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Evolution and/or Creation: An Islamic Perspective

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As a thirteen year old muslim, I always asked my self, will there ever be an answer to the relation of islam and evolution. T.O. Shanavas has just completely clear and I was able to understand. He comes right to the point and I hope that this book makes a fortune

The United States (and other parts of the Western world) is currently experiencing increasing political polarization between followers of religion and practitioners of science. The current battleground for this conflict occurs in the study of the evolution of living organisms, although confusion on the role of scientific and faith-based knowledge can occur just as easily when studying the origin, age and scope of the universe (cosmology), uncertainty in quantum mechanics, and the material nature of the mind (neuroscience).

In Creation and/or Evolution: An Islamic Perspective, T. O. Shanavas challenges this notion of an inherent conflict between scientific knowledge and religious texts, revealing it to be a false dilemma, at least where Islam is concerned.

Creation and/or Evolution weaves together several themes. The first is the Quranic theology of time, space, and creation. The second is the history of Islamic science and how its legacy has been forgotten, both by Muslims ready to accept fundamentalist Christian critiques of evolutionary science, and Westerners, quick to disparage Muslims as superstitious and anti-modernity. The third strand, woven within the first two, describes secular scientific understanding of the history of the universe and its inhabitants. Since I am a biologist by training and not a theologian, the following critique will focus mainly on this third strand.

Overall, however, Shanavas does a good job describing the bridges between modern and medieval Muslim science and Quranic assertions. His best sections come at the very beginning and the end, where he discusses the role of God the Creator in terms of metaphysics of the future. Briefly, what appears as random chance to a scientist working toward material explanations in linear time may be controlled in a more deterministic fashion by a God who sees all time and space at once.

Despite the many things Shanavas does well in this book, there are several issues that prevent me from giving an entirely unqualified recommendation. Most critically, there several major scientific flaws in Creation and/or Evolution that point to, at best, sloppy fact-checking. For one, "amino acid" is used frequently in the section on molecular biology to describe a sub-unit of DNA. This is simply incorrect - amino acids are subunits of proteins, while the word he is looking for is nucleotide as the subunit of DNA or RNA.

Shanavas' explanation of evolution is also a sloppy one, and I wonder whether it is deliberately so in order to fit Muslim understandings with scientific ones. He neglects to mention one of the most important corollaries of the modern theory of evolution - that evolution is non-linear and non-directional. All life is continuing to evolve with humans at a branch of a growing tree, not the end of the tree. That is, modern apes and humans share a common ancestor; one did not evolve directly from the other. Shanavas appears to champion an incorrect, outdated view of a "great chain of being" with unicellular organisms giving rise to plants, then animals and then humans. Such an understanding, while in keeping with the Muslim sources he quotes, is anthropocentric and not supported by science.

Shanavas' most wild contention, based on a highly original reading of Sura 4:1 (http://islamawakened.org/Quran/4%5C/default.htm), is that the first humans, Adam and Eve, were twins born to a non-human primate mother. He argues that concurrent creation of both a male and a female would be necessary in order to propagate the new species. This betrays a complete lack of understanding of how speciation is thought to occur. In fact, most evolutionary biologists believe that speciation is a gradual process, with no clear cut line between different non inter-breeding species. The primordial Eve (or Adam?) would have been able to breed with the parent population, and the offspring would subsequently have become separated into a different niche, become reproductively isolated, and therefore over many generations, become biologically different from non-human ancestors. This is one of a few instances where Shanavas would have been better off taking the Quran as figurative rather than coming up with a literal explanation which is not only highly statistically improbable, but for which there is no known precedent in nature.

Later on, Shanavas explains the origin and diversification of humans with reference to Quranic creation and the Out-of-Africa hypothesis. His explanation for Out-of-Africa migration of modern humans is simplistic and betrays a lack of understanding of the concept of mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam.

Shanavas' haphazard, scientifically inaccurate attempts to mesh Quranic verses or the beliefs of early Muslim scientists with modern science, as in the examples given above, highlight the inherent flaw in arguing that science agrees with religion - or vice versa. Inevitably, such explanations involve twisting understanding of either theology or science in a manner that does proper service to neither. At best, we can conclude that science, while not allowing room for some forms of religious belief (i.e. literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2; earth-centric cosmos), cannot disprove the existence of a non-anthropomorphic, and non- time constrained Creator who works with scientific laws to create multiple possibilities for evolutionary trajectory.

At its best, this book might prompt the reader to examine their own views of God and how this understanding fits into secular understandings of the nature of the universe. In a climate awash with popular Christian (and sometimes Islamic) rhetoric questioning the compatibility of evolution with belief in God and often attacking the nature of scientific inquiry itself, Shanavas is a fresh spring rain. His book details how the modern scientific approach is consistent with the Quran and Hadith encouraging Muslims to find knowledge, wherever it may take them, as a way of understanding the methodology of Creation. However, finishing Creation and/or Evolution, I felt that this topic needed a practicing Muslim evolutionary biologist to do both the theology and science proper justice. Unfortunately, such individuals are few and far between, though perhaps this book is the first step in encouraging young Muslims to enter science and act to bridge this false divide.

As a Christian that believes in the theory of evolution I wanted to get a perspective of the view of evolution from other faiths. This one in particular caught my attention because I have been doing some independent studying of Islam and I figure that this would be a good way to learn about both the religion and its view of science. This book definitely helped me in both ways.

As a study of evolution there are some definite biases on the part of the author as he attempts to make the theory work with Evolution. This did not bother me that much, and while I personally disagreed with some of his views, they were not to far away from science. For example, in chapter 5 where he attacks various theories of how life began and then arrived at the conclusion that the first cells were polymerized in clay he spends time pointing out flaws in the other theories (primordial soup, deep sea vents) but never mentions the flaws in the one he believes. All of them have strong and weak points and it would have been nice to see him be a little fairer in his representation.

