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Usamah Hasan, Darwinism, Evolutionary Forces and the Creation of Man - Part 3: Looking at Usamah's Citations of Evidence
Filed under: Darwinism and Atheism
Wednesday, January 19 2011 - by Abu.Iyaad
Key topics: Darwinism Evolution


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Introduction

Please read Part 1 to see some higher level generalized observations about how and where Usamah is "positioning" himself and Part 2 to see observations on his claimed merger between Darwinism and the Qur'an. Part 7 is extremely important for understanding how the fitrah and aql of people like Usamah Hasan are corrupted as they pass through the secular institutions of learning.

Observations Continued...

In this article we will continue with a few more observations, address some of the citations he has brought from Islamic authorities and then make some conclusions to finish off this series inshaa'Allaah.

Eleven: The saying of Allaah, the Exalted:

لَخَلْقُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ أَكْبَرُ مِنْ خَلْقِ النَّاسِ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ

The creation of the heavens and the earth is indeed greater than the creation of mankind, yet most of mankind know not. (Ghafir 40:57)

We know that Allaah created the heavens and earth in six days, with these six days being a measurement of time other than the one we have through the sun and moon, since there are different measurements of time in existence, and Allaah is the creator of them all. And Ibn Taymiyyah mentions that upon what is in the Qur'an, the heavens were made from an already existing material and that the heavens were dukhaan prior to being separated into layers (see Dar' al-Ta'aarud 8/288).

The explanation of this verse (40:57) from the classical exegetes is that the creation of the heavens and earth, even if it is greater than the creation of man, it is still nevertheless easy for Allaah. So if you marvel at the creation of man, then greater marvel is at the universe, whilst even that is easy upon Allaah. And what this is leading to is the issue of resurrection, that if they (heavens, earth, jinn, men) can be created from nothing, then they can returned back to life without that being difficult upon Allaah either.

Upon this, if Allaah the Exalted is able to create the heavens and earth in six-thousand years of our reckoning (upon the interpretation of Ibn Abbaas and others that a day with Allaah is as a thousand years of our reckoning), and He has stated that their creation is much greater than the creation of mankind, then it is a revilement upon Allah's qudrah, to claim that Allaah created man over 4.5 billion years from dust, to organic material, to genetic material, to cell, to lower life forms to apes to man. Rather, if Allaah is able to create a fully formed being through the kawnee asbaab (created ways and means) in a mere nine months from nothing but the quintessence of a despised fluid (from the male, combined with that of the female), or create a Prophet (Jesus) without male intervention in a mere nine months, then it is a revilement upon Allaah's qudrah to limit it and confine it by trying to throw Darwinian Evolution onto it, and implying that the creation of Aadam was in fact over 4.5 million days (of the reckoning with Allaah [if we assume for argument's sake that the earth is 4.5 or so billion years old of our reckoning]), whilst the heaven and earth were made in only six days (of the same reckoning with Allaah)! And the general import of the verse we have quoted above does not allow such a claim to be made, rather it contradicts it and indicates the opposite of it, as do all the other verses that we have discussed in Part 2.

Twelve: This brings us to an issue that arises when dealing with the matter of Evolution which is the age of the earth and when Aadam appeared on the earth, because this relates to the discussion we are having here (of Darwinian evolution). As we said in the previous article, we have only been given a certain amount of limited knowledge (in the revealed texts), and that knowledge was for a purpose and a wisdom. And beyond that it is speculation, and whether we are able to reconcile the speculative theories or determined facts with the Qur'anic texts, does not affect in any way, the true and real purpose for which revelation was sent down in the first place, it is immaterial. Thus to know whether the Qur'an agrees with this theory or that theory or this fact or that fact, and pursuing this line of enquiry indicates a heart that has not been given success in knowing that the Qur'an is essentially a book of hidaayah (guidance) and rushd (right direction), it is not a book of astronomy, geology, physics, biology and so on. Yes, it touches upon the phenomena that all humanity can see (heavens, earth, night, day, stars, moon, sun, creation of man, seas, oceans, benefits from animals and so on) to the level of detail it does, for a particular purpose and wisdom, [which is not to work out the laws of physics, or the theory of relativity, or how old the earth is and so on], but rather for something which is a much more loftier and nobler goal and which is in the reach of everyone who reads it, learned or not-learned, scientist or non-scientist. So Muslims need to be clear about this, that these are not matters we actively seek out to explore just to make reconciliation between them and the Qur'an in order to impress upon non-Muslims, because firstly it is mostly speculation, and secondly, this is not inherently beneficial knowledge and no one is disadvantaged in front of Allaah for being ignorant of these matters and nor does it affect their Eemaan. And whilst we do not actively seek out these issues from the outset, if and when these matters come to us, we simply speak from revealed texts, if there is anything in the revealed texts that indicate something to us.

