Evolution and Religion

 

After evolution theory Muslim theologians and scholars responded in three ways. One group is in view that theory of evolution is completely incompatible and contradictory and with the teachings of Islam. Second group relates some part of theory with Islam. The third group accepts the theory.

Debunking the myth that human evolved from apes

One of the more popular arguments used for humans supposedly evolving from apes is known as the chromosome fusion. Actually humans cannot be the descendants of apes because of differences in chromosomes. Humans and apes look similar from the outside but from the inside they are not the same. We have 46 chromosomes while apes have 48. Humans have 46 chromosomes (23 from the father and 23 from the mother) while apes have 48 (24 from the male and 24 from the female). To explain this discrepancy some scientists in 1982 using microscopes came up with a theory that 2 chromosomes must have fused from the male ape and at the same time 2 chromosomes must have fused from the female ape. But in 2022 scientists completed the human genome using the latest technologies with much higher accuracy, which exposed the errors in this fusion theory. Thus, Human Chromosome 2 Fusion never happened. So we cannot be descendants of apes because of differences in chromosomes.

However, the fusion signature was somewhat of an enigma based on the real fusions that occasionally occur in nature. All documented fusions in living animals involve a specific type of sequence called satellite DNA (satDNA) located in chromosomes and found in breakages and fusions. The fusion signature on human chromosome 2 was missing this telltale satDNA. Another problem is the small size of the fusion site, which is only 798 DNA letters long. Telomere sequences at the ends of chromosomes are 5,000 to 15,000 bases long. If two chromosomes had fused, you should see a fused telomere signature of 10,000 to 30,000 bases long—not 798.

Evolution and Islam

Early Muslim scientists and philosophers developed theories on evolution, and the transmutation of species, which were widely taught in medieval Islamic schools. 

The controversy over evolution and Islam arose only in the 20th century, when Darwin’s ideas became associated with colonialism and atheism. The Muslims scholars used Christian creationist arguments to support their stance and in this way, they transferred the Western war between science & religion into Islam as well. 

English scientist John William Draper, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, wrote the following on what he called the Mohammedan theory of evolution: Sometimes, not without surprise, we meet with ideas which we flatter ourselves have originated in our own times. Thus our modern doctrines of evolution and development were taught in their schools. In fact, they carried them much farther than we are disposed to do extending them even to inorganic or mineral things. He further writes that Theological authorities were therefore constrained to look with disfavor on any attempt to carry back the origin of the earth to an epoch indefinitely remote, and on the Mohammedan theory of the evolution of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present condition in the long lapse of time [John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, published in 1874, P. 118, 188].

It is said that Charles Darwin actually studied about evolution from his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, who got the whole idea from Muslim philosophers preceded him by centuries. He then collected evidence to support the theory of evolution. This fact has been specially pointed out by contemporary scholars like Dr. Imad Hasan and T.O. Shahnavas. Charles Darwin knew Arabic and read directly from the Muslim scientists’ books. Darwin learned Arabic in order to understand Islam. In the collection of his letters which have been published, a number of them are addressed to his Arabic teacher. He was himself initiated into Islamic culture in the Faculty of Religion at the University of Cambridge under an orientalist Samuel Lee,who was a professor of Arabic and Hebrew. Darwin had referred to him in his letter addressed to Granary.

The 6th edition was the last edition edited by Darwin and was released in 1872, 13 years after the 1st edition. The word “evolution” appears for the 1st time in it. Darwin used the word “Creator” 9 times and God” 2 times in it. Darwin never said that evolution was Godless or directionless. In the last sentence of the sixth, edition Darwin placed the Creator at the beginning of life on earth: He mentioned “There is grandeur in this (natural selection) view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling from so simple a beginning endless forms, and are being evolved”.

Greece played a crucial role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and Islamic golden age became the basis for Western world to excel in the field of science.

 

Evolution in world history

The Great Chain of Being is a hierarchical structure of all matter and life made by God as per medieval Christianity. The chain begins with God and descends through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals. It is a concept derived from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus. Further developed during the middle ages and reached height in early modern Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy emerged in the 3rd cent. AD against Hellenistic philosophy which is ancient Greek philosophy during 4th-1st cent. BC. This theory implies a graded similarity between the various stages in the hierarchy from minerals to plants, animals, humans, angels, and God, but not a temporal process in which one species originates from the other.

The Greek philosopher Anaximenes (6th cent. BC), a pupil of Anaximander, thought that air was the element that imparted life and endowed creatures with motion and thought. He proposed that plants and animals, including human beings, arose from a primordial terrestrial slime, a mixture of earth and water, combined with the sun's heat. Another philosopher, Xenophanes (5th cent. BC), traced the origin of man back to the transitional period between the fluid stage of the Earth and the formation of land, under the influence of the Sun.

