Pre-modern views In ('Book of the Animals'), the 9th-century Muslim scholar
al-Jāḥiẓ references several facets of
natural selection, such as animal embryology,
adaptation, and animal psychology. One notable observation al-Jāḥiẓ makes is that stronger rats were able to compete better for resources than small birds, a reference to the modern day theory of the "
struggle for existence". Al-Jāḥiẓ also wrote descriptions of
food chains. In 10th century
Basra, an Islamic Encyclopedia titled
Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, expanded on the
Platonic and
Aristotelian concept of the
great chain of being by proposing a
causal relationship advancing up the chain as the mechanism of creation, beginning with the creation of matter and its investment with energy, thereby forming water vapour, which in turn became minerals and "mineral life", and has been proposed to be the earliest attested evolutionary framework by
Muhammad Hamidullah. However, the Brethren text has been largely dismissed as a reading on pre-Darwinian evolution theory.
Ziauddin Sardar writes for
New Statesman in 2008, According to Sami S. Hawi, the 11th-century Persian scholar
Ibn Miskawayh wrote about the evolution of man in his
Fawz al-aṣghar. 12th-century
Maturidi theologian (mutakallim)
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī connects the process of evolution and the afterlife. He draws an analogy from the
empirically knowable process of evolution as constant emergence of life and annihilation wherof, and the idea of transformation of the individual after death, concluding the existence of the afterlife by asserting live's eternity. As evident from his interpretation of a hadith, according to which Adam evolved over a time-span of 40 days, Rumi implies that human's creation was not at once, but a process. The 14th-century influential historiographer and historian
Ibn Khaldun wrote in the
Muqaddimah or Prolegomena ("Introduction") on what he referred to as the "gradual process of creation". Some of Ibn Khaldun's thoughts, according to some commentators, anticipate the biological theory of evolution. Ibn Khaldun asserted that humans developed from "the world of the monkeys", in a process by which "species become more numerous". He believed that humans are the most evolved form of animals, in that they have the ability to reason. He also stated that the Earth began with abiotic components such as "minerals". Slowly, primitive stages of plants such as "herbs and seedless plants" developed and eventually "palms and vines".
Shoaib Ahmed Malik has pointed out that Ibn Khaldun's theory, while remarkable for its acceptance of the kinship between monkeys and humans, should be understood in the context of the
late antique and medieval concept of the
great chain of being. This theory postulates a linked hierarchy between all entities in creation but is not properly a theory of evolution. The system of the great chain of being implies a graded similarity between the various stages in the hierarchy from minerals to plants, animals, humans, angels, and God, but not a temporal process in which one species originates from the other. While according to some mystical interpretations individual souls may move up the 'ladder' in order to reunite with the divine, the species (or '
substantial forms', in the language of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ontology) themselves are eternal and fixed. Malik also notes that the is often quoted without proper regard for context. One widely cited quote is taken from a section called
The Real Meaning of Prophecy, which argues that prophets occupy a place in the great chain of being just beneath angels. In Ibn Khaldun's view, this explains why individual prophets may
temporarily ascend to the rank of angels and share with them in the knowledge of the divine, which they may then bring back to humanity in the form of
revelation. According to Malik, interpretations that see in this an early form of scientific evolution theory ought to explain how angels, prophets and the upwards ascent of the soul fit into that theory.
Modern views 19th and 20th centuries Evolution was an accepted fact among some Islamic scholarly circles. In his 1874 book titled
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science,
John William Draper, a scientist and contemporary of
Charles Darwin, criticized the Catholic Church for its disapproval of "the
Mohammedan theory of the evolution of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present condition in the long lapse of time". However, Draper's book has been criticized by more recent scholars as lacking historical accuracy. In the 19th century, a scholar of
Islamic revival,
Jamal-al-Din al-Afghānī criticised Darwin's theory of evolution in his Book
The truth about the Neicheiri sect and an explanation of the Neicheiris. In this he asks some rhetorical questions on how Darwin would explain certain phenomena with evolutionary theory and claims
what answer could he [i.e. Darwin]
give except to bite his tongue? and comes to the conclusion:
Only the imperfect reesemblance between man and monkey has cast this unfortunate man [i.e. Darwin]
into the desert of fantasies, and in order to control his heart, he has clung to a few vain fancies. He also believed that there was competition in the realm of ideas similar to that of nature. However, he believed explicitly that life itself was created by God; Darwin did not discuss the origin of life, saying only "Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some primordial form, into which life was first breathed." A contemporary of Al-Afghani, Ottoman-Lebanese Sunni scholar Hussein al-Jisr, declared that there is no contradiction between evolution and the Islamic scriptures. He stated that "there is no evidence in the Quran to suggest whether all species, each of which exists by the grace of God, were created all at once or gradually", and referred to the aforementioned story of creation in Sūrat al-Anbiyā. The late Ottoman intellectual Ismail Fennî, while personally rejecting Darwinism, insisted that it should be taught in schools as even false theories contributed to the improvement of science. He held that interpretations of the Quran might require amendment should Darwinism eventually be shown to be true. In
Kemalist Turkey, important scholars strove to accommodate the theory of evolution in Islamic scripture during the first decades of the Turkish Republic; their approach to the theory defended Islamic belief in the face of scientific theories of their times. The Saudi Arabian government, on the other hand, began funding and promoting denial of evolution in the 1970s in accordance to its
Salafi-
Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. This stance garnered criticism from the governments and academics of mainline Muslim countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Iran,
21st century In the contemporary era, a significant minority of Muslims who support evolution exist, but evolution is not accepted by mainstream scholars of the post-colonial Muslim world. Although evolutionary concepts, including natural selection, are presented in the curricula in many Muslim countries, explicit discussion of human evolution is often missing. With the exception of Pakistan, though, religious references are not common in evolutionary science curricula. Khalid Anees, of the
Islamic Society of Britain, discussed the relationship between Islam and
evolution in 2004:Islam also has its own school of
Evolutionary creationism/Theistic evolutionism, which holds that mainstream scientific analysis of the origin of the universe is supported by the Quran. Many Muslims believe in evolutionary creationism, especially among
Sunni and
Shia Muslims and the
Liberal movements within Islam. Among scholars of Islam
İbrahim Hakkı of Erzurum who lived in
Erzurum then
Ottoman Empire now
Republic of Turkey in the 18th century is famous for stating that 'between plants and animals there is sponge, and, between animals and humans there is monkey'. Contemporary Islamic scholars
Ghulam Ahmed Pervez,
Edip Yüksel, and T. O. Shanavas in his book,
Islamic Theory of Evolution: the Missing Link between Darwin and the Origin of Species, say that there is no contradiction between the scientific theory of evolution and Quran's numerous references to the emergence of life in the universe. While Muslim scholars reject
Young Earth creationism, and claim the story of creation in the Book of Genesis was corrupted, a movement has begun to emerge recently in some Muslim countries promoting themes that have been characteristic of Christian creationists. has received criticism, due to claims that the Quran and Bible are incompatible. According to
the Guardian newspaper, some British Muslim students have distributed leaflets on campus, advocating against Darwin's theory of evolution. also known by his pen-name Harun Yahya, is a Muslim advocate against the
theory of evolution. He has been referred to as a "charlatan" by a joint declaration of Muslim scholars, and his representative at a conference on Islam and evolution in January 2013 was ridiculed during and after the conference. Most of Yahya's information is taken from the
Institute for Creation Research and the
Intelligent Design movement in the United States. Oktar largely uses the Internet to promote his ideas.
Maurice Bucaille, famous in the Muslim world for his commentary on the
Quran and science, attempted to reconcile evolution with the Quran by accepting animal evolution up to early hominid species, and then positing a separate hominid evolution leading to modern humans. However, these ideas differ from the theory of evolution as accepted by biologists.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a prominent Iranian religious scholar, is also a supporter of creationism and refuses evolution for the "chance-like mechanism embedded in the process", the inconsistencies present within, and for the emendations that the theory had undergone since its inception; this view is similarly held by a former pupil of Nasr's,
Osman Bakar. In 2017, Turkey announced plans to end the teaching evolution before the university level, with the government claiming it is too complicated and "controversial" a topic to be understood by young minds. The popular internet Arab-Canadian
Salafi scholar
Abu Iyaad has made articles and held recorded public speeches dealing with evolution and Islam. He made articles analyzing Darwinian evolution, saying that it is incompatible with classical Islamic thought. But in his later articles he made a distinction between
Microevolution and
Macroevolution, and started to argue that Charles Darwin had only found proof of Microevolution and not the latter. And in one article he had a discussion with a real Darwinist, and concluded it was lawful for Muslims to accept Microevolution but not Macroevolution.
Human and Adamic Exceptionalism Nuh Ha Mem Keller, a scholar of Islam and
sheikh has several issues with evolution which can be broken down to three categorical criticisms. He claims it does a) not fulfill
Poppers criterion of
falsifiablity and not evidence for
macroevolution exists, b) limit God's
omnipotence, because of
natural selection c) contradicts the
Adamic Exceptionalism, according to which even if the rest of creation would have been the result of evolution, man had been created by Allah with such creation being afforded a special consideration and thus separates man from the evolutional path other living beings go through. Everything else would be
kufr. In an article in the Journal on Religion and Science
Zygon Shoaib Malik and Elvira Kulieva lay open the possibility of fasifiability, point out his narrow use of
naturalism and that he claims consensus on topics muslim scholars still are debating, because scriptures are not clear enough. Contemporary scholar
Yasir Qadhi similarly believes that the idea that humans evolved is against the Quran, but says that God may have placed humanity perfectly into an evolutionary pattern to give the appearance of human evolution. David Solomon Jalajel, an Islamic author, proclaims an Adamic exceptionalism view of evolution which encourages the theological use of
tawaqquf; a
tawaqquf is to make no argument for or against a matter to which scripture possesses no declarations for. With
tawaqquf, Jalajel believes that Adam's creation does not necessarily signal the beginning of humanity as the Quran makes no declaration as to whether or not human beings were on Earth before Adam had descended. As a result, Jalajel invokes
tawaqquf which insinuates that it is possible for humans to exist or not exist before the appearance of Adam on earth with either belief being possible due to the Quran, and that it is possible that an intermingling of Adam's descendants and other humans may or may not have occurred. Thus, the existence of Adam is a miracle since the Quran directly states it to be, but it does not assert there being no humans who could have existed at the time of Adam's appearance on earth and who could have came about as a result of evolution. This viewpoint stands in contrast to creationism and human exceptionalism, ultimately declaring that evolution could be viewed without conflict with Islam and that Muslims could either accept or reject "human evolution on its scientific merits without reference to the story of Adam". == Statistics ==