Chapter 6 : On Biological Origins

This chapter deals with the conversation that took place on September 22, 2006 in
Edmonton, Canada regarding one of the most important issues concerning the origins of life. It
challenges the generally-accepted Darwinian and neoDarwinian theories from metaphysical,
philosophical, and scientific perspectives and proposes alternate explanations based on the
Qurnic worldview.
The two basic issues involved in the question of biological origins deal with the origin of
life as such, and the special form of life that we call human life. The data gathered over the last
two centuries in biological sciences and interpreted from various perspectives shows that the
dominant view being the evolutionary process which says that life originated in small-cell form
and then became more complex through random processes in which only the fittest forms
survived. God has been inserted into this process to develop a form of evolution by some theists
named theistic evolution and there are some Muslim scholars who also subscribe to this idea.
While no Muslim would say there is no Hand of God involved, but they put the Hand of God
into a form of Darwinian process, generating a great deal of confusion.
The theory of evolution is an important issue for discussion, being not only have studied
physics but also geology and paleontology at Harvard, the speaker rejects the ordinary
understanding of the Darwinian theory of evolution even on scientific grounds. This theory of
evolution is the tent-peg of modernism; if it were to fall down, the whole edifice of modernism
would collapse. It is, therefore, kept as an ideology, not a scientific theory which its defenders
claim it is.This very statement will be rejected by many people, but Muslims at least have to look
upon this whole issue from this point of view.
The string theory is an example of a scientific theory in physics and cosmology and you
have quantum mechanics. Now, if someone were to oppose prevalent theories in these fields, no
one would expel that person from his or her university; no one would have his or her promotion
denied because of his or her saying I do not accept this theory. Evolution, on the contrary, is a
totally different matter, because it is an ideology and if you are a professor of biology at a
university, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world and if you oppose the theory of evolution on
purely scientific grounds, you are rejected and even ejected from your position.
Muslims have to approach this issue in light of the status that evolutionary theory
occupies in the modern world. The speaker rejects some of the muslim scholars who have
succumbed to this pressure and have developed what you might call an Islamic version of
theistic evolution. Which is no longer even scientific and would not satisfy the agnostic or
atheistic biologists. And it ties the Hands of God through a process that we believe we know, but
we really do not know. There are major issues involved leaving evolution as the only explanation
of the scientific data.
 One of the issue is the question of form and the finality of form for example a triangle is
a triangle, and nothing evolves into a triangle; until a triangle becomes a triangle, it is not a
triangle. If there are three loose lines that gradually meet, even if there is one micron of
separation, that is not a triangle. Only a triangle is a triangle. And life forms also have a finality
of their own. The famous French biologist L. Bounoure opposed evolution on the basis of this
reality of the finality of forms, as well as other considerations.
Western philosophy and Western science have lost the traditional idea and essential
meaning of form. The only thing that survives is mathematical forms which themselves are
abstract forms. But concrete forms were thrown out of science by Galileo and Descartes. Once
you quantify science you can no longer deal with forms which deal with the quality of things.
For example you cannot study the form of an orange in modern physics. You can in fact study
the weight of the orange, its sphericity; or in chemistry the amount of acid in its juice, its
molecular structure. What then happened to the orange? You do not study that concrete form
itself. So the first question is the question of form and what it means in relation to the theory of
evolution.
Then there is the question of creativity. In Islam, two of the Names of God are al-ayy
and al-Muy. God is both Life and the Giver of Life. And no one can get around that truth and
say that God created the dinosaurs like this or that, but at the same time say that the dinosaurs
were produced by certain environmental conditions and that they developed later into this or that
animal.
In Islam God is both Life and the Giver of Life, and that is something very clear and true
without being unscientific. Life is not reducible to non-life. And God is also the source of all
existence and for that reason also anything that exists cannot be reduced to non-existence by us.
Matter can be turned into energy and energy into matter but what we cannot do in a laboratory is
to reduce something to nothing or nothing into something, because God is also al-Bri and al-
Khliq and He is the Giver of Existence.
