Creationism, Minus a Young Earth, Emerges in the Islamic World

[Ramadhan]

It is interesting to see that creationism is now getting foothold in Islamic countries after years of blindly following theory of evolution.
I remember when I was in school, we were taught exclusively evolution theory in biology classes.


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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/sc...ted=1&_r=1&hpw

Creationism, Minus a Young Earth, Emerges in the Islamic World



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By KENNETH CHANG
Published: November 2, 2009

AMHERST, Mass. — Creationism is growing in the Muslim world, from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia, international academics said last month as they gathered here to discuss the topic.

ORIGINS Darwin's finches on the Islamic symbol in art work used at a conference in Massachusetts about the acceptance of evolution among Muslims.

But, they said, young-Earth creationists, who believe God created the universe, Earth and life just a few thousand years ago, are rare, if not nonexistent.

One reason is that although the Koran, the holy text of Islam, says the universe was created in six days, the next line adds that a day, in this instance, is metaphorical: “a thousand years of your reckoning.”

By contrast, some Christian creationists find in the Bible a strict chronology that requires a 6,000-year-old Earth and thus object not only to evolution but also to much of modern geology and cosmology, which say the Earth and the universe are billions of years old.

“Views of scientific evolution are clearly influenced by underlying religious beliefs,” said Salman Hameed, who convened the two-day conference here at Hampshire College, where he is a professor of integrated science and humanities. “There is no young-Earth creationism.”

But that does not mean that all of evolution fits Islam or that all Muslims happily accept the findings of modern biology. More and more seem to be joining the ranks of the so-called old-Earth creationists. They do not quarrel with astronomers and geologists, just biologists, insisting that life is the creation of God, not the happenstance consequence of random occurrences.

The debate over evolution is only now gaining prominence in many Islamic countries as education improves and more students are exposed to the ideas of modern biology.

The degree of acceptance of evolution varies among Islamic countries.

Research led by the Evolution Education Research Center at McGill University, in Montreal, found that high school biology textbooks in Pakistan covered the theory of evolution. Quotations from the Koran at the beginning of the chapters are chosen to suggest that the religion and the theory coexist harmoniously.

In a survey of 2,527 Pakistani high school students conducted by the McGill researchers and their international collaborators, 28 percent of the students agreed with the creationist sentiment, “Evolution is not a well-accepted scientific fact.” More than 60 percent disagreed, and the rest were not sure.

Eighty-six percent agreed with this statement: “Millions of fossils show that life has existed for billions of years and changed over time.”

The situation in Turkey is different and changed only in the past couple of decades. One of the conference participants, Taner Edis, said he never encountered creationist undertones when he was growing up in Turkey in the 1970s. “I first noticed creationism when I came to America for graduate school,” said Dr. Edis, now a professor of physics at Truman State University in Missouri. He thought it an American oddity.

Some years later, while browsing a bookstore on a visit to Turkey, Dr. Edis found books about creationism filed in the science section. “It actually caught me by surprise,” he said.

In Turkey, officially a secular government but now ruled by an Islamic party, the teaching of evolution has largely disappeared, at least below the university level, and the science curriculum in public schools is written in deference to religious beliefs, Dr. Edis said.

Harun Yahya, a Turkish creationist of the old-Earth variety, has gained prominence in Turkey and elsewhere. A quarter of a world away, most of the biology teachers in Indonesia use Mr. Yahya’s creationist books in their classrooms, the McGill researchers found, although some said they did that to provide counterarguments to materials their students were reading anyway.

In the McGill research, fewer students in Indonesia than in Pakistan thought evolution a well-accepted scientific fact, yet 85 percent agreed that fossils showed that life had existed for billions of years and changed over time.

The quality of biology education “varies highly depending on what country you’re in and what school you’re in,” said Jason R. Wiles, a professor of biology at Syracuse University and associate director of the McGill center.

In addition, the situation in Iran, where the Shiite sect of Islam dominates, may be far different than in neighboring Iraq, where Sunnis are more numerous. There is no single leader, like the Roman Catholic pope, who can dictate an official view that holds for all Muslims.

Even finding out how different countries teach evolution can be difficult, Dr. Hameed said. Saudi Arabia, for example, does not let foreigners see the biology textbooks. “We don’t have much information,” he said.

