Islam Evolution
Content
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MUSLIM RESISTANCE TO DARWINIAN EVOLUTION
TANER EDIS
Truman State University,
Department of Physics
Kirksville MO 63501,
USA
1. A Range Of Options
Ever since Darwin, the theory of evolution has come into conflict with popular religious
views about the nature and history of life. And since evolutionary biology arose in
scientifically advanced countries where the predominant religion was Christianity,
Christian views of evolution have generated the most extensive literature. Most
Christian responses to evolution fall into broad categories of theologically conservative
denials of evolution, efforts to reach some accommodation, or a more radical
reinterpretation of doctrine to avoid conflict with scientific views. Judaism and Islam,
however, are also Abrahamic religions that share many beliefs about divine action with
Christianity. They face similar tensions between evolution and traditional beliefs
concerning the accuracy of scripture and the divine role in creating life. Hence
responses to evolution within Judaism and Islam are very similar to the better known
Christian examples.
Very often, the first option for religious thinkers has been to preserve orthodox
doctrines in their traditional forms. Believers who understand scripture fairly literally
and who take their holy texts to be authoritative tend to reject evolutionary biology. If
such believers also have positive attitudes toward science and technology, they will be
attracted to claims that science, when properly done, actually refutes evolution and
confirms a creationist view of life instead. The classic example is the way many
conservative Protestants, especially in the United States, endorse a “scientific
creationism” that is considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community (Scott,
2005).
Another common response is to seek a middle ground. Religious people will often
read scriptural creation stories in a more metaphorical sense while preserving an active
role for their God in the history of life. Many Christians and Jews, for example, agree
that the universe is billions of years old and that life forms have changed and developed
throughout time. They accept that evolution has taken place, in the sense that the forms
of life that we see today all share a common ancestry. This does not, however, mean
that they fully accept Darwinian evolution. The consensus view of modern biologists is
that undirected natural mechanisms are sufficient to explain the history of life on Earth.
Darwinian variation-and-selection, in particular, is the mechanism responsible for the
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functional complexity displayed by life forms. Such a view denies any explicitly
noticeable divine influence on biology. Hence even liberal-minded believers are often
uncomfortable with full-blown Darwinian evolution. They tend to prefer the notion that
evolution has been divinely guided in order to produce human life. Typically they
conceive of evolution as an inherently progressive process rather the blind exploration
of biological possibilities envisioned by modern scientists.
There also are continuing attempts to fully reconcile Darwinian evolution and some
usually very liberal versions of the Abrahamic religions. These attempts tend to be
limited to academic theologians and religious scientists; they have little direct effect on
the general public. Furthermore, there are many secular people in the advanced Western
countries, particularly Western Europe, who might be indifferent to supernatural claims
but who identify with the culture and moral tradition associated with their religious
background.
All of these options are available for Muslims as well as Christians and Jews. Forms
of creationism, reinterpretation combined with guided evolution, and a secularized
acceptance of evolutionary science are all common in Muslim lands. There are,
however, also noteworthy differences. In the Muslim context, all these broad forms of
response to evolution naturally take on a more Islamic coloring. And the Muslim world
is more similar to the United States than Europe, in that the cultural and political
strength of religious populism encourages the more overtly anti-evolutionary responses.
In fact, compared to the United States, liberal religious options are much less developed
in Muslim lands (Edis, 2007). And so today, the strongest and most successful versions
of creationism in the world are inspired by Islam rather than Christianity.
2. Denying Evolution
Almost all devout Muslims believe that the Quran is the direct, unaltered word of God,
untainted by human mediation. Such a belief does not always require a literal reading
of the text, and there are competing interpretations of the Quran and the other sacred
sources of traditional Islam. Most interpretations, however, keep close to the traditional
understanding of Islam as developed by religious scholars over the centuries. So by and
large, Muslims take claims made in the Quran at face value. This has changed little
with modernization. Social and political changes have reduced the status and power of
the class of religious scholars in all Muslim lands, and increased literacy rates have
favored an emphasis on how guidance from the sacred sources is directly available to
every Muslim.
As a consequence, modern Muslims are often drawn to a
straightforwardly literalist reading of the sacred sources.
The Quran does not explicitly include the Genesis story of creation, though it has
references to the six days of creation scattered throughout. The Quran also does not
have as detailed a story about Adam and Eve, but it portrays the first human couple as
being created directly, by a special act of God. The Quran, in other words, is most
naturally read as a creationist text. It treats life, especially human life, as an immediate
divine creation, both in explicit statements and in the way its allusions make sense in
the context of common Abrahamic religious beliefs about special creation. Since the
overwhelming majority of observant Muslims take Quranic claims at face value,
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Muslims tend to have a creationist view of life.
In the most traditionally religious communities, evolution is rarely a point of
contention. Some awareness of evolution may exist—perhaps conceived vaguely as a
Western materialist point of view—but religious scholars point to the sacred sources and
denounce evolution because it goes against traditional Islamic beliefs. In such
communities, a short and dismissive ruling settles the matter.
The more devout segments of Muslim populations generally take a similar position
against evolution. There is a vast amount of conservative Muslim literature, from
books, pamphlets, and newspaper columns to web sites. Much of this literature is
devoted to answering practical questions by consulting the sacred sources and the
traditions of Islamic Law. Attacks on Darwin or evolution are not very frequent, mainly
because evolution is not usually a matter of practical concern. Evidently, evolution
rarely comes to the attention of conservative Muslims. One reason is that in Muslim
countries, students do not often get thoroughly exposed to evolutionary ideas. As the
creationist movement in the United States demonstrates, perhaps the most reliable way
to provoke an anti-evolutionary reaction is to impose secular biology education on a
religiously conservative population. In much of the Muslim world, this has not
happened.
