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ABSTRACT
The theory of evolution has supposedly displaced human beings from their lofty positions as unique special creatures and placed them within a process of evolution where they are nothing more than a species that has evolved from primitive ones and will be eclipsed by more superior ones. In this article, I engage with Malik's book using a plain sense reading of Islamic scripture. I single out “human exceptionalism” as the optimum view that fits a plain sense reading of scripture as well as one that has the potential to pacify Muslim concerns about evolution.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 Kun fa kān literally means, “Be! And it is”. It is the expression used by God in the Qurʾān to bring about creation. The relevance of this epigraph will be explained towards the end of this article.
2 Ibn Ṭufayl’s work was the inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.
3 Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale, trans. with an introduction and notes by Lenn Evan Goodman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 105–106.
4 Ibid., 107.
5 Q. 21:30, Q. 24:5. The first number in this reference refers to the chapter number (sūra) followed by the verse number (āya).
6 Q. 30:20.
7 Q. 23:12.
8 Q. 37:11.
9 Q. 15.26.
10 Q. 55:14.
11 Q. 15:29.
12 Q. 71:18. The Pakistani modernist scholar Javed Ahmad Ghamidi elaborates that the sticky clay is like the yolk of an egg whilst the hardened clay like pottery is similar to the hard shell of an egg. In other words, according to Ghamidi human origin started off in the form of an egg out of the bowels of the Earth. Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, “The Quran and Theory of Evolution – Islam and Evolution,” filmed August 24, 2020, https://youtu.be/XeXlwowpHSk?si=t34RortRbcvwoAUy.
13 See Shoaib Malik, “Is Evolution Even Possible in Islamic Thought?” Theological Puzzles (Issue 7), 2022. https://www.theo-puzzles.ac.uk/2022/05/02/malik2/. Ḥusayn al-Jisr (1845–1909) was the first Muslim scholar to write an extensive exposition of evolution. Jisr was cautiously optimistic of evolution and argued that if the scientific evidence can ever reach the level of epistemic certainty, the Qurʾān would need to be reinterpreted to accommodate evolution. Ḥusayn Jisr, Al-Risāla al-Ḥamīdiyya fi ̄ Haqīqat al-Diyāna al-Islāmiyya wa Haqqiyyat al-Sharīʿa, ed. ʿIsmat Naṣṣār (Alexandria: Maktabat al-Iskandariyya, 2011).
14 Shoaib Malik, Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm (Oxon: Routledge, 2021).
15 Ibid., chapter 4, 106–154.
16 See Ibid., chapter 4, 106–154. For a slightly different categorisation, see Shoaib Malik, “Evolution and Islam – a Brief Review,” in The Muslim 500: The World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims, ed. Abdallah Schleifer (Amman: The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, 2020), 207–212. https://themuslim500.com/guest-contributions-2020/evolution-and-islam-a-brief-review/.
17 See Malik, Islam and Evolution, chapters 9 and 10. Also see David Solomon Jalajel, “Presumptions About God’s Wisdom in Muslim Arguments for and Against Evolution,” Zygon 57:2 (2022), 467–489, for more on metaphysical considerations.
18 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 11.
19 Ibid., 114–121.
20 Ibid., 137–148.
21 Ibid., 125–133; Yasir Qadhi and Nazir Khan, “Human Origins – Part 1: Theological Conclusions and Empirical Limitations,” Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research (2021). https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/human-origins-part-1-theological-conclusions-and-empirical-limitations; Glen Moran, “The Final Domino: Yasir Qadhi, Youtube, and Evolution.,” Zygon 56:1 (2021), 34–53.
22 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 133–136; David Jalajel, “Tawaqquf and Acceptance of Human Evolution,” Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research (2022), https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/tawaqquf-and-acceptance-of-human-evolution; Shoaib Malik, “Islam and Evolution: The Curious Case of David Solomon Jalajel,” The Muslim 500 (2020), https://themuslim500.com/guest-contributions-2021/islam-and-evolution-the-curious-case-of-david-solomon-jalajel/.
23 See Shoaib Ahmed Malik and Elvira Kulieva. “Does Belief in Human Evolution Entail Kufr (Disbelief)? Evaluating the Concerns of a Muslim Theologian,” Zygon 55:3 (2020), 638–662.
24 I thank my PhD student Andreas Hamza Tzortzis for introducing me to this technical term from the philosophy of science.
25 Q. 23:12-16.
26 Ḥusayn Jisr, Al-Risāla al-Ḥamīdiyya, 292, 300.
27 Q. 88:8-10.
28 Q. 88:17-21.
29 Q. 2:34, Q. 7:11, 20-1, Q. 15:28-9, Q. 17:61, Q. 38:71-6.
30 Q. 59:24.
31 Malik, Islam and Evolution, Table 4.2, 113.
32 Shoaib Malik, “The Use of Philosophy of Science in the Creationism-Evolution Debate: An Ashʿarī Perspective,” Theology and Science 21 (2023), 421–437.
33 See Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, “Does the Qur’an Contain Scientific Miracles? A New Approach on How to Reconcile and Discuss Science in the Qur’an,” August 18, 2013. https://www.hamzatzortzis.com/does-the-quran-contain-scientific-miracles-a-new-approach/.
34 Ross Solberg, Anne, “The Mahdi Wears Armani: An Analysis of the Harun Yahya Enterprise” (PhD diss., Södertörns högskola, 2013).