Within this context, when we turn to the revealed texts, we are able to say that the creation of the heavens and earth was done over a period of six-thousand years of our reckoning (six days with Allaah, upon the interpretation of Ibn Abbaas, Imaam Ahmad and others that a day with Allaah is a thousand years of our reckoning as it pertains to the days of creation), as is clear in the revealed texts. And as Ibn Taymiyyah explains in Dar' al-Ta'aarud (8/288-289), the material for the heavens and earth was already in existence, (being created previously). This indicates a period of time between the creation of that mass and the actual creation, formation, structuring etc. of the heavens and earth, and also between the initial formation of the Earth and its subsequent development until it was inhabitable by life forms. Further, we know there are days and years with Allaah other than our days and years as is clear in the Qur'an and the Sunnah, the fifty-thousand years from the writing of the decrees to the creation of the heavens and earth (as occurs in the hadeeth) are other than our measurement of years [see Ibn Taymiyyah, Dar al-Ta'arud (8/289), Minhaj al-Sunnah (1/172)].

Then in the authentic Sunnah, Aadam was created on Friday and he was entered into Paradise on a Friday and he was expelled to earth on a Friday (see Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Jumu'ah). Now the question here is: Was the Friday that Aadam was created on, the Friday of the six days of creation or other than it? The Scholars of Islam explain it is other than those six days of creation, indicating a period of time for which the earth existed before Aadam was sent down to it, and before it started to become populated by humanity. Now what is this period? The scientists say the earth is 4.56 billion years old. Allaah knows best what the truth is. The point here though is that there is a period in between the creation of the heavens and earth and the creation of Aadam. Let us bring some citations first from al-Mu'allimee and al-Albani (rahimahumallah), and you should note that these citations are in relation to a hadeeth in Sahih Muslim which scholars like al-Bukhari and Ibn al-Madini and others did not accept as authentic (for problems in isnad and matn), however, their statements are in the context of rebutting a contemporary who was trying to cast doubt upon the Sunnah by claiming contradiction between the Qur'an and this particular hadeeth in Sahih Muslim. So let us look at their commments:

Shaykh Abdur-Rahman al-Mu'allamee al-Yamaanee (rahimahullaah) in al-Anwar al-Kaashifah (Beirut, 1982, p. 192) says,

There is not in the Qur'an what indicates that the creation of Aadam was in the six days, and nor is their in the Qu'ran, nor in the Sunnah, nor from what is understood by reason that the creatorship of Allaah stopped after the six days. Rather, the falsehood of this is known. And in the verses of the creation of Aadam at the beginning of al-Baqarah, and in some of the aathaar, it is understood from them that there were inhabitants [i.e. Jinn, animals] before Aadam, and they lived therein for a period of time. And this supports the saying that Aadam was created afterwards, by a period after the creation of the heavens and earth. So reflect upon the verses and ahaadeeth, it will become clear to you that the claim of the hadeeth opposing the apparent (verses) of the Qur'an has been repelled, and all praise is due to Allaah.