In the late nineteenth century, some Muslim intellectuals showed interest in
European debates over Darwin’s theory, largely because of the religious and
philosophical implications of evolution rather than any deep interest in biology. Indeed,
a handful of Muslim westernizers and secularists became very enthusiastic about
evolution. But more devout thinkers, even among prominent modernists, quickly
rejected evolution as an impious, materialistic myth. They argued that while importing
Western technology had become imperative, Muslims had to be vigilant against
adopting aspects of Western thought that could cast doubt on religious convictions
(Bezirgan, 1988; Ziadat, 1986). By and large, they succeeded. Devoutly Muslim
intellectuals never had any extensive debate over creation and evolution, largely
because the most enthusiastic secular evolutionists remained marginal figures that did
not even merit much denunciation. In the twentieth century, military leaders who
favored a more secular politics attained political power in many Muslim countries. But
religious resistance to military secularism rarely included opposition to evolution as a
central concern, since devout Muslims typically faced far more severe challenges to the
traditional religious social order.
So one of the most common Muslim responses to evolution has been to ignore it.
Many Muslims are quiet creationists who feel no need to actively oppose evolution
because the cultural penetration of Darwinian evolutionary ideas remains very low.
More recently, this state of affairs has been changing. Islam has always provided the
dominant cultural frame of reference in Muslim countries. Recent revivalist currents
have only strengthened the public role of religion. Indeed, Islamist political movements
have been very successful in the past few decades. In this more publicly religious
environment, conservative Muslims, including political Islamists, have begun to put
more emphasis on opposing Darwinian evolution. Furthermore, with continuing
modernization and Muslim economies becoming more integrated into the current global
order, constituencies for a new kind of creationism have arisen. There are now a
significant number of people who depend on advanced technologies for their livelihood,
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who live modern lives in most respects, but still rely on traditional religious beliefs as
the main source of moral and political legitimacy. Such people tend to be more aware
of scientific influences on modern culture, are very positive in their attitudes toward
technology, and appreciate the role of mass education and the media in shaping modern
societies. A quick dismissal of evolution that only invokes the authority of the sacred
sources is not sufficient for such an audience, as they keenly feel the cognitive authority
of science as well as religion. An attractive resolution of this tension comes from a
more ostensibly scientific form of creationism. If real science actually supports
creation, and if evolution is merely a falsehood promoted by cultural forces hostile to
Islam, then the tension disappears.
Turkey, which has been the most Western-oriented among Muslim states, also
provides the best examples of the recent, more aggressively pseudoscientific form of
creationism. Since the 1920s, the Republic of Turkey has been committed to a program
of westernization and military-supported secularism, in the face of much resistance
from devout and rural populations. Since the 1970s, however, political Islam has
become very influential, and there has been a considerable re-Islamization of public
culture. As a result, official secularism has been eroding, and a Muslim version of
“scientific” creationism has become increasingly popular.
Turkish creationism used to be confined to conservative religious circles, plus some
modernizing religious movements that promoted the view that modern science
confirmed Muslim beliefs. The Nur movement, based on the teachings of Said Nursi,
was often at the forefront of attacks on evolution. Until an Islamist party took part in
coalition governments in the 1970s, however, Turkish creationists usually did not
confront the educational establishment, continuing their more quietist political stance of
passive resistance to official secularism. The 1970s saw infrequent objections to
evolution in textbooks expressed in parliament, but creationism largely remained
confined to traditionalist and Islamist constituencies (Atay, 2004). There was no large
creationist literature, and opposition to evolution did not attract significant public
attention.
Turkish creationism made its first breakthrough in the early 1980s, under a rightwing military government. Although the Turkish military has historically supported an
strongly secular state, the military government of 1980-1983 decided to exploit Islam as
part of a cultural policy to promote national unity and combat left-wing political
tendencies. The following civilian government, which included an Islamist faction that
controlled the Ministry of Education, continued these policies. In the mid-1980s, the
Ministry of Education consulted with some devout Muslim intellectuals with links to
the Nur movement, asking them what could be done about combating Darwinian
evolution in Turkish education. Furthermore, concerned that the younger generation
was coming under immoral materialist influences, the Ministry made translations of
American Protestant creationist literature. These were distributed to secondary schools,
intended as supplemental reading (Edis, 1994).
Government support, and a source of fresh ideas from Christian creationism,
invigorated Turkish creationists. They borrowed wholesale from the Protestantproduced “scientific” creationist literature, adapting it to Muslim needs. Since they did
not care about defending the literal accuracy of the Genesis story, Muslim creationists
did not emphasize questions about the age of the Earth. American creationism is
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dominated by a young-earth position, and American creation-scientists devote much
effort to “flood geology” in order to fit Earth history into a few thousand years. While
some Muslim creationists have expressed sympathy to these young-earth arguments,
this is entirely due to the influence of the Christian creationist literature. Muslims tend
to be old-earth creationists—they usually interpret Noah’s flood as a local event and
think that the days of creation mentioned in the Quran could just as well be long ages.
Nevertheless, with these few differences, Turkish creationists of the 1980s found
Protestant creation-science remarkably useful, adopting much of it with only small
changes (Edis, 1994).
The beginning of creationist influence on the educational establishment was a
significant victory for religious conservatives in Turkey. Together with translated
creationist literature, paragraphs expressing skepticism about Darwinian evolution
began to appear in textbooks used in high school biology and in some occasions, even
medical schools. This success, however, was limited, and was noteworthy only in the
context of the strictly secularist tradition of the Turkish Republic. After all, creationist
sentiments in textbooks are common throughout the Muslim world. Moreover,
creationism imposed from the top by the government is vulnerable to changes in the
political winds. Indeed, recently, when more secularist political parties took power in
Turkey, they removed the traces of creationism from the curriculum, while more
Islamic-colored parties reintroduced creationism when back in office. Governmentsponsored creationism has not been much more than another tool in the Turkish culture
wars between Islamists and secular elites.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, Turkish creationism reached its most popular
and mature expression, and started to influence the rest of the Muslim world. This new
wave of creationism has been distinguished by its popular appeal and its broad reach
due to its extensive use of modern media technologies. It has found a more modern
audience, beyond traditional, conservatively religious circles.