 

Evolution in early Islamic world 

Before Darwin, Al-Jahiz (9th century) and many Muslims proposed rudimentary evolutionary theories. In his book Kitab al Hayawan, Al-Jahiz references several facets of natural selection.  

Al-Masudi (10th century) possessed Mutazilite beliefs. In his book Kitab al Tanbih wal Ashraf he seemed to agree with al-Jahiz's theory.

Muhammad al Haytham called Alhazen, (10th cent.) in his book Kitabal Manazer defends human evolution starting from minerals, plants, and animals. 

Al Biruni (10th cent.) in his book Kitab al Jamahir fi Marifat is also reported to hold evolutionary ideas. He asserted in his book that humans are created after long periods

Persian scholar Ibn Miskawayh (10-11 th cent.) attributed the processes of both creation and evolution to Allah the Creator. In his book Fawz al asghar, he wrote about the evolution of man gave Neoplatonic (Platonic philosophy) description of the evolution of the soul. It states that creation begins with God, with the intellect being the first existence to emanate from him. A series of emanations from the intellect results in a chain of being, starting with minerals and proceeding through vegetables, animals, and humans, which results in a cyclic spiritual evolution.

Arudi Samarqandi (11th cent.) held the idea that plants are evolved from in-animates which transform into animals through successive changes. He narrates
that the intermediate step between inanimate and plants in coral and date-palm tree is intermediate organisms between plant and animal kingdoms. According to him, the intermediate stage between animals and human beings in Nasnas, which is regarded as half human.

Ibn Arabi (12th cent.) also had no problem in accepting the idea of creation through evolution.

Imam Raghib Isfahani (12th cent.) writes in his book Tafsil al Nishatayn wa Tahsil al Saadatayn that first, man was non-living dead matter. Almighty Allah said: And you were without life and He gave you life. He was not more than soil, clay and mud. Then from non- living matter emerged plants as Allah Almighty said: And Allah caused you to grow as from the earth as plants. It means that he possesses the shape of nutfah, mudghah and becomes animal at this step and it is at that time when he searches such things that are beneficial for him and refrains from harmful things. At last, he becomes man and is appropriated with human characters.

In 12th century, Ibn Bajah (Avenpace) and Ibn Tufayl, Andalusian (Abu Bucer) dwell in their works on the idea of independent and gradual development of man. Ibn Bajah’s disciple Ibn Tufayl has also written on the topic of creation and evolution of life.  

Ibn Rushd (12th cent.) or Averroes believed in the idea of evolution. He thought that the creation of the universe was neither accomplished with the Divine
Command of Kun at the same moment as orthodox Muslims believe, nor the creation of the whole universe was completed in six days. Instead creative activity of Almighty Allah never ceases at any moment, and will continue without an end. The things created by Allah undergo different changes with the passage of time. He believed in ladder of nature (Scala Naturae of Aristotle). Ibn Rushd was declared heretical because he asserted that the human soul in not independent but shares a universal mind.

Rumi (13th cent.), a Maturidi theologian (Mutakallim) implies that human's creation was not at once but a process as evident from his interpretation of a hadith, according to which Adam evolved over a time span of 40 days. To Rumi the process does not end with man whereas to Darwin man is the end of evolution. Thus to Rumi man's physical organism, like the universe, did
not come into existence in a moment; it is the result of a long process of evolution. Despite his being created out of clay man did not get figure at once and despite his physical death, he will lift up his head amongst the angels and even beyond.

''I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying? Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar With angels blest.''
[Rumi’s Masnavi]

 

Ibn Khaldun (14th cent.) wrote in the Muqaddimah about the gradual process of creation. He asserted that humans developed from the world of the monkeys, in a process by which species become more numerous. He believed that humans are the most evolved form of animals and have the ability to reason.  His theory postulates a linked hierarchy between all entities in creation but is not properly a theory of evolution. According to him, the world of creation started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and to reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this stage we come to the first stage of man after (the world of monkeys). He has tried to explain links between inorganic matter, plants, animals and man. It is also the case with monkeys, creatures combining in themselves cleverness and perception, in their relation to man, the being who has the ability to think and to reflect.

But we cannot call all of them evolutionist in the full Darwinian sense.
 

 

Evolution in Modern Islamic world

Ibrahim Hakki (18th cent.) from Erzurum and Ottoman Empire stated that between plants and animals there is sponge and between animals and humans there is monkey. 

