Addressing human evolution || A critical assessment of David Solomon Jalajel's reconciliation of human evolution with Islam

I had a detailed discussion about the contents of this essay with Dr. Jalajel, and multiple parts of this essay are due for a major re-write. The essay as it stands now doesn't represent my final, complete thoughts on this issue.

  

This post is part of a series on addressing the problem of human evolution. For a general introduction to the project, click here.

0.1 Introduction

In this post and the next, we’ll be reviewing some proposed solutions to the putative conflict between human evolution and Islam. Today, I’ll be specifically investigating the possibility of reconciling human evolution and Islam- whether both of these things can be accepted without contradiction. I’ll be using an essay by David Solomon Jalajel as a scaffold for developing this case.

I must admit, initially I was quite skeptical of Jalajel’s approach and didn’t consider it a viable solution. After reading his essay once more and thinking deeply about several of the problems, I’ve realized that my initial impressions were mistaken. So what was supposed to be a brief, “filler” post about someone who was wrong about something, has now transformed into a small project in its own right.

0.2. David Solomon Jalajel and the possibility of human evolution-Islam reconciliation

David Solomon Jalajel, whose work I've previously referenced in this series, came out with a very interesting essay on the topic of human evolution. The general aim of the essay is to show that there is, in fact, no conflict between human evolution and Islamic scripture.

Jalajel's essay came out in 2018 in Yaqeen

Jalajel had previously published a book, Islam and Biological Evolution, where he addresses all possible points of conflict between evolution and Islam- including the so-called “randomness” inherent in evolutionary processes, human-to-ape transfiguration in the Qur’an, Noah’s flood, etc. The book comprises a very sober, dispassionate assessment of the relevant scriptural and scientific data. The central research question of the book seems to be this: If we spell out exactly what scripture says on human evolution, and then compare it with modern scientific consensus on the relevant facts, where- if anywhere- would the points of conflict be? His more recent Yaqeen essay is written along the same lines, except focusing specifically on the topic of human evolution. As alluded to above, the conclusion he arrives at is there are in fact no such conflicts to be found.

For any Islam-human evolution reconciliation attempt to get off the ground, I think one must accept the following facts: Adam and Eve were real people, they were created miraculously by Allah without parents, and they are the original parents of all of humanity alive today. I have little patience for allegorical interpretation of these facts, as to my mind at least, they violate reasonable principles of interpretation. Jalajel’s essay is not of this category- he does accept all of the scriptural data on this topic at face value. The essay itself is extremely insightful and well-argued- the author clearly knows the right questions to ask and hone in on, and shows adequate familiarity with the issues he’s discussing. All of this shows signs of promise.

In this post, I’ll be providing a detailed critical assessment of the case Jalajel makes. After looking at and thinking about his case in detail, I realized that it represents not only the best example of the evolution-Islam reconciliation (i.e. an approach which posits no conflict at all between human evolution and Islam), but almost the best possible one. I’ll be discussing a lot of objections against his case, and propose plausible solutions whenever possible. In the process, my hope is to develop the strongest possible case that could be made for a complete reconciliation between human evolution and scripture. At the end of this analysis, we can look at what has become of his case and judge its utility going forward.

I'll let you in on my thoughts about the essay at the outset: I think almost all of the possible objections to Jalajel’s case has pretty satisfactory answers. That said, there are some aspects of this approach which have some unsavory consequences, which a different approach (e.g. the one I’ll be defending in this series) can possibly overcome. This justifies our search for a still better solution to the problem of human evolution, but Jalajel’s approach is nevertheless a strong item in the list of plausible solutions to the problem. In fact, as I note in the concluding section of this post, Jalajel’s approach has some upsides which cannot be found in any other approach.

1. Jalajel's case

1.1 Interpretive principle: Tawaqquf

The argument in his essay is premised on an extremely plausible interpretive principle that I think all Muslims should agree with: when interpreting scripture, it's important to precisely understand what the text says, and what it does not say. There could be matters on which the text is ambiguous, but we, given our social context and whatnot, might mistakenly read in more than what's actually there. We should avoid that urge, and be careful to make no subconscious additions to the text.

A case in point, I think, is the evolution of non-human creatures on earth. This is a topic the Qur'an and Sunnah are clearly silent about, and yet many Muslims think that belief in Islam necessitates rejection of all of evolution, including animal evolution. This is definitely an example of conventional wisdom- the putative wholesale conflict between evolution and religion trumpeted by some atheists and Christians- getting the better of interpretive precision.

So again, the idea here is we should let scripture speak for itself. This is referred to as Tawaqquf- the principle that when it comes to matters of the unseen, we should not claim to know what the scripture itself is silent on.

1.2. What does scripture say about Adam and his creation?

With this principle in mind, Jalajel surveys the relevant Qur'anic verses, ahadith, as well as classical interpretations to get at exactly what Islam says about the creation of Adam (peace be upon him). Here are the results of his survey:

Classical Muslim scholars consider the following to be apparent from this body of textual evidence: Adam was created by God directly from earth. Both Adam and his wife were created by God without parents, and all human beings living on the Earth today are direct descendants of these two people.

Again, nothing to disagree with thus far- in fact as I said earlier, any human evolution-scripture reconciliation attempt must agree to those propositions.

