Evolution and Islam

Excerpt from ‘The Emergence of Islam’ by Muhammad Hamidullah
Hamidullah Muhammad, 1908 – 2002
The Emergence of Islam /by Muhammad Hamidullah
Translated by edited by Afzal Iqbal.
Published by Islamic Research Institute, Islamabad, Pakistan
ISBN: 969-408-137-8
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Muhammad Hamidullah, born in 1908 in Hyderabad, India, graduated from Osmania University, Hyderabad and then obtained doctoral degrees from the Universities of Bonn and Sorbonne. He taught at the Osmania University and as a Visiting Professor in the University of Istanbul. He also worked for long as a researcher in Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. He moved to USA in 1996 where he breathed his last in 2002.

Hamidullah’s translation of the Quran and his biography of the Prophet (peace be upon him) won him renown in the French-speaking world. His ‘Muslim Conduct of State’ is regarded as a standard work on Islamic International Law. In addition to a host of significant works and research papers in Arabic, Urdu, French and German, Hamidullah has edited several classical manuscripts of major academic significance.

Afzal Iqbal (d. 1994), who rendered Hamidullah’s lectures into English, is widely known as a diplomat and scholar. ‘The Culture of Islam’, ‘Diplomacy in Early Islam’, ‘Contemporary Muslim World’ and ‘The Life and Work of Rumi’ are some of the many works which made him known to the world of scholarship.
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Question and Answers:
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Question: 

If Darwin’s theory of evolution is correct from the scientific point of view then there is conflict between science and Islam. Kindly elucidate.
Answer:

It has been presumed that Darwin’s theory has been rejected by Islam. It appears to create complications for us because we presume that Darwin was an atheist, although the fact is he believed in God. When he completed his medical education and entered his family profession, Darwin went through a metamorphosis. Being sick of the world he became interested in God. He studied Christianity in the Faculty of Religion at the University of Cambridge. Comparative Religion was one of the subjects taught in the University. Darwin also learned Arabic in order to understand Islam. In the collection of his letters which have been published, a number of them are addressed to his Arabic teacher. They are couched in extremely reverent and respectful language.

Among the text books prescribed for Arabic studies at the time were selections either from the Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa or al-Fawz al-Asghar of Ibn Maskawayh. Both the books mention the theory of evolution. Nobody ever criticized their Muslim authors on this account nor were they dubbed as unbelievers. The books in question belong to the third or fourth century of the Hijrah.

These books state that God first created matter and invested it with energy for development. Matter, therefore, adopted the form of vapours which assumed the shape of water in due time. The next stage of development was mineral life. Different kinds of stones developed in course of time. Their highest form being ‘marjan’ (coral). It is a stone which has in its branches like those of a tree. After mineral life evolves vegetation. This evolution of vegetation culminates with a tree which bears the qualities of an animal. This is the date-palm. It has male and female genders. It does not wither if all its branches are chopped but it dies when the head is cut off. The date-palm is therefore considered the highest among the trees and resembles the lowest among animals. Then is born the lowest animal. It evolves into an ape. This is not the statement of Darwin. This is what Ibn Maskawayh states and this is precisely what is written in the Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of barbarian man. He then became a superior human being. Man becomes a saint, a Prophet. He evolves into a higher stage and becomes an angel. The one higher to angels in indeed none but God. Everything begins from Him and everything returns to Him.

When all this has been stated by Muslim thinkers and no Muslim scholar ever took them to task for making such statements, one should pause and ponder ever these facts. In the Quran it is stated that God made man out of clay. Our concept of the creation of man is that God, like a potter, molded clay into shape and breathed His spirit into it and Adam was thus created. Possibly this was the process but what does one do with verses 18:37, 22:5, 35:11, 40:67 which state time and again that God created man from clay and sperm? It is obvious that clay does not create sperm; it comes from an animal and a human being. It means that the mention of all intermediary stages of evolution has been omitted and attention is drawn to the original source which is clay. The last cause is the sperm of man which stays in the womb of a woman.

Take yet another verse of the Quran (71:14): “He created you in stages”. The word ‘tawr’ is the basis of ‘tatawwur’ which means evolution. This can also mean that God created man as a mineral in the first instance. Minerals developed into vegetation which developed into animal life. There is no contradiction.