The Quran and Evolution by Dr. Yasir Qadhi

[Music] so money from Blackwell to LA he bought a car too I began by praising Allah subhana WA Ta'ala and asking Allah to Center salat and Salam upon the prophets of Allah starting with adam alayhis-salam and ending with our prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa seldom we as muslims we need to understand that the theory of evolution pretty much has been accepted as much of a fact as any scientific theory we need to stop deluding ourselves and saying that oh it is only a theory that's not a very academic way to phrase this rather the theory of evolution is like the theory of gravity gravity is a theory by the way the how it forms and what not it is as much of a fact amongst the scientific community as most other theories so we need to educate ourselves in this point we need to understand that the theory of evolution as it stands is a theory that takes into account certain facts that are undeniable and proposes a structure a causality a understanding of those facts in a very scientific manner it's not unscientific there are certain facts that are undeniable for example human bones for example bones of humanoid species for example a micro evolution ie an evolution of a species slightly modifying itself these are observable facts if you take certain species of flies put them in a jar and monitor them for weeks with different circumstances you will find that the Flies actually adapt to those circumstances and over the course of generations they might develop immunities they might you know develop different wings or whatnot and this is something that is undeniable these things so what the theory of evolution does it takes these facts these are undeniable facts and then proposes a system that takes into account all of these facts the reason I say this is many Muslims have never really studied the theory scientifically they've never read a book they've never really understood it and they dismiss it in a manner that is simply unscientific to say that the theory evolution is only a theory ignores the whole point to say that oh there are many holes or flaws in it the fact of the matter is and I say this as a believing Muslim and I'm going to surprise you by saying this but shallow stay with me don't don't just walk out now let me finish the whole talk I say this as a committed Muslim that's the theory of evolution from a scientific standpoint in my humble opinion with a background in science with a degree in engineering with a minor in chemistry and in math and I have a degree in chemical engineering the theory of evolution from a purely scientific standpoint in my humble opinion makes a lot of sense don't misquote me I said from a scientific standpoint it makes a lot of sense now the issue comes that we are Muslims hamdulillah we believe in a book on hemmed-in enough that book tells us a very different version of events right so we now need to formulate a response how do we reconcile what do we do when the book says X and modern science says why this is really what we need to do and we need to be mature when we do this we need to be frank we need to be honest and we need to begin by understanding that there is a very big difference between the Western paradigm and the Islamic or Eastern paradigm there's a very big difference in how the West's view science and religion and scripture and how the East or the Muslims in particular view of science and religion and scripture to be very short here to move on to the next point the West from the very beginning has that attention between religion and scripture from the very beginning the Catholic Church that was the only dominant church in in Christianity a thousand years ago the Catholic Church prevented education they wanted people to remain illiterate as we all know they did not want people to read even the Bible even the Bible they didn't want people to read it Martin Luther what made him famous one of the things that made him famous was to translate the Bible into a language that people could read German the very fact that he translated the Bible was something so big for them so from the very beginning the church and science and education had a big clash and we all know of Galileo and the persecution that he faced from the Church of so many other physicists astronomist when they propose their theories the church said no the church forced Galileo to recant and Galileo publicly had to say okay I don't believe it anymore even though in his heart he probably did whatever his theories were the theory of a rotation of the Suns and the earth around the Sun he had to publicly distance himself and towards the end of his life he had to basically go into retirement because the church forced him to stop thinking to stop publishing to stop research and this is one of many there were even people who were burnt at the stake by the church because their scientific theories clashed with Scripture so what happened the church could not withhold the tide of education first came the Renaissance and the Renaissance changed the way that Europe thought of education the Renaissance led to the Reformation the Reformation even changed Christianity the Reformation even changed Christianity and then Western culture evolved bit by bit until finally Western culture by and large apart from small pockets of what are called fundamentalist Western culture by and large has reconciled itself with its own fact and that is its Bible its religious Scripture is not a signed book of science and that its religious history has persecuted scientists and that religion should have no say in science let scientists flourish and when they flourish civilization will rise and when religious people are in charge civilization will go down that's their history and wallahi they're correct in their own history the problem comes they take their history they cut and paste and they throw it on us right and this is a problem we as Muslims need to understand that their experimentation of let's say religious states right has been a dismal failure their experimentation of religious people running a country has been nothing but more terror and