The Quran and Evolution

Email with question:

Sir, Quran says that man was created from dust/clay... and the first man was Adam, but Scientist Darwin said that man was created through Evolution eg. from Chimpanzi....etc..etc.. Now please describe what is right and why?

Reply

Salaam

Darwin never said that man came from ape! This is a mistaken concept that most people are not aware of.

All what Darwin said was that he noticed that some species of animals evolve into different forms so as to adapt to their habitat.

When Darwin visited the Galapicus islands, he wrote letters to his friend saying that he noticed that some species of birds have developed longer beaks because they lived by the water and used their beaks to catch small fish, and so on.

So Darwin's Evolution speaks about development that takes places within the same species (e.g. birds). Darwin never wrote, directly or indirectly, that he thought that one species evolves into another species, thus birds will never become rabbits, nor will apes become humans.

Despite this, many people have attributed to Darwin what he never said!

As a result, many have tried to find fossils of ancient apes and also ancient humans, and tried to link them together, but all these attempts were unsuccesful.

Thus the term: "The missing link".

The Quran states that the human being was indeed created (not evolved from apes), and that the human being underwent various stages of evolution, and thus evolution is verified in the Quran.

"He is the One who created you in stages." 71:14

This glorious verse can have more than one meaning:

1- The human embryo goes through various stages of development inside the womb before becoming a fully grown creature.

2- The human being, as a species, went through various stages of development through time. Thus the 21st century human being is much more advanced than the human being who lived 5000 years ago, and so on.