A Brief History of Islamic Creationism in Turkey

Taner EdisDepartment of Physics Truman State University

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Recent history

• Past few centuries dominated by need to catch up to modern, especially Western world.

• West has technological advantage military and commercial power. Need science!

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Importing science

• Borrow technology but guard against foreign cultural influences.

• Materialist aspects of science (as seen in popular 19th century materialist literature, such as by Ludwig Büchner) undesirable.

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Responding to Darwin

• Early response to Darwin and evolution in the context of westernization and elite debates over materialist philosophy.

• Largely ignored, or denounced as an offense to religion. Accepted by radical secularizers but not Muslim modernists.

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Said Nursi

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Secularist impositions

• Turkish example: most radical secularist experiment in Muslim world. 1920s, 30s.

• Darwinian evolution part of state science education.

• But only minor offense to traditional religion, when compared to much more serious injuries.

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Underground creationism

• Until 1970s Turkey, little public creationism outside of conservative Muslim subculture. (Passive resistance to evolution.)

• 1970s: Islamists in coalition. Opposition to evolution a culture-wars theme. Indirect way of opposing secularism.

• Grassroots modernist movements push pseudoscience.

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Official creationism• 1980: military coup.

Conservative policy.• Mid-1980s: conservative

government, Islamists in Ministry of Education, Nur influence.

• Creationism in secondary education. Translations from US literature, distributed to teachers.

• Creationist paragraphs in Turkish textbooks, even today.

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Harun Yahya

• In 1997, Harun Yahya literature took Turkey by storm. Creationism central theme.

• Borrows from Christian creationists; Adds more traditional Islamic themes.

• Uses media very well.

• Modern, but religious image.

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Successful creationism• Scientists (e.g. Turkish Academy of

Sciences) publicly oppose creationism. Ineffectual.

• Many Turkish academics express skepticism about Darwinian evolution.

• Muslim opposition to evolution is intellectually mainstream.

• Defense of evolution entangled with a discredited secularism.

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Recent public examples• March 2009:

Censorship of popular science and technology magazine.

• January 2011: Elementary teacher in trouble for answering question about evolution.

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Global Islamic Creationism

• Turkish origin (Harun Yahya), but internationally popular.

• Grassroots pseudoscience; theme of harmony between science and traditional religion.

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Quran Evolution?• 15:26 “We created man of

potter’s clay of black mud altered.”

• 24:45 “And God created all animals from water: some of them travel on their bellies, some travel on two legs, some travel on four. God creates what God will; God is capable of all things.”

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Guided evolution

• Many accept limited evolution– Common descent somewhat OK, but more

problematic where humans are concerned.– Explicitly guided, non-Darwinian process.

Creativity cannot reside in the material world.

• Attractive as a middle path, but even guided evolution always controversial.

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Academic creationism• Well-known philosophers of

science Seyyed Hossein Nasr (Iran, US), and Osman Bakar (Malaysia, currently US) are creationists.

• Darwinian evolution goes against top-down, God-centered view of reality demanded by religion.

• “Intelligent design” also finding an audience.

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Doctrinal conservatism

• Liberal Muslim views weaker than Christian counterparts.

• Reinterpretation, seeing religion as human strongly opposed.

• Even modernists, democrats can be cultural conservatives.

• Rejecting materialism conditions both popular and intellectual discourse on science.

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Plug

Taner Edis, An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam (Prometheus Books, 2007).