Assalamu Alaikum.
Please note.
1)-That the Earth has to be billions of years old for the theory of evolution to be true.Evolution is a slow process that requires billions of years.Hence,if the Earth is let us say,only a few thousands or even some hundred of thousand years old,Evolution cannot occur and this theory is false.
2)-The Presenter is a Christian.The Quran has ordered us Muslims to judge previous scriptures by using the Quran as criterian,i.e,that which agrees with the Quran,Muslims agree that it is the truth.And that part of the scriptures,which disagree with the Quran,we disregard them.The Presenter presents Bible verses throughout his presentation.And they are in agreement with the Islamic view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_OlX7M5MLA
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Moreover,this person is also a Zionist.I recommend you not to listen to his videos other than Evolution and his debates with Evolutionists.
I am not sure of this. If you keep your conclusions based on facts...not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice...then it should not mislead other Muslims. As a scientist your goal is to discover the unknown, not to persuade Muslims into atheism.
Under these conditions, the knowledge of this particular atheist scientist, could still bring Muslims closer to Allah....and therefore be beneficial.
In fact...isn't all knowledge beneficial? of course there can be personal information sometimes which is better for you to not know...but I mean knowledge in general...can that be unbeneficial, and if yes, can you give one example of unbeneficial knowledge?
How I think about unbeneficial knowledge is this:
knowledge is like a weapon. in the hands of the goods, the weapon is good. in the hands of the wrong, the weapon is bad. But the weapon on its own is good nor bad.
the same with knowledge. The same knowledge who brings someone closer to Allah can cause some other away from Allah and therefore becom unbeneficial for this person.
like evolution...evolution appearantly was unbeneficial to Darwin...but to me personally it is beneficial knowledge because know I understand better how Allah created us Alhamdulillah.
Evolution aside, the topic about knowledge in general, whether good or bad is really mind boggling to me. I am a strong believer that gaining knowledge in general is good, and just like you said, it depends upon the person who learns it and how it affect him or how he uses it. But at the same time, we have things like black magic, where in islam, people are encouraged to not even to go close to it. It is even said that a person who goes to a sooth sayer for fun or laughs wont have his salat accepted for 40 days or something.
So it really is an unclear topic which feels like you cant really get a definitive answer. On one hand, logic and parts of the religion promotes all learning, and other parts such as things related to black magic tells us another ... opinions?
Evolution aside, the topic about knowledge in general, whether good or bad is really mind boggling to me. I am a strong believer that gaining knowledge in general is good, and just like you said, it depends upon the person who learns it and how it affect him or how he uses it. But at the same time, we have things like black magic, where in islam, people are encouraged to not even to go close to it. It is even said that a person who goes to a sooth sayer for fun or laughs wont have his salat accepted for 40 days or something.
So it really is an unclear topic which feels like you cant really get a definitive answer. On one hand, logic and parts of the religion promotes all learning, and other parts such as things related to black magic tells us another ... opinions?
Oh yes, you are absolutely right.
things like seeking contact with jinns and asking them to help you do something...sihr and other kinds of black magic...that is indeed an area in knowledge we can question whether it can be beneficial or not.
When you look into evolution and carefully study it, you will find that the logic behind it is almost infallible (i say almost!).
HOWEVER, when it comes to the origins of humans. Thats where we, as muslims, draw the line. This is because there are plenty of saheeh ahadeeths (From what i have been told) that talk about the formation of Adam and is origins, so we cannot say that evolution applies to him. On the other hand, there is no mention of the origins of the other living creatures on earth, and that is why we can apply the theory of evolution to other earthly beings without contradicting our Religion. Hope this clears things up a little ...
wa alaikum assalam
Living things were created at the most "appropriate" time for them. That doesn't make bacteria "evolved" to .....to reptiles. There was gradual appearance of organism.
I have no problem with "descent with modification" concept, but I definitely have with the unsubstantiated conjecture of microbe-to-man evolution=neo-darwinism. All supposed evidence for this conjecture make perfect sense in the light of creation. They can merely be consistent with evolutionary theory (which they aren’t-revise the example of marsupials mentioned earlier in this thread!) — not evidence for the theory.
maybe usefull to share with you the analogy that made me see the connection between science (like evolution) and Islam.
As an electrical engineer, I see Islam like a code, a program, software. We have no access to it, because we do not understand the language.
The only thing we have are some instructions how to work with it which is the Quran.