And Imaam al-Albaanee (rahimahullaah) said in his comments in al-Mishkat al-Masaabeeh (al-Maktab al-Islami, Beirut, 1985, 3/1597):

This is not opposed to the Qur'an from any angle whatsoever, as opposed to what is presumed by some of them. For the hadeeth details the nature of the creation upon the earth, and that this was in seven days, and the textual statement of the Qur'an that the creation of the heavens and earth was in six days does not oppose this consideration (in the hadeeth) because these six days are other than those seven days which are mentioned in the hadeeth and that it - meaning what is in the hadeeth - is speaking about a stage amongst the stages of development of the creation upon the face of the earth until it became suitable for habitation. And what supports this is that the Qur'an mentions that some [measurements of] days with Allaah, the Exalted, a like a thousand years, and others like fifty-thousand years, so what is to prevent that the six days are like this? And the seven days (mentioned in the hadeeth) are from our days, as is clear in the hadeeth, and so in that case, there is no conflict between it and the Qur'an.

What we can say in short on a general level is that in the six days (each lasting a thousand years of our reckoning upon the interpretation of Ibn Abbaas, Imaam Ahmad or as Shaykh al-Albaani alludes, perhaps even fifty-thousand years) Allaah created the heavens and the earth and on the earth He placed mountains and determined the aqwaat (means of subsistence) with taqdeer (as occurs in Surah al-Fussilat). Then His creation did not stop there, rather, after this initial creation, He continued to create the mufradaat (which are the individual things) and when we see those ahaadeeth that mention things being created on certain days, those are days other than the days of the initial six days of creation.

And in Mukhtasar al-Uluww, al-Albani says (p. 112):

And the summary of that is that the seven days in the hadeeth are other than the six days in the Qur'an and the hadeeth is speaking in detail about what Allaah made to occur on the earth, so it increases (in detail) upon what is in the Qur'an, and does not oppose it...

From what these contemporary Scholars have said is that after the initial creation of the heavens and earth, Allaah's actions of creating did not pause, and that Aadam (alayhis salaam) was created later, after a period, and within that period there was continued development upon the earth, and Allaah's acts of creation did not pause, so the earth was developed and made suitable for habitation. And at some stage, the Jinn were created and were present on it, and they lived for a period, and then after that Aadam was created. And this is what the Qur'an indicates. Take for example the saying of Allaah, (إِنِّي جَاعِلٌ فِي الأَرْضِ خَلِيفَةً), "And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: "Verily, I am going to place (mankind) generations after generations on earth" (2:30), then this requires that the earth be already created and be inhabitable. And the Jinn were created before men, (وَالْجَآنَّ خَلَقْنَاهُ مِن قَبْلُ مِن نَّارِ السَّمُومِ), "And the jinn, We created aforetime from the smokeless flame of fire" (15:27), and the Jinn also had their habitation and means of subsistence that were ready for them.

Coming to the issue then, whatever the claimed age of the universe or the earth, because upon what we have mentioned above from the texts and the sayings of those scholars, we allow for a period of time from the creation and presence of the initial mass (and dukhaan), then the creation and formation of the heavens and the earth, then to the time of Aadam and his offspring. And in that time (after the initial formation, creation of the heavens and earth), we do not claim Allaah's (act of) creation paused and stopped. No, rather Allaah continued creating and making the earth suitable for inhabitation and placing (or shaping, refining, developing etc.) things therein (after the six days [as reckoned with Allaah] of initial creation). So whether that (period of time) is millions of years or billions of years (of our reckoning), or whatever the actual truth of the matter is (and Allaah knows best), then there is no ishkaal (problem) as it relates to the revealed texts, and walhamdulillaah, we are not like those fanatical Christian "creationists" who are partly to blame for the emergence of the likes of Usamah Hasan and other self-confessed apes (both Arab and non-Arab types) amongst the Muslims who decided to go to the other the end and to impose Darwinian Evolution upon Allaah's creative power (al-khaql, al-qudrah) upon mere desires and with nothing with which to fight against the revealed texts except their whims and desires.

