Today I want to raise something that will unsettle us a little. Is there really a contradiction between the theory of evolution and religion? Or does the problem lie somewhere else? Let me say at once: this essay will not settle the whole matter. That would take philosophy of science, Islamic reasoning, and the details of evolutionary theory all together.

Instead I want to focus on a more basic question: why does the contradiction appear to be there at all? Why has this reaction formed in recent years?

We all know the famous story. Blind men enter a stable and meet an elephant. One touches the trunk: “an elephant is like a hose.” Another touches a leg: “no, like a tree.” A third touches an ear and says something else entirely.

We are like this too. When we look at a matter, we mostly look from a single angle — more precisely, from the angle our age, our culture, even our temperament has handed us.

In the 1970s, for instance, everyone was comparing Islam against capitalism and communism. Look at those books today and you may think, “what was the need?” But for that period it made perfect sense; people were wrestling with the problems of their day.

Or take a nearer example: over the last twenty or thirty years the emphasis that “Islam is a religion of peace” has grown enormously. Was it spoken of this way before the First World War? No. The whole world was at war then; the emphasis would not have occurred to anyone.

The second important point: not everything that speaks of the Qur'an is like the Qur'an. When you read a work of tafsīr, not everything in that book is a Qur'anic verse.

In Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī's famous commentary, for example, there is an explanation that “it is impossible for the earth to rotate.” The reasoning: if the earth were turning, a man jumping on a ship would land further forward, because the ship would have moved meanwhile.

Today we think, “but the principle of inertia!” In his day there was no such knowledge. The man wrote what was reasonable.

So what does this mean? The Qur'anic interpretations of the one who writes the commentary are not as true as the verse itself.

In Nursî's works there is talk of “the ether.” In the physics of that period, a substance called ether was assumed necessary for light to travel through the void. Experiment later showed it was not needed.

I have heard some people say: “Since Nursî spoke of ether, ether must exist!”

No, my friend, no. He gave an example from the science of his day in order to convey God's power. This is entirely normal. If I now give an example from quantum physics and those theories change a hundred years from now, my example will be wrong too. But that does not change the truth I was trying to convey.

The third matter runs deeper. People form pictures in their minds as they read, and they take those pictures for reality itself.

When you hear “God made every living thing from water,” what do you understand? Perhaps the importance of water for life; perhaps that the first living things appeared in the sea.

But when it is said “God created man from dust”? Ah — there a picture appears at once: a potter taking clay, giving it shape, then giving it life.

Does that picture certainly mean that? Perhaps it was told that way because people lived in an age of pottery. Perhaps there is a far deeper meaning.

The problem is this: we confuse the picture that forms in our minds when we read a text with the text itself.

“Teach your children the prayer from the age of seven, work to make it steady, and once they have begun praying do not strike them again.” Yet another person, reading the very same hadith through the frame of his own picture, understands it as: order a seven-year-old to pray and beat him if he does not — or further still, order the prayer and make him pray by beating. That is the picture that comes alive in his head.

My last point is the most critical: people generally evaluate theories not by whether they are true or false, but by what purpose they serve.

If someone says “women are free individuals, therefore they have a right to a free sexual life,” the one who objects usually answers: “No, women are not free at all!”

But the correct answer should be: “Yes, women are free — but that does not entail what you are claiming.”

The same holds for evolution. When an atheist says “look, living things evolved, therefore God did not create them,” the answer to give is not “no, evolution definitely does not exist.” The right approach is: “yes, living things appear to have evolved, and this shows us that God created living things by means of evolution.”

Now to the main matter. You know the Big Bang theory: the cosmos was a single point, came into being in an instant, and goes on expanding.

The theory of evolution is similar: there was a first simple organism, and over time more complex organisms arose.

Both theories say “development beginning from a single point.” But here is the interesting part:

Why? Because people look not at whether theories are true but at what they serve.

Classical atheist (materialist) thought used to say: “the universe is eternal, it always was. So there is no need for a creator.”

The Big Bang broke this. To say “there is a beginning” was to say “there is a creator.” So atheists objected. And Georges Lemaître, who first proposed the Big Bang, was a priest!

The theory of evolution, on the other hand, disturbed believers — because it clashed with pictures largely inherited from the Old Testament. In the mind stood the image: “God took clay and gave it shape.” Evolution was telling a different story.

A few simple but important principles:

1. Not everything we read is absolute truth. Commentary is not the Qur'an. It is interpretation.

2. The pictures in our minds are not reality itself. They help us understand the text, but they also confine us.

3. Let us try to weigh theories impartially. Not “who champions this theory,” but “what does this theory say, and is it true?”

4. Let us be aware of the spectacles of our own age. We too are looking from a single angle. But we can at least be aware of that.

In conclusion: the contradiction between the theory of evolution and Islam may not be as great as we suppose. Perhaps the problem is that we cannot reconcile new knowledge with the old pictures in our minds. Perhaps the problem is that we look at theories with a side already chosen rather than with a clear eye.

Seeking the truth is not easy. But knowing at least what the obstacles are means covering half the road.