Evolution and God in Islam
31:15
14 Mar 2013
Evolution, Miracles / Ijaz
Hassanain Rajabali
In this video Hassanian Rajabali states that the Qurʾān and Islam do not reject evolution. He suggests that the topic has become polarized. Yet he also moves from the topic of evolution to the Big Bang and the question of the origins of life, which Darwin’s theory of evolution does not address. As a scholar he seems to want to find a common ground between Darwin’s theory of evolution and the text of the Qurʾān.
Topics included are, in addition to evolution, Darwin, intelligent design, origin of life, DNA, the Big Bang.
Lecture hosted by Thaqalayn Muslim Association at the University of Michigan, Dearborn (USA) on November 25, 2008. The complete video (38:01 mins) may be found here. The video was produced by The Awaited One Foundation.
Evaluation:
The material on Islam generally conforms with contemporary mainstream understandings.
Rajabali’s contention that there must be a designer because it is impossible for DNA to have occurred through pure chance does not correspond to the understanding of a majority of current evolutionary biologists.
There is insufficient historical content on which to base an evaluation.
About Hassanain Rajabali
Hassanain Rajabali emmigrated to the United States in 1975 from Tanzania and is now a popular Muslim lecturer. He holds an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and psychology from the University of Colorado and is President of the Tawheed Institute (New York). While in New York, Rajabali also ran Netsite Corporation, a successful Internet business that specializes in online business and commerce, though it is unclear whether he still runs the corporation as of 2015. In addition to being President of the Tawheed Institute, and he is also director of Camp Taha, a children’s camp that claims to be the first Muslim owned camp in America.
There are Facebook and Tumblr accounts for Rajabali that have been updated as of 2015; however, he runs neither of them personally. Instead, both are run by fans. In addition, a crowd-sourced selection of his work may be found on ShiaSource, a website devoted to collecting work of Shīʿa theologians and lecturers.
Selected Bibliography:
“Biography.” Hajj Hassanain Rajabali:. Tumblr, n.d. Accessed 26 May 2015.
“Br. Hassanain Rajabali.” Shia Source. Shia Source, n.d. Accessed 26 May 2015.
“Hajj Hassanain Rajabali.” Facebook. Facebook, n.d. Accessed 26 May 2015.
Tawheed Institute. Tawheed Institute, n.d. Accessed 26 May 2015.