I've come across many an individual who express a gut rejection of anything related, even tangentially, to evolution. I think we've already come to the point that many in the Muslim community equate the term to atheism or materialism. Some people like Harun Yahya reject evolution completely, but I find his arguments completely unfounded and baseless. When I prod most people I know further however, they'll admit that there's nothing preventing God from creating His creatures by evolving them. Of course, few would dare extend that outlook to the origins of humans themselves.
My view: it is God who reveals countless ayat to humanity, either as the written words of revelation or the signs of nature. The ambiguity of the word ayat as used in the Qur'an, found to represent both nature and the Qur'an itself, is an amazing statement of God's everpresent constancy in making Himself known. We are simply to believe with satisfaction and trust that these ayat from God can never contradict one another.
And yet what do we do when they do seem to contradict? Essentially, there must be some problem in either the way we interpret the ayat of nature or the ayat of revelation. As the widespread rejection of evolution shows, it is common for us to question our own interpretation of the ayat of nature - we may see countless homology between humans and other animals, but many continue to discount any evidence for evolution.
But many are weary about any attempt to reassess our understanding of the ayat of revelation. Not to say that it hasn't ever been done before. There may have been a time, for instance, when many scholars across the Muslim world used to believe that the Qur'an's description of Dhul-Qarnain's travels until the "setting of the sun" as implying that he reached the place on the flat earth where the sun sets at night. As people became convinced that the world was round, the vast majority came to understand the verse to refer to the king traveling until a certain time, i.e. sunset. This wasn't reinterpreting the Qur'anic verse as not literally true - essentially the verse was ambiguous and could have been interpreted both ways in the first place.
Are we scared to reassess our understandings of the origin of humanity? Does God's creating Adam from turab exclude the possibility of evolution - I'm not so sure. Turab, for instance, could be a reference to our bodies' earthly origins. And to say that God fashioned humans with His own hands also does not exclude the possibility of that fashioning occurring through generations of change.
I actually haven't come across any Qur'anic verse which convinces me against the possibility of evolution. I'd have to do a better survey of not just the Qur'anic ayat but also what we know of the prophetic teachings to make a confident statement on the matter, but I'm not bothered standing in this current state of agnosticism over the matter of Adam's creation.
3 comments:
Thank you Rango for this great article.
I sometimes have a hard time understanding why Muslims get so worked up when it comes to this matter and why so many of them seem adamant that human evolution is incompatible with Islam. Many of the ones I've talked to will admit that they believe in some sort of evolution but that they do not believe the mankind was a product of evolution because that is 'contrary to what is said in the Quran'. What truly bothers me is that they do not even listen to the arguments that those stating that mankind was a product of evolution make nor do they ever really pause and think critically about the evidence they have that that's what the Quran says.
Now I'll be honest I personally don't have an opinion on the matter either way (mostly because I haven't researched the matter enough) but I just find it ignorant to dismiss the scientific ayat without at least understanding them first!
A friend of mine emailed me about this post and pointed out that Muslim scientists had better things to worry about than advocating evolution. For instance, scientists could make a greater impact by advocating vaccinations in communities weary of modern medicine. Pushing for something so controversial as evolution may be detrimental overall.
I do agree with that point when it comes to the discussion of human origins. I think it is very important for us to affirm the truth of the revealed ayat that humanity was created from a "single soul, male and female," and that Adam was "created out of dust." Yet I don't believe we can claim that we have full knowledge of a final meaning of those verses. It is sufficient to let each individual interpret these verses based on his or her own understanding of the world and not argue that one opinion is necessarily false.
However, I believe the complete rejection of evolution by individuals like Harun Yahya is a major problem among Muslims - a problem very much akin to the rejecting of vaccinations in parts of the world. In both situations, people don't have any Islamic scriptural basis for their opposition, and their opinions are fueled by certain misconceptions or political desires that cloud their common sense. Combating one of these false opinions would essentially be combating another. and we need to ask those individuals, "What basis do you have in rejecting vaccines? - nothing from Islamic tradition. What basis do you have in rejecting evolution among dogs or plants? - again, nothing from Islamic tradition."
I agree with you Rango. I would add that not believing in evolution as a general theory is also so crippling for scientific research(especially in the realms related to biology) that if it is not challenged then scientific contribution by muslims would be greatly lessened.
Also allowing this misconception to persist might problematically make many muslims believe that science and Islam are incompatible which would truly be a shame considering how such an idea has never really been an issue among muslims.
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