Islamic creationism

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Islamic creationism is the belief the universe including humanity was directly created by God as explained in the Qur'an or Genesis. While contemporary Islam tends to take religious texts literally, it usually views Genesis as a corrupted version of God's message. The creation accounts in the Qur'an are more vague and allow for a wider range of interpretations similar to those in other Abrahamic religions. Several liberal movements within Islam, generally accept the scientific positions on the age of the earth, age of the universe and evolution.

The center of the Islamic creationist movement is Turkey where polemics against the theory of evolution have been waged by the Nurculuk movement of Said Nursi since the late 1970s. At present its main exponent is the writer Harun Yahya (pseudonym of Adnan Oktar) who uses the Internet as one of the main methods for the propagation of his ideas. His BAV (Bilim Araştırma Vakfı/ Science Research Foundation) organizes conferences with leading American creationists. Another leading Turkish advocate of Islamic creationism is Fethullah Gülen. The Director of Gülen's Journalists and Writers Foundation, Mustafa Akyol has been active[1] in this context. Moreover creationist ideas appear to have a considerable appeal in Indonesia, Malaysia and among Muslim minorities in the West. As in the Christian context, the theory of evolution is typically held to be responsible for a materialistic and atheistic world-view and its alleged social and political consequences, especially the spread of Marxism. Due to the lack of a detailed account of creation in the Qur'an, other aspects than the literal truth of the scripture are emphasized in the Islamic debate. The most important concept is the idea that there is no such thing as random events, but that everything happens according to God's will. Hence the ideas of Islamic creationists are closer to Intelligent design than to Young Earth Creationism.

Islamic creationism is also making inroads in the UK. According to some reports, students are increasingly arriving at universities ill-prepared for advanced studies in medicine and other fields. There have also been visible signs that UK Muslims are disputing evolution since they feel it disagrees with the Qur'an creation account.^[1] At a conference in the UK in January, 2004, entitled Creationism: Science and Faith in Schools, Dr Khalid Anees, president of the Islamic Society of Britain stated that "Muslims interpret the world through both the Koran and what is tangible and seen. There is no contradiction between what is revealed in the Koran and natural selection and survival of the fittest. However, Muslims do not agree that one species can develop from another."^[2]

Islam also has its own school of Evolutionary creationism/Theistic evolutionism, which holds that mainstream scientific analysis of the origin of the universe is supported by the Qur'an. Many Muslims believe in evolutionary creationism, especially among Sunni and Shia Muslims and the Liberal movements within Islam. However, even amongst Muslims who accept evolution, many believe that humanity was a special creation by God. For example, Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, an American Muslim and specialist in Islamic law has argued in Islam and Evolution that a belief in macroevolution is not incompatible with Islam, as long as it is accepted that "God is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16) and that God specifically created humanity (in the person of Adam; Qur'an 38:71-76).