35 Shoaib Ahmed Malik, Hamza Karamali, and Moamer Yahia Ali Khalayleh, “Does Criticizing Intelligent Design (ID) Undermine Design Discourse in The Qurʾān? A Kalāmic Response,” Zygon 57:2 (2022), 490–513.
36 Blogging Theology, “Islam and Evolution with Professor Shoaib Ahmed Malik.” YouTube Video, December 9, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmRH80lj9UM.
37 Khālid, Detlev, “Some Aspects of Neo-Mu'tazilism,” Islamic Studies 8:4 (1969), 319–347; Abdelhaq M. Hamza, “Faith and Reason: The Re-Emergence of Neo-Mu’tazilite Thought in the Discourse of Modern Muslim Scientists,” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3:10 (2014), 53–55. http://wp.me/p1Bfg0-1FM.
38 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 311.
39 Ibid., 126.
40 Damian Howard, Being Human in Islam: The Impact of the Evolutionary Worldview (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), 181, note 307.
41 Qadhi and Khan, “Human Origins,” 12; Malik, Islam and Evolution, 128.
42 Kenneth W. Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85:2 (2011), 223.
43 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 132.
44 Ibid., 328.
45 Kemp, “Science, Theology, and Monogenesis,” 224.
46 Jalajel, “Tawaqquf and Acceptance,” 16.
47 Ibid., 22.
48 Ibid., 14.
49 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 322.
50 Q. 4:1.
51 Q. 49:13.
52 Bukhari, cited in Jalajel, “Tawaqquf and Acceptance,” 11.
53 Malik, “Evolution and Islam – a Brief Review.”
54 Malik, “Islam and Evolution: The Curious Case.”
55 Nidhal Guessoum, “Islam and Biological Evolution: Exploring Classical Sources and Methodologies by David Solomon Jalajel,” Journal of Islamic Studies 22:3 (2011), 476–479.
56 Muhammad Iqbal, Ṭūlūʿ-e-Islām in Bāng-e-Darā stanza, 163.
57 Q. 16:40.
58 Q. 38:45. God also creates animals with his hands as we know from Q. 36:71. However, the meaning being conveyed there is not one of closeness and intimacy but of majesty and power since the second person plural is used and the work is attributed to God's hands (ʿamilat aydīna) and not God himself (khalqtu biyadayy).
59 Q. 15:29.
60 This idea was mentioned by Shaykh Hamza Karamali at the conference on Pre and Post-Darwinian Perspectives on Islamic Theological Anthropology, University of Nottingham 2023.
61 Q. 2:30.
62 Q. 33:72.
63 For British Muslim attitude towards evolution see, Stephen Jones, Saleema Burney, and Riyaz Timol, Science Communication, Islam and Muslim Communities: A Research Brief (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2023); Paul Thomas, “The Creation-Evolution Debate: An Islamic Perspective” (PhD diss., King’s College London, 2012).
64 Martin Riexinger, “Responses of South Asian Muslims to the Theory of Evolution,” Die Welt Des Islams 49:2 (2009), 227–230. See some surveys conducted by Guessoum in Nidhal Guessoum, Islam’s Quantum Question: Reconciling Muslim Tradition and Modern Science (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 273–274. See Glen Moran, “Harun Yahya’s Influence in Muslim Minority Contexts: Implications for Research in Britain, Europe, and Beyond,” Zygon 54:4 (2019), 837–856.
65 Zakir Naik, “Theory of Evolution by Dr Zakir Naik,” YouTube Video. YouTube, May 12, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9IEvxGNo-E.
66 Malik, Islam and Evolution, 47–48.
67 Ibid.
68 Howard, Being Human in Islam, 3.
69 For brevity, in this section I am including the “no exceptions” camp within “theistic evolution” although I believe that a proper designation for them is “deistic evolution.”
70 Much is made of the problem of evil and evolutionary waste. However, theodicy is not a unique problem for evolution. It is a problem of human free will. See Malik, Islam and Evolution, chapter 8, 237.
71 Howard, Being Human, 3; Sam Berry, “Did Darwin Kill God,” in God for the 21st Century, ed. Russel Stannard (Philadelphia: Templeton Foundation Press, 2000), 39.
72 Nidhal Guessoum and Stefano Bigliardi disagree that these are anything but a new trend of Creationism. In their 2023 survey paper on Islam and science, Guessoum and Bigliardi offer limited engagement with Malik's contribution to the field, referencing it indirectly (36). While they highlight various perspectives on the topic, Malik's 2021 opus on evolution, which gained significant attention in academic and popular circles, is conspicuous by its absence and the reason for this omission is unclear. Given the extent of discussions in the field and Malik's significant contributions, such oversights can influence the landscape of current dialogues. See Nidhal Guessoum, and Stefano Bigliardi, “Islam and Science: Past, Present, and Future Debates,” in Cambridge Elements: Islam and the Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023). For a more detailed analysis, readers are referred to Malik's ‘Islam and Evolution’, especially chapter 5, 155–175.
73 Q. 5:60.
74 Howard, Being Human, 20; Malik, Islam and Science, 44.
75 Dorothy Dean, “‘At Home on the Earth’: Toward a Theology of Human Non-Exceptionalism,” Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature & Culture 14:4 (2020), 480–495.
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Mansur Ali
Dr Mansur Ali is a Senior lecturer in Islamic studies at Cardiff University where he lectures on Islam and ethics and Islam in Britain. His research interests include Hadith studies, Islamic legal theory, Muslim chaplaincy, Islam and ethics, and Islam and science.