This bias appears in several other parts of the book and is used to show how the current understanding of evolution is in-line with Islamic teachings and in almost every case he fails to present the other side of the argument. Although his science is correct throughout, this bias can create conflict for readers of another faith. In quoting Stephen Jay Gould the author points out that "Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact, and facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts." Most people who have studied evolution and the "scientific" view on the origin of life will have no problem is spotting his biases and understanding the alternative views.

That being said, this is not a textbook on scientific evolution. This is a book on an Islamic perspective of the theory of evolution. As such, in the areas of debate he is more than free to choose whichever theory most fits his religious views. I would argue that most religious scientists do this in their lives already. By understanding that and understanding why he views evolution the way he does one can gain a deeper insight into the connection between Islamic belief and their world.

I was grateful that the author takes time to explain what is meant by certain scriptures contained in the Qur'an as well as other cultural issues that non-believers such as myself might not understand. It makes it easier to understand both the book and the culture of the religion. His first chapters on Islamic metaphysics helped me tremendously when he made it to later chapters. At times I wished I had a better understanding of the Qur'an, such as when he would start quoting scriptures. Without other scriptures to help interpret his meanings, I was left to take his words on faith that what he said was what the Qur'an really meant. For a Muslim this should not create the problems that I had, but it did make certain chapters frustrating.

His last two chapters I felt wandered off topic from the rest of the book and could have been left out. They are short and simple, but don't really seem to add anything of value to the debate of evolution. Even so my final verdict would still be that this book is worth buying if you wish to understand evolution from the Islamic point of view. It is short enough and not so overly deep that a person can't follow it without an extensive background in either evolution or Islam, but it is detailed enough to provide the reader with new insights into both. Not a perfect 5 but definitely a 4.

Sometimes the questions of an innocent child make your thinking to off in new directions. It was his son asking why he was taught evolution in public school and creationism in Muslim school that caused Dr, Shanavas to research and then write this book. He sees it as lamentable that many Muslim imams have taken the psuedoscience of the fundamentalist Christians and are teaching it to their students. Likewise he laments that students in the sciences look at what the imams are teaching and begin to distrust or reject Islam.

His studies took him back to the Qur'an itself and further into the teachings of early Muslim scholars to come up with a view that evolution is an intelligent design in its own right. It was (I have to say 'may.') have been set up by a higher power to manifest His omniscience, supremacy, and grace in a universe constructed with creatures of limited free will. ==The rejection of science by the Muslims has to be a major part of why the Muslims, on a world wide basis, are so far behind the western countries.

This book certainly presents a view different from the fundamentalist Christians. It is to be hoped that our Government can see enough to take other religious views into mind when crafting legislation. We do have a fundamental tenant in the separation of church and state.

Let me share my biases first. I am not Muslim, but Christian, though I have studied Islam a great deal, so my perspective is one of an outsider. I am also very much a creationist, for I believe that God used evolution to create life.

I have been waiting so long for a book like this. I was so thrilled for it to show up at Christmas time. Shanavas writes neatly and clearly, so even the least biologically inclined can understand, and yet presents some perspectives that have never before been put in print- at least, as he points out, not for the past 500 years.

There are a couple areas that could use some work- some editing; the final chapters are a bit odd; some of his understanding of Christian theology is a bit off the mark...But then, I really appreciate that he admits that he is lacking in understanding of Christianity. I can respect an author who knows what he is talking about and knows when to admit he doesn't know everything.

I wanted to read this book as I teach biology in Morocco, and have a number of Muslim students. At this point they are being taught the Intelligent Design Hypothesis as well in another forum outside my class. I showed this to them, and they were devouring it and could hardly put it down. There is already a queue to read it. I wish I could assign it, simply because it so clearly explains the process of evolution.

But in the midst of explaining it, Shanavas also gives a very Islamic perspective of evolution. I say Islamic, because he follows the standard practice of interpreting the Qur'an literally. While there is room for allegorical interpretation among the Sufis, the standard practice in ijtihad for most of the history of Islam has been literalism. So while I wouldn't necessarily interpret my holy book in this manner, I applaud Shanavas for doing so with his book, for he is correctly following the path of his religion.

In doing so, he shows that evolution is not only appropriate in Islam, but is even mandatory in the faith. He uses another great author, Haught, and his theology of the future, to show how Islam is better understood within evolution. And then he shows how evolution doesn't really begin with Darwin, but actually was advocated under different names by the greatest of Muslim theologians and thinkers during the Islamic Rennaissance, including Ibn Sina. I don't know that I would say there has been a conspiracy to deny the Muslim contribution, but I am the better for now knowing how much Muslims gave to evolution 1000 years before Darwin.

Shanavas succeeds at what he attempts. He wants to write a book to help non-Muslims understand the Muslim perspective and contribution. It does. He wants to write a book to help Muslims see they can be Muslim and accept evolution. Through this book they can. They can not only accept it, they can be proud of their heritage in seeing how the great Muslims of the past established the groundwork for this venerable theory.

At last, an indepth scientific treatment of one of life's most essential questions: Is religious revelation in accord with scientic wisdom?

It is well past time to realize that Science and Religion are twin sisters.

You needn't stay locked within mind numbing superstition or negate the magnificence of the divine plan. But, you must READ if you wish to know.

If you don't read, you have no one else to blame but yourself for your continued state of ignorance. Open your eyes and open your mind. Neither truth nor science should be frightening or threatening to the person of true faith. The mind is a divine gift!