The new Turkish creationism is mainly associated with literature presented under the
name of Harun Yahya (Edis, 1999). Harun Yahya is a pseudonym claimed by Adnan
Oktar, a leader of a Turkish sect. But since Oktar has no appreciable scientific or other
academic background, and since hundreds of books, articles, web sites, and other media
productions have appeared under the Harun Yahya name in only a decade, it is evident
that Harun Yahya should be thought of as a brand name for particular style of
creationism rather than as a single author.
Yahya’s brand of creationism is very similar to its predecessors in content. He also
borrows his distorted “science” from Christian creationist sources, again adapting them
and giving them an Islamic emphasis. Indeed, the Yahya material is typically
opportunistic. In making unsubstantiated charges of fraud and gross incompetence
against evolutionary scientists, Yahya quotes young-earth creationists as if they were
scientific authorities, uses the words of legitimate scientists out of context, or uses
arguments from anti-evolutionary thinkers who are not associated with fundamentalist
Protestant views (Yahya 1997). He argues that evolution is a scientific mistake, often
by presenting examples of functional complexity in biology and declaring that it is
obvious that chance variation and selection could never achieve such intricate
structures. In doing so, he relies on a traditional and still very common Muslim
perception that the world very obviously has to be a result of divine design, and that it is
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a strange failure of reason to think otherwise. The anti-evolutionary arguments that
were originally produced by Christian sources only enhance what is a very intuitive
conclusion for a Muslim audience.
Attacking evolution is the centerpiece of the Harun Yahya brand of popular Islamic
apologetics, but the Yahya corpus also addresses many other topics of concern to
Muslims today. The Harun Yahya name has also appeared on endorsements of antiMasonic conspiracy theories, literature denying that the Holocaust happened, appeals to
unity among the Abrahamic faiths against the common threat of atheism and secularism,
praise of Said Nursi, and arguments that terror and violence has no place in authentic
Islam. Yahya has even invited some theological controversy by arguing for an idealistic
view of existence where only the mental is real and matter is only an illusion.
Nevertheless, he keeps coming back to the claim that the universe is obviously
designed. Resisting evolution is task that carries much moral urgency, not just because
evolution denies God’s creative role and can also cause a more gradual slide toward
materialism, but also because evolution leads to ideologies such as communism and
fascism. Even terrorism, Yahya argues, is rooted in the false belief in evolution (Yahya,
2002).
Yahya’s message is easily available; indeed, it is difficult to avoid. Yahya’s
creationist literature includes many attractively illustrated, high-quality but also lowcost books, plus magazines, DVDs, CD-ROM’s, a profusion of web sites and internet
resources. These are sold in mainstream bookstores, not just Islamic outlets patronized
by religious conservatives.
Yahya-affiliated organizations sponsor creationist
presentations worldwide, often giving a platform to creationists who hold scientific
credentials. In 2006, Yahya’s associates even began opening “creation museums” to the
Turkish public. Clearly, the Harun Yahya operation is backed by considerable financial
resources, especially since almost all of Yahya’s creationist material is available at no
cost or at artificially low prices. The source of this funding remains unclear.
Besides its popular appeal and independence of government support, the most
important characteristic of Yahya’s creationism is its growing international influence.
Yahya material has been translated to just about every language in use in the Muslim
world. Significantly, this includes most European languages—Yahya’s books are easily
available in London’s Islamic bookstores as well as all over Turkey. Harun Yahya’s
works have found a large audience in Pakistan, Indonesia, and many other Muslimmajority countries. Even mass-market introductory books about Islam published in the
United States refer to Yahya as a Muslim scientist who has made a solid case against
evolution. The modern, well-packaged, media-savvy, technology-affirming Islamic
creationism presented under the Harun Yahya brand has clearly tapped into a worldwide
market (Edis, 2003a; Edis, 2003b).
3. Beyond Popular Creationism
Strict creationism, whether of the traditionalist sacred source-based variety or a Yahyastyle pseudoscience, is not the only option available to Muslims. More secularized
Muslims, for example, tend to accept evolution due to their general trust of modern
education and science as a cognitive authority. As always, where the average educated
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person is concerned, this acceptance rarely involves more than a superficial knowledge
either of the science or of the religious worries about evolution articulated by more
conservative Muslims. Still, there is definitely a constituency for efforts to interpret
Islam in a way that is compatible with evolution.
As with many Christians, the favored view among liberal Muslims is to downplay
Darwinian explanations of the evolutionary process, affirming common descent while
portraying biological evolution as a divinely guided progression toward higher forms of
life (Ateş, 1991). A particular concern for Muslims, naturally, is to try and interpret the
Quran in such a way as to allow for a degree of evolution. Some theologians, for
example, read verses that say God created all animals from water as a statement that life
emerged from the oceans, just as the scientific history of life on Earth has it. Verses that
deal with the special creation of humans call for more strenuous attempts at
reinterpretation. Indeed, many Muslims accept considerable evolution under divine
guidance for all non-human forms of life, but consider humanity to be a totally separate
creation.
Another way to make evolution more acceptable to Muslims is to try and find
evolutionary ideas in the Muslim philosophical tradition, and to revive them as an
“evolutionary creation theory” (Bayrakdar, 1987; Altıntaş, 2001). Indeed, some
medieval Muslim philosophers elaborated on the Hellenistic idea of a Great Chain of
Being and speculated on how different species were related to one another, although
they never came up with a truly evolutionary explanation. In a cultural climate that
favors ideas that seem more Islamically authentic, such historical connections can make
guided evolution a more attractive view. In any case, efforts to find a suitable
compromise between Darwinian evolution and strict creationism are common. If the
religious experimentation going on in the Muslim world today ever develops a more
liberal trend that can appeal to more than a westernized elite, guided evolution will
become a more popular option.
