I expect ask.ghamidi.org to not censor this question as nothing in this question is objectionable. I also expect that ask.ghamidi.org will read the question fully before replying, specifically addressing the question in this post. I consider ask.ghamidi.org the only place where people can candidly ask difficult questions, so please keep the question open even after a response so I can respond back.

This question is big but it needs to be in order to present the case. There are certain types of questions that can’t be simply asked in two lines and I am sure ask.ghamidi.org respects that.

We all know that both Science (God’s action) and Scripture (God’s words) should be consistent with one another. Otherwise why call a Hindu or Christian misguided if you are to just follow what everyone says without proof. You’ll then simply be in Islam because you were born in it. This is like saying ‘I’m Muslim’ only because my parents told me it is true. Neither scientific truth nor religious truth can come out of such an attitude.

Seeing this I did some digging deep in the topic of Creation of Man in Quran and wanted to see if the account of Evolution matches with it or not. I am already familiar with the stance of Ghamidi Sir on this, so please don’t send a canned response but address the specific issue I am speaking about.

I found some verses in Quran that do point towards Evolution, but there are few that deny it uncontested.

So let’s roll our sleeves and see what evidences of Evolution we can find in Quran.

Most Convincing Ones:

71:17 And caused you to grow from Earth like a Plant.

11:61 Produced you from Earth and settled you therein.

29:20 Travel the Earth and see how the creation began.

2:21 O humanity, worship your Lord who created you and those before you, so that you may become mindful (of Him). (God is addressing the whole of humanity, not just people present there, that there were those who were before them)

4:133 If He wills, He can do away with you, O mankind, and bring others. For Allah has power to do that. (Again, whole of mankind is addressed)

3:33 Indeed, Allah has chosen Adam and Noah and family of Ibrahim and family of Imran over the Worlds. (Adam was chosen among whom?)

3:34 Descendants some of them from others… (These two verses show that Adam too had descendants unlike the popular belief that Adam was the first human)

32:7 The One Who created everything good and He began the creation of human out of clay. (The Arabic word ‘Bada’ refers to beginning creation out of clay. Beginning something means beginning step by step. This could refer to Clay Polymerization theory of Abiogenesis where clay were the best medium for protection of cell’s membranes of primitive single-celled organisms 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.)

6:2 He is the One who created you from clay, then decreed a term. And a term specified with Him, yet you doubt. (‘You’ could refer to whole of life and not just humans. As there is a mention of a term or time period is mentioned in this verse. Single-celled organisms that were first formed on Earth 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago took a time period to reach to us i.e. Homo Sapiens)

15:26 And when your Lord said to the angels, “I am creating a human being from clay, made of decayed black mud. (When we look at the description of the type of clay often mentioned in Quran we get the idea of decayed or gluey mud or clay, this is very close the the scientific account of abiogenesis of clay polymerization because it proposes that in early geological history clay hydrogel provided a confinement function for biomolecules and biochemical reactions. In ancient seawater, clay forms a hydrogel – a mass of microscopic spaces capable of soaking up liquids like a sponge. Over billions of years, chemicals confined in those spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually all the machinery that makes a living cell work. Clay hydrogels could have confined and protected those chemical processes until the membrane that surrounds living cells developed)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131105132027.htm

Vague Ones:

77:16-17 Did we not destroy the ancients, then follow them up with the later ones?

32:9 Then He perfected him and breathed into him from His spirit…

76:28 We created them and strengthened their form and when we will, we can change their likeness with a change. (This verse seems to talk about future Evolution of humans)

6:133 …If He wills, He can do away with you and give succession after you to whomever He wills, just as He initiated you from the descendants of other people.

76:1 Has there not come upon human a period of time when he was nothing to be mentioned? (This long period cannot be 9 to 10 months of human in womb of her mother but previous human form that didn’t read, write or use intellect as it’s a long period ago we Homo Genus were like that)

71:14 And indeed, He created you in diverse stages.

82:7 Who created you, fashioned you, and perfected your design,

7:11 Surely We created you, then shaped you, then said to the angels, “Prostrate before Adam,”…

56:61 from replacing you with others like you, and creating you (afresh) in that (form) which you do not know.

Problematic Ones:

4:1 O Mankind! Be mindful of your Lord, who created you from a single self and created from it its mate, and from them spread many men and women… (‘Nafs’ doesn’t mean soul but self.)

Now this is where the problem comes. This ‘Nafs’ or self can’t be single-celled organism. Because God said He created from it its mate and dispersed with it many “men and women”, the arabic words used are ‘Rajal’ and ‘Nisa’. So my question to free thinkers here is, can ‘men and women’ in this verse be also translated as ‘males and females’ without being intellectually dishonest? If yes, and if the style of arabic in this verse permits this, then evolutionary theory will be proven from Quran without doubt otherwise we still will have to believe it is talking about Hawa created from Adam’s rib story as in the Hadiths and in the Bible.

