Debate on Islam and evolution has to be called off after revolt by student societies
Muslim opposition highlights growing influence of creationism and literalist interpretations of the Koran
Organisers behind a British conference on Islam and evolution say they nearly had to cancel the event after receiving a torrent of opposition from Muslim students at one of the countrys top scientific universities, The Independent has leanred.
The Deen Institute, a Muslim debating forum which promotes critical thinking, had hoped to hold a conference entitled Have Muslims misunderstood evolution? early next year. Among the speakers invited to attend included Muslim scientists, imams who have promoted the compatibility of Islam and evolution as well as those who preach a form of Islamic creationism.
The initial plan was to hold the event next month at Imperial College London, one of the countrys foremost universities for scientific exploration and debate, in cooperation with the local Islamic student society. But the Deen Institute said it was forced to pull out when it became clear that opposition to the event from supporters of creationism began mounting. It is now being held without input from any Muslim student society at Logan Hall, a conference centre owned by the University of London.
We eventually had to give up of getting any support from student societies because it was seen as simply too controversial, Adam Deen, co-founder of the institute, told The Independent. Deen, who describes himself as a conservative Muslim who encourages critical thinking, said he was surprised to receive such opposition at a place of scientific study, particularly as he had made sure to invite all sides of the debate including those who preach creationism.
Its symptomatic of a bigger problem in the Muslim world where people representing practical Muslims have to be seen to be more literalist, he said. Its almost like theres an intellectual mafia movement who wont allow any freedom of thought.
Usman Siddiqui, president of Imperials Islamic student society, insisted that they were unable to co-host the event for logistical reasons rather than ideological ones.
I did not say that Imperial ISoc have no qualms with the event - it's just that we did not reach the stage where we were to make that decision, he said. They wanted to use Imperial as a venue, it didn't work out, and now they have a new venue.
However it is clear that opposition to the event has been increasing ever since the Deen Institute began publicising it. One source involved with preparations said: As soon as it went live I was inundated with complaints. Its sad because student societies should be desperate to host this kind of debate.
Mr Deens public Facebook account illustrates many of the concerns people raised. In one comment Mohammad Ali Harrath, the founder of the highly influential Islam Channel, wrote: This debate is a big mistake. It is shifting debate to make it a Muslim issue rather than an issue between atheists and creationists.
Another commenter, Zeshan Sasjid, added: Evolution is not Islamic. Prophet Adam did not have parents. A Muslim cant believe that Prophet Adam.
However others criticised their fellow believers for being overly literalist and shunning scientific research.
If our faith is strong we can only gain from looking at, hearing and understanding difference, wrote Amina Crashaw. If this were not truth I would not be Muslim. Understanding difference include being open to finding something new to learn from the Quran. Not new facts but new depth.
The row is informative because it illustrates some of the controversies currently occupying the Muslim world about the compatibility of science and whether critical thinking is being closed down by more literalist schools of thought.
Muslims believe the Quran is the indisputable word of God and therefore any scientific discovery which risks proving something within their holy book as incorrect is highly controversial, particularly among the more literalist schools of thought. For example, most Muslim scholars have long accepted scientifically proven cosmology but even up until his death in 1999, Sheikh Ibn Baaz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, continued to insist that the Sun revolved around the Earth based on his interpretation of Islamic texts.
Until recently evolution caused little friction with the majority of Muslim jurists and academics broadly accepting Darwins findings albeit in a theistic sense. But in recent years creationism much of it inspired by similar Christian right movements in the United States has begun to receive wider acceptance.
Much of this newfound enthusiasm for attacking evolution has been pushed by Harun Yahya, a prominent Turkish theologian whose writings have been seized upon by literalists and those who exhibit a theological suspicion of science. Dr Oktar Babuna, a representative from the Harun Yahya movement, is scheduled to speak at the conference alongside Shaikh Yasir Qadhi, an influential imam who accepts evolution at a micro level but refuses to countenance the idea that man evolved from anything other than Adam himself.
Two Muslim scientists, American biologists Ehab Abouheif and Fatimah Jackson, will also speak alongside Usama Hasan, a British imam who preaches the commonly held scientific view that man is descended from ape-like forebears.
Hasans inclusion is particularly controversial because he enraged Muslim literalists in his own mosque in Leyton, east London, when he began preaching about evolution and criticised literalists for having a children's madrasa-level understanding of science compared to their Islamic forebears who once used to lead the world in such fields. The arguments eventually became so intense he was eventually forced out by hardliners.
In a recent interview with Forbes magazine following a similar conference in the United States, biologist Dr Abouheif explained why he felt it was important to begin challenging literal creationists.
Theres a lot at stake here because its well beyond evolution, he said. If its not about the evidence, if you reject science, if you reject evolution as a science and youre not willing to listen to evidence, then that means that for all of science, when it comes into contact with sociological, political conflicts, then you wont believe it either.
He added: What got me out of my seat, my lab chair
is my want of the Muslim world to become innovators and to share in being leaders. In technology and innovation, and share in production. And not just be consumers.
