mandatory classes in saying I have

no clue.

Instant Creation

I feel this is the last big stumbling block for believers to understand the theory of

evolution: Adam was directly created from clay. Forget that this might be metaphorical, lets

say its literal even though there is no consensus on the issue amongst scholars. Even if its

literally one 24 hour period as measured and perceived by us today (again, not agreed upon), it

makes no difference. Evolutionary theory successfully explains the fossil record to the best of

our ability. It successfully explains animal and plant breeding. It successfully explains virus

mutation and so on. What both believers and scientists must remember is that the scientific

theory is used to prove and manipulate the world as evidenced empirically. If you are just a

brain in a vat imagining the whole universe the scientific theory would still be logically sound

despite all of your evidence in fact being illusionary. Furthermore it is not directly refuted by

the Quran, even when the Quran says Adam was created from clay, because the Quran does

not say Adam was created from clay exactly like the clay under Pittsburg and it took 1.3 hours

as measured and perceived by modern humans and there were no animals before him and it is

unreasonable to make observances based on the fossil record that join the anatomical

structure of Humans and therefore Adam with apes.

The same goes for the verse in the Quran that points out that God only need say Be

and it is. He can will anything into creation however he wants, at any time and in any state,including in the state of a species of ape that he later wills through poorly understood

processes to become free-willed, God conscious creatures. He may have willed the Universe

into existence with a word, or Adam, or a Coke can, but that does not mean we are wrong to

wonder if perhaps that Coke can, primeval Man, or universe came into being by His will through

some longer process. Finally, remember Allah exists outside all space and time, so just how long

does it take for Him to say Be? So we can theorize a joining of the theory of evolution and the

creation as told in the Quran, and simply work toward a better understanding of our universe

through those two mediums.

An Example in Conclusion

Nothing would please me more than to see some discussion and debate about these

poorly-hashed examples of Quarnic-evolutionary reconciliation, you can post suggestions here

on Scribd, or simply post links to other forums where the debate might take place, but either

way I suggest you have a scribd account and after you do that I also suggest you follow me!



Here are some starting points for the conversation, I will address popular problems or

suggestions in a new paper later:

1. God created Adam and 6 billion years of the history of the universe including the entire

fossil record all at the same time, thus scientific explanations are correct according to

the evidence provided by God, and so are theological ones.

2. God instilled an intelligent creature with all the attributes of man, thus creating a new

order of creature, Humans. He somehow used clay (figuratively or not) to create this

new order of creature.

3. God created Man through a complex process, filling its discovery with tests and holes

and ultimately saying through the metaphor of our origins that there is only so much to

be found on this earth (dunia) and after that you must look to what has been said by the

prophets. Or maybe its saying some other message that we have not sufficiently

contemplated because we are too busy saying haram, haram! and not contemplating

His signs.

evolution islamica

Documents