The next move Jalajel makes is what would start to divide people. He argues- thus far, what we have is a description of how Adam was created, and through him all of the people alive on earth. But what is Adam (and his descendants)? Put differently, what part of reality does "Adam and his descendants" map onto?

Once again, Jalajel surveys the relevant scriptural material to answer this question, and states that the only description given to Adam in the Qur'an or the ahadith (and many classical commentaries) is that- he had certain honors bestowed on him by Allah.

That's all. That's everything setting us apart from other creatures. Scripture provides no further details on this topic- it doesn’t say we were unique because we have language, or symbolic thought, or any other feature commonly thought to be unique to humanity.

1.3. Adam and his descendants as a qawm among human beings

Consider first that there's no reason to think that Allah's honor would leave a genetic or cognitive "mark" on a creation. The Children of Israel received Allah's special blessings, but that didn't lead to any change in their ontological make-up- be that genetic or neurological. As such, the fact that a creation received honor from Allah does not entail that this creation has any unique capacities that others don't have- physical or mental.

Jalajel, therefore, argues that it does not follow from scriptural descriptions of Adam that he had any ability to act differently than creatures already alive on earth. Adam could've looked and acted exactly the same as anatomically modern humans, just that he was favored specially by Allah, but these other humans were not. That's the extent of their differences.

On this view, then, Bani Adam could be thought of as similar to Bani Israel- a tribe or qawm-  a subset of men among men- with special favor from Allah. That's all.

[Small tangent related to interfaith communication: Jewish and Christian scholars- at least the ones who accept a literal reading of the Genesis story of Adam's creation- engage in a very similar conversation about what makes Adam and his descendants unique. The distinctions that we've been making here also align with their categories. William Lane Craig in his podcast on the topic distinguishes three views on what makes Adam unique- substantial (Adam is ontologically unique), functional (Adam has a unique role to play), and relational (Adam is in a special relation with God). Jalajel would say Adam is unique in terms of his function and relation, but not necessarily in terms of his ontology. Scholars from the other faith traditions frame this discussion as understanding the image of God on which Adam was created. Interestingly, there's a hadith in Bukhari and Muslim that seems to be saying essentially the same thing, and it's perhaps a little curious that this doesn't come up in discussions of the creation of Adam and his uniqueness. A friend suggested that this is because the interpretation of this hadith is contested between the different Sunni theological schools of thought- see here and here]

Nothing invokes the memory of discussions on Imago Dei more than Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam

This, of course, takes away the most obvious problem with human evolution- identifying Bani Adam with a subset of humanity means the story of Adamic creation is not the story of humankind’s origin as a whole. As such, human evolution and Adamic creation are talking about different events. Let’s explore this further by looking at exactly how Adamic creation would have had to look given the truth of human evolution.

1.4. A model of Adamic creation that doesn’t contradict human evolution

If one posits that Adam and his descendants were a unique creation unlike anything on earth (in terms of our biology, cognitive makeup etc), then that view would, at least potentially, contradict the scientific consensus on human evolution. However, according to Jalajel, we can accept the following set of propositions without contradicting any scriptural data: Human beings came about through a process of evolution, exactly as we understand the process in biology. After they came about, Allah miraculously created two "special" human beings, who were identical to the ones who lived on earth in every way, and sent them down to live among other humans. These two humans would eventually give rise to all of humanity living at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him). I understand this invites some questions about the possibility of interbreeding between Adamic and non-Adamic humans- we'll get to that later in this post, except to briefly note here that Jalajel says it’s possible there was such interbreeding.

To summarize Jalajel's point differently: Scripture gives us no reason to think that the terms "human beings" and "Adam and his descendants" refer to the same things. Rather, if we accept only what the scripture says and don't read anything else into it, it can accommodate a view where Adam and his descendants were a subset of humanity, distinguished in only two ways: they received a special honor from Allah, something that doesn't necessarily leave any ontological mark; and all humans living in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) trace their genealogy back to the initial couple. As it happens, this view can readily accommodate all of human evolution (with some caveats, which we'll get to).

Question	Possible scriptural answers		Scientifically testable translation	Scientifically possible?
Could "Adam and his descendants" be identical to human beings, or a specific human taxon marked with a unique biology?	Yes	No	Is it possible that human beings, or a specific human taxon, came about suddenly?	Yes	No
Could "Adam and his descendants" be a subset of humans, who are exactly identical to other humans?	Yes	No	Is it possible that a specific subset of humans with no biologically visible unique characteristics came about suddenly?	Yes	No
Did Adam or his descendants breed exclusively within themselves?	Yes	No	Can all of modern genetic diversity be exclusively traced back to just two modern human individuals?	Yes	No

  I think this is a useful way of thinking about Jalajel’s approach. First, he lists scripturally allowable answers to questions relevant to human evolution (first two columns). He then translates that question in an empirically verifiable way, and rules out wrong answers based on the verdict of science (last two columns). Red means an acceptable answer. Jalajel’s key success, of course, is demonstrating that scientifically allowable answers all fall within the range of scripturally allowable answers- which, on his analysis, are maximal.