We have to also remember that there are different measurements of time, there is a created measurement of time with Allaah whose days are like a thousand years of our reckoning, and Allaah knows best how much the years that are with Allah are with us in terms of our measurement of time. If we simply assume just for the purpose of illustration and not assertion of belief in the matter, that a year with Allaah is 355,000 of our years (based upon what is in the Qur'an that 1 day with Allaah is like 355,000 days [1000 lunar years] for us, and again this is an assumption only to help illustrate a point), then there would be around 12,500 years or less (with Allaah) between the initial creation of the earth to the creation of Aadam and his offspring (if we operate upon an age of 4.5 billion years for the earth of our reckoning for arguments sake). And we are informed in the Sunnah that there was 50,000 years from the writing of the decrees to the creation of the heavens and earth. Upon this, we can say that Allaah wrote the decrees of everything 50,000 years (that are with Allaah) before creating. Then He created the heavens and earth in six days (that are with Allaah, 6000 years in our reckoning), but His creation did not stop there (after the initial creation), the earth was made to develop to become inhabitable and suitable for the Jinn, and later the men. And this period is around 12,500 years (that are with Allaah) [from initial creation to advent of Aadam and offspring, working on estimated age of earth of 4.5 billion years of our reckoning]. However, this is just an illustration, and not that we are asserting anything definitive in this matter since we have not been given this knowledge, and it is possible that these times are subject to significant revision.

But our purpose here is the following:

Confiscating Usamah's Bananas, One By One

This leaves us now with those scraps that Usamah managed to scavenge from the Mu'tazilah (al-Jaahiz), the Ismaa'eelee Baatiniyyah (Ikhwan al-Safaa, Ibn al-Miskawayh), Ibn Khaldun, al-Rumi and their likes that seem to indicate ideas similar to Darwin's. So Usamah is grinning with his bunch of five or six bananas, waving them at the Muslims, claiming he's onto something, little does he realize that he's the one in the cage, not us. So let's play monkey with him and take his bananas, one by one...

Thirteen: We have seen that the scoundrel is not supported by anything in the revealed texts, it is all against him and silences him definitively walhamdulillaah, and enters him amongst the generality of the apes, asses, dogs and donkeys that the Scholars of the Sunnah have pointed out over the various eras, meaning the people of desires (Ahl al-Ahwaa) who do not think with an aql (reason) that has been illuminated by naql (revealed text). So Usamah Hasan has simply found these scraps and is doing two things through them: a) a good apologetic, tongue-wagging bootlick to an non-sympathetic, aggressive, atheistic intellectual audience (like Dawkins for example) within the wider framework of an underlying inferiority complex and embarrassment and b) hoodwinking the Muslims with a view to legitimizing his bootlick [which itself has deeper psychological roots - let Usamah tell you about it here in his own words] in order to make it appear other than what it really is.

Fourteen: As for these various statements:

The writings of Ikhwan al-Safaa [Baatinee Ismaa'eelees who were an underground secret movement trying to merge the Sharee'ah with the heritage of Greek philosophy, and so they took a lot of Aristotle's writings about divinity, life, nature, philosophy etc. and tried to mix them with the Sharee'ah, they also called to unity of religions]. They did write about an idea that can be taken to broadly resemble the Darwinian concept, and this is found in their "Tenth Epistle", however they have statements which show "Darwinism" is not their intent. We can confiscate the first banana from Usamah Hasan with the following quote from these Ismaa'eelee Baatiniyyah (1/121 of a 1305H/1887CE print):

Know O brother that the perfectly created animals, their beginnings firstly, were all from clay, male or female. Then they reproduced, had offspring and spread throughout the earth into the plainland, mountains, land and sea from beneath the equator where the night and day are equal and time is balanced there between heat and cold and the constituents are prepared to accept the form, that is always present. And there also is our father, Aadam, the father of mankind, and his wife, then they reproduced, had offspring and they filled the earth in terms of its plainland, mountains, land and sea to this day of ours. Then know O brother, that the animals existence precedes humanity in terms of time, because they are for him and for his sake and everything is for another things sake, such that it precedes it in existence. This wisdom is elementarily known in reason, and does not require evidence from the primary premises and their resulting conclusions because if the presence of animals did not precede the presence of humanity, humanity would not have had any habitation here.

