Shoaib Malik’s “Islam and Evolution”: Sociological Reflections on the Developing Engagement of British Muslim Leadership with Science

ABSTRACT

Sociological studies of Islam and science in the West have developed in the past two decades. This response is positioned in the light of one such study (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/ptr/projects/science-british-muslim-religious-leadership.aspx). It argues that Malik’s work is part of emerging transatlantic networks of learning and authority in Islam and science discourses. It suggests that Muslim leadership is now shifting in favour of informed engagement with science/religion topics, and that Malik’s book both exemplifies this shift, but also addresses an urgent need for scholarship that brings Islamic theological principles into dialogue with modern scientific topics.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• Muslims
• science
• evolution
• theology
• sociology

Acknowledgements

The research project “Science and the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge (STIK), 2021–23” was supported by the re-granting initiative, the “Sociology of Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation”, led by Professor Elaine Howard Ecklund (Rice University, Houston) and Professor John H. Evans (University of California, San Diego) and funded through the Templeton Religion Trust with coordination by The Issachar Fund. The author is also grateful for the support and guidance of her colleagues on the STIK research team, Dr. Stephen Jones (University of Birmingham) and Dr. Riyaz Timol (Cardiff University), and for the extended conversations with Muslim scholars across Britain. Without their generously shared insights and candid reflections, this paper would not have been possible.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Usama Hasan, “Knowledge Regained,” The Guardian, September 11, 2008, sec. Opinion, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/sep/11/religion.darwinbicentenary (accessed June 30, 2023).

2 Ibid.

3 Evening Standard, “Imam fears ‘nutters’ could kill him for preaching evolution,” April 12, 2012, https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/imam-fears-nutters-could-kill-him-for-preaching-evolution-6574985.html (accessed June 18, 2023); Matthew Morris and Usama Hasan, “Imam Threatened for Teaching Evolution,” April 15, 2011, Imam Threatened for Teaching Evolution - Science & Islam Video Portal (hampshire.edu) (accessed June 18, 2023).

4 Rowenna Davis, “London Imam Subjected to Death Threats for Supporting Evolution,” The Guardian, March 6, 2011, London imam subjected to death threats for supporting evolution | Islam | The Guardian (accessed June 18th, 2023).

5 Stephen Jones, Saleema Burney and Riyaz Timol, Science Communication, Islam and Muslim Communities: A Research Brief, (Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, April 2023), 17. https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/ptr/projects/science-british-muslim-religious-leadership.aspx.

6 Stephen H. Jones and Amy Unsworth, The Dinner Table Prejudice: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain, 17, (Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, January 2022), www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2022/01/university-of-birmingham-survey-reveals-islamophobia-is-the-posh-person’s-prejudice.aspx.

7 Ibid, 18.

8 Elizabeth Poole and Milly Williamson, “Disrupting or Reconfiguring Racist Narratives about Muslims? The Representation of British Muslims during the Covid Crisis,” Journalism 24:2 (February 1, 2023): 262–279.

9 Jessica Carlisle, Salman Hameed, and Fern Elsdon-Baker, “Muslim Perceptions of Biological Evolution: A Critical Review of Quantitative and Qualitative Research,” in Science, Belief and Society: International Perspectives on Religion, Non-Religion and the Public Understanding of Science, eds. Stephen H. Jones, Tom Kaden, and Rebecca Catto (Bristol: University of Bristol Press, 2019), 148.

10 Fern Elsdon-Baker, “Creating Creationists: The Influence of ‘Issues Framing’ on Our Understanding of Public Perceptions of Clash Narratives between Evolutionary Science and Belief,” Public Understanding of Science 24:4 (May 1, 2015), https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662514563015; see also Stephen Jones, Saleema Burney and Riyaz Timol, Science Communication, Islam and Muslim Communities: A Research Brief, 11.

11 Pierre Clément, “Muslim Teachers’ Conceptions of Evolution in Several Countries,” Public Understanding of Science 24:4 (2015): 400–421, https:// doi.org/10.1177/0963662513494549; Jeffrey Guhin, “Why Worry about Evolution? Boundaries, Practices, and Moral Salience in Sunni and Evangelical High Schools,” Sociological Theory 34:2 (June 1, 2016), 151–174; Donald Everhart, Salman Hameed, “Muslims and Evolution: A Study of Pakistani Physicians in the United States,” Evolution: Education and Outreach 6:2 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1936-6434-6-2.

12 Amy Unsworth and David Voas, “Attitudes to Evolution among Christians, Muslims and the Non-Religious in Britain: Differential Effects of Religious and Educational Factors,” Public Understanding of Science 27:1 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662517735430.

13 Ibid, 89.

14 Ibid, 76.

15 Simon Cottee, Apostates (London: Hurst and Company, 2015); Brian Whitaker, Arabs Without God: Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Middle East (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014).

16 See Sophie Gilliat-Ray, Mansur Ali, and Stephen Pattison, Understanding Muslim Chaplaincy (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2013); Stephen H. Jones, Islam and the Liberal State: National Identity and the Future of Muslim Britain (London: Bloomsbury/IB Tauris, 2020).

17 Ebrahim College website: About us – Ebrahim College.

18 Malik, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm, 19.

19 Ibid, 109–112.

20 Ibid, 5.

21 Nazir Khan and Yasir Qadhi, Human Origins- Part 1: Theological Conclusions and Empirical Limitations, Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, August 31, 2018 Human Origins – Part 1: Theological Conclusions and Empirical Limitations | Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research (accessed June 30, 2023).

22 David Solomon Jalajel, Tawaqquf and Acceptance of Human Evolution, Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, August 31, 2018 Tawaqquf and Acceptance of Human Evolution | Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research (accessed June 30, 2023).

23 Malik, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm, 3.

24 Ibid, 6.

25 Jones, Burney and Timol, Science Communication, Islam and Muslim Communities: A Research Brief, 7.

26 Malik, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm, 343.

Additional information

Funding

The research project “Science and the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge (STIK), 2021–23” was supported by the re-granting initiative, the “Sociology of Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation”

Notes on contributors

Saleema F. Burney

Saleema F. Burney University of Birmingham, UK.