God gives existence, and being Himself Life and the Giver of life. He gives us life. He is
the source and bestower of all forms of life. In the same way that no other power in the universe
can bestow existence except the Source of existence, no other power in the universe can bestow
life except the Source of life. Therefore, we must reject from the Islamic point of view the
accidentality of the origin of life
There are three basic elements to consider: one, the destruction of forms in the ultimate
sense; two, the reduction of causality to the horizontal planethat is to say, the denial of
Vertical Causality and therefore Divine Causality; and third, the horizontalization of the vertical
chain of Being.
It is meaningless in modern science to say that forms of creatures exist in, the imaginal or
subtle world, in the world above this material world and that at a particular moment in the history
of the material cosmos they are crystallizedwhich is really what the Islamic point of view
assertsin accordance to the Will of God and His knowledge and always in accordance with the
conditions that God has set for a particular cosmos. That is why apple trees do not bear pears.
 But that is not the same thing as evolution. When the spring rain comes, all of the seeds
undera particular plot of land begin to come forth and flower; that is not the evolution of those
seeds. That is, however, another meaning of evolution and not the transformation of one species
into another; that is not what is happening to the seed. Rather, the potentialities within the seeds
in the soil are actualized. That kind of idea goes back to Augustine in the West and before him to
the Stoics, and we also see it in the writings of many Muslim thinkers. Not evolution, as
understood in the Darwinian sense.
Now the question is raised by one of the speaker that is there no possibility of any kind of
evolutionary process which would transform one species into anotherThere is the possibility of
micro-evolution, but not of macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is still within the possibilities of
the archetype or form of a particular being in the philosophical sense. Humans of different
countries have different eyes and If one migrate to Zimbabwe, the skin grows darker;and if one
go to Sweden, it would grow a bit lighter. But all are within the possibilities of the human form.
That kind of micro-evolution is possible. Flies can become a bit bigger and when there is a
certain kind of light, plants can do this and that, and this is mistaken by some for change of
species. That is not change of species; that is evolution within a single species. Each species
has a width, a range, a reality greater than a particular individual in that species. And so other
individuals can appear in that species with other characteristics and even change according to
environmental conditions, without one species becoming another.
Similarly a question develops in the intelligent point of view i.e. how could something
more conspicuous ascent up out of something lesser? This criticism is answered by momentum
scientist and most specialists all things considered by denying the more noticeable. You can't
make an aggregate script without joining the tinier bits of the script together, or you can't detail a
predictable formula without considering all the more diminutive discernments and tallies.
The Muslims need to approach this issue from the point of view of our own extraordinary
and insightful positions. The Muslims may base their trust in the light of the Quran, the Sunnah,
and the academic position. Besides, there is the point of creative energy. In Islam, two of the
Names of God are ''al-Hayy'' and ''al-Muhyi''. . God is both Life and the Giver of Life. This
moreover supports thought, that life can be produced using just life itself. In this manner, it can't
be produced using non-life.
We can't decrease something to nothing or nothing into something, since God is also al-
Bari and al-Khliq and He is the Giver of Existence. Immediately, God gives nearness, and
furthermore, acting actually Life, al-Hayy, and the Giver of life, al-Muhyi, He gives us life (al-
Hayat). The Will of God and His knowledge are reliably according to the conditions that God
has set for a particular universe. That is the reason apple trees don't bear pears. The entire
universe and its working segment are accessible as demonstrated by His understanding and
according to his will. Thusly, we should dismiss the accidentality of the root of life in the light of
the Islamic perspective.
All the beforehand said responses are not significant until a strong insightful practical
talk is finished among the people who are not dreading not being progressed. Since current world
relies on upon this theory and they fear their lost future without a strong conviction. They build
this speculation in light of the preface of science and no researcher who have academic support
the Darwin's theory of improvement.
