tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post2549636390192580061..comments2022-10-24T01:36:58.967-07:00Comments on The Rationalizer: Is the Quran incompatible with evolution?XXXhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-46605519099998052032014-05-02T10:49:04.013-07:002014-05-02T10:49:04.013-07:00Correct me if I am wrong but I disagree with you h...Correct me if I am wrong but I disagree with you here. Quran is against evolution. Adam -the first human being was created out of clay? Is that really correct? <br />According to evolution, there are many species that are similar to each other because they shared a common ancestor. Due to mutation of genes and natural selection they evolved into distinct species over a large period of time. Chimp and humans have plenty of similarities. This means that they shared a common ancestor. The first human being therefore did not come out from clay but rather from a living being. This disproves quran.BlueRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01389313054165522518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-75078020590001864912014-05-02T10:44:10.623-07:002014-05-02T10:44:10.623-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.BlueRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01389313054165522518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-41235768483301071202014-05-02T07:00:32.305-07:002014-05-02T07:00:32.305-07:00Good one!
I really like the reference at the end :...Good one!<br />I really like the reference at the end :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-79200540925475319832014-05-01T09:47:51.320-07:002014-05-01T09:47:51.320-07:00I don't think there is anything there which sh...I don't think there is anything there which should give anyone any problems.XXXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-40176704455737598092014-05-01T05:09:03.581-07:002014-05-01T05:09:03.581-07:00I was a little unclear at the end of my last comme...I was a little unclear at the end of my last comment - I guess some of my verses are clear, some unclear :)<br /><br />When I said partly and entirely, I didn't mean part of today's human population or all of it. Indeed as you say, we would all have Adam and some of the Ug family as ancestors. Rather I was referring to the lineage for an individual today (addressed in verses like 37:11). So if al-Bob traced his lineage back x thousand years, a small part of it would go back to clay, and more of it would go back to Ug & co. But verses like 37:11 seem to imply that an individual's ancestry ultimately begins purely with clay. It might just about work if it had said your "human" ancestry goes back to clay or we created your "humanity" from clay. It actually says the following, which doesn't seem to fit the interpretation we've been discussing very well:<br /><br />37:11 (Pickthall) Then ask them (O Muhammad): Are they stronger as a creation, or those (others) whom we have created? Lo! We created them of plastic clay.<br /><br />Btw, sometimes when I see a verse or sentence begin with Lo! For a split second I read it as Lol !Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07129238494283129822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-67418609121693237412014-05-01T03:20:29.993-07:002014-05-01T03:20:29.993-07:00Just like Adam, all of the "Ug" people w...Just like Adam, all of the "Ug" people would either be the ancestor of everyone alive today or the ancestor of nobody.XXXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-76742879605606064672014-05-01T03:18:46.770-07:002014-05-01T03:18:46.770-07:00Agreed. If this Allah created Adam and taught him...Agreed. If this Allah created Adam and taught him right from wrong and then sent him down to Earth as a Khalifa then such a change would, I think, constitute a big enough social change to warrant a label.<br /><br />Humane, Humanity, MankindXXXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-11419248923722761302014-05-01T01:38:17.969-07:002014-05-01T01:38:17.969-07:00"The similitude of Jesus before Allah is as t..."The similitude of Jesus before Allah is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him: "Be". And he was." (3.59)<br /><br />Pretty much all the tafsirs imply that the above was a refutation to the argument that how can a man be born without a father, but since most people saying that already believed in Adam, God tells these people that Jesus is like Adam.. if Adam could have no parents, then for sure Jesus could be created without one parent. If Adam had non-human parents, then the above argument would never hold. <br /><br />The interpretation by Maudoodi also requires Adam NOT to have parents. And the metaphorical sense obviously can't be supported for the above verse.Daud Khanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07742107606682202763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-55862447500929569762014-05-01T01:28:41.415-07:002014-05-01T01:28:41.415-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Daud Khanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07742107606682202763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-87014326756298647462014-04-30T17:28:39.546-07:002014-04-30T17:28:39.546-07:00I guess due to the bottleneck thing a scientifical...I guess due to the bottleneck thing a scientifically literate Muslim would have to accept that we all have the natural guys as ancestors too, including those older than clay man. In that case they could say that clay man is called the beginning of mankind because of his special status with jinn told to bow to him, or maybe something like you mentioned that he was the first to make tools. But then there's the problem of verses like 37:11 where Allah addresses people today as made from clay (metaphorically referring to their line of life going back to clay man). But it doesn't say you partly come from clay, and partly from the natural tree of life. It sounds like it's saying that if you go back enough, you entirely came from clay.