more harm and more whatnot the Dark Ages was when the Chrisman was when the church ruled over them that's called the Dark Ages for us what is our history the flourishing of Islam the flourishing of Sciences occurred when under the glorious Khilafah it's the exact opposite when we were faithful to our tradition and I'm not an apologist I'm not somebody who paints everything in a rosy picture but will lie this is an undeniable fact that for over 300 years the Muslims rule the scientific world for over 800 years the Muslims were the pinnacle of human civilization when we were faithful to our tradition when we were faithful to our book we were we were the ones whom Allah blessed with every blessing worldly political scientific can every single if for a period of time the lingua franca the the the language of science was Arabic if you wanted to write anything about science just like in our times even if you're in India Africa you want to paper to be read by the world you write in English the lingua franca is English well a thousand years ago the lingua franca was Arabic Jews Christians people of all faiths when they wanted to write something of an international level they wrote in Arabic why because that was the language of culture the language of civilization our experience with science has been the exact opposite we were the ones as we all know and this is true we led the world scientifically and as our political States declined and that's another topic we don't have time to talk about now and I've spoken about in other lectures as our political States declined so too did our scientific achievements once upon a time Europeans would go to study medicine and Andaluz and this is a historical fact once upon a time people from England and Germany would go to under those to become doctors pretty much every one of you including myself either we came to study here or our parents came to study here the exact opposite right that from now in these days people from Pakistan and Egypt and Timbuktu come to America to study the exact opposite so changes occurred but one thing the Muslims never lost faith in their book at hamdulillah the Christian world by and large by and large lost faith in its book it becomes an ethical book nobody follows the Bible literally even fundamentalist Christians cannot follow the Bible literally because there are Commandments that are simply beyond them nobody is going to be stoned to death if he disobeys God on the Sabbath if you list firewood on the Sabbath you're not going to stone him to death nobody does that anymore even Orthodox Jews don't do that anymore so by and large the Christian world Jewish world simply evolved beyond the literalism of their scripture now they know from their experience that scriptural literalism is stagnancy its backwardness it causes problems when they see the Muslim world the Muslim world by and large is still literalist it is still fundamentalist it still believes in the Quran as being the word of Allah I am a Muslim and I firmly believe with every single fiber in my soul that the Quran is the divine uncorrupted speech of Allah it is the literal word of Allah now when a Christian or even a Western an American a European even if he's atheist agnostic when he hears this deja vu been there done that our civilizations had this experience that's what held us behind you guys need to get with the program you guys need to have a Reformation with the capital are you guys need to follow our footsteps we've been there done that we know these problems right and so we need to understand there is a fundamental paradigm clash between the Western world and between the Islamic world in this regard so we come along people from my generation especially I was born in the 70s grew up in the 80s people from my generation and even those who are younger than me and even those were older than me you all know we grew up hearing and reading about science in the Quran it increased our iman embryo and how its describe the life cycle the the wind the rains the mountains as pegs we grew up with a staple diet of what the Quran and modern science write and it increased our Eman it made us feel good by and large Christians have never heard any equivalent by and large the Western world doesn't have this genre of Quran and science or Bible in science because they never had the overlap we did and every single fact that we discovered and ham did Allah the Quran supported the Quran supported the Quran supported so our Iman grew and our belief in Allah grew however in the last 15 years in particular 20 years in particular one theory has come out and in my humble opinion this is the biggest clash between ever in the history of our religion we two important in science and my humble opinion there has never been a greater crisis in terms of science and the Quran then the current one that we're witnessing and that is the theory of evolution in my humble opinion no other Theory has challenged the Quranic paradigm as this theory has and this is something that we need to be brave enough to admit we need to be honest and frank enough to talk about in a very mature manner without throwing accusations of Kufa or sugar whatnot listen carefully to what is going on those who wish to talk about this topic the first thing they need to do is to educate themselves in the science most Muslims are dismal ignorant of the science of this theory most Muslims have never really studied where is this coming from they think this is global conspiracy to to to make people far away from religion and whatnot no well llahi brothers and sisters I speak to you honestly as your Muslim brother with a little bit of knowledge of science a little bit I'm not an expert but I'm not agile I have plenty of education in science as well in my humble reading of the theory of evolution this is good science don't misquote me it's good science what do I mean by that it means from the theories that they're coming from they're connecting the dots in a manner that is logical and reasonable for them this is not some global conspiracy that they're out to brainwash the Muslim world this is their paradigm their perspective for