It is clear that they accept that all animals (like humans) were made initially from clay (in all their species and variation), which then reproduced and spread into the earth, and this took place before Aadam and his wife and their offspring inhabited the earth. As for their other statements, then what appears to be the case is they were simply outlining a heirarchy that exists in creation and that some species are close to others, in that their features, traits and characteristics, reach the limits of the defining borders of others in their traits and characteristics. And what we should note is Aristotle laid down a classification system of all plants and animals. Ibn Rushd (12th century CE) wrote an explanation of the writings of Aristotle on nature which was translated into Latin. Those who came after took this classification system and propounded their own ideas and views, and these types of theories developed by the Medieval period into what is known as the al-Silsilah al-Udhmaa lil-Kaa'inaat (the Great Chain of Created Things). And it is within the broad framework of these ideas that people like Comte de Buffon, Charles Bonnet, Erasmus Darwin, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and Charles Darwin developed their own theories in the 18th and 19th centuries CE. People like Ibn Khaldun (14th century CE) and others will have been under these types of influences (from the ideas of the day) in their writings.

Fifteen: As for Abu Alee Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Miskawayh (d. 421H), he has two books, al-Fawz al-Asghar and Tahdheeb al-Akhlaaq, and within these books, he again appears to be speaking within that same framework of the hierarchy of things and how the characteristics and traits in each heirarchy vary, such that plants have the feature of movement that mere dust and minerals do not, then within these plants you have a heirarchy until the highest of them (the date palm tree) have features close to the lowest of animal forms, and then from the lowest of animal forms you see a heirarchy until you reach apes, which have features and characteristics that resemble the lowest of humans. He puts each of these classes into a particular "horizon" (meaning a layer, class, realm) based upon its qualities and properties. This is similar to what the Ikhwaan al-Safaa wrote. And what they mean is that each "horizon" as in "layer", "class" morphs into the next (in terms of its features, characteristics). So there does not really appear to be any support for Usamah Hasan here, so we can now confiscate another banana from him at this point.

Sixteen: As for Ibn Khaldun (d. 808H) he also has a number of statements in his Muqaddimah which are used to speak of the effects of nature upon living beings and the struggle for survival and what is similar to that. Refer to his al-Muqaddimah (tahqiq, Abd al-Salam al-Shadaadee, Dar al-Baydaa, 2005) in the first volume (1/51-186). Now some of these affairs mentioned by Ibn Khaldun are not denied, like for example what he writes in that the air and heat have an effect on the mannerisms, qualities (akhlaaq) of people where those in hotter regions are quicker in happiness and rejoicement than those in other climates. He has other statements similar to this which speak of the effect of climate upon those with lighter skin. He also gives an example in another place in his Muqaddimah of how feeding a chicken with different types of seeds can effect the size of the chickens it subsequently produces (see 1/145) and he is speaking within the context of how food and hunger affect the bodies. Now all of these environmental effects have nothing to do with Darwinism that claims transformation of species, one to another, by "natural selection." And we don't deny these environmental effects in any case.

Now at this stage, whilst we are very tempted, we can't really take another banana from Usamah, because there's more. Ibn Khaldun has a statement in the sixth muqaddimah (see 1/153) where he speaks of the graduation in creation and where you see one class of being reaches it's highest limits and borders onto the lowest limits of the next class, or the next "horizon." This is the particular quote that Usamah Hasan is using, lets take a look at it:

One should then look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word 'connection' with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group... The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and to reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man. This is as far as our (physical) observation extends