Another verse of this type is the following:

7:189 He is the One Who created you from a single self, then from it made its mate so he may find comfort in her…

The story in the above verse is talking about this being/self to have asked God for a good child to be born to his wife and thereby did ‘Shirk’ once God granted him that. This too can’t be talking about single-celled organism.

21:35 Every single ‘Nafs’ will taste death…

We know that ‘Nafs’ will taste death and ‘Nafs’ can be animal, plant or human, as all can die. There is no Adam specifically mentioned in these verses. But the problem comes when the above two verses are researched they clearly say that it is talking about Adam and Eve instead of single celled organism 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago to have come to us after evolution.

So I am really confused now, in some places God is saying He created us like plants, produced us from Earth, produced us in stages, took time to create us etc. then He is also saying that He created the single Nafs’s mate from itself and then produced men and women. Which account is true? How do we know?

If anyone is familiar with this problem or want to shed light or give his two cents, I would highly regard and love him for his opinion. Thank you so much for listening to me.

If you’re someone who just denies the Evolution, then please address these issues before explaining me how wrong am I to believe in Evolution.

Saying Evolution is just a theory is very naïve, theory of Gravity, theory of Plate Tectonics, theory Atom and theory of Big Bang are also theories. Theory in science is falsifiable (it’s not the same as the English word ‘theory’) and if you believe you can disprove it, go write a scientific white paper that discredits this 150 year old theory once and for all, as it is falsifiable (for 150 years no one did). Simply find a fossil of giant humans or of creatures that do not match with fossil records or find fossils that are older of newer species or find something wrong with gene theory. The scientists do not argue over whether evolution is correct or not, they just debate on details of it, no one rejects the whole structure of the theory.

If Evolution is not true then how do you explain fossils of hominids, hominins and human-like apes not to mention fossils of variety of species of animal kingdom we find on Earth. Did devil put all over the Earth those fossils to confuse us? No! Neither we find human fossils along with fossils that are of older genus and species in layers of Earth. Even the latest layers of Earth we find new fossils and in old ones we find the older fossils of older species. All this you can study on your own. We can’t just put our head in the sand and say this is all stupid. No Sir! Being a Muslim, we have to be true to ourselves and others no matter what popular opinion there is among Muslims.

Forget about fossils, we now even have Genes to look at. We have even mapped genome of Neanderthals. We have mapped Homo Sapiens genome through which we know that we all evolved in Africa. See this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sC1gxFvCqQ Even babies born with vestigial tail, goosebumps, wisdom teeth, appendix, blind spots, vestigial muscles, palmer reflex, all point to evolution as we have these remnants that have no good function left for us now. See this > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFxu7NEoKC8

All such arguments that if Evolution is true then why there are still Monkeys roaming around and we Human are highly dignified to have evolved from Monkeys etc. The problem with all these arguments is that Truth is always bitter, whether you still believe Earth is at the center of the Solar System or Earth is flat and feel good about it. Truth is not about feeling good. Feeling good and truth are two separate things. There are still Monkeys around because there is not need for their Evolution, Evolution doesn’t say that all species will eventually always Evolve whether there is a need for them to or not, they only Evolve when there is need, like we did, 80 million years ago as primates and then 1.5 million years being Upright Man, 750,000 years ago as Stone Tool Makers and 200,000 years ago as Homo Sapiens as we are today.

As far as the argument of Human dignity is concerned, Our Prophet’s uncle were Abu Lahab and Abu Jahal. This doesn’t mean that linage had any influence on our Prophet’s honesty and piousness. Who told you that your association with a group of people based on kinship or your origin as a species will define who you will become? If lets say your father is a thief, being born of him will make you a thief as well? Even if we are born of a Monkey (which is not true, we were born from a common ancestor of Humans and Chimpanzees that was neither Human nor Chimpanzee) but for the sake of argument, lets just say that, does it mean that one night we slept and woke up in morning and realized that we’re not a monkey anymore?

Evolution happens in millions of years of time period, all the generations before you were exactly like you, this is how gradual it is. This is so gradual that even saying a cat can’t become a dog is moot. Even species that turn to other species by turning to a new branch in evolutionary tree is so gradual and there are so many intermediatory forms in between that saying a species can’t turn to another species is joke in evolutionary time scales of millions of years. You don’t see those intermediaries in between because their fossil records show that 95% of all animals that ever lived have died. Yes! We, along with all animals and plants are the 5% leftovers (successful ones) who survived.

Thank you!