Debate on Islam and evolution has to be called off after revolt by student societies - Home News - UK - The Independent
Muslims and Evolution in the 21st Century: A Galileo Moment?
Early last month, a conference was held in London, entitled "Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution?" under the auspices of The Deen Institute, an organization which aims at promoting engagement between the Islamic tradition and modernity. The event sparked off a debate on social media and op-ed columns regarding the place of evolution in the Islamic worldview.
The conference, whose lectures were recently published online, brought together scientists like Prof. Ehab Abouheif and Prof. Fatimah Jackson with theologians like Dr Usama Hasan and the prominent Shaykh Yasir Qadhi. Also invited was Dr. Oktar Babuna, representing the hardcore creationist ideas of Harun Yahya, who is deemed by many Muslim scholars to be a charlatan. Sadly, by the end of the day, Babuna was reduced to such a laughing stock that even Qadhi distanced himself from him.
Abouheif and Jackson made their case for evolution in a style reminiscent of the bestselling and quite compelling book, "The Language of God," by devout Christian geneticist Francis Collins. Babuna's creationist ideas were roundly rejected by all the other panellists. What I found most interesting, however, was the theological discussion.
Although Qadhi, who is more of a specialist in theology than Hasan, soundly rebutted Hasan's apparent suggestion that Muslim scholars had discovered and believed in modern evolutionary theory centuries ago, his response that scientific evolution and Islamic theology are at loggerheads is considerably overstated. For one, Hasan pointed out that preeminent center for Sunni Islamic learning, al-Azhar University, holds that the theory of evolution does not fundamentally contradict Islamic belief. In addition, the influential, if controversial, Egyptian scholar, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, stated three years ago on a special Arabic Al Jazeera show dedicated to this subject that even if evolution were true, there is no reason for it to conflict with Islamic theology. Some conservative Muslims have attacked (in Arabic) al-Qaradawi for his statements.
My own suggestion to
Muslims grappling with such an issue is to recognize that when it comes to what we believe, science and religion address two kinds of truth: empirical and revealed. Empirical (observation-based) truth is the stuff of science. It's contingent on our sense perception, and humanity's current state of knowledge. It's truth with a lower-case t. It's relative to what the human senses can access at a given point in time, and makes no claims to being absolute. This is not to belittle it, as most empirical truths are what we consider facts, like the fact that the spherical earth goes around the sun.
Revealed truth, by contrast, is based upon revelation which, if you believe it, is Truth with a capital T. For the believer, it is absolute, not relative. Our knowledge of empirical truth can and has improved over time; just as the once held 'fact' that the sun goes around the earth has been corrected with the passage of time. No reasonable person believes this 'fact' today; though the ancients may have been justified in thinking it was genuinely scientific. Revealed truth, on the other hand, claims to be constant, absolute, and unchangeable.
Problems of this kind are nothing new for Muslim theologians. An example is the statement of the Prophet that: after the sun sets, it goes to the Throne of God and prostrates, before rising again from the East. This statement is recorded in multiple collections of Prophetic statements including the respected Sunni collections of Bukhari and Muslim. Muslims additionally believe that such statements from the Prophet constitute revealed truth. The reality is that virtually no Muslim theologian has ever taken such revealed truths to be statements of empirical truth. In such an instance, a Muslim will believe in the revealed truth, but not think this means that the empirical truth is wrong. Rather, the two kinds of truth address different domains, the moral and the empirical (what is observable through the senses). The first addresses what Muslims should believe as a matter of faith, and how they should behave; and the other is whatever a reasonable person believes about the observable world based on the current state of human knowledge.
How does this relate to the theory of evolution for Muslims?
I'm not arguing for the truth of evolution in this piece, for that I recommend Collins' book mentioned above. I'm only presenting how, if it were deemed empirically true, as it nearly unanimously is in the scientific community, it should cause Muslims no trouble with respect to their traditional Islamic beliefs. If the Qur'an appears to be making empirical statements about creation, like the Prophetic statement above, it doesn't need to be understood in an everyday literal sense, even if we hold it to be True in an metaphysical sense. Many Muslims will be familiar with the fact that same logic applies to the many seemingly anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Qur'an.
Some commentators have described this conference as marking a Galileo moment for Muslims. I would argue that this isn't quite the case, as Islamic religious authority is decentralized, and there is no formal 'religious establishment' that has binding authority over Muslims. With even the historic center for Sunni learning, al-Azhar University, and influential scholars like al-Qaradawi accepting that Muslims could believe in evolution--though neither seems to--it doesn't seem like this is a serious issue in theology. Rather it seems to be so only in the popular Muslim consciousness. As Muslims continue in the path of learning, as encouraged by the Prophet, I hope that a more nuanced attitude to this issue will emerge at a popular level, and then we can focus on more important discussions like that of climate change or alleviating poverty. This conference was an important step in that direction.
Usaama al-Azami: Muslims and Evolution in the 21st Century: A Galileo Moment?
