Islamic views on evolution
[11] Animals engage in a struggle for existing, and for resources, to avoid being eaten, and to breed... Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming them into new species.Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to their offspring.In 10th century Basra, an Islamic Encyclopedia titled Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, expanded on the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of the great chain of being by proposing a causal relationship advancing up the chain as the mechanism of creation, beginning with the creation of matter and its investment with energy, thereby forming water vapour, which in turn became minerals and "mineral life", and has been proposed to be the earliest attested evolutionary framework by Muhammad Hamidullah.He draws an analogy from the empirically knowable process of evolution as constant emergence of life and annihilation wherof, and the idea of transformation of the individual after death, concluding the existence of the afterlife by asserting live's eternity.[20] The system of the great chain of being implies a graded similarity between the various stages in the hierarchy from minerals to plants, animals, humans, angels, and God, but not a temporal process in which one species originates from the other.While according to some mystical interpretations individual souls may move up the 'ladder' in order to reunite with the divine, the species (or 'substantial forms', in the language of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic ontology) themselves are eternal and fixed.[22] One widely cited quote is taken from a section called The Real Meaning of Prophecy, which argues that prophets occupy a place in the great chain of being just beneath angels.In Ibn Khaldun's view, this explains why individual prophets may temporarily ascend to the rank of angels and share with them in the knowledge of the divine, which they may then bring back to humanity in the form of revelation.[24] In his 1874 book titled History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, John William Draper, a scientist and contemporary of Charles Darwin, criticized the Catholic Church for its disapproval of "the Mohammedan theory of the evolution of man from lower forms, or his gradual development to his present condition in the long lapse of time".[29][30][31][32] The late Ottoman intellectual Ismail Fennî, while personally rejecting Darwinism, insisted that it should be taught in schools as even false theories contributed to the improvement of science.[35] This stance garnered criticism from the governments and academics of mainline Muslim countries such as Turkey,[36] Pakistan,[37] Lebanon,[38] and Iran,[35] where evolution was initially taught and promoted.[49] At a conference in the UK in January 2004, entitled Creationism: Science and Faith in Schools, "Dr Khalid Anees, of the Islamic Society of Britain stated that 'Muslims interpret the world through both the Quran and what is tangible and seen.[60] In 2017, Turkey announced plans to end the teaching evolution before the university level, with the government claiming it is too complicated and "controversial" a topic to be understood by young minds.[68] Dajani says, as a scientist, Charles Darwin contributed to human understanding of the emergence and diversification of life on the Earth and that evolution is right mechanism to explain diversity and the development of species.[68] Dajani says discussion of controversial topic of evolution helps Muslim students avoid blind acceptance of status quo and question even other aspects of their lives.