1.5. Tangent: Doesn’t the Qur’an refer to all of humanity- not just all of Bani Adam?

Let me go ahead and clear up a possible misunderstanding that might result at this point: on Jalajel’s view, when Allah refers to all of mankind in the Qur’an- He’s referring specifically to all human beings alive at the time of the Prophet. Meaning, the Qur’an doesn’t claim that all human beings ever are the recipient of the Qur’an’s message, or previous Prophetic revelations talked about in the Qur’an, or the honor bestowed on Adam- just the ones that were alive at the time of the Prophet. This allows the Qur’an to comfortable equivocate between “humanity” and “Bani Adam”- since for its purposes, they mean the same thing (in fact, it’s plausible that the Qur’anic concept of humanity only designates children of Adam). This means non-Adamic humans could have co-existed with Adamic human beings through some parts of history, just that they died out before the Qur’anic revelation came along. We can only speculate about when this happened.

Incidentally, the University of Washington computational biologist Joshua Swamidass has proposed a model of creation where Adam and his descendants form a subset of humanity, similar to the model we’re discussing presently. The Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, when discussing Swamidass’ view, expressed the following concern on his podcast:

[T]he logical implication – when you take this view to the logical limit – that would mean that there could be people walking around today with whom we have relations, maybe to whom we're married even, who don't have this vocation and therefore not really in the image of God. And they would be indiscernible from the rest of us.Interviewer: And witnessing to them or trying to evangelize to them would do no good.
William Lane Craig: Futile.

This is a concern I too had when I first considered Jalajel’s model. Since non-Adamic human beings expired prior to the arrival of the Qur’an on earth, the concern is misplaced.

2. Critical analysis of Jalajel’s case

In what follows, I'll be discussing a number of problems with Jalajel’s case, and attempt to provide reasonable solutions to them. The model would be fleshed out progressively in the process.

I should mention at the outset that since our received wisdom identifies Bani Adam with human beings, Jalajel's solution might seem prima facie implausible. But it's important to get over what our gut says about the matter, and attempt to locate objective problems with his analysis, based on the text of the scripture. Also, keep in mind that this discussion is on hermeneutics, and I don't have any background in tafsir or any other branch of Islamic studies (I don't even know Arabic). People with such specializations might locate more important problems with Jalajel's case that I might be missing completely.

With that said, let's enter our critical assessment. Here are the problems I’ll be discussing:

1. Jalajel’s case still has a potential point of conflict with human evolution;
2. The case potentially posits the existence of some human beings without religion, which is objectionable for reasons I’ll explain;
3. The scriptural description of Adam’s creation process gives the impression that we were a new type of creature;
4. The fact that Adam was created anew, coupled with the fact that this event came at the heels of the religious failure of other creatures (possibly jinn), seems to suggest Adam and his descendants had some unique capacities that no other creation had;
5. Jalajel’s model means Adam and Eve are not our unique genetic ancestors, only genealogical ones;
6. The model doesn’t explain why we find so much evidence for evolution in a satisfactory way.

I’ll be arguing that none of these problems are debilitating for Jalajel’s model. Problems 2 through 4 have perfectly reasonable solutions. Problems 1 and 6 can be solved with additional work, some of which I’ll be undertaking in a subsequent post as a part of my own model. The only problem that I think is significant is number 5- the issue of Adamic human beings interbreeding with non-Adamic humans, which means many (even most) of us have genetic input from non-Adamic creatures. That concern is uncomfortable on its own, particularly when we consider the ethical context in which Allah and His Prophet talk about Adamic creation. Still, I don’t think that spells the death knell for this approach. One might think this is not a particularly big issue, or at most live with an otherwise viable model with some uncomfortable consequences.

However, the fact that these problems remain means we should not consider Jalajel’s approach to be an end-all-be-all solution to the problem. This gap is what motivates the rest of the series, where I’ll attempt to develop a model that doesn’t face similar criticisms (but might face others that Jalajel’s one isn’t subject to- but such is life in the big city).

There’s one other conversation we must first have, about a general assumption I noticed in Jalajel’s approach. This will create conceptual space for our discussion of the problems themselves.

2.1. Do only explicit contradictions matter?

Central to Jalajel's case is the idea that we shouldn't rule out a phenomenon unless it contradicts with the text. This is what ultimately leads him to show that details of human evolution can be reconciled with scripture, since there's no contradiction between them. The principle of course is perfectly reasonable. However, the problem I have is the way he seems to define a contradiction. In his assessment of whether human evolution contradicts anything in scripture, he seems to only investigate contradictions that are apparent, explicit, or blatant.

I see two issues with this. First, a verse or a hadith can entail things that are not immediately obvious from that particular piece of scripture itself. In investigating possible contradictions, then, it's important that we consider not only the text, but also implications that follow from the text, given reasonable background knowledge.

As an unrelated example of this, I remember once having a discussion with a friend about what nullifies someone's Islam. He was saying that one cannot be said to be a non-Muslim as long as they profess the shahada. The problem I saw with that claim was, while the shahada itself has just two propositions- there is no god but Allah and Muhammad (peace be upon him) is His messenger- it can entail other important propositions. Someone who says he doesn't believe that the Qur'an is from Allah, for example, is clearly contradicting the shahada- except in this case the contradiction is not with the explicit text, but with the clear implications entailed by it.