For many Muslims, even evolution and the notion that life flourished without the intervening hand of Allah is largely compatible with their religion. What many find unacceptable is human evolution, the idea that humans evolved from primitive primates. The Koran states that Allah created Adam, the first man, separately out of clay.

Pervez A. Hoodbhoy, a prominent atomic physicist at Quaid-e-Azam University in Pakistan, said that when he gave lectures covering the sweep of cosmological history from the Big Bang to the evolution of life on Earth, the audience listened without objection to most of it. “Everything is O.K. until the apes stand up,” Dr. Hoodbhoy said.

Mentioning human evolution led to near riots, and he had to be escorted out. “That’s the one thing that will never be possible to bridge,” he said. “Your lineage is what determines your worth.”

Biology education, even in places like Pakistan that otherwise teach evolution, largely omits the question of where humans came from.

Some academics at the conference worried that the rejection of some aspects of evolution might leave Islamic countries at a disadvantage in scientific education. Dr. Hameed said a negative reaction to evolutionary theory could reflect a struggle to retain cultural traditions and values against Western influences, even though Islamic creationists readily borrowed many of the arguments from Western creationists, just removing the young-Earth aspects.

There is some indication that in the West, where non-Islamic influences are strongest, Islamic creationism may be stronger in reaction to the outside pressure. For example, high school students at Islamic schools in and near Toronto were far more doubting of evolution than students in Indonesia or Pakistan, the McGill researchers found. A majority of the students at the Canadian Islamic schools disagreed that a significant body of data supported evolution and that all life came from the same common ancestors.

At the same time, many of the Canadian Muslims even acquired young-Earth creationist beliefs, which are thoroughly Western in origin. Only half the students surveyed at the Islamic schools in the Toronto area thought fossils showed that life had existed for billions of years and had changed over time, compared with the 86 percent of the students in Pakistan.

In a study financed by the National Science Foundation, Dr. Hameed and his colleagues will survey the beliefs of Muslim doctors in five Muslim countries — Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan and Turkey — and compare them with Muslim doctors in non-Muslim countries — Turkish doctors in Germany, Pakistani doctors in Britain, and Turkish and Pakistani doctors in the United States.

“We actually expect, especially in Europe, where they have a harder time merging in the culture,” Dr. Hameed said, “harsher rejection of evolution in England and Germany” than in Muslim countries.

[Woodrow]

Sounds promising. But a few words in the article cause me concern. I put the words that concern me, in bold and kept the surrounding context.

The situation in Turkey is different and changed only in the past couple of decades. One of the conference participants, Taner Edis, said he never encountered creationist undertones when he was growing up in Turkey in the 1970s. “I first noticed creationism when I came to America for graduate school,” said Dr. Edis, now a professor of physics at Truman State University in Missouri. He thought it an American oddity.

Some years later, while browsing a bookstore on a visit to Turkey, Dr. Edis found books about creationism filed in the science section. “It actually caught me by surprise,” he said.


Some academics at the conference worried that the rejection of some aspects of evolution might leave Islamic countries at a disadvantage in scientific education. Dr. Hameed said a negative reaction to evolutionary theory could reflect a struggle to retain cultural traditions and values against Western influences, even though Islamic creationists readily borrowed many of the arguments from Western creationists, just removing the young-Earth aspects.



At the same time, many of the Canadian Muslims even acquired young-Earth creationist beliefs, which are thoroughly Western in origin. Only half the students surveyed at the Islamic schools in the Toronto area thought fossils showed that life had existed for billions of years and had changed over time, compared with the 86 percent of the students in Pakistan.

Now my concern is are the children being taught creationism using the Qur'an as a source. Or is something else being used as the teaching source? What I noted above makes this sound like the Creationism that is taught by some Fundamentalist Christian Sects

[Trumble]

A quarter of a world away, most of the biology teachers in Indonesia use Mr. Yahya’s creationist books in their classrooms, the McGill researchers found, although some said they did that to provide counterarguments to materials their students were reading anyway.

I'm afraid it's a dark day for civilization in general and Indonesia in particular when Yahya's garbage starts appearing in science classrooms. It's sad people are so desperate to prop up religious beliefs (or perhaps desperate to avoid offending the clerics?) they reject perhaps the best empirically evidenced scientific theory in history for a mix of ignorant pseudo-scientific goobledigook and fairy story that has no scientific credibility whatsoever.