I see the creation as the hardware. you can see it, you can observe it.
together it is an unknown machine that does what is designed for, operated by the software programmed into it.
we can study this unknown machine and look at its motors and other parts, observe how it functions and moves, and investigate it.
by doing this, we can reconstruate some of the software of this machine bit by bit.
usually, this reconstruated software and the actual software should match each other...if the scientists have done their jobs correctly and they did not jump into conclusions.
Of course there will be small differences in detail...because you are trying to reconstruct something unknown...but if you discovered this difference, you can correct this and you have made another step in unraveling the software.
I hope this analogy can be of use for you.
He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Perfection, the Bestower of Faith, the Overseer, the Exalted in Might, the Compeller, the Superior. Exalted is Allah above whatever they associate with Him [59:23]
Evolution aside, the topic about knowledge in general, whether good or bad is really mind boggling to me. I am a strong believer that gaining knowledge in general is good, and just like you said, it depends upon the person who learns it and how it affect him or how he uses it. But at the same time, we have things like black magic, where in islam, people are encouraged to not even to go close to it. It is even said that a person who goes to a sooth sayer for fun or laughs wont have his salat accepted for 40 days or something.
So it really is an unclear topic which feels like you cant really get a definitive answer. On one hand, logic and parts of the religion promotes all learning, and other parts such as things related to black magic tells us another ... opinions?
We say to the one who is ignorant to not study things which will lead him away.The knowledgable can.For example,you have a wicked scholor.The ignorant is adviced not to listen to him.Because he will mislead him.But the knowledgable can listen to him,for his own purposes,because he can differentiate between good and evil.
We say to the one who is ignorant to not study things which will lead him away.The knowledgable can.For example,you have a wicked scholor.The ignorant is adviced not to listen to him.Because he will mislead him.But the knowledgable can listen to him,for his own purposes,because he can differentiate between good and evil.
It's , sometimes, Difficult for a commonman to decide who's an evil scholar...?
It's , sometimes, Difficult for a commonman to decide who's an evil scholar...?
That is exactly what I am saying. It is not always easy for everyone to determine which scholar is good and which scholar is bad. you cannot look inside the scholars mind. That is why you can not compare listening to a bad scholar with listening to shaytaan.
This Harun Yahya is a perfect example of a bad scholar.
I think what brother
@azc
was trying to say goes a little bit deeper than that.
Your general approach to this (from what i can understand) is, if the Scholar is unanimously acknowledged as good then we should take his/her opinion or respect, but if not they should not be listened to. What you may be forgetting is that almost every scholar has their own group of haters that do not agree with them, so you will never be able to find a scholar that is 100% agreeable all the time.
While this still is one way we can go about it, i'd prefer to listen to all scholars, take what is good and leave what is bad. I think this is what brother azc was also trying to say. The only difference between what him and i think is the method of knowing which rule to take and which to leave. From what i understood (meaning its my opinion) by talking to him before is that he would rather determine what is right or wrong by determining how many scholars agree to such a ruling. While this is a good way to determine the validity of that ruling, it is not the only way of validation. I personally would also depend on the 2 beautiful gifts that Allah has bestowed upon us if the rulings still don’t seem justifiable. Those gifts are our intellect and sense of moral compass. And if neither are giving the person a strong indication of whats right or wrong, then the person has no option but to resort to the general consensus of the scholars
In the end, the situation is not black and white like we'd like it to be, rather there is much grey in the middle than the black and white.
Still though ... this shouldnt be a reason for us to divide or lose respect for one another.
I don't disrespect though but stay away from them.
I respect the knowledge of Quran and hadith they've. If they are indifferent of their duty and onus as a scholar is their fault, for which they're accountable on judgement day.
Allah swt has given us the reason to differentiate the truth and false ;but I don't believe in character assassination of common Muslims let alone scholars
Great post TCO!!!
@azc
İ am sorry. You are right. The mistake İ have been making is that that which is obviously wrong in my eyes...does not have to be wrong to someone else. Like TCO said...no scholar is 100% good or bad.
İ have been accusing AZC for being too black and white...that there were a lot of graytones in between...
But İ was making the same mistake myself.
İ am sorry.
In this video, Brother Imran Hussein gives a talk at High Wycombe Islamic Center titled Certainty in the Age of Doubt. Split into three parts, this Talk breaks down into digestible chunks, the talk which many have benefited from, and sought to further their pursuit of knowledge based on the Qur'an.
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... opinions?
and is origins, so we cannot say that evolution applies to him. On the other hand, there is no mention of the origins of the other living creatures on earth, and that is why we can apply the theory of evolution to other earthly beings without contradicting our Religion. Hope this clears things up a little ...
love it when the gems drop like this 
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