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07129238494283129822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-15971921779276721172014-04-30T16:52:38.043-07:002014-04-30T16:52:38.043-07:00Cheers, I both enjoyed and badly overclocked my br...Cheers, I both enjoyed and badly overclocked my braincells trying and barely even beginning to get my head round this stuff! I found the most helpful thing to remember is that if you go back a long time, each person has turned out to be an ancestor of everyone now or noone.<br /><br />One or two last thoughts since this whole thing is kind of a thought experiment of playing Muslim to see if there's a way they might reconcile human evolution with the Qur'an - the hardest thing of all for a Muslim to swallow about this would perhaps be why the clay man would have been specially created and moulded in the first place if there were already natural machines to do the job of creating a new body (i.e. the existing population). Instead Allah could just have chosen one of those naturally born creatures and given him special status to be bowed down to etc (probably not even saying he was the beginning of mankind at all).<br /><br />Another thing is that those naturally evolved guys who were also ancestors of some of the clay man's descendents would have no remaining descendents now. Therefore, strictly speaking, a Muslim who takes this view would still not believe that humans evolved in the larger tree of life (where human means everyone who has the clay man as an ancestor - "mankind" in this theological-technical jargon). All the progency of the naturally evolved, man-shaped beings who descended from other species would have died out now, including people who were descended from both clay man and the natural guys. If any were still alive at this point, those purely naturally evolved ancestors would also, along with the clay man, be ancestors of everyone, and thus it would make absurd that the beginning of mankind should be defined as having descent from the clay man given that some of these natural ancestors of all humans would pre-date him! <br /><br />So preserving clay man as everyone's earliest common male ancestor of any kind (so that he is the beginning of mankind as per the Quran) still means abandoning our connection with the wider tree of life.<br /><br />But experience tells me that if it's just about possible to interpret something in the Quran a certain way, there'll be some believers willing to go with it :)Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07129238494283129822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-48054486643540192312014-04-30T12:21:38.508-07:002014-04-30T12:21:38.508-07:00And thanks for the interesting comments!And thanks for the interesting comments!XXXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-4630995929561291582014-04-30T12:21:15.094-07:002014-04-30T12:21:15.094-07:00Yes, most recent male ancestor is not to be confus...Yes, most recent male ancestor is not to be confused with the Y-Chromosome lineage because men don't pass that on to their daughters.<br />XXXhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526186296114594091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-72380631078061978952014-04-30T09:19:50.593-07:002014-04-30T09:19:50.593-07:00I reread and see that you're not talking about...I reread and see that you're not talking about the most recent common male ancestor, but rather him or any one of the many earlier people who are ancestors of everyone. I guess the person in question would have to be the earliest one that a creator would call the beginning of mankind (as per the Quran), and he was made from clay (though not necessarily the first to have soul). I'd still find it odd that whoever a creator chose to be Adam, his descendents would have other ancestors slightly earlier than Adam who would have been ancestors of some of "Adam's" descendents, but now of noone, and none of these guys would count as belonging to mankind by a creator. So only those descended from the clay man ever counted.<br /><br />I also missed till I read this that the most recent male common ancestor is far more recent than the most recent male common dna ancestor ("y Chromosome Adam"):<br /><br />http://humphrysfamilytree.com/ca.html<br /><br />Fascinating!Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07129238494283129822noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5057905349826643814.post-33475271796832854582014-04-30T06:44:21.651-07:002014-04-30T06:44:21.651-07:00I like that it solves the incest-related problems....I like that it solves the incest-related problems. But I think there's 1 or more problems of its own. One is that the last common male ancestor of everyone alive will be changing all the time, probably even within the lifespan of Muhammad, who mentioned one particular guy again and again over 23 years. Another thing is the question of whether this guy could speak. Wikipedia says it is estimated that Y-chromosomal Adam lived between 237,000 and 581,000 years ago. I'm not sure what the evidence is (anatomical, I assume) concerning when we began to talk. I might try to think of some more question marks on this for fun later; it is quite interesting :)<br /><br />Could be useful for people like Usama Hasan, but if it gained traction people would soon point out problems in all likelihood.Greghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07129238494283129822noreply@blogger.com