us however we have one issue that will cause us to pause what is that issue we believe the word of a lot to be true and for us the word of Allah is more scientific than any scientific fact that we have so for the first time our quote-unquote science is being challenged with Quran now again time is limited here but I ask a few more minutes because I need to really Q and it's not going to get into all of this I need to really talk a little bit about these things now a number of points we need to understand that non-muslims will never take any book of revelation and consider it to be science we don't expect them to I mean that's their paradigm do you really believe that a researcher who does not believe in the Quran will care what the Quran has to say we on the other hand well we care about what Allah says and we must take into account what allah subhanho wa taala says so the question arises is there any type of theory that we can propose that can take into account everything that science says is an indisputable fact it is a fact that dinosaurs existed we can't deny this it is a fact that mankind has been on this earth for more than six thousand years we have cave paintings in hundreds of places in France yesterday in Mexico they discovered some paintings we have paintings that go back to the Aborigines of Africa thirty thousand years now you tell me anybody who knows carbon-14 and I am a chemical engineer once upon a time way upon it on long long time ago I know carbon-14 dating and this is as solid as any science you can have through carbon-14 dating we know for a fact that thirty thousand years ago twenty thousand years ago human beings we Homo sapiens drew things on walls now Christian comes along biblical fundamentalist Sarah Palin virgin Christian says I don't believe in dinosaurs I don't believe that people were here seven thousand years ago now we come along as Muslims and say I don't believe in evolution instantaneously you become excuse me Sarah Palin do you understand brothers and sisters when you deny evolution you might deny one element which is that Adam's father was a monkey basically being very simplistic here but I'm just being bit crude here because actually the theory of evolution does not say Adam's father was a monkey I'm just being you know purposely a little bit humorous here but that's the one thing you're denying however no Muslim denies as far as I know no Muslim Adam denies dinosaurs existed I believe as a Muslim Adam and a scientist in my own way I believe there were dinosaurs I believe that there were creatures on this earth that were humanoid I believe this firmly we have their bones we have their civilization not settled not civilizations excuse me those creatures never had civilizations by the way they never had art they never had writing they never had to building structures they didn't have those the thing but they did have fire they did have stone tools they did have the basic rudimentary things that perhaps some type of primitive man might have had but they weren't men they weren't Homo sapiens right they were called them what you will you know there were Neanderthals and cro-magnon different names are given I believe they existed because we clearly have evidence two million years ago 1 million years ago I also believe that micro evolution is not a problem at all what is micro evolution problem the evolution of a species within itself flies will change you no other species will change now problem comes macro evolution which is a change from let's say a dog into a horse let's say macro evolution is nothing other than hundreds of micro evolutions that's the problem right macro evolution is simply you keep on changing a little bit and when you keep on changing what happens you kind of sort of diverge out into different animals now as Muslims we can never take the Quran to be metaphorical when it tells us explicitly about something this is why we have to stick with the book of allah subhana wa ta'ala even in the face of what modern science says because if we were to open this door and people have done this before then we will say heaven and hell are also metaphorical and salah is also metaphorical and zakah is also metaphorical and people have been there and done that and the quran was not revealed to be a metaphor the Quran was revealed in simple Arabic language beliefs and an Arabian Mubeen the Quran was revealed to be understood as Allah intended it to be understood so I was going to say looking at modern science and what it is proposing and looking at the Quran there are a number of ways to reconcile between this what I leaned towards is only one opinion and there are others and some of you in the audience while I was there brought forth other other interpretations what I leaned towards is that it is possible for us to affirm the theory of evolution in the broad principles that life as we know it came from one common ancestor that all animals are linked together in some great grand tree but we as Muslims have to say there was one exception to the rule that's where we draw the line we say there was one exception and this exception of course is adam adocus annum and bhanu adam and the max that can be said now I am NOT saying this because I'm not a scientist but I'm saying the max that we can say is to imagine if you like a series of dominos tumbling and they're all going as we all seen on YouTube clips and whatnot all going in different directions have they been caused by one beginning domino right and eventually if these dominoes continue one line of these dominoes will lead to that domino which is a final Domino known as man because we know for a fact that nothing has been evolved from us we are the final Domino right what I am saying the maximum that any believing Muslim can say is as follows that all of these dominoes did indeed come from that one Domino that allah azza wajal now here's of course another difference we don't believe in randomness we believe Allah caused this this is only the way that Allah did it right but we don't believe in randomness we believe Allah did all of these dominoes came about all of these species came about and