Muslim scholars such as Hussein al Jisr, a Lebanese  scholar and Ahmad Medhat in the 1880s supported evolution. Rashid Rida (1935) guarded al Jisr’s perspective.

In the 19th century, Jamal al Din al Afgani agreed with Darwin on natural selection. 

Poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal has highly appreciated al-Jahiz for his evolutionary ideas and has regarded him the first evolutionist in Islamic world. Iqbal has also paid homage to Rumi for presenting evolution theory.

Muhammad Hamidullah, a polymath, said that God first created matter and invested it with energy for development. Matter, therefore, adopted the form of vapour which assumed the shape of water in due time. The next stage of development was mineral life. Different kinds of stones developed in course of time. Their highest form being mirjan (coral). It is a stone which has in it branches like those of a tree. After mineral life evolves vegetation. The evolution of vegetation culminates with a tree which bears the qualities of an animal. This is the date-palm. It has male and female genders. Then is born the lowest of animals. It evolves into an ape. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of a barbarian man. He then became a superior human being. Man becomes a saint, a prophet. He evolves into a higher stage and becomes an angel. This is precisely what is written in the Epistles of Ikhwan al Safa (by the Brethren of Purity, a secret society of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 9th or 10th century). 

 
David Solomon Jalajel believes that Adam's creation does not necessarily signal the beginning of humanity as the Quran makes no declaration as to whether or not human beings were on Earth before Adam. It is possible that an intermingling of Adam's descendants and other humans may or may not have occurred who could have came about as a result of evolution. However the existence of Adam is a miracle since the Quran directly states it to be. This viewpoint stands in contrast to creationism and  evolution both.

The Ahmadiyyas accept evolution but divinely guided. They reject the creationist doctrine that Adam was the first human being on Earth and proclaim that he was appointed as the first Prophet of God as per a verse of Quran. Thus, they accept the concept of evolution in principle but do not accept Darwinian evolution in all its details. They deny that natural selection occurred purely by chance or merely by survival of the fittest. They contend that the processes of life on Earth started from one single point of species (bacteria) with a mixture of water and a viscous clay like substance. The creation of Adam was a slow gradual evolutionary process that occurred over several stages, with each stage being of a variable timescale, perhaps over billions of years.

Al Azhar University, holds that the theory of evolution does not fundamentally contradict Islamic belief. 

Hossein al Jisr said that there is no evidence in the Quran to suggest whether all species, each of which exists by the grace of God, were created all at once or gradually.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi around the year 2010 stated on a special Arabic Al Jazeera show that even if evolution were true, there is no reason for it to conflict with Islamic.

Ayatollah Meshkini, an Iranian Shia scholar believes that man evolution can be inferred from some Quranic verses. 

Inayatullah Mashriqi is also believed to relate some features of evolutionary theory compatible with the Islamic teachings.

Dr. Rana Dajani, a microbiologist and researcher teaches Evolution to students in Jordan.

Indian physician, T.O. Shanavas in his book Creation and/or Evolution: An Islamic Perspective, has combined ideas from modern science, the Quran, and pre-Renaissance Muslim history to describe an Islamic theory of creation that is not incompatible with evolution.

Dr. Nidhal Guessoum (Algerian astrophysicist) wrote the book, Islam’s Quantum Question and he advocates in support of Darwinian evolution. 

 

Apart from above, there are some Muslim theologians and intellectuals like Ghulam Ahmad Pervez and Dr. Abdul Wadood completely accepted evolutionary theory

 

However, Maurice Bucaille attempted to reconcile evolution with the Quran by accepting animal evolution up to early hominid species, and then positing a separate hominid evolution leading to modern humans. But these ideas differ from the theory of evolution as accepted by biologists. Yasir Qadhi believes that the idea that humans evolved is against the Quran, but says that God may have placed humanity perfectly into an evolutionary pattern to give the appearance of human evolution. Shabir Ally also argues that Allah has made different kinds of humans and has asked them to interact with each other and all this change is the work of a higher supervisor.

Conclusion

Many Islamic scholars say that there is no contradiction between the scientific theory of evolution and Quran's numerous references to the emergence of life in the universe. The principle of no conflict in the Word of God and Work of God is always applied.

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Adamic exceptionalism is a viewpoint that reconciles the Islam's creation story of Adam and Eve with the theory of evolution.

Therelogocial creationism refers to theistic evolution, a Christian belief that God's creation is compatible with the scientific theory of evolution. 

Human exceptionalism is the belief that humans are inherently distinct and superior to other animals and organisms.