My second issue can be said to be an extension of the first: contradiction not with scripture (at least not directly), but with theology. Theological reasoning attempts to unearth some facts about Allah, based on the data provided in scripture about who Allah is. An example of this is the so-called “perfect being theology”: Scripture tells us that Allah is above all imperfections, so this consideration plays a role when we attribute properties to Allah (i.e. we make sure to only attribute properties that befit His perfection). Of course, theological reasoning can be flawed and (at least sometimes) less reliable than what's explicitly mentioned in the scripture, but at other times its conclusions follow from scripture in a rather straightforward way. A contradiction with this latter sort of theological reasoning would indeed be problematic, and yet not an instance of an explicit contradiction.

For example, consider the plausible theological precept- Allah does not unjustifiably deceive people. If a model of creation leads to this conclusion, then that's a strike against the model. I understand such a contradiction would be difficult to establish, because how can we know what constitutes unjustified deception? Surely we aren't privy to all of Allah's intentions. Regardless, if a model of creation has such an element that's left gratuitous, we should at least look for a model that has no such element. This intuition can be phrased differently (and ambiguously) like this: we shouldn't accept things that contradict our reasonable assumptions about Allah's nature or actions.

With the exception of the first one, the problems I’ll be discussing all fall in the category of such 'implicit' contradictions with either scripture or theology.

2.2. Problems with Jalajel’s model

2.2.1. Population genetics considerations might contradict this view of creation

In pursuing a reconciliation between science and religion, Jalajel attempts to guard his model from any possibility of scientific falsification. That's not a problem at all if that's where his model naturally lands him, but sometimes one feels he takes this "impossible to falsify" claim too far. For example, at one point he writes

[B]y being such a miraculous event, by its very nature it falls outside the scope of scientific enquiry. Scientists cannot disprove the story of Adam’s creation any more than they can disprove any other miracle. Such stories, by their nature, are accepted by believers on faith. Science does not investigate claims of singular and supernatural acts of God’s intervention. They simply do not fall within its scope.

This is clearly not true in all cases. Miracles can have real-world effects, and those effects can sometimes be empirically investigated. Muslims, for example, believe that the Qur'an is a miracle, meaning it has certain features that cannot be explained purely in terms of natural laws. This claim can definitely be investigated empirically (and potentially falsified). So not only are miracles not unfalsifiable in principle, we have at least one tangible example to the contrary.

These general considerations might be relevant in the case of the creation of Adam. Even after every attempt at reconciliation, Jalajel’s model still makes a very substantive claim about reality: the lineage of all humans alive today can be traced back to an original pair of male and female, who lived at the same time. Even if he allows for interbreeding between Adamic and non-Adamic human beings, it remains the case that they were at least our genealogical ancestors, meaning they made at least some contribution to all of our genomes.

Joshua Swamidass, whom I've cited above, proposed a curious model according to which Adam and Eve lived at separate times in history. Of course, that can't be accommodated on Islam

That’s a potentially falsifiable scientific claim, but is that actually falsifiable? Would an event like that leave a detectable mark on modern human genome? I’m not a population geneticist, so I don’t know the answer. But this does show that as far as falsification by science goes, Jalajel’s model isn’t completely out of the water. While I don’t know if this is a problem, this does call for additional investigation.

2.2.2. It doesn’t befit Allah to create humans exactly like us, and yet not give them religion

2.2.2.1. The problem

As mentioned above, Jalajel's model posits the existence of non-Adamic human beings on earth. These people, Jalajel claims, looked and acted exactly the same as us- had the same physical and mental capacity- and co-existed with the Adamic human beings. This must mean they had sophisticated moral sensibilities, and the ability to ask religious questions (e.g. where did the universe come from?). Adamic human beings lived and, based on the data from population genetics, must have interbred with them.

This leads to some consequences worth exploring further. Many theistic philosophers have made the argument that without a belief in God, life would be meaningless and absurd (here's a good modern sample). This is something the Qur'an seems to acknowledge- it emphasizes the fact that not only was man not created uselessly, but to attribute that to Allah would be an affront (see, for example, Qur'an 23:115). So on this view, we should expect Allah to communicate the meaning and purpose of life to a creature like us. This gets to the consequences I was alluding to: did these non-Adamic humans, ontologically identical to Adamic humans, have religion? Did they have their meaning and purpose in life communicated to them somehow? If not, then that would mean Allah created beings with absurd, meaningless mental lives- which I think is a really problematic consequence.

Kierkegaard, Dostoyevski, Nietzche, and Sartre- key figures in existentialism, a strand of philosophy that emphasized existential angst and the apparent absurdity of reality

To understand the thrust of this problem, consider the fact that, on Jalajel's model, there was substantial communication (even interbreeding) between Adamic and non-Adamic humans. If the non-Adamic humans were non-religious, then such interactions would've been really awkward: they would be living, under the same roof in some instances, with creatures exactly like them who had a special purpose, and yet their own lives were utterly bereft of any purpose. One also wonders, how would the Adamic humans navigate this issue? When they were asked about their beliefs, would they say Allah created us for a special purpose, but not you- your lives are meaningless?