Many influential Muslim intellectuals also remain skeptical of Darwinian,
naturalistic evolution while avoiding Quranic literalism and strict creationism. Their
main concern appears to be that God should continue to directly shape the observable
world, and that the common Muslim intuition that the world is obviously a product of
divine design should be sustained. Prominent examples are the views promoted by
figures such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Osman Bakar, well known academics who
propound a specifically Islamic philosophy of science. Both Bakar and Nasr reject
Darwinian evolution, though they allow for limited, non-creative changes in species
over time. Like popular creationists, they charge evolutionary theory with being a
materialist philosophy rather than a true empirically-based science. Unlike Harun
Yahya and similar creationists, however, they try and contrast the Darwinian view of
life with a more substantial perspective than simple acceptance of a revealed text.
Bakar and Nasr want to revive the classical, God-centered conception of knowledge in
Islam. Revelation and the Islamic religious sciences are supposed to be restored their
position of preeminence, providing the framework for all knowledge claims including
investigations of the natural world (Bakar, 1987, 1999; Nasr, 1987).
With proposals to “Islamize science” or otherwise reconstruct modern knowledge in
a more Islamic fashion attracting much attention in Muslim academic and intellectual
circles, Bakar and Nasr’s views continue to resonate among Muslim thinkers concerned
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about science and Islam. Indeed, there is an important difference between Western and
Muslim intellectual cultures in regard to evolution. In the scientifically advanced West,
there is very little creationism in the academic and mainstream intellectual
environments, and even broader anti-Darwinian views tend to be muted. The Muslim
intellectual world is much more hospitable to ideas hostile to Darwinian evolution. The
view that complex structures must be the result of intelligent design remains deeply
embedded in Muslim intellectual culture (Edis, 2004).
Therefore, it is not surprising that the latest version of antievolutionary thought in the
United States, promoted by the “intelligent design” movement, has begun to attract
attention in the Muslim world. In Turkey, where the debate over evolution has been
most public, the major books defending intelligent design have been translated and have
been favorably reviewed in the Islamic press. Indeed, Turkey has begun to develop its
own intelligent design proponents (Akyol, 2005). The intelligent design approach,
which ignores questions about scripture or the age of the earth and concentrates on
claiming that Darwinian processes cannot create the information-rich structures seen in
biology, fits well with common Muslim intuitions. It is likely to continue to receive
sympathetic attention from devout Muslims (Edis, 2007).
4. Defending Evolution
In Muslim countries, as in the United States, scientists and science educators are the
groups most interested in promoting a better understanding of evolutionary science.
And in both cases, the debate is complicated not only by the conservative religiosity of
much of the general population but by the overall political context.
In Turkey, scientists are naturally concerned about Harun Yahya’s creationism. And
they have made some halting efforts to respond; for example, by producing popular
scientific literature explaining and defending evolution. The strongly religious nature of
creationism, however, means that aside from scientists, the natural constituency in favor
of evolution is secularists. Portraying attacks on evolution as further attempts to erode
the secular nature of the Turkish Republic is the best way to appeal to a wider audience
and to give the issue some urgency (Sayın and Kence, 1999). But such a strategy might
not help make the case for evolution in the long run, since secular elites in Turkey no
longer enjoy as privileged a position as they used to. As religiously conservative and
provincial populations begin to enjoy more economic and political power, their cultural
demands become harder to ignore or suppress.
Similar currents affect other Muslim countries. Increasing tendencies toward
political democracy means that the strongest political movements in Muslim countries
will have a moderate Islamist identity. Religious populist movements typically attach
great importance to symbolic and cultural politics, and therefore creationism will likely
enjoy a significant advantage. As Muslim populations continue to modernize, and as
varieties of Islam adapt to new circumstances, the Muslim world will continue to be a
stage for a struggle between evolution and creation. Popular creationism will remain
strong for the foreseeable future, and its main competition will come from superficial
views of guided evolution that will often consider humanity to be a special creation
outside of the natural biological order. Darwinian evolution will continue to be affirmed
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by a small group among scientists and intellectuals, but even the general intellectual
culture in Muslim lands will most likely remain cool toward evolution.
5. References
Akyol, M. (2005). Intelligent Design could be a bridge between civilizations. National Review Online,
December 2.
Altıntaş, M. (2001). Hangi Din? İstanbul: Eylül Yayınları.
Atay, T. (2004). Din Hayattan Çıkar: Antropolojik Denemeler. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 136-37.
Ateş, S. (1991). Gerçek Din Bu, Volume 1. İstanbul: Yeni Ufuklar Neşriyat.
Bakar, O. (1987). Critique of Evolutionary Theory: A Collection of Essays. Kuala Lumpur: The Islamic
Academy of Science.
Bakar, O. (1999). The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science. Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society.
Bayrakdar, M. (1987). İslam’da Evrimci Yaradılış Teorisi. İstanbul: İnsan Yayınları.
Bezirgan, N. A. (1988). The Islamic world, In: T. F. Glick (ed.) The Comparative Reception of Darwinism.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Edis, T. (1994). Islamic creationism in Turkey. Creation/Evolution 34: 1-12.
Edis, T. (1999). Cloning creationism in Turkey. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 19(6):
30-35.
Edis, T. (2003a). Harun Yahya and Islamic creationism, In: A. Chesworth et al. (eds.) Darwin Day Collection
One. Albuquerque, NM: Tangled Bank.
Edis, T. (2003b). A world designed by God: science and creationism in contemporary Islam, In: P. Kurtz (ed.)
Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Edis, T. (2004). Grand themes, narrow constituency, In: M. Young and T. Edis (eds.) Why Intelligent Design
Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Edis, T. (2007). An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Nasr, S. H. (1987). Knowledge and the Sacred. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Sayın, Ü and Kence, A. (1999). Islamic scientific creationism. Reports of the National Center for Science
Education 19(6): 18-20, 25-29.
