In the holy Quran chapter 18, called “The Cave” – Surah Al-Kahf, we are told three beautiful stories from which one can truly gain wisdom and guidance of God by His will. However, the story of the companions of the cave, which this Surah (Chapter) is named after is of particular interest since this was used as point of argument against Continue Reading

When Darwin first published his treatise Origin of Species in 1859, he stirred a thunderous opposition from religious groups. The religious opposition was based, mainly, upon two factors:

1. Darwin asserted – with convincing proofs – that the universe was not made in six days, as described in the Bible, but in a very long time with so many stages between the first state and the present form;

2. He denied – without any valid reason, of course – the need of a Supreme Being (God) in the scheme of the universe.

The Jews and Christians of that time believed in the biblical six day-creation quite literally; they could not swallow the idea of the protracted creation easily. Thus the conflict between Christianity and science reached its climax in the later half of the 19th century.

But how does Islam answer against Darwinism?

The Quran also says that the skies and the earth were created in six “ayyaams”.

The word “ayyaam” has two meanings however; “days” and/or “periods”

According to every Islamic commentator, the word “ayyaam” means “periods” when used in the context of the creation of the world.

The concept of “relativity of time” and the difference between “ayyaam” meaning a days and “ayyaam” meaning a periods are amazingly justified when we look at following verses of the Quran:

He directed the ordinance from Heaven to the Earth, then it descended to him in a Day, the measure of which is a Thousand years by your reckoning.  (Quran 32:5)

The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a Day, the Span of which is fifty thousand years. 70:4.
So be patient with admirable patience. (Quran 70:5)
They see it to be far off, (Quran 70:6)
But We see it to be near. (Quran 70:7)
The day when the heaven will become like molten copper (Quran 70:9)
And the mountains will become like flakes of wool (Quran 70:10)
And a friend will not inquire after a friend (Quran 70:11)

So, obviously an earthly “Day” is not equal in duration to a heavenly “Day”; as the Quran informs us a heavenly day could be equal to thousand of our years or thousands and millions of the earthly days.

Therefore, Islamic thought based on the verses of the Quran has nothing against the theory of gradual creation, which is embodied in the what some call “evolution”.

More importantly, Islam sees no need for re-interpreting its religious views – as some Christians have now been forced to do in order to cover Christianity’s defeat by the scientific discoveries.

Quranic message has been parallel with the said view more than one thousand years before Darwin.

However, it must be mentioned here that the acceptance of gradual creation does not mean that Islam and the Quran endorse the hypothesis of “evolution”.

The evolutionists claim that:

1. Living beings change from generation to generation producing descendants with new characteristics;
2. This process has produced all the groups and forms of living organism, which are now living as well as those now extinct.
3. All different living things are related to each other.

This is while for such claims, the evolutionist still do not have a single fossil-evidence to show that a member of lower species developed into a higher species. It is for this reason that Dr. T.N Tahmisian (a physician for the Atomic Energy Commission) said:

“Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact”

It is one thing to say, (which the fossils and scientific supports) that god created this universe in stages and created the things and living beings on earth one after another with time gaps in between; and quite another, as the Darwinists or neo-Darwinists say (with no evidence to prove) that the living things on this earth developed from non-living matter, that dead matter managed to organise itself into living cells by chance, and that unicellular organisms developed stage by stage to become a human being with intelligence and conscious.