right when it was our turn right when the next Domino should have been our Domino allah subhana wa ta'ala inserted that Domino directly and that's Banu Adam and of course that Domino which is us fits in perfectly with all the other dominoes because why would it not fit in perfectly Allah is perfecting his creation and all of the other species and all of the other things that we're evolving or evolving the way they're supposed to and then when it was our turn at the right time at the right place Allah subhana WA Ta'ala placed us where we were supposed to be such that a neutral observer who doesn't believe in Allah quote-unquote Khafre observer would automatically say obviously this Domino comes from the one before it and he has every right to make that claim but because we have something we consider a fact which is the Quran which is just as much of a fact in fact more of a fact than any scientific fact we have to say our scientific model has to take into account one more fact and that is allah azza wajal shaped Adam created Adam blue the Roy into Adam sent Adam down the whole Quranic story right and we don't have any problem affirming other creatures other species hominids a dinosaurs we don't have any problem stretching the human chain to beyond six thousand years we don't believe in six thousand years by the way it's not an Islamic figure it's a Christian figure God created the world in six days and then these six days or six thousand years we don't have that calendar that's the Jewish calendar we don't have that calendar we have nothing unassuming to say there is nothing unassuming to say man has been around for 30,000 40,000 50,000 years we don't have any problem with that our Shetty I doesn't tell us we've been here for 6,000 years right the only thing that we have to draw the line that Adam and the children of Adam are in unique creation and frankly many things in science prove this point right many things in science prove this point of them is language we are the only creation that has language and this fits in perfectly a ramen or a lemon karana hidaka in sauna ulema pool Dian while Emma Adam an ass man a cool aha this fits in perfectly that you know Noam Chomsky of course he's known for his political views but his linguist by profession as you know Noam Chomsky and others they all believe that languages as we know them they all come from one language all languages go back to one language well this fits in perfectly with our own understanding all languages goes back to the language of Adam the Adamic language right also the concept of alcohol and knowledge no other creature has acted the way we have alkyl no other creature we our alkyl is so powerful we understand our alkyl and limitations of our alcohol in other words we have something the fancy term for it is metacognition which means we know what we know and why we know it and how we know it animals no animals no there's an impending danger animals know a flood is coming animals know the Tigers attacking they're going to run away this is knowledge but they cannot know why they know and how they know they cannot study their knowledge this is metacognition we can study our knowledge we have history we have arts we have civilization we have poetry the animals don't have this and there is no biological reason for us to have these special characteristics that no other species has there are some very profound differences that we have from any every other creation of allah subhana wa ta'ala and the quran fits in perfectly Allah has given us alkyl Allah has given us freewill Allah has given us by an a knowledge of language all of this fits in perfectly so the bottom line we as muslims cannot accept the theory of evolutions premise that man himself is a part of this chain we can accept all other premises and that's the point many muslims when they say we don't believe in evolution they sound very ignorant and foolish and they are even intended i'm sure all of you believe in dinosaurs you need to understand when you say to a western audience i don't believe in evolution you are becoming basically a fundamentalist christian no we're not we should never say we never believed in evolution we don't we don't we don't deny everything evolution rather we can say that we affirm the broad principles of evolution we have no problem with pretty much everything that volution says there's simply one one issue where we have to draw the line and we draw it with respect meaning and this is my final point and I will leave some Q&A look my brothers and sisters in Islam put yourselves in the shoes of those people who don't believe in the Quran and their history and their church and science and the tension between them then they see it happening to us what do you expect them to do other than to mock us and make fun of us what do you expect them to do other than to say you guys are backwards you need to get with the program leave your book and go with science that's their world don't use Adam and the theory of evolution as your data points frankly these are not your strong points from our perspective they're not strong points we believe in this because we are Muslims we are not Muslims because of this big difference let me repeat that we believe in the story of Adam because we are Muslims we are not Muslims because of the story of Adam so when you speak in Dawa to others when you're talking about Islam you can say very generically look this might be a point of contention between us and you because I believe in a book I believe in our version of the story which is radically different from the biblical version you need to make that point I believe an hour which is radically different and our version has certain issues that you know perhaps modern science cannot explain and what I'm positing really is basically I would call it a miracle right how can you prove that Jesus Christ was born a virgin of a virgin how can you prove this I mean started to be a little bit graphic here but imagine if you were a doctor with the utensils that we have and you're monitoring mudiyum at Islam's uterus just imagine right and you're seeing the fetus grow and you're seeing