We know how over the top that is, how much certainty and affirmation of madness
formative theory demands of us. The same is substantial for the creating of a wing to fly, and
learning flawless flight, this kind of thing. We all in all know such cases yet the greater part of us
today recognize transformative theory since whatever else would need plan of activity to God, to
an intelligent Creator. Rostand, the outstanding French researcher, once expressed, "I
acknowledge positivelyin light of the way that I see no techniques for accomplishing
something elsethat warm blooded animals begun from lizards, and reptiles from fish; yet when
I declare and I report a ponder, for example, this, I do whatever it takes not to swear off
observing its unpalatable enormity and I need to leave vague the origination of these silly
changes rather than add to their inconceivability that of a unimaginable comprehension".
Enduring the absurdities of formative speculation is same like a monkey comes to and
made all Shakespeare plays, for just not to fall the bleeding edge world would fold. For the
propelled world, evolutionism takes after a "religious" standard, as it was particularly for
Marxism. Marxism is build absolutely as for what its followers call the consistent introduce of
chronicled improvement. Influential authenticity was significantly affected by Darwinism. By
and by Marxism is gone as an over the top speculation and there are only a couple staunch
Marxists around. The rest have advanced toward turning into ladies' activists, greens, and so on,
yet eventually, the reasonability it grasped is still around, in any case it is no longer a vital
conviction framework declaring worldwide control. These al theories and conviction frameworks
are controlled by the administration authorities so they get votes by playing with the brains of
normal natives.
In western world they assume that their headway is essentially more noteworthy than a
savage, they have restrain considering fanaticism they differentiate themselves and the white not
with the Africans and Asians. Nevertheless, in Asia evolutionists have no effect yet every fourth
evolutionist among five is from sub-landmass. Being a tongue hindrance Turks and Persians are
considered as Arabs and they also acknowledge on Evolution speculation. Improvement is told in
school by skull pictures yet every one of those skulls can be found in a broad city like NEW
YORK, as indicated by some portion of science monkey and human have 95% of same neuron
cells yet that does not mean we progress from them. Muslims and Jews in Palestine have
indistinct DNA yet they are persistently fighting on the other issue instead of DNA. From above
trade it is ensured that headway is wrongly communicated among the young ones and they
recognize this false speculation and after that they fight to monitor their conviction.
Everything can be elucidated by the speculation of reductionism in which everything is
decreased to its basic unit to clear up that animals, plants, individuals all are confined by the cells
of different sorts yet they are cells toward the end. As shown by Muslims scientists like IBNE
SINA befuddled living thing contains essential living thing yet more frustrated living thing
contains convoluted living thing so monkey make them live things like individuals however that
does not mean we create from the monkey.
 As demonstrated by Muslims conviction God is the Creator of everything and he is Giver
of life so headway theory among the Muslims has no effect as they acknowledge on Quran and
Quran says clearly everything is in the Hands of ALLAH so in case one doesn't put stock in it,
that suggests he is not a Muslim driving force. Profoundly included with picking up from
western countries Muslims compacted between their custom and western dedication, what is
missing is regular Islamic learning. For example, in case you genuinely expert the precept of
extensive development (al-arakat al-jawhariyyah) of Mull Sadr, the epic seventeenth century
Persian Islamic realist, you can elucidate the speculation of improvement without being a
Darwinian evolutionist. You can have trust in both the model substances in God's Knowledge
that are reflected in the short lived stream and the predictable stream and development of the
substance of the material world which bears the etchings of those prime cases.
Formative theory is changing at normal interims and researchers endeavor to exhibit
those theories with the help of Christian social order, be that as it may we won't take after their
way and give them a substituting way to deal with take in the overseeing of life as GOD is the
maker of Universe and in addition the Sustainer of it. I was once heading off to a graduate class
at Harvard in fossil science educated by one of the world's magnificent pros with respect to that
matter, and he kept acquainting with us the paleontological evidence for improvement: the
Cambrian, the Ordovician, and whatnot, however in each of these periods one saw the sudden
appearance of these trilobites, changed fossils, and for every circumstance there was no lucidness
of periods of progression of one casing into another. So I asked him, "How is it that in the Pre-
Cambrian, you have in every practical sense no fossils on the planet, and out of the blue you
have this impact of fossils? These structures seem to appear out of the blue, as they do in other
geographical periods. He looked and expressed, "Hossein, we don't ask these questions any
more," which suggested calm down, and a while later I said to myself, "Look, this is not for me. I
couldn't mind less what the outcomes will be for my academic accomplishment; my cerebrum is
made up to endeavor to search for the explanations behind things!" This, then, is the affirmation,
the charged paleontological proof for advancement, as declared by built up Darwinism.
