I have observed something that shock me to the core - in fact, it made me feel unwell.
Am I missing something ? Or is "human evolution" being pushed in the da'wah once again?
A thread. Bismillah.
Am I missing something ? Or is "human evolution" being pushed in the da'wah once again?
A thread. Bismillah.
Recently, our dear an beloved brother @SubboorAhmad invited Dr. Shoaib Malik (right) to a podcast/interview. Malik has been a guest on Subboor Ahmads channel a few times before, but this is his first appearance after a while - and after the publishing of his book:
"Islam and Evolution - Al Ghazaali and the modern evolutionary paradigm". In it, he trys to answer the question to what extent Islaam is compatable with evolution - and especially: human evolution. He describes how there are basically 4 ideas, which I would summarize as follows:
1. Creationism: All living beings were directly created by Allah.
2. Human exceptionalism: All life has been created by Allah through an evolutionary process - except for Adam (aleyhi salam) and Hawwa. All humans directly descend from (ONLY) them after their miraculous creation.
2. Human exceptionalism: All life has been created by Allah through an evolutionary process - except for Adam (aleyhi salam) and Hawwa. All humans directly descend from (ONLY) them after their miraculous creation.
3. Adamic excpetionalism: Same as 2, with the difference that Allah created human-like creatures basically indistinguishable from humans, which the children of Adam eventually mated with, declaring human-chimp-anchestory a reality.
4. No exceptions: All life evolved.
4. No exceptions: All life evolved.
Shoaib Malik, according to his own admission, is an "adamic exceptionalist" - as you can see in the screenshot down below. He claims, that under an Ash'arite-Ghazaalian approach, "adamic exceptionalism" is acceptable by muslims - and in his view, is the strongest model.
Just so noone can claim, that I am missrepresenting Shoaib Maliks ideas: Here is a quote from his own book, describing the consequences of adamic exceptionalism:
To many of you, this is not news. When Brother Daniel @Haqiqatjou wrote a refutation against Dr. Jalajels idea of "adamic exceptionalism" - which is, by the way, the source, that Malik got this model from - he already mentioned Shoaib Malik and his involvement with the idea.
Yaqeen Institute was, at that time, harshly criticised for defending and publicising this idea, which is - lets face it - nothing but human evolution through the backdoor.
The shocking thing to me, at least, was how @SubboorAhmad seemed to react to Dr. Shoaibs positions:
The shocking thing to me, at least, was how @SubboorAhmad seemed to react to Dr. Shoaibs positions:
The positions were not discussed in detail, but mentioned. Also mentioned was Dr. Shoaib Maliks talk at the "Royal Institute of Great Britain", where Malik gave a talk on the same topic that he wrote his book on. So even though it is clear what Maliks position is, ...
... during the podcast, one could not help but feel as if @SubboorAhmad was portraying Maliks position (which again: was not discussed in detail in the podcast) as normative, acceptable and something within the sunni creedal framework:
Here we have Shoaib Malik claiming that ibn Taymiyyah - with his framework - would possibly find adamic exceptionalism acceptable. Again, we see no rejection of "adamic exceptionalism" by brother Subboor:
In this part, Subboor and Dr. Malik discuss how to deal with differences of opinion in the matter. Note, how the idea of "no exceptions" (i.e. everything,including humans, evolved) is declared to be a heretical view, while adamic exceptionalism is not:
Now to me, this was quite shocking. I always thought, that @SubboorAhmad staunchly rejects any form of human evolution. But adamic exceptionalism is, as Dr. Malik said in his book himself, a model that is based upon human evolution.
Now - I do not want to disrespect brother @SubboorAhmad.But I could not help but feel that he is very open to the ideas of Dr. Jalajel and Dr. Malik. On the other hand, it is certain, that the vast majority of traditional sunni scholars from all background would reject this idea.
My questions are:
1. Does Subboor Ahmed think, that these ideas are acceptable?
2. Is this a position that is also held at @SapienceOrg ?
If I missed anything, missunderstood anything or missrepresented anything - please let me know.
1. Does Subboor Ahmed think, that these ideas are acceptable?
2. Is this a position that is also held at @SapienceOrg ?
If I missed anything, missunderstood anything or missrepresented anything - please let me know.
I would ask @SubboorAhmad to clairify the issue in a video or otherwise - barakAllahu feek. I did not want to be disrespectful - I am just worried for the state of the Da'wah in the west.
May Allah guide us all.
May Allah guide us all.
Do you think adamic exceptionalism is acceptable as a muslim?
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