Scott, E. C. (2005). Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yahya, H. (1997). Evrim Aldatmacası: Evrim Teorisi’nin Bilimsel Çöküşü ve Teorinin İdeolojik Arka Planı.
İstanbul: Vural Yayıncılık.
Yahya, H. (2002). Islam Denounces Terrorism, 3rd edition. Bristol, UK: Amal Press.
Ziadat, A. A. (1986). Western Science in the Arab World: The Impact of Darwinism. London: McMillan.
MUSLIM RESISTANCE TO DARWINIAN EVOLUTION
TANER EDIS
Truman State University,
Department of Physics
Kirksville MO 63501,
USA
1. A Range Of Options
Ever since Darwin, the theory of evolution has come into conflict with popular religious
views about the nature and history of life. And since evolutionary biology arose in
scientifically advanced countries where the predominant religion was Christianity,
Christian views of evolution have generated the most extensive literature. Most
Christian responses to evolution fall into broad categories of theologically conservative
denials of evolution, efforts to reach some accommodation, or a more radical
reinterpretation of doctrine to avoid conflict with scientific views. Judaism and Islam,
however, are also Abrahamic religions that share many beliefs about divine action with
Christianity. They face similar tensions between evolution and traditional beliefs
concerning the accuracy of scripture and the divine role in creating life. Hence
responses to evolution within Judaism and Islam are very similar to the better known
Christian examples.
Very often, the first option for religious thinkers has been to preserve orthodox
doctrines in their traditional forms. Believers who understand scripture fairly literally
and who take their holy texts to be authoritative tend to reject evolutionary biology. If
such believers also have positive attitudes toward science and technology, they will be
attracted to claims that science, when properly done, actually refutes evolution and
confirms a creationist view of life instead. The classic example is the way many
conservative Protestants, especially in the United States, endorse a “scientific
creationism” that is considered a pseudoscience by the scientific community (Scott,
2005).
Another common response is to seek a middle ground. Religious people will often
read scriptural creation stories in a more metaphorical sense while preserving an active
role for their God in the history of life. Many Christians and Jews, for example, agree
that the universe is billions of years old and that life forms have changed and developed
throughout time. They accept that evolution has taken place, in the sense that the forms
of life that we see today all share a common ancestry. This does not, however, mean
that they fully accept Darwinian evolution. The consensus view of modern biologists is
that undirected natural mechanisms are sufficient to explain the history of life on Earth.
Darwinian variation-and-selection, in particular, is the mechanism responsible for the
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functional complexity displayed by life forms. Such a view denies any explicitly
noticeable divine influence on biology. Hence even liberal-minded believers are often
uncomfortable with full-blown Darwinian evolution. They tend to prefer the notion that
evolution has been divinely guided in order to produce human life. Typically they
conceive of evolution as an inherently progressive process rather the blind exploration
of biological possibilities envisioned by modern scientists.
There also are continuing attempts to fully reconcile Darwinian evolution and some
usually very liberal versions of the Abrahamic religions. These attempts tend to be
limited to academic theologians and religious scientists; they have little direct effect on
the general public. Furthermore, there are many secular people in the advanced Western
countries, particularly Western Europe, who might be indifferent to supernatural claims
but who identify with the culture and moral tradition associated with their religious
background.
All of these options are available for Muslims as well as Christians and Jews. Forms
of creationism, reinterpretation combined with guided evolution, and a secularized
acceptance of evolutionary science are all common in Muslim lands. There are,
however, also noteworthy differences. In the Muslim context, all these broad forms of
response to evolution naturally take on a more Islamic coloring. And the Muslim world
is more similar to the United States than Europe, in that the cultural and political
strength of religious populism encourages the more overtly anti-evolutionary responses.
In fact, compared to the United States, liberal religious options are much less developed
in Muslim lands (Edis, 2007). And so today, the strongest and most successful versions
of creationism in the world are inspired by Islam rather than Christianity.
2. Denying Evolution
Almost all devout Muslims believe that the Quran is the direct, unaltered word of God,
untainted by human mediation. Such a belief does not always require a literal reading
of the text, and there are competing interpretations of the Quran and the other sacred
sources of traditional Islam. Most interpretations, however, keep close to the traditional
understanding of Islam as developed by religious scholars over the centuries. So by and
large, Muslims take claims made in the Quran at face value. This has changed little
with modernization. Social and political changes have reduced the status and power of
the class of religious scholars in all Muslim lands, and increased literacy rates have
favored an emphasis on how guidance from the sacred sources is directly available to
every Muslim.
As a consequence, modern Muslims are often drawn to a
straightforwardly literalist reading of the sacred sources.
The Quran does not explicitly include the Genesis story of creation, though it has
references to the six days of creation scattered throughout. The Quran also does not
have as detailed a story about Adam and Eve, but it portrays the first human couple as
being created directly, by a special act of God. The Quran, in other words, is most
naturally read as a creationist text. It treats life, especially human life, as an immediate
divine creation, both in explicit statements and in the way its allusions make sense in
the context of common Abrahamic religious beliefs about special creation. Since the
overwhelming majority of observant Muslims take Quranic claims at face value,
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Muslims tend to have a creationist view of life.
In the most traditionally religious communities, evolution is rarely a point of
contention. Some awareness of evolution may exist—perhaps conceived vaguely as a
Western materialist point of view—but religious scholars point to the sacred sources and
denounce evolution because it goes against traditional Islamic beliefs. In such
communities, a short and dismissive ruling settles the matter.
The more devout segments of Muslim populations generally take a similar position
against evolution. There is a vast amount of conservative Muslim literature, from
books, pamphlets, and newspaper columns to web sites. Much of this literature is
devoted to answering practical questions by consulting the sacred sources and the
traditions of Islamic Law. Attacks on Darwin or evolution are not very frequent, mainly
because evolution is not usually a matter of practical concern. Evidently, evolution
rarely comes to the attention of conservative Muslims. One reason is that in Muslim
countries, students do not often get thoroughly exposed to evolutionary ideas. As the
creationist movement in the United States demonstrates, perhaps the most reliable way
to provoke an anti-evolutionary reaction is to impose secular biology education on a
religiously conservative population. In much of the Muslim world, this has not
happened.
