Rick Heller of Smart Genes reminded me of this one. I had seen Danny Postel's Chronicle of Higher Education article before, but had been too pressed to blog it. "This deserves wider readership," Rick said. Upon reflection, he's right.
"Mr. Hashemi and other dissident Muslim thinkers - including Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law (Cambridge University Press, 2001) - oppose not only the authoritarian regimes that rule most Muslim countries, but also the Islamist movements that have risen to prominence in recent decades. These scholars, who regard such movements as reactionary rather than liberating, call for a radical transformation in the very structure of Islamic civilization - an opening up of Islamic societies to dissent, toleration, political pluralism, women's rights, and civil liberties."And that's just for starters. More promising still, the shift has a strong generational component. It's worth your time to go and read the whole thing. There's also a transcript of a live, online discussion with Khaled Abou El-Fadl, a professor at UCLA and one of the good guys. I've covered him before.
I don't honestly know if a culture of democracy and liberty (as opposed to a veneer of same) are possible in Arab Islamic culture as it exists today. This much I do know, however: we must try. Success in that endeavour would do more than almost anything else to protect us against Islamic fundamentalism, especially if it's accompanied by the liberation of women. If acceptance of that transition is to happen, it will require the help of people who can speak to the culture from within its own frame of reference.
That's the great service people like El-Fadl, Hashemi et. al. are performing.
XLIBRIS PUBLISHERS
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Philadelphia, PA 19113-1513
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Evolution Theory: Darwin’s Gigantic Rip-off
New Book Reveals Evolution Theory’s Islamic Roots
Philadelphia – (July 6, 2005) – The theory of evolution has Islamic roots. Fact or fiction? In T.O. Shanavas’ provocative new book, Creation AND/OR Evolution: An Islamic Perspective, get to know the real score and witness human life, as you know it, unravel truths that will challenge everything you think you know.
Here, Shanavas goes against the flow of established truths and boldly uncovers the theory of evolution as originally proposed by Muslims who lived centuries before Charles Darwin. These Muslims, coupled with their literal reading of the Qur’an, advocated evolution of life and natural selection.
History shows that Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, influenced the latter to study the nature and the evolution of life. The older Darwin learned about the evolution of life from books written by Muslim philosophers and scholars who preceded him by centuries. The young Darwin then collected evidence to support the theory of evolution.
In Creation AND/OR Evolution, Shanavas describes an Islamic theory of creation that is not incompatible with evolution. He accomplishes this by weaving together insights from modern science, the Qur’an, and pre-Renaissance Muslim history. He proposes that evolution is an intelligent design created by a higher power to manifest His omniscience, supremacy, and grace in a universe constructed with creatures with limited free will, rendering his work an important contribution to the ongoing debate between creationism and evolution.
TABLE OF CONTENTS of the book
Introduction
Chapter 1 Inshah Allah--The Islamic Metaphysics of the Future
Chapter 2 The Concept of Time: New Physics and the Qur’an
Chapter 3 Creation and the Fate of the universe.
Chapter 4 The Age of the Universe, Uniformitarianism, Fossils, and
Muslims
Chapter 5 A Brief Review of the Theory of Evolution
Chapter 6 Pre-Darwinian Muslims and the Theory of Evolution
Chapter 7 The Qur’an and the Origin of Man
Chapter 8 The Creation of Adam and Eve from Animal World
Chapter 9 The Location of the Garden of the Forbidden Tree
Chapter 10 God and Chance Events
Chapter 11 The Structure of the Universe: A Master Design
Chapter 12 Self and Subjectivity of the Animate and Inanimate World
Summary
Notes
Bibliography
Glossary
Suggested Books for Further Reading
Index
Creation AND/OR Evolution An Islamic Perspective. [ISBN 1-4134-6581-1] By T.O.Shanavas
282 pages; $31.99;
How to order the book:
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=23295
Please read the book reviews of the book, Creation AND/OR Evolution An Islamic Perspective by T.O.Shanavas, in USA Amazon site.
One of the reviewer states:
"This book had to be written, as much as it needs to be read."
You can read the reviews in the following USA Amzon link