2.2.2.2 The response

While these concerns are very serious, I doubt Jalajel would be fazed by any of this, since nothing in his model assumes these pre-Adamic humans didn't have some sort of religion. In fact, a friend of mine pointed out that the term khalifah, a term in the Qur'an that describes the functional role of the children of Adam, has the connotations of successor- which may suggest that religious responsibility was also bestowed on pre-Adamic creatures. I don't have any background in Arabic or tafsir to verify that claim, but it does seem to have independent plausibility. We know that the jinn were previously given religious responsibility from Allah prior to the creation of humans. As such, there's nothing preventing us from assuming that pre-Adamic humans also had a form of religious responsibility assigned by Allah. Going back to Jalajel's central claims once again: the only way Adam and his children were unique was that they had a special honor bestowed on them from Allah. This description doesn't entail that they were unique in receiving religious responsibility- in fact, we know that other creatures like jinn had that responsibility as well.

[Once again, going on an interfaith communication tangent- the Christian philosopher Andrew Ter Ern Loke suggested that there’s no scriptural basis for assuming that only Adamic humans had religion. He alludes to contemporary scientific evidence of glimmers of free will and moral sensibilities among animals, and implies that if this is unproblematic for us to accept, then so should a more developed form of religiosity among other creatures (Reference)]

On this view, the status of Adam and his descendants becomes almost exactly the same as the status of Bani Israel in the Qur'an. They had a special blessing and a specific religious code from Allah, but that doesn't mean other human beings didn't have religious purpose of some form. Interaction between these two groups would then be similar to interfaith interactions, and inter-group marriage would be like marrying Muslims marrying Jews or Christians.

2.2.2.3. Tangent: How would Adamic humans have differed from non-Adamic humans?

In this context, it’s important to understand in what ways Adamic humans would’ve been different from non-Adamic humans. While there was no biological and cognitive difference between these two groups, that’s not to say they were exactly identical in their psychological makeup.

To understand this, consider what Adam (and later Eve) went through. He was taught the "names of all things" (however you interpret that), shown all of his progeny, made to remain in Jannah for some time in Allah’s presence, and then- most importantly- subjected to the trial of (not) eating from the tree. This last episode was especially important, because it provided first-hand education and training to Adam and Eve about some extremely important things: for starters, their purpose in life and the importance of turning back to Allah. There's absolutely no indication in scripture that the non-Adamic human being living on earth went through such an intense religious education directly at the hands of Allah Himself. What follows necessarily from this is- after receiving such training, Adam and Eve couldn't have had the same psychological and spiritual makeup as the rest of humanity living on earth. They might have been similar, even identical, to them in terms of biology, but their experiences were profoundly different. Since they effectively communicated their teachings to their offspring (who Allah also directly interacted with on some occasions), it's plausible that the religious sensibilities and spiritual state of the nascent population of Adamic humanity would've been very, very, very different from any other people living on earth.

In fact, both Qur’an [7:172-173] and the hadith tell us of an important event that happened prior to creation: the souls of the children of Adam were assembled and made to testify to the exclusive Lordship of Allah. Scholars have interpreted this to mean that this event left an imprint in our collective psyche (what’s called the fitra in Islamic epistemology), and again, there’s no scriptural indication that this was done for any other creation (at least, it’s plausible to assume that this episode was unique to Adamic humans).

To summarize all of this, while Adamic and non-Adamic human beings may have been biologically and cognitively identical, the former had gone through some momentous spiritual experiences that the latter had not. There's no gene that codes for these experiences, but in a very real way, this made them- us- ontologically different from any other creation. Pre-Adamic human beings may have had revealed religion, but their spiritual experience was still significantly less sophisticated and rich compared to what Adam and his descendants went through.

2.2.3. Qur’an and ahadith give the impression of Adam being a uniquely new kind of creation

2.2.3.1. The problem

The Qur'an and Sunnah recount the steps of Adamic creation in detail. Consider, for example, Qadhi and Khan's summary of the descriptions of Adamic creation in hadith:

The hadith literature is even more explicit—in the Ṣaḥīḥs and other authentic works, we are told that Allah took a handful of soil from the earth and He fashioned the shape of Adam and allowed the lifeless body to remain for a period of time. Before the soul was breathed into Adam’s body, Shaytan went around this lifeless form, noting it to be hollow and boasting of his presumed superiority over Adam. We are told that the rūḥ (soul) was blown into the lifeless body of Adam and as it reached his nose he sneezed and praised Allah. We are told that there was a time when Adam was “between the spirit and the clay.” The second human being was Eve (Hawwa’ in Arabic), who the Qur’an states was made from Adam. [Reference]

When reading such descriptions, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that there was something unique about Adam’s structure itself- perhaps he had new capacities, which required a Divine touch. If this creation was exactly the same as another creation on earth brought about by natural evolution, why is this of such an extended focus in scripture?

2.2.3.2. The response

One can plausibly point out, that the reason these details are being focused is not to emphasize the uniqueness of Adam's form, but the uniqueness of his status. While he might have looked like everyone else, he is being created in a very special, intimate way. Reading these descriptions, someone who doesn’t know about the identity of the Creator might be tempted to think- a lot of time and effort went into the creation of Adam (except, of course, those terms aren’t applicable to Allah). This signifies the care with which Allah created Adam, and that’s the point of focus here. Put differently, these descriptions dwell on the process, not the final form. As such, scripture doesn’t require us to believe in a unique type of creation- just a unique process of it.

