Another attack on religion is the ‘evolution theory’. Clearly scientists will have claimed to have solved this puzzle and promote Darwin’s theory that, ‘we evolved from Apes‘, but over hundreds of years have passed and still no-one has been able to prove Darwin’s theory!
The Holy Qur’an supports the view that we evolved through various stages of evolution, but it certainly does not support the view that we evolved through apes, etc. Instead, the Holy Qur’an supports the view that the human species evolved from the single cell stage as a separate species. Likewise, the Holy Qur’an informs us that Adam was not the first man, but the first prophet (2:31)..
Fossil evidence has shown several stages in the development of the human species. The oldest discovered fossil, so far, is known as ‘Lucy‘ and dates from 3.5 million years ago. This most ancient wave of hominids were called Australopithecus.
The second wave of hominids were the Pithecanthropines or Archanthropians. These lived some 500,000 years ago, surviving for roughly 350,000 years.
The third wave of hominids were the Neanderthals or Paleanthropians. They appeared about 100,000 years ago and lived approximately 60,000 years.
The last wave of hominids are the Homo Sapiens. They appeared about 35,000 to 40,000 years ago.
The Holy Qur’an informs us of how Allah removed one kind of people and replaced them with other people. Some of the relevant verses are:
Holy Qur’an Chapter 71, verse 15 relates:
Some scientists believe that Man’s development was due to mutation as J. Monod said:
“The only possible source of evolution has been in the fortuitous accidents that have occurred in the structure of D. N. A. They are what are known as ‘mutation’.
This theory has been rejected by most scientists, one such scientist, Oparine, a modern Russian biologist who is a well known materialist, rejects outright the theory of chance in the formation of life, he said:
“The entire network of metabolic reactions is not only strictly co-ordinated, but also orientated towards the perpetual preservation and reproduction of the totality of conditions set by the external environment. This highly organised orientation characteristic of life cannot be the result of chance.”
He explained this by giving a relevant comparison to help the layman see the illogicality of theories pointing towards chance, he said:
“It is as if one jumbled together the printing blocks representing the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, in the hope that by chance they will fall into the pattern of a poem that we know. Only through knowledge and careful arrangement of the letters and words in a poem, however, can we produce the poem from the letters.”
We know that the chemical components which form the human body are present to a greater to lesser quality in the ground. The Holy Qur’an presents various stages of development man passed through, some examples are:
Holy Qur’an Chapter 6, Verse 3 relates
It agrees that man passed through these stages, but instead of being a ‘fortuitous accident’ it shows it was a ‘planned evolution’. An example of this is where God explains in the Holy Qur’an that man passed through a stage of ‘Dry ringing clay’ which describes the exact process that the D. N. A. has to pass. The D. N. A. had to leave the water (soup) and be dried by the sun and then at exactly the right moment, be returned to the water. If it remained on land for a fraction of a second too long or too short a time, then, it would have continued this process indefinitely.