everything happen normally you see my point here right now if you were a scientist or a doctor what would you believe except that this woman was impregnated by a man like every other man was and a woman was you see my point right the belief that Jesus comes from a virgin mother is this scientific well like it is not scientific let's be honest with ourselves it's a miracle that's the whole point right how are you going to prove this you can't why do you believe it because Allah says so you see the point here the belief that musa alayhis i'm split the red see you there is no you you just can't have two tides of water come apart scientifically prove it's just the belief that our process to split the moon I mean do we believe that you split the moon the Quran says so right how are you going to believe this and explain this to a non-muslim you see these miracles we leave them for the believers we are not believers because of these miracles these are not the miracles we give that with these are the miracles they come with the package when you accept Islam you believe in these miracles so we stick with the package of strong points and that is Towe heed this ala prophethood purpose of life why are you here these are our strong points nobody has a better answer than we do nobody we stick with the strong points and that is the quran the revelation of the Quran the miracle of the Quran hearing the Quran memorizing the Quran the effects of the Quran etc etc this is our evidence when they accept the evidence it's a package deal a part of the package deal they believe in adam adocus Allah simple as that so the bottom line this is one position some of you in the audience came to me and said there's another theory that is that these Neanderthals and cro-magnons could have been descendants of Adam but not human yeah okay but the problem comes I said we don't have a timeline for Adam and Adam could have been fifty thousand years ago but no matter whatever we do to extend Adam to three million years is really a stretch because human history from the quranic paradigm no hana brahim and whatnot clearly were not millions of years ago Ibrahim by and large we can say a few thousand years five thousand years ago right new highly his Anatomy added a little bit you know before before then so how far and we know for a fact that between new and Adam were ten generations right our process and I'm said headed between Noah and Adam were ten generations now those generations were longer maybe even a thousand years so that's ten thousand years right there between Adam and Noah could have been ten thousand years because remember those generations were longer each generation is a thousand years right so that's 10,000 years before Noah Noah Ibrahim another 10 generations another 10,000 years right so here we're kind of sort of saying 30 40 thousand years which is basically what modern science itself is telling us Homo sapiens as we exist we did not exist a million years ago you have Lucy and you have hominids and you have Homo erectus and Homo this and all that you don't have homo sapien homo sapien is 30 40 50 that's the mark that is given and frankly frankly Islamically we have no problems extrapolating that much but you want to go beyond this and you want to say three million which is what Lucy is Lucy is one of the oldest hominids discovered she's around 2.5 million years old now you're talking very problematically from an Islamic standpoint but hey if somebody says Lucy was a descendant of Adam and Adam was five thousand five million years ago well Islamic Lee the Shetty I did not reveal the calendar the Quran did not reveal the historical timeline so I'm not saying that's wrong but me personally with my scientific mind and my inclinations and my knowledge of science and my knowledge of tafseer than Quran and theology what I leaned towards and this is my personal opinion and I'm not saying this is Islamic this is my opinion it could be wrong what I leaned towards is the theory of evolution is not problematic at all except for human evolution and when it comes to us allah subhana wa ta'ala did a miracle and that's exactly what we would expect that we are special we are different that's what allah says well about the Kurama bani adam' that's what allah says wealthy and physical my falafel a tap they don't have a little suit on that's what Allah said o Allah middle one foot and don't would you look at yourselves look at how you were created we are a different creation a special creation we have honored the children of Adam we have made them better than the other species other creation this is in the Quran for but now Anna Cathedral hotness of leader and the point of a lock fashioning us with his own hands by maja to be a day and Allah breathing his rule into us we are special that's exactly what the Quranic message is and frankly there are elements of science that indicate our special nature I mentioned some of them so putting all of this into account the max that anyone could say beyond which I would believe as a scholar of Islam as a theologian that you're going beyond believing in the Quran we don't believe the Quran is a book of fairytales we don't believe that Allah wanted to give a fairy tale of Adam that's not the way of the Quran and we have been there and done that historically we've had groups that done that and they have abandoned the Salah abandon the zakah they didn't believe in heaven and hell they didn't believe in resurrection because they said in here saku-dono alene these are fairy tales the Quran did not come to be a DaVinci Code a book of symbols no the Quran is in simple plain Arabic language and up until our history everything that we've read in history and science and the Quran supports one another and we've been riding the wave very happily this is our first bump and it is a test from Allah and I hope that Allah subhana WA Ta'ala allows us to pass that test if I've said anything that is incorrect is from my own West Watson Satan's whisperings to me if I've said anything that is correct it is from Allah Subhanahu WA Ta'ala which is our como la heron Salaam alaikum WA Rahmatullah you you