How do we interpret this picture? Is the form significant, or the care the potter is putting into it? Both?

On this view, then, Allah created human beings twice- one through the natural process of evolution, and one miraculously via special creation. Lest one thinks this might be superfluous on Allah’s part- there seems to be independent scriptural plausibility for this sort of Divine action. Islamic history has examples of cases where Allah supernaturally does something, even though that very thing was previously done through natural means, just to make a spiritual point (which is what’s happening in the case of Adam’s creation). Consider the sending down of Islam to the Prophet. For the vast majority of the period revelation, Allah chose to send the message down in an indirect, almost streamlined way: via the intermediary of the Angel Jibreel (peace be upon him). However, on one (I believe unique) occasion- Allah "interfered" in this streamlined revelation process. This was during the Night Journey, when He brought the Prophet up to Himself to give him the commandment of prayer. I think this example is analogous to the creation of Adam: Allah had previously achieved the same end result (i.e. sending down revelation, creating human beings) through an "indirect" way (i.e. through Jibreel, through evolution), but then on one unique occasion- He did the same thing, except in a direct, special way (i.e. meeting the Prophet "in person", creating Adam with His hands). In both cases, this special intervention is justified not by the end product- that remains the same in both cases- but by the momentous nature of the event. It is definitely plausible, then, that Allah can use a special mode of action to lead to a natural, previously seen end result.

2.2.4. The fact that Allah was creating Adam after the failure of previous creations shows that Adam probably had capacities that no other creation had

2.2.4.1. The problem

Let's look at this passage from the Qur'an, describing what went down on the eve (no pun intended) of Adam's creation:

And [mention, O Muhammad], when your Lord said to the angels, "Indeed, I will make upon the earth a successive authority." They said, "Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?" Allah said, "Indeed, I know that which you do not know." [Qur'an, 2:30]

This passage makes clear that Allah's earlier creations had failed to live up to their religious and moral responsibilities, and that was the justification for Allah's making of a new creation. One possible way one could interpret this is: this means Allah was making a new creation with new abilities and capacities, specifically so they would be able to live up to His reasonable expectations. Previous creations failed because they lacked such capacities. Saying that Adam was exactly similar to non-Adamic human beings on earth seems to go against that intuition.

This question can also be framed in this way: if Adam had no unique capacity, then why bother making a new creation at all?

2.2.4.2. The response

Let's begin by looking at how Allah answered the Angels:

And He taught Adam the names - all of them. Then He showed them to the angels and said, "Inform Me of the names of these, if you are truthful." They said, "Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise." He said, "O Adam, inform them of their names." And when he had informed them of their names, He said, "Did I not tell you that I know the unseen [aspects] of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you have concealed." [Qur'an, 2:31-33]

One plausible interpretation of this passage is, the "names" being talked about here refers to the names of Adam's progeny. By showing the progeny of Adam to the angels, Allah is convincing them that they contain numerous examples of extremely virtuous people. So this new creation, as demonstrated by his virtuous progeny, would not be a total failure overall. Once again, I don't have any background in tafsir or Arabic to say for sure whether this interpretation is true, but there seems to be important contextual and grammatical clues that makes this reading plausible (see, for example Akram Nadwi's case here- 1, 2). For our purposes, plausibility is all we need.

This reading of the passage solves the problem: it's not Adam's capacities that justified his special creation, but rather the fact that his progeny would contain virtuous individuals. This doesn't need to be attributed to something unique in Adam's biological or cognitive makeup, but rather- as a matter of course (and as per Divine foreknowledge)- his progeny would happen to be successful.

This also provides a theological, middle knowledge-theoretic justification for this new creation. If, instead of making a new creation, Allah let the naturally evolved humanity run their course- perhaps they would have failed in their spiritual duties. Even if Allah took some members from the earthly humans, subjected them to the training that Adam and Eve received (letting them commit the sin and teaching them repentance), and sent Prophets with revelation to them- they would still, on the whole, end up becoming a failure (consider the case of Bani Israel, who had all the Prophets in the world). However, an altogether new nation of creatures could, in fact, serve their roles and end up being successful (consider the case of the progeny of Ishmael). To put it differently still: perhaps there is no possible world sufficiently similar to ours where Adam is not created and taught by Allah, and yet humanity as a creation succeeds. Given the example of Bani Israel, and the interpretation of the conversation between Allah and the angels given above, I think this is certainly plausible.

This way of thinking about the issue also sheds light on the previous problem. Allah knew the descendants of this particular creation would succeed. That’s why the birth of its first member was a spiritually momentous event. Allah immortalized that event by creating Adam in an intimate, special way- a honor not afforded to any other creation on earth.

This does, however, leave unanswered the question of why Allah made the two creatures identical. After all that’s said and done, there’s no reason why the human beings on earth and Adam had to look identical. Allah could’ve made Adam differently if He wanted, and that would still have served His purposes. This wouldn’t have been an important question at all, unless there was an alternative explanation in the form of evolution which seems to provide a ready explanation for the phenomenon (see last post for more discussion on this). We’ll be discussing this problem in 2.2.6 below.

