Evolution, Psychology, and Muslim Academia

By, Md Maruf Hasan

Daniel Dennett wrote a book on the title “ Breaking the Spell” (2006). It was after 9/11 attack. In Western thought , Darwin’s ideas are considered as the most dangerous thought against religious narratives till today. Dennett made a remark saying Darwin destroy the picnic that humans were obsessed with religious worldview. Until Darwin’s thought came in heliocentric view was popular to negate Christian narratives, but it was not that much strong in influence. However, after the Darwin , you can notice be it art, literature, science, history what not, all got influenced by Darwinian evolutionary thought.  For example, Sigmund Freud was famous for his psychoanalysis theory. In contemporary psychology, Freud got less influence due to the emergence of evolutionary psychology. However, in 20th century it was very popular . Even after 9/11 attack, I saw his theory of sexuality was used to analyze the mindset of Sayyid Qutub. Muslim terrorists are levelled as sexually frustrated people and Muslims are sexually frustrated nation. The analysis is wrong for sure if we look at contemporary theories in psychology. If you read Freud’s  “The Future of an Illusion”, you can see how Freud use his theory to justify Adam and Eve and until Jesus’ narrative. Jesus led a celibate life. The Freudian interpretation may make some sense when he tries to analyzie biblical narratives. However, it does not work for Islamic narratives. How many wives were there for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)?  Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was not celibate and Islam allows for 4 wives and there is no policy like Church that Muslim Imams can not get married. However, the discourse was still used within Muslim context. I read Malik Badri’s book “THE DILEMMA OF MUSLIM PSYCHOLOGISTS” during my audit course  “Psychology of Religion”. He was criticizing Muslim secular psychologist who are obsessed with Freudian theory. However, even among western academics, Freudian psychology lost credibility with the emergence of evolutionary psychology. What Freud did however is he was able to articulate thought based on pure  materialistic perspective. You can read Dostoevsky’s Brother Karamajov novel to understand what I mean by Darwinian influence in every sector. Because when you think Christianity is false religion based on Darwinian view of  life, every ideal religious framework starts to break down and you start try to look for alternative ways to deal with universe.

Darwin proposed a secular draft about the evolutionary process without any divine intervention. The draft has been modified since then in every field and the prediction is going to the Godless universe. Let’s look at this paragraph by Steven Pinker. He (2022, p.2) states:

The Judeo-Christian conception is still the most popular theory of human nature in the United States…only 15 percent believe that Darwin’s theory of evolution is the best explanation for the origin of human life on Earth. Politicians on the right embrace the religious theory explicitly, and no mainstream politician would dare contradict it in public. But modern science of cosmology, geology, biology, and archaeology have it impossible for scientifically literate person to believe that the biblical story of creation actually took place. As a result, the Judeo-Christian theory of human nature is no longer explicitly avowed by most academics, journalists, social analysts, and other intellectually engaged people.

Now the question arise is there any problem with Muslim academia ? The answer is yes. It is very complex and ambiguous problem within academia and nobody can escape from it. There is a very fundamental and serious problem existing in contemporary academia. Muslim academics and students need to work hard and put effort to come up with antidote which can ultimately benefits the whole of humanity. When I asked Ustaz Numan Ali Khan at IIUM after the speech about Islam and Science, he suggested me two books written in 20th century after Iqbal. I went through the books. The books advocated for single cell life and its evolutionary process. Also, It was kind of contemporary issues about strong and weak emergence debate. There is a debate about Panpsychism. As students we got puzzled with so many  issues how these matters create consciousness without divine intervention. Evolutionary  idea is brought to decode these issues by negating divine intervention again and again. There is still so many questions unanswered , yet following methodological naturalism, academia simply negate all supernatural explanations. As for definition, they are on the right track. That’s why we hear common phrase “ I really wish God exists, but there is no evidence for it”. This mentality comes in when academics are too much fond with methodological naturalism. By the way, if you are interested in evolution and Islam, you can read writings of Dr. Shoaib Ahmed Malik. He wrote a famous book recently , “Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazālī and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm” (2021)

Lastly, I will deal briefly with evolutionary psychology. You saw snake and your body shook automatically? How this automated warning came in? Well, evolutionary psychology will ask you to return our ancestors when we live in jungle. The warning signature was encoded though gene from that time in our body. It is in our DNA. This kind of discourse is disturbing to religious thought. In Islam, we heard term like “Fitrah”or natural instinct. Hence, it could be either Allah has already encoded some issues in our DNA. If we look at other animals after birth, they got guidance (fitrah) about what to do. For example, Swan can swim after they get out from eggs. Hens can not do so. Obviously evolutionary explanation is there for each case, but Islamic discourse on Fitrah makes very sense when we deal with these issues. I sense it after reading western scientific literature , 21st century is not going to be easy for Muslim academics and students.

In conclusion, I can say that Darwinian influence do exists within academia and the more secular polished version of interpretation is coming up to understand our materialistic universe. These narratives are to point towards Godless universe. Muslim academics and students have role to play at this critical juncture.***