Channel: 877-Why-Islam

Views: 264,866

Rating: 4.7152123 out of 5

Keywords: whyislam, islam, moslim, moslem, muslim, mohamed, mohammad, mohamad, god, Allah, Prophet, quran, koran, religion, peace, violence, atheism, science, secular revolutions, scientific revolutions, religion and science, does god exist, icna, islamic circle, wti, window to islam, yasir qadhi, qadhi, yasir kazi, theory of evolution, theological perspectives, Darwinism, Islam, Hawkings, Science

Id: DPuoGVlCjZ0

Length: 30min 49sec (1849 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 11 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/foolishimp]

All his conclusions about Western History and theocracies is wrong or stunted and limited to such a degree that it's as good as wrong.

He's looking back at Western history strictly from a 21 century view of how the modern west looks back at theocracies, not at how they competed and evolved. How interdenominational religious systems created a competition - that forced social evolution. The roots going back to Greek philosophical thinking.

Islam within it's influence was such a successful predator that it completely filled it's ecological niche, but then having killed it's competition ceased to evolve. It briefly had an intellectual golden age for a time being directly influenced by the very Greek Philosophers that would later be rediscovered in the West and drive the Renaissance.

But as soon as that philosophical inquiry led to Materialism and against the Qu'ran it was snuffed out. Islamic based societies could have for a moment evolved but didn't.

For all his learning this guy is mired in his original cultural indoctrination and social group - it just happens to be Islam.

[u/[deleted]]

This is a smart guy. Practically speaking, if a Muslim makes this step -- to align his beliefs with this guy's -- then frankly they're on the road to losing their faith. Too much cognitive dissonance involved.

[u/[deleted]]

it's almost sad to see that this guy is actually quite bright but is being held back by his beliefs

[u/factually_accurate_1]

This entire lecture was rendered moot in the first 60 seconds when he said that he will not be talking about Human evolution as the Quran clearly states God created man and God's word is greater than the scientific process.

Everyone should have table flipped and walked out right then.

EDIT: Actually, that might have been another video by the same person where he is also talking about evolution. I didn't know there were two videos of Yasir Qadhi talking about evolution.

EDIT II: Now that I've actually watched the video, his stance is pretty much the same as the other video. Evolution is true but when it came time for humans to evolve, God intervened and put Adam in there manually (and conveniently forgot to make absolutely any mention of this in the Quran, which is the literal word of God).

[u/[deleted]]

I don;t think this guy is going to "lengths" as you describe in the title. He pretty much accepts all scientific facts, except the concept of human evolution, which obviously conflicts with the quran. I'd rather have muslims who believe that much than who disagraee with evolution completely.