Whilst it appears to be Darwinian, it is along the same lines as what we explained earlier, and it actually occurs within the context of speaking about Prophethood, revelation and the challenge (tahaddee) with respect to the Qur'an, and the abilities of mankind to perceive and know realities and attain information through sensory perception and through spirituality. So within this context, he first speaks about the universe and the heirarchy of beings found within it, from minerals right up to man (see 1/152-153), and a little later he also speaks of the soul and how it can trascend and be like the angels in terms of its ability to perceive without the bodily senses (see 1/154-155) and what he is building up to is to the issue of revelation (wahy) and how the Prophets and Messengers are able to receive revelation and their acquisition of revelation making them similar to Angels (in the mode of how information is received very rapidly and directly bypassing the senses). It is clear that in this statement, and Allaah knows best, Ibn Khaldun is not intending Darwinian Evolution in the whole of this discussion and what he is doing is speaking of the hierarchy of beings within a wider context of speaking about revelation and the nature of reason, sensory perception and knowledge. As for this sentence (1/153), which is what Usamah is hinging on:

و معنى الاتصال في هذه المكونات أن آخر أفق منها مستعد بالاستعداد القريب لأن يصير أول أفق الذي بعده

And the meaning of "connection" amongst these created things is that the last "range" is prepared with close proximity to become the first of the "range" that is after it.

Then we look at this in light of what he says further down on the page that there is also a "connection" between the soul and the level that comes after it which is the stage of the Angels. He says:

و هو عالم الملائكة فوجب من ذلك أن يكون للنفس استعداد للانسلاخ من البشرية إلى الملكية ليصير بالفعل من جنس الملائكة وقتاً من الأوقات في لمحة من اللمحات و ذلك بعد أن تكمل ذاتها الروحانية بالفعل كما نذكره بعد و يكون لها اتصال بالأفق الذي بعدها شأن الموجودات المرتبة كما قدمناه

And it is the world of the Angels, so it is obligatory from this that the soul is prepared to cast off its humanity [and depart to] an angelic [characteristic], so that it can practically become from the genus of Angels for a period of time amongst the times, in a moment amongst the moments. And this is after it has perfected its spiritual essence practically, as we shall mentioned afterwards, and that it has a connection with the "range" which is after it (meaning Angels) just as the affair is with all the structured, organized existing things (in creation) as we have just discussed.

From all of what has preceded, even if there is obscurity in Ibn Khaldun's statement, it appears that he is really talking about the traits and characteristics of each "range" of beings and how we see a natural progression in a heirarchy, and we see man connected to the level of Angels (in the manner described) and that this type of connection exists between all created things, within their respective heirarchies.

Seventeen: There is also the saying of Zakariyyaa bin Muhammad al-Kufi al-Qazweenee (d. 682H) who has a book "Ajaa'ib al-Makhlooqaat wa Gharaa'ib al-Mawjoodaat" and it is similar to what has preceded above, he says:

The first level of these created beings is dust, and the last of them are the pure angelic souls. For the minerals, the first of them (i.e. lowest) are connected to dust or water and the last of them (highest, most complex) with plants. And the first of the plants are connected to the minerals and the last of them with the animals. And the first of the animals are connected to plants, and the last of them to man. And the human souls, the first of them are connected to the animals and the last of them to angelic souls, and Allaah knows best about what is correct.... and they are connected some to others with an amazing arrangement (order) and a marvelous system, lofty is its Creator from whwat the oppressors and rejecters say with a lofty exaltation.

Again, we see that he is not speaking about Darwinian Evolution but is along the lines of whatever has preceded in the other quotations. Consider his statement in his book (Mu'assasah al-A'laa lil-Matboo'aat, Beirut, 2000) p.251:

Know that man is composed of a soul and body and he is the noblest of animals and the end [level] of all creatures, Allaah shaped Him in the best of forms and specified him with (possession of) speech and reason, inwardly and outwardly and He adorned his outer with senses and his inner with faculties which are nobler and stronger... So from this angle, man is a small world (in his own right), so from the angle that he nourishes (himself) and grows, they said [he is] a plant, and from the angle that he perceives (with sense) and moves, they said he [is an] animal, and from the angle that he knows the realities of things, they said [he is] an angel...