In what capacity may we mix the science with the Islamic points of view especially
relating the natural thoughts? That won't happen unless what is called science today is, most
importantly else, aced and a short time later consolidated into the Islamic viewpoint. Western
science passes on with it a philosophical and ideological things of which most specialists don't
have the foggiest idea, especially Muslim scientists, and that is the significant issue.
Once a man went to Ali, may Allah be happy with him, and expressed, "Y Ali, who was
there before Adam?" And he replied, "Adam". "Notwithstanding, who was there before that
Adam?" And he expressed, "Adam. In addition, in case you continue making this inquiry to the
Day of Judgment, I ought to continue saying Adam." This is a to a great degree critical saying.
By and by, the human being has been a person since the essential arrival of individuals on the
planet. They have not created from various animals whose bones bear resemblances to theirs.
The famous French anthropologist, J. Servier, an unprecedented anthropologist, once
made a book, L'Homme et l'invisible (Man and the Invisible), wherein he showed up, on just
anthropological and paleontological evidence, that the soonest people secured their dead or had
some other custom for the dead, which exhibits that they had trust in immortality; they confided
in an alternate universe, and that infers that we have not in truth progressed at all basically. For
example the old Egyptians produced amazing outline, however in Sudan, which is a neighbor,
there are no pyramids. Most of this can be displayed tentatively without denying that God made
us and demanding that man has progressed in any key way. Likewise, it is with the creative
shows of God that we Muslims must begin. "Made" suggests that He made a body into which He
breathed in His Spirit, which infers He introduced to us unadulterated knowledge and perception,
notwithstanding different things.
One goes over Muslim thinkers who say that Adam progressed. With reference to the
story in the Quran of Adam being in Jannah (Paradise), they affirm Jannah was on this planet,
and they in this way obliterate the whole course of action of feelings and notions related with
the Quranic expression hubut, the Fall, the drop of Adam to this Earth. How Muslim driving
forces protect this against western ethologists?
The Jannah depicted by God in the Quran does not take after the earth as we most likely
am mindful it, paying little heed to the likelihood that at first the earth was a paradise (however
this is an alternate matter) and paying little heed to the likelihood that, when God at first made
the earth, it was known as the terrestrial paradise in Christian religious theory. Islam
furthermore watches creation in its virgin state as an impression of Firdaws or, the Garden
(Jannah) yet it is not just the Jannah (Paradise) to which the soul of those imparted with
goodness will go in the Afterlife. Plus, God at first place man in Jannah yet He similarly gave
him over the top decision, which is the reason he ate of the disallowed tree and fell (hubut) here
onto earth.. This is a critical matter and the Quran verses are to an incredible degree clear on this
question. Any person who perceives paradise with some place in Africa where Adam a little bit
at a time created is obligated of the most exceedingly appalling kind of obscenity, religiously.
Such people are not real Muslims any more. It is express in the Quran that, in discussing the
Garden where Adam was first set; it is depicting a state of being which possesses a perfection
that the fallen Adam at no time later on had. The word hubut is a Quranic expression and one
can't change it to whatever else. If one does that, there is nothing left of one's relationship with
the Islamic tradition.
Hubut, they say, etymologically basically expects to go between better places, without on
a very basic level having any substance of slipping, that is, the Fall? That is wrong; we can't
recognize it. This infers for fourteen hundred years Muslims weren't right, until some individual
in the roads of Cairo, who has become totally westernized and disregards the Islamic oral
tradition and furthermore unique clear ahadith on this matter, follows along and says hubut does
not mean fall! This is a kind of scientism that has polluted our academic atmosphere with the
ultimate objective that one can no longer safely unwind. Such people have added to a mental and
academic sullying that shields numerous people from having the ability to think clearly any more
drawn out correspondingly that we can't breathe in easily in our gigantic urban territories
subsequently of physical pollution.