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 Our Almighty Lord is He Who creates in the form and at the time of His choosing, using no previous models. When Allah (God) wishes a thing to exist, He merely commands it to Be!
Our Word to a thing when We desire it is just to say to it ‘Be!’ and it is. (Surat an-Nahl, 40)
Allah is He Who is free of all deficiency; He Who stands in need of nothing. Therefore, Allah has no need of any natural causes, vehicles or stages in order to create. Nobody must be deceived by the fact that everything on Earth depends on specific causes and natural laws. As the Creator of all these causes, Allah is unfettered by any of them.
Those who fail to think in the manner required by these truths, however, may fall into various errors. Those who seek to reconcile Darwinism with Islam, according to their own lights, are also deceived because of a failure to reflect properly. Since they fail to properly appreciate Allah’s sublime creative power and the perfection in His artistry, they produce fictitious concepts such as Islamic evolution. However, one matter that such people ignore is the different forms of His creation. Allah has brought living things with very different creations into being, such as human beings, animals and plants. For example, these people are unable to explain, using their own flawed logic, how the angels and jinn were created. As we are told in the Qur’an, the creation of the angels is very different to that of human beings. Allah reveals the creation of the angels in these words in the Qur’an:
Praise be to Allah, the Bringer into Being of the heavens and Earth, He Who made the angels messengers, with wings – two, three or four. He adds to creation in any way He wills. Allah has power over all things. (Surah Fatir, 1)
As can be seen from this verse, the angels are also very different to human beings in terms of appearance. Indeed, in the term He adds to creation in any way He wills in the above verse, Allah reveals that His creation takes different forms.
Moreover, we are told in the Qur’an that the angels were created before human beings. When Allah created the first human, Adam, He informed the angels of this and commanded them to prostrate themselves before Adam. This is revealed as follows in the Qur’an:
When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am putting a overlord on the Earth’… (Surat al-Baqara, 30)
We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate to Adam!’ (Surat al-Baqara, 34)
We created you and then formed you and then We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate before Adam,’… (Surat al-A’raf, 11)
It is impossible for those who fall into the error of thinking that Allah created living things by way of evolution to account for the creation of the angels. Because according to these people’s flawed perspective, Allah causes one species to evolve from another through natural selection or mutations – something which is in fact absolutely untrue. (May Allah forgive us.)
What those who make such a claim first and foremost need to be aware of is that scientific progress has revealed that neither natural selection nor mutation has any evolutionary power, in other words any power to give rise to any new living species. Science refutes these claims. In addition, Allah could of course have created living things through evolution had He so wished. However, there is no information to that effect in the Qur’an or in the hadiths of our Prophet (saas). Not one single verse supports the evolutionist idea of species coming into being in stages. Given that the situation is so crystal clear, it is inexplicable for Muslims to advocate the theory of evolution. The reason why some do is lack of information, a psychological inferiority complex felt in the face of evolutionists, and errors such as imagining that since evolutionists are in the majority they must also be right.
The Jinn and Satans Were Not Created through Evolution
Like the angels, the creation of the jinn is very different to that of human beings. Allah reveals in verses that He created man out of clay, and the jinn from fire:
We created humanity out of dried clay formed from fetid black mud.
We created the jinn before out of the fire of a searing wind. (Surat al-Hijr, 26-27)
He created man from dry earth like baked clay; and He created the jinn from a fusion of fire. (Surat ar-Rahman, 14-15)
In the Qur’an Allah has also revealed the purpose behind the creation of human beings and the jinn. In one verse He tells us:
I only created jinn and man to worship Me. (Surat adh-Dhariyat, 56)
It is clear that human beings and the jinn are entities that have been created in different ways. Yet the purpose behind their creation is the same: to worship Allah alone.
We are told in the Qur’an that, like the angels, the jinn were also created before human beings. When Allah created Adam He commanded the angels and Diabolis to prostrate themselves before him. We are informed that Diabolis, a jinn, did not prostrate himself before Adam:
When We said to the angels, ‘Prostrate yourselves to Adam,’ they prostrated with the exception of Diabolis. He was one of the jinn and wantonly deviated from his Lord’s command. Do you take him and his offspring as protectors apart from Me when they are your enemy? How evil is the exchange the wrongdoers make! (Surat al-Kahf, 50)
As can be seen from these examples, Almighty Allah has no need of any stages in order to create. Allah, Lord of the Earth and Sky, can dispense with natural causes whenever He so chooses. If Allah chose, for instance, He could create human beings without any need for lungs and who could survive without needing to breathe oxygen. There is therefore no need for Allah to perfect a lung or to give rise to any other mechanism by causing it to evolve over the course of time. It is therefore a serious error to limit one’s thinking to one’s own thoughts and senses when reflecting on the greatness and might of Allah. Human beings’ knowledge is restricted to the extent permitted by Allah, and can know only what He permits.
It also needs to be made clear that Allah could make use of different stages when creating if He so wished. He produces a plant from a seed, for example, and creates human beings from a combination of a single sperm and a single egg cell. However, these stages have nothing to do with claims regarding evolution. There is no room for chance, coincidence or anything random at any stage. Yet, the basic claim of the theory of evolution concerns events taking place spontaneously, through random, unconscious coincidences. The fact is that every stage during the emergence of a plant or as a single cell turning into a human being with the most beautiful form takes place thanks to immaculate systems created through Allah’s infinite might.
Allah Himself makes all the laws in the universe and gives them the form He desires. Allah is He Who performs what He chooses, when He chooses. With His might, Allah rules all things and enfolds all things in the Earth and sky. Yet some people are unable to comprehend the might of Allah and make the mistake of thinking of Him in terms of their own limited intellects. We are told of the existence of such people in the Qur’an:
They do not measure Allah with His true measure. Allah is All-Strong, Almighty. (Surat al-Hajj, 74)
CONCLUSION
Creation is a simple matter for Allah. Our Lord is He Who brings into being without any natural causes. In the same way that He created the jinn and angels with different forms, He also created man as a separate entity with no need for evolution. The same thing also applies to other living things such as plants and animals. The clear truth revealed in the Qur’an is this: Allah has created all these living things without causing them to evolve, in other words, in a single moment, without turning one species into another.
Those who seek a middle way between Islam and Darwinism despite these truths and who propose such claims as Islamic evolution, which are incompatible with the Qur’an, are in error. Those who fall into the error of imagining that evolutionary creation is possible need to be aware of the mistake they are making. What sincere Muslims need to do is to abandon their error and turn back to the truth when they see that the path they are on is wrong or flawed.
Jul 19, 2008
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