In the late nineteenth century, some Muslim intellectuals showed interest in
European debates over Darwin’s theory, largely because of the religious and
philosophical implications of evolution rather than any deep interest in biology. Indeed,
a handful of Muslim westernizers and secularists became very enthusiastic about
evolution. But more devout thinkers, even among prominent modernists, quickly
rejected evolution as an impious, materialistic myth. They argued that while importing
Western technology had become imperative, Muslims had to be vigilant against
adopting aspects of Western thought that could cast doubt on religious convictions
(Bezirgan, 1988; Ziadat, 1986). By and large, they succeeded. Devoutly Muslim
intellectuals never had any extensive debate over creation and evolution, largely
because the most enthusiastic secular evolutionists remained marginal figures that did
not even merit much denunciation. In the twentieth century, military leaders who
favored a more secular politics attained political power in many Muslim countries. But
religious resistance to military secularism rarely included opposition to evolution as a
central concern, since devout Muslims typically faced far more severe challenges to the
traditional religious social order.
So one of the most common Muslim responses to evolution has been to ignore it.
Many Muslims are quiet creationists who feel no need to actively oppose evolution
because the cultural penetration of Darwinian evolutionary ideas remains very low.
More recently, this state of affairs has been changing. Islam has always provided the
dominant cultural frame of reference in Muslim countries. Recent revivalist currents
have only strengthened the public role of religion. Indeed, Islamist political movements
have been very successful in the past few decades. In this more publicly religious
environment, conservative Muslims, including political Islamists, have begun to put
more emphasis on opposing Darwinian evolution. Furthermore, with continuing
modernization and Muslim economies becoming more integrated into the current global
order, constituencies for a new kind of creationism have arisen. There are now a
significant number of people who depend on advanced technologies for their livelihood,
4
who live modern lives in most respects, but still rely on traditional religious beliefs as
the main source of moral and political legitimacy. Such people tend to be more aware
of scientific influences on modern culture, are very positive in their attitudes toward
technology, and appreciate the role of mass education and the media in shaping modern
societies. A quick dismissal of evolution that only invokes the authority of the sacred
sources is not sufficient for such an audience, as they keenly feel the cognitive authority
of science as well as religion. An attractive resolution of this tension comes from a
more ostensibly scientific form of creationism. If real science actually supports
creation, and if evolution is merely a falsehood promoted by cultural forces hostile to
Islam, then the tension disappears.
Turkey, which has been the most Western-oriented among Muslim states, also
provides the best examples of the recent, more aggressively pseudoscientific form of
creationism. Since the 1920s, the Republic of Turkey has been committed to a program
of westernization and military-supported secularism, in the face of much resistance
from devout and rural populations. Since the 1970s, however, political Islam has
become very influential, and there has been a considerable re-Islamization of public
culture. As a result, official secularism has been eroding, and a Muslim version of
“scientific” creationism has become increasingly popular.
Turkish creationism used to be confined to conservative religious circles, plus some
modernizing religious movements that promoted the view that modern science
confirmed Muslim beliefs. The Nur movement, based on the teachings of Said Nursi,
was often at the forefront of attacks on evolution. Until an Islamist party took part in
coalition governments in the 1970s, however, Turkish creationists usually did not
confront the educational establishment, continuing their more quietist political stance of
passive resistance to official secularism. The 1970s saw infrequent objections to
evolution in textbooks expressed in parliament, but creationism largely remained
confined to traditionalist and Islamist constituencies (Atay, 2004). There was no large
creationist literature, and opposition to evolution did not attract significant public
attention.
Turkish creationism made its first breakthrough in the early 1980s, under a rightwing military government. Although the Turkish military has historically supported an
strongly secular state, the military government of 1980-1983 decided to exploit Islam as
part of a cultural policy to promote national unity and combat left-wing political
tendencies. The following civilian government, which included an Islamist faction that
controlled the Ministry of Education, continued these policies. In the mid-1980s, the
Ministry of Education consulted with some devout Muslim intellectuals with links to
the Nur movement, asking them what could be done about combating Darwinian
evolution in Turkish education. Furthermore, concerned that the younger generation
was coming under immoral materialist influences, the Ministry made translations of
American Protestant creationist literature. These were distributed to secondary schools,
intended as supplemental reading (Edis, 1994).
Government support, and a source of fresh ideas from Christian creationism,
invigorated Turkish creationists. They borrowed wholesale from the Protestantproduced “scientific” creationist literature, adapting it to Muslim needs. Since they did
not care about defending the literal accuracy of the Genesis story, Muslim creationists
did not emphasize questions about the age of the Earth. American creationism is
5
dominated by a young-earth position, and American creation-scientists devote much
effort to “flood geology” in order to fit Earth history into a few thousand years. While
some Muslim creationists have expressed sympathy to these young-earth arguments,
this is entirely due to the influence of the Christian creationist literature. Muslims tend
to be old-earth creationists—they usually interpret Noah’s flood as a local event and
think that the days of creation mentioned in the Quran could just as well be long ages.
Nevertheless, with these few differences, Turkish creationists of the 1980s found
Protestant creation-science remarkably useful, adopting much of it with only small
changes (Edis, 1994).
