Welcome to the Science and Islam Video Portal

Welcome to the Science and Islam Video Portal. This portal provides easy access to internet videos that address some aspect of both Islam and the natural sciences. Every video in the portal has been evaluated for its use and application of scientific information, Islamic interpretations, and historical accuracy, which are represented through symbols.

For more about the project that produced the portal, click on About above. For more on the icons used to represent the evaluations and other information, click on Symbol Key above.

You may navigate through the videos by using the categories (Astronomy, Biology, History of Science, etc) in the menu above, or you may type a word or name that you want to see more videos about or by in the search field (above right). For instance, if you want to see only the videos that include the word mountains, type that into the search field, and it will display any videos that include that word.

Note that none of the videos on the site are hosted by Hampshire College; all the videos reside on the platform (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) from which they were embedded. Many platforms have higher quality versions available; in YouTube click on the gear wheel in the lower right corner to see other options.

For a longer description of the videos and the evaluation justification, click on the video’s thumbnail.

Featured Video

Evolution, Islam, and the Qurʾān

Usama Hasan elaborates on his personal journey to become engaged in the debate about evolution in the Muslim community.

12:20

14 Apr 2014

evolution history_of-science

Evaluation:

There are few details about Islam beyond Hasan’s representation of his own understanding — which is well within the bounds of what Muslims have historically understood as acceptable — and how he was treated within mosques by other Muslims.

There is little here about the science of evolution, other than Hasan’s indicating that because his background was not in biology, he needed to engage in a study of it in order to speak about it more effectively.

The historical material — premodern Muslims who were engaged with ideas that are also found within Darwin’s theory of evolution — conforms with scholarly understanding.