2.2.5. The interbreeding issue

2.2.5.1. The problem

While the problems discussed so far seem to have reasonable answers, the interbreeding issue might seem like an exception (at least to some people).

A Neandertal and an anatomically modern human. Evidence indicates these populations interbred

On Jalajel's model, to preserve scripture's reconciliation with population genetics, Adamic and non-Adamic humans would’ve had to have interbred. That means, all humans on earth don't trace their lineages exclusively to Adam and Eve. Rather, some of us are products of a union between Adamic and non-Adamic human beings. So while we all trace our lineages back to Adam, some of us- perhaps the majority among us- have non-Adamic blood in our veins as well, so to speak. To put it differently, Adam is the genealogical ancestor to us all, but the genetic ancestor to only some.

Jalajel doesn't see this as a problem. While the Qur'an and ahadith are very explicit in saying we were all created from a single original couple, Jalajel insists that this can connote genealogical ancestry as well. That's something for tafsir experts to figure out, but for my part- let me pose this problem in a pointed way.

The Prophet, in a sermon following the conquest of Makkah, said the following:

O you people! Verily Allah has removed the slogans of Jahiliyyah from you, and its reverence of its forefathers. So, now there are two types of men: A man who is righteous, has Taqwa and honorable before Allah, and a wicked man, who is miserable and insignificant to Allah. People are children of Adam and Allah created Adam from the dust. [Tirmidhi, English reference- Volume 5, Book 44, Hadith 3270]

Here we see not only the expression of Adamic creation itself, but a particular usage of it. The Prophet is using the specific mode of our creation as an argument against racism and tribalism: since we all hail from the same stock, there's no scientific basis for racism (he cited verse 13 of Sura Hujurat in the Qur'an following this pronouncement, meaning the Qur'anic pronouncements of the Adamic creation of humans need to be understood along the same lines). But can that be maintained if Adam was our genealogical ancestor only, and not strictly a genetic one? It’s difficult to see how. Someone could reply to the Prophet’s argument along these lines- Yes, we were created from Adam all right. But not everyone was created equally from Adam. Our tribe had a greater share of Adam's lineage, so we're more honorable.

2.2.5.2. Possible responses

One possible response to this problem might be: what renders humans equal is that we all have a share of the honor bestowed on Adam. We don't need to be derived exclusively from his stock in order to be honored, but as long as his blood mixes with our ancestors somewhere up the family tree- we immediately become recipients of that honor.

To be honest, I don't find that response very attractive. The Prophet isn't really appealing to the honor bestowed on Adam in his sermon, he's making a far more straightforward argument- we are all derived from Adam, and Adam was made from dust, so our material constitution is of no value. I don't think that argument can be made if our material constitution turns out to be dust plus something else (i.e. Adamic plus non-Adamic humans).

Beyond this observation, I don't really have a good response to this argument. Perhaps some of my readers would either not see this as a big problem for the model, or find my earlier response about human equality being grounded in the shared honor derived from Adam persuasive. I don't have anything additional to offer to those who don't, except to note that, perhaps, the ambiguity in the reception of this argument means this is probably not completely debilitating for Jalajel's model. At most, an uncomfortable consequence one would need to live with.

2.2.6. Why do we look like we evolved?

2.2.6.1. The problem

In the last post in this series, I laid out the putative lines of evidence for evolution- there's gratuitous similarity between humans and non-humans in a way that seems to be best explained on an evolutionary hypothesis. One problem with Jalajel's approach is, there doesn't seem to be any serious attempt to explain why there would be such evidence, if we were created miraculously. In other words, why would Allah create humans in a way that seems as though we evolved? Phrased in the context of his model: why would Allah create Adam to look exactly like the humans that were already on earth- an action which gives the impression that we evolved? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious justification for this. Allah could’ve made us a different creation, and the “evolution impression” wouldn’t have arisen.

This book and others, like Neil Shubin's Your Inner Fish, are good popular-level treatments of the major lines of evidence for evolution. They need to be accounted for in a successful model

To be sure, Jalajel does attempt an explanation in the last pages of his essay, and I'll get to that soon. But first, let me mention why lack of a good explanation of this would be problematic: it seems to attribute gratuitous deception to Allah. There's no clear justification for Allah to have created Adam in such an evolution-esque way. The following quote by Swamidass, which I mentioned in the last post, summarizes this puzzle well:

Let us imagine that God creates a fully grown tree today, and places it in a forest. A week later, a scientist and a theologian encounter this tree. The theologian believes that God is trustworthy and has clearly communicated to him that this tree was created just a week ago. The scientist bores a hole in the tree, and counts its rings. There are 100 rings, so he concludes that the tree is 100 years old. Who is right? In some senses, both the scientist and the theologian are right. God created a one week old tree (the true age) that looks 100 years old (the scientific age). Moreover, it would be absurd for the theologian to deny the 100 rings that the scientist uncovered, or to dispute the scientific age of the tree. Likewise, the scientist cannot really presume to disprove God. 

