Evolution and the Qur’an

Ali Arshad (e-mail:aarsha@tc3net.com)Recently, within the past couple of decades, there has been a revival of the debate between evolutionism and creationism. By creationism, believing that God created life without the process of evolution, is meant. The Christian creationists believe that God directly created life from clay. The process by which He created the world is not explainable, according to them, because the laws involved were not the same as the existing laws of the universe. Many Muslims are left wondering where they should stand on this topic. Almost every educated Muslim believes in the evolution of lower life forms, but not as many believe in the evolution of man. Do they believe this because of the Qur’an, or because they were fed these beliefs by their parents and teachers?