The beginning of creationist influence on the educational establishment was a
significant victory for religious conservatives in Turkey. Together with translated
creationist literature, paragraphs expressing skepticism about Darwinian evolution
began to appear in textbooks used in high school biology and in some occasions, even
medical schools. This success, however, was limited, and was noteworthy only in the
context of the strictly secularist tradition of the Turkish Republic. After all, creationist
sentiments in textbooks are common throughout the Muslim world. Moreover,
creationism imposed from the top by the government is vulnerable to changes in the
political winds. Indeed, recently, when more secularist political parties took power in
Turkey, they removed the traces of creationism from the curriculum, while more
Islamic-colored parties reintroduced creationism when back in office. Governmentsponsored creationism has not been much more than another tool in the Turkish culture
wars between Islamists and secular elites.
Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, Turkish creationism reached its most popular
and mature expression, and started to influence the rest of the Muslim world. This new
wave of creationism has been distinguished by its popular appeal and its broad reach
due to its extensive use of modern media technologies. It has found a more modern
audience, beyond traditional, conservatively religious circles.
The new Turkish creationism is mainly associated with literature presented under the
name of Harun Yahya (Edis, 1999). Harun Yahya is a pseudonym claimed by Adnan
Oktar, a leader of a Turkish sect. But since Oktar has no appreciable scientific or other
academic background, and since hundreds of books, articles, web sites, and other media
productions have appeared under the Harun Yahya name in only a decade, it is evident
that Harun Yahya should be thought of as a brand name for particular style of
creationism rather than as a single author.
Yahya’s brand of creationism is very similar to its predecessors in content. He also
borrows his distorted “science” from Christian creationist sources, again adapting them
and giving them an Islamic emphasis. Indeed, the Yahya material is typically
opportunistic. In making unsubstantiated charges of fraud and gross incompetence
against evolutionary scientists, Yahya quotes young-earth creationists as if they were
scientific authorities, uses the words of legitimate scientists out of context, or uses
arguments from anti-evolutionary thinkers who are not associated with fundamentalist
Protestant views (Yahya 1997). He argues that evolution is a scientific mistake, often
by presenting examples of functional complexity in biology and declaring that it is
obvious that chance variation and selection could never achieve such intricate
structures. In doing so, he relies on a traditional and still very common Muslim
perception that the world very obviously has to be a result of divine design, and that it is
6
a strange failure of reason to think otherwise. The anti-evolutionary arguments that
were originally produced by Christian sources only enhance what is a very intuitive
conclusion for a Muslim audience.
Attacking evolution is the centerpiece of the Harun Yahya brand of popular Islamic
apologetics, but the Yahya corpus also addresses many other topics of concern to
Muslims today. The Harun Yahya name has also appeared on endorsements of antiMasonic conspiracy theories, literature denying that the Holocaust happened, appeals to
unity among the Abrahamic faiths against the common threat of atheism and secularism,
praise of Said Nursi, and arguments that terror and violence has no place in authentic
Islam. Yahya has even invited some theological controversy by arguing for an idealistic
view of existence where only the mental is real and matter is only an illusion.
Nevertheless, he keeps coming back to the claim that the universe is obviously
designed. Resisting evolution is task that carries much moral urgency, not just because
evolution denies God’s creative role and can also cause a more gradual slide toward
materialism, but also because evolution leads to ideologies such as communism and
fascism. Even terrorism, Yahya argues, is rooted in the false belief in evolution (Yahya,
2002).
Yahya’s message is easily available; indeed, it is difficult to avoid. Yahya’s
creationist literature includes many attractively illustrated, high-quality but also lowcost books, plus magazines, DVDs, CD-ROM’s, a profusion of web sites and internet
resources. These are sold in mainstream bookstores, not just Islamic outlets patronized
by religious conservatives.
Yahya-affiliated organizations sponsor creationist
presentations worldwide, often giving a platform to creationists who hold scientific
credentials. In 2006, Yahya’s associates even began opening “creation museums” to the
Turkish public. Clearly, the Harun Yahya operation is backed by considerable financial
resources, especially since almost all of Yahya’s creationist material is available at no
cost or at artificially low prices. The source of this funding remains unclear.
Besides its popular appeal and independence of government support, the most
important characteristic of Yahya’s creationism is its growing international influence.
Yahya material has been translated to just about every language in use in the Muslim
world. Significantly, this includes most European languages—Yahya’s books are easily
available in London’s Islamic bookstores as well as all over Turkey. Harun Yahya’s
works have found a large audience in Pakistan, Indonesia, and many other Muslimmajority countries. Even mass-market introductory books about Islam published in the
United States refer to Yahya as a Muslim scientist who has made a solid case against
evolution. The modern, well-packaged, media-savvy, technology-affirming Islamic
creationism presented under the Harun Yahya brand has clearly tapped into a worldwide
market (Edis, 2003a; Edis, 2003b).
3. Beyond Popular Creationism
Strict creationism, whether of the traditionalist sacred source-based variety or a Yahyastyle pseudoscience, is not the only option available to Muslims. More secularized
Muslims, for example, tend to accept evolution due to their general trust of modern
education and science as a cognitive authority. As always, where the average educated
7
person is concerned, this acceptance rarely involves more than a superficial knowledge
either of the science or of the religious worries about evolution articulated by more
conservative Muslims. Still, there is definitely a constituency for efforts to interpret
Islam in a way that is compatible with evolution.
As with many Christians, the favored view among liberal Muslims is to downplay
Darwinian explanations of the evolutionary process, affirming common descent while
portraying biological evolution as a divinely guided progression toward higher forms of
life (Ateş, 1991). A particular concern for Muslims, naturally, is to try and interpret the
Quran in such a way as to allow for a degree of evolution. Some theologians, for
example, read verses that say God created all animals from water as a statement that life
emerged from the oceans, just as the scientific history of life on Earth has it. Verses that
deal with the special creation of humans call for more strenuous attempts at
reinterpretation. Indeed, many Muslims accept considerable evolution under divine
guidance for all non-human forms of life, but consider humanity to be a totally separate
creation.