Now this particular statement of al-Qazwini is actually quite useful for us to understand the previous statements (in particular that of Ibn Khaldun), because, what we can understand from it is that the "genus" or "class" or "level" or "range" that is a plant for example is fully prepared to become the next "genus" or "class" or "level" or "range" which is the lowest of the animal range. So the speech here really is of the classifications themselves, and not that an actual entity, like a date-palm tree for example becomes a slug or a snail. That clearly does not appear to be the intent of Ibn Khaldun and others and anyone with common sense knows this is not intended. Rather they are speaking of the "stages" and not the actual entities that are members of those "stages." Hence, the "stage" of man is prepared to become the "stage" of an angel in the sense that there are such higher faculties and qualities that man can reach, which are like those of angels, but not that he becomes an angel physically. Similarly, the date palm-tree has almost animal type features, being the highest of plant forms, and putting it right next to the lowest of animal forms. So we are speaking here of "stages" in an abstract sense and the speech of all of these scholars who have been cited is from this perspective. Sorry Usamah, but we are going to have to take that half-banana from you, blame it on al-Qazwini if you like, but we've got to be honest and just, we have a good enough framework to put Ibn Khaldun's statement into context and on the balance of probabilities, we are much more correct than you are [unless Ibn Khaldun has other statements we are not aware of, in which case we'll let you have it back]. As we are quickly surveying and reading al-Qazwini's book right now, as we write, it appears there is much more that we can use against you and your intellectual con and academic fraud, walhamdulillaah, but that is for another day, inshaa'Allaah.

Eighteen: There are also the sayings of al-Jaahiz the Mu'tazilee (d. 255H) in his book al-Hayawaan, and these appear to be in relation to the influence of the environment upon the survivability of species and the changes taking place in the morphological aspects of species. Now we have not been able to check and verify the original source, we have limited time, so this means Usamah gets to keep a banana on this one. But as we said earlier, we do not deny environmental effects upon traits and characteristics, since we believe Allaah created perfected forms of things in which He placed capacities, propensities for change, influence, variation, adaptation and so on. So whilst we have been generous here, we still advise Usamah not to jump up and down out of joy (with his hands under his armpits) for the banana he's been allowed to keep. We may well just come back for it.

Nineteen: As for what is quoted from Jalal al-Din al-Rumi (an extreme Ittihaadee Sufee) from the thirteenth century CE:

Low in the earth
I lived in realms of ore and stone;
And then I smiled in many-tinted flowers;
Then roving with the wild and wandering hours,
O'er earth and air and ocean's zone,
In a new birth,
I dived and flew,
And crept and ran,
And all the secret of my essence drew
Within a form that brought them all to view -
And lo, a Man!
And then my goal,
Beyond the clouds, beyond the sky,
In realms where none may change or die -
In angel form; and then away
Beyond the bounds of night and day,
And Life and Death, unseen or seen,
Where all that is hath ever been,
As One and Whole.

Then all we can say is: It is strange and amazing that a scientist, boasting of so many secular ijaazah's claiming scientific erudition, above and beyond the rest of us unfortunate dumb commoners, has to resort to using the ramblings of Ittihaadee Soofees as "religious proof" as part of a wider scheme in combining between Darwinism and the Qu'ran. Indeed this is a strange an amazing thing! This definitely means another banana from Usamah. This statement of al-Rumi is expressing and propounding a religious doctrine as he is an Ittihaadee Sufi and it has little to do with Darwinism. This also indicates the level of sophistication in his deduction of evidence and the extent of his "scientific thinking." As we said in the last article, that if you claim sophistication and erudition in the secular sciences, then that same sophistication and intellectual congruency must be demonstrated in your process of demonstrating and extracting religious proof too. Unfortunately, Usamah has shown nothing except a children's madrasah level of demonstration of religious proof.

By now it should be clear that we have stripped down and laid bare the con that Usamah Hasan is involved in. It has been reported to us that his father, Suhayb Hasan, stated on the evening of Friday 14th January 2011, that his son Usamah holds the (Darwinian) views that he does because he has studied this science more than us (meaning, those in the audience and the rest of us dumb commoners) and he proceeded to invoke curses upon those who did not pray behind his son. Allaah knows best where Usamah has been studying "science" but we don't see any "scientific thinking" anywhere. All we see is buffoonery and piles of banana skins - an ape who went on a psychological journey after July 7/7 whose conclusions we are seeing now.

