How do Muslims view science and evolution?

69:00

20 Jan 2012

Evolution, History of Science

Salman Hameed

Angie Coiro

Salman Hameed, in this talk from 2012 at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, gives a brief survey of Muslim ideas about science in the world today, followed by a longer question and answer session with media host Angie Coiro, who presents questions from the audience as well as ones of her own.

Hameed mentions the nostalgia for the “Golden age” of Islam, and throughout compares ideas from the Muslim world with ideas from the majority culture in the United States.  He uses the interviews done through an NSF grant with Muslims in several different countries as examples of the variations among Muslims.

Topics addressed in Hameed’s talk:  where are Muslim majority countries, Muslim reformers (Jamāl al-Dīn Afghānī, d. 1886), Muslim Nobel laureates (Abdus Salaam (from Pakistan, received 1979) and Ahmed Zewail (from Egypt, 1999)), iʿjāz (finding scientific miracles in the Qurʾān) and its emotional appeal, evolution (non-human and human) and its reception in the Muslim world, Harun Yahya, science and environmental consciousness, authority to interpret Islam and to interpret science.

Questions included:  Are there differences between how Muslims in the US think and those in Muslim-majority countries, educational agendas in different Muslim-majority countries, narratives about creation in the Qurʾān, what does Islam say about evolution, how does one move past emotional and simplistic approaches to science, does the decline of science correspond to the rise of Sufism, differences between Sunni and Shīʿa views of evolution, conflicts between scientific studies and Islam, place of research in countries with an inherently religious government, role of vocal atheists.

Topics addressed in the answers:  Young Earth creationism; evolution as an identity marker (among some Christians and some Muslims); the need to celebrate diversity among Muslims and their ideas; H1N1 flu and vaccine development in Saudi Arabia, where evolution is not taught; al-Ghazālī (d. 1111); George Saliba and alternative constructions of the “decline” thesis; Ayatollah Khomeini; definition of miracles; stem cell research; the connection of the idea of atheism with a lack of morality; the historical place of free-thinkers in Islamic history.

The talk was given on Sunday, January 15, 2012 at 2 pm.  Hameed was introduced in the presentation by Leslie Zane of the Tech Museum.

Evaluation:

The material on Islam is within the bounds of what Muslims have historically understood as acceptable.

Both the scientific and historical material presented are consistent with consensus views of a majority of scholars today.