Another way to make evolution more acceptable to Muslims is to try and find
evolutionary ideas in the Muslim philosophical tradition, and to revive them as an
“evolutionary creation theory” (Bayrakdar, 1987; Altıntaş, 2001). Indeed, some
medieval Muslim philosophers elaborated on the Hellenistic idea of a Great Chain of
Being and speculated on how different species were related to one another, although
they never came up with a truly evolutionary explanation. In a cultural climate that
favors ideas that seem more Islamically authentic, such historical connections can make
guided evolution a more attractive view. In any case, efforts to find a suitable
compromise between Darwinian evolution and strict creationism are common. If the
religious experimentation going on in the Muslim world today ever develops a more
liberal trend that can appeal to more than a westernized elite, guided evolution will
become a more popular option.
Many influential Muslim intellectuals also remain skeptical of Darwinian,
naturalistic evolution while avoiding Quranic literalism and strict creationism. Their
main concern appears to be that God should continue to directly shape the observable
world, and that the common Muslim intuition that the world is obviously a product of
divine design should be sustained. Prominent examples are the views promoted by
figures such as Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Osman Bakar, well known academics who
propound a specifically Islamic philosophy of science. Both Bakar and Nasr reject
Darwinian evolution, though they allow for limited, non-creative changes in species
over time. Like popular creationists, they charge evolutionary theory with being a
materialist philosophy rather than a true empirically-based science. Unlike Harun
Yahya and similar creationists, however, they try and contrast the Darwinian view of
life with a more substantial perspective than simple acceptance of a revealed text.
Bakar and Nasr want to revive the classical, God-centered conception of knowledge in
Islam. Revelation and the Islamic religious sciences are supposed to be restored their
position of preeminence, providing the framework for all knowledge claims including
investigations of the natural world (Bakar, 1987, 1999; Nasr, 1987).
With proposals to “Islamize science” or otherwise reconstruct modern knowledge in
a more Islamic fashion attracting much attention in Muslim academic and intellectual
circles, Bakar and Nasr’s views continue to resonate among Muslim thinkers concerned
8
about science and Islam. Indeed, there is an important difference between Western and
Muslim intellectual cultures in regard to evolution. In the scientifically advanced West,
there is very little creationism in the academic and mainstream intellectual
environments, and even broader anti-Darwinian views tend to be muted. The Muslim
intellectual world is much more hospitable to ideas hostile to Darwinian evolution. The
view that complex structures must be the result of intelligent design remains deeply
embedded in Muslim intellectual culture (Edis, 2004).
Therefore, it is not surprising that the latest version of antievolutionary thought in the
United States, promoted by the “intelligent design” movement, has begun to attract
attention in the Muslim world. In Turkey, where the debate over evolution has been
most public, the major books defending intelligent design have been translated and have
been favorably reviewed in the Islamic press. Indeed, Turkey has begun to develop its
own intelligent design proponents (Akyol, 2005). The intelligent design approach,
which ignores questions about scripture or the age of the earth and concentrates on
claiming that Darwinian processes cannot create the information-rich structures seen in
biology, fits well with common Muslim intuitions. It is likely to continue to receive
sympathetic attention from devout Muslims (Edis, 2007).
4. Defending Evolution
In Muslim countries, as in the United States, scientists and science educators are the
groups most interested in promoting a better understanding of evolutionary science.
And in both cases, the debate is complicated not only by the conservative religiosity of
much of the general population but by the overall political context.
In Turkey, scientists are naturally concerned about Harun Yahya’s creationism. And
they have made some halting efforts to respond; for example, by producing popular
scientific literature explaining and defending evolution. The strongly religious nature of
creationism, however, means that aside from scientists, the natural constituency in favor
of evolution is secularists. Portraying attacks on evolution as further attempts to erode
the secular nature of the Turkish Republic is the best way to appeal to a wider audience
and to give the issue some urgency (Sayın and Kence, 1999). But such a strategy might
not help make the case for evolution in the long run, since secular elites in Turkey no
longer enjoy as privileged a position as they used to. As religiously conservative and
provincial populations begin to enjoy more economic and political power, their cultural
demands become harder to ignore or suppress.
Similar currents affect other Muslim countries. Increasing tendencies toward
political democracy means that the strongest political movements in Muslim countries
will have a moderate Islamist identity. Religious populist movements typically attach
great importance to symbolic and cultural politics, and therefore creationism will likely
enjoy a significant advantage. As Muslim populations continue to modernize, and as
varieties of Islam adapt to new circumstances, the Muslim world will continue to be a
stage for a struggle between evolution and creation. Popular creationism will remain
strong for the foreseeable future, and its main competition will come from superficial
views of guided evolution that will often consider humanity to be a special creation
outside of the natural biological order. Darwinian evolution will continue to be affirmed
9
by a small group among scientists and intellectuals, but even the general intellectual
culture in Muslim lands will most likely remain cool toward evolution.
5. References
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Ateş, S. (1991). Gerçek Din Bu, Volume 1. İstanbul: Yeni Ufuklar Neşriyat.
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Academy of Science.
Bakar, O. (1999). The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science. Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society.
Bayrakdar, M. (1987). İslam’da Evrimci Yaradılış Teorisi. İstanbul: İnsan Yayınları.
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Edis, T. (2003a). Harun Yahya and Islamic creationism, In: A. Chesworth et al. (eds.) Darwin Day Collection
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Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Edis, T. (2004). Grand themes, narrow constituency, In: M. Young and T. Edis (eds.) Why Intelligent Design
Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Edis, T. (2007). An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
Nasr, S. H. (1987). Knowledge and the Sacred. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Sayın, Ü and Kence, A. (1999). Islamic scientific creationism. Reports of the National Center for Science
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Scott, E. C. (2005). Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yahya, H. (1997). Evrim Aldatmacası: Evrim Teorisi’nin Bilimsel Çöküşü ve Teorinin İdeolojik Arka Planı.
İstanbul: Vural Yayıncılık.
Yahya, H. (2002). Islam Denounces Terrorism, 3rd edition. Bristol, UK: Amal Press.
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