Warning! There Is No Clash

6:39

3 May 2018

Evolution, Miracles / I'jaz

John Fontain

This video blog (vlog) by John Fontain speaks against a video (evaluated on the Portal here) by There Is No Clash, which says that biological evolution can be found in the Qurʾān, a form of iʿjāz ʿilmii.  Fontain urges “the Muslims” not to watch or share the video.

Fontain suggests that the No Clash group, which he maintains is Muslim, have more “imān” (faith) in science than they do in Islam, and they are therefore trying to harmonize the Qurʾān and evolution.  Some of the representations about the material in the video is correct and some is not.  See the evaluation to the right.

At the end, Fontain recommends videos by Hamza Tzortzis and Subboor Ahmad.  The Portal has several evaluated videos by each of them, which often have serious scientific errors. 

John Fontain apparently lives in Manchester, UK.  He has connections with the London-based dawah (proselytizing)  group iERA.  He apparently converted to Islam sometime before 2014, and has since been active in attempting to convert others.

Evaluation:

Islam:  The presentation that Fontain provides is one Muslim view, it is not the Muslim view.  The Qurʾānic interpretations that he provides are just one among many that can be found.  He is correct, however, when he says that “There Is No Clash” is presenting a novel interpretation of verse 95.2.

Science:  Fontain suggests that there is “not a consensus” of evolutionary biologists that human species developed in Africa.  This is incorrect.  Although there has been discussion about various migrations of hominins, given the evidence at the moment, biologists are fairly certain that humans developed in Africa before further diversification.

History:  The only historical material mentioned here is about Ibn ʿAbbas, who was indeed a companion of the Prophet Muḥammad, although Muḥammad died when Ibn ʿAbbas was still relatively young, about 13.