Next stop.. back to the Dark Ages.

[Supreme]

Teach creationism, by all means. But not in science classes. No serious scientist believes in creationism, particularly young Earth creationism.

[JaffaCake]

It seems terribly inconsistent (and a touch amusing) that Muslims constantly try to hammer home the point that we should be so grateful for the Islamic golden age because countless scientific advances can be credited directly to the positive attitude of Islam towards knowledge and learning.

As soon as science confirms something which goes against Islamic teachings it becomes a corrupt atheistic or 'Western' plot to undermine the truth for some unknown reason.

[aamirsaab]

It seems terribly inconsistent (and a touch amusing) that Muslims constantly try to hammer home the point that we should be so grateful for the Islamic golden age because countless scientific advances can be credited directly to the positive attitude of Islam towards knowledge and learning.

As soon as science confirms something which goes against Islamic teachings it becomes a corrupt atheistic or 'Western' plot to undermine the truth for some unknown reason.

Not really. There are some muslims who believe in evolution and that creationism is metaphorical. My personal belief is evolution does not remove God from the equation. My brain is awesome like that.

[YusufNoor]

I'm afraid it's a dark day for civilization in general and Indonesia in particular when Yahya's garbage starts appearing in science classrooms. It's sad people are so desperate to prop up religious beliefs (or perhaps desperate to avoid offending the clerics?) they reject perhaps the best empirically evidenced scientific theory in history for a mix of ignorant pseudo-scientific goobledigook and fairy story that has no scientific credibility whatsoever.

Next stop.. back to the Dark Ages.

while you may be right about Yahya, but, erm, you are Buddhist aren't you?

where is your scientific evidence for reincarnation? or coming back as a bug? or a hyena?

perhaps you could make your house out of Pyrex instead glass, eh?

back on topic, why the heck were Muslim countries teaching evolution?

[JaffaCake]

Not really. There are some muslims who believe in evolution and that creationism is metaphorical. My personal belief is evolution does not remove God from the equation. My brain is awesome like that.

What can I say, I'm happy you're not a hypocrite

From my experience is seems that people like yourself are in the minority. Out of interest, is there an official ruling on it? For example, what is the validity of these:
Falseness of evolution (ignoring the strawman nature of the question)
Sci-fi scientists

[aamirsaab]

What can I say, I'm happy you're not a hypocrite

From my experience is seems that people like yourself are in the minority. Out of interest, is there an official ruling on it? For example, what is the validity of these:
Falseness of evolution (ignoring the strawman nature of the question)
Sci-fi scientists

I don't wish to cause a debate on the matter (I'm not that knowledgeable in the field AND I know this issue is considered controversial amongst many) but as muslims we are encouraged to explore this world and everything in it. There is a tendency amongst some muslims to say this or that is haram end of. When really, we should discuss these issues in depth, intellectually speaking.

I'd go further into this discussion but I'm rushed for time at the minute; suffice to say this particular issue and many like it do need exploring within the muslim world at the very least.

[Trumble]

while you may be right about Yahya, but, erm, you are Buddhist aren't you?

where is your scientific evidence for reincarnation? or coming back as a bug? or a hyena?

perhaps you could make your house out of Pyrex instead glass, eh?

You are missing the point. I wouldn't deny for a minute that Buddhists have no more 'scientific evidence' for their core beliefs than muslims or Christians have for theirs. But those religious and/or philosophical beliefs are not taught as science; and there is no pretense that they are science. If people want to peddle Yayha's nonsense in religious studies or philosophy class that's fine, but teachers pretending it is science are a disgrace to their profession.

back on topic, why the heck were Muslim countries teaching evolution?

Because they are teaching science, the prevailing theories of which cannot be dismissed just because they are religiously inconvenient. Science has no room for revealed religion, just empirical evidence, experiment and the scientific method. Even Michael Behe, the man who came up with modern 'Intelligent Design' theory, which has far more scientific 'credibility' than anything Yahya has ever dreamt up, admitted - in Court - that if ID was to be classed as science, then astrology would have to be as well.