The Myth of Evolution

“Islam Between East and West” is a profound exploration of the philosophical, cultural, and spiritual intersections between Islam and Western thought. Izetbegović, a prominent Bosnian intellectual and statesman, delves into the compatibility and contrasts between Islamic and Western values, addressing topics such as human nature, morality, and the purpose of life. Through this work, he offers a nuanced perspective on how Islam can bridge the gap between the materialism of the West and the spiritualism of the East.

I wanted to share a quote from Alija Izetbegović’s book “Islam Between East and West” in response to proponents of the theory of evolution:

“Animals waited to become humans until the point in time where they began to pray. Whatever the merits of such a view, the decisive difference between man and animal is neither a physical nor an intellectual one.
It is above all a spiritual one, manifesting itself in the presence of some religious, ethical , and aesthetical conscience.
From this standpoint, the appearance of man should not be acknowledged as the time when he started to walk upright or from the development of his hands, speech, or intelligence, as science teaches us, but from the appearance of the first taboos culture.
In his book The First Law, Atkinson writes that different kinds of prohibitions existed among primitive people everywhere in the world.
The constant need for “purification from evil” and the constant dwelling on things forbidden to the touch or even to the sight is found everywhere and this has enabled us to acquire some knowledge about the existence of primitive being.
The other universal idea which dominated the minds of primitive men was the idea of banishment.
In this way, a whole system of prohibitions was created which covered different aspects of primitive life. These were later called taboos.
The taboo was originally a prohibition of ethical character among early mankind.
Man does not behave as a child of nature but rather as a stranger in it. His basic feeling is fear but not the biological fear that animals feel. It is a spiritual, cosmic, and primeval fear bound to the secrets and riddles of human existence.
Markin Heidegger called it the “eternal and timeless determinant of human existence.” This is a fear mingled with curiosity, astonishment, admiration, disaffection — the feelings that perhaps lie at the basis of all our culture and art”