We can now finish off and make some concluding comments, we have plenty of bananas by our side and this should keep us going to the end of the article.

Closing Notes

Firstly, Usamah Hasan is not driven by scientific enquiry (nadhar), nor reason (aql). What we are seeing here is a psychological problem, a plagued and disturbed man, trying to pull himself together in a post 9/11 world and post 7/7 Britain. He is operating in an academic, intellectual environment and has developed an inferiority complex which has led him into a downward spiral. He's fond of hybridization. Merging Wahhabism with Sufism and then Darwinism with the Qur'an, and also Islam with Modernism and Secularism. As we said in the last article, who knows, maybe the next stage is merging Ittihaad and Hulool with Darwinism leading to a Darwinian Ittihaadee, you already have that in the statement of al-Rumi. Its the sign of an intellectually confused person who having lost aql, has no refuge except to kalaam and falsafah. There is no aql running here, we certainly ain't seen any.

Secondly, the Muslims, walhamdulillaah, are not in need of Darwinism and nor have we any need to try and reconcile the Qur'an and the Sunnah with it, and alhamdulillaah, because we are not suffering any delusions or psychological upheaveals. The aql is actually with us because we start out from the naql and work our way outwards from there. And with what has preceded we have no problem with accepting the phenomena that are observed and which Darwinian evolutionists call "evolutionary forces," meaning that we accept environmental factors influence species as an observed phenomenon (we just don't call it "natural selection"), likewise we also accept changes in DNA can take place over generations, leading to change and variation (because that propensity has been in-built), and likewise genetic flow and genetic drift as observed trends. We are able to fit this in with our understanding and perspective as has preceded in Part 2 in detail. Likewise, the issue of the age of the earth does not cause a problem for us and the revealed texts, and we have explained this matter earlier in this article. Further, we say that Allaah created all things upon their particular form and nature, He gave everything a spouse (partner) from its own like for cohabitation (this includes all things, plants, animals, humans) and gave each things its mode, and He put in all things inherent capacities and propensities (the information coded in the genes) that allow for adaptation and variation and through which we see the great diversity in things. We say that this is something pre-programmed by Allaah into all things at the point of creation. And we don't even deny that species can undergo change or that certain types of species can mate to produce new hybrid ones (even though that often has implications on reproductive capacity). All of that is from Allaah and Allaah adds to His creation as He wills (35:1) as has preceded.

Thirdly: The Muslims at large do not have the problems that are with the fundamentalist Christian "creationists" whom Usamah Hasan is trying to group the Muslims with. They believe the earth is around 6000-8000 years old and that the six days of creation are our days (as in heavens and earth created in 144 hours). Yes, there may be Muslim factions out there who are not thoroughly grounded in the Book and the Sunnah, and they are upon false beliefs and doctrines and they may try to refute Darwinism from faulty perspectives and make mistakes in the process. And you also have the Ash'arites, wandering blindly, still stuck with that worn out atomism upon which they built their creed as well their outright denial of causality, which does not help matters. But most Muslims suffice with a generalized belief, they know through their fitrah, aql and naql that Allaah is the creator of all things, and it does not disadvantage them not to know of such matters in detail. So the way Usamah is coming out against the Muslims, scorning them and ridiculing them and lamenting (alongside the atheists) that Muslim children are taught Darwinism is wrong, then this indicates a perversion and really this is not something based in science, it is more to do with the trauma he experienced on account of 7/7 - and what we are seeing from him (of this modernist orientation) is just a manifestation of that trauma - he's pretty much said it in his own words.

Fourthly, Usamah has no proof from any source, not from nadhar, aql, or naql, and not even in the scraps he managed to find from those authorities discussed earlier in this article, because those quotes are not really in his favour at all. But these scraps are just a means to cover his leafless tree, and so in reality he has only reviled his own aql.



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