Instead, the theologian should wonder why God would not leave clear, indisputable evidence that the tree is just a week old. My question to the theologians: Why might God choose not to leave evidence that this 100-year old tree is on week old? Alternatively, why might God choose to leave evidence that the week-old tree is 100 years old? [Emphasis in original]

For a similar example in another branch of apologetics: Christians claim that Allah making it appear that Jesus (peace be upon him) was crucified was gratuitous deception on His part, an objection Muslim scholars and apologists have taken seriously and engaged with (see this as an example). The problem of evil is another example- the fact that the Qur’an itself engages with this issue in multiple places gives the impression that we can generally (or at least sometimes) expect Allah to address theological misconceptions that might arise from our observation of reality.

To be sure, Muslims believe some of Allah's actions might be inscrutable (of course) and thus appear gratuitous to us. However, this is still an unsavory incompleteness in the model, and as apologists have done in the case of the crucifixion and problem of evil examples- we should prefer a model that doesn't have this element of inscrutability.

2.2.6.2. Jalajel's explanation

To account for the putative evidence for human evolution, Jalajel appeals to the example of Jesus. Jesus was created miraculously, yet, he looked, talked and acted exactly like everyone else. In the Qur’an, Allah criticizes people who ascribe a supernatural status to Jesus based on his virgin birth [Qur'an, 5:75]. So based on this scriptural precedence, it seems that a miraculous creation doesn't necessarily mean it has to be marked in that way.

Let's make this more pointed: from a biological, mechanistic point of view, there's no reason Jesus should have had a Y-chromosome. And yet, given that his biology was similar to regular humans, he probably had one. So here, scripture presents a case where someone was created miraculously, but Allah didn't see any need to change his biology to reflect that miraculous, special mode of creation. If Jesus were alive today and his DNA was available for analysis, we would probably conclude (absent scriptural data) that he had a perfectly natural birth, just like the rest of us (or so Jalajel thinks). But that doesn't mean we need to be skeptical of his miraculous creation.

2.2.6.3. Response to Jalajel’s explanation

I don't find that reasoning particularly convincing, for at least two reasons. First, we need to draw a distinction between similarity simpliciter and gratuitous similarity, terminology we developed in the last post of this series. As a refresher, non-gratuitous similarity would be similarity that has an explanation. Cars having four wheels is a sort of similarity that can be explained by their shared functional needs. The sort of similarity the Qur'an talks about- Jesus looking, talking and eating food just like everyone else- seems to be similarity of this sort. This is because this sort of similarity has other functions, e.g. Prophets need to resemble their people in order for their message to be effective, an argument Qur'an itself makes in other contexts (e.g. Qur'an, 4:8-9). 

However, does scripture claim that Jesus' biology showed gratuitous similarity with other humans? In other words, if scientists examined his DNA, would there be no evidence at all of his miraculous creation? Would it look exactly as if he had a father and a mother? I don't think scripture justifies that conclusion. While Jalajel's argument works for similarity simpliciter, I don't think there's scriptural data to justify that Jesus showed gratuitous similarity, which is the problematic core of arguments against special creation.

Second, leaving scripture aside, if Jesus' genome looked exactly as if he had a natural birth, wouldn't that have required some sort of explanation? As in, why did Allah go out of His way to remove all evidence of miraculous creation from his genome? Alternatively, why did Allah put in evidence of natural creation? Again, I'm not talking about the similarity that's required for functional reasons, but gratuitous similarity that cannot be explained in this way. I'd say such a phenomenon would still call out for explanation.

Jalajel writes the following right before the conclusion section of his paper:

If an individual specimen of one species were created by God ex nihilo, this would leave no empirical trace for scientists to identify.

Why? I simply don't understand why Jalajel thinks this. At most, there would be the absence of the trace of biological reproduction. As I said above- I don't think his Jesus example explains the more difficult aspects of the similarity problem.

2.2.6.4. Assessment of the problem

The foregoing section underscores the importance of having an explanation for the putative evidence for evolution. As mentioned earlier, this problem (it’s more of an incompleteness than a core issue) isn't debilitating for Jalajel's model, because one can appeal to the inscrutability of Allah's actions. I don't think that's a comfortable place for a Muslim to be in, but at the same time, it's true that we ultimately understand the wisdom behind only a fraction of Allah's actions. These considerations form the core of so-called skeptical theistic replies to the problem of evil, and there's definitely philosophical weight behind it. But just as we try to develop theodicies to reduce the inscrutability of Allah's actions in the face of apparent evil in the world, here too we should try to develop “theodicies” which reduce or eliminate the mystery.

As it happens, in subsequent posts in this series, I will be providing explanations for the putative evidence for evolution. If one finds them convincing, they can furnish Jalajel's model with that explanation. In the broader scheme of things, therefore, this is an altogether repairable issue.

3. Final assessment of Jalajel’s model

3.1. The story of Adam and humanity

Based on our analysis of Jalajel’s case, this is how a model that attempts to reconcile Adamic creation with human evolution must look.

1. Human beings on earth developed through a process of evolution, exactly as described in modern biology.
2. These humans had some form of revealed religion, that came with purpose, moral and religious responsibility, and accountability on the day of judgment.
3. However, Allah knew that no creation, including the jinn or the human beings alive on earth, would end up being successful on the whole- in the sense they won’t be producing significant amounts of virtuous descendants who worship Allah and do good deeds. Even divine intervention wouldn’t have worked, like it didn’t work in the case of Bani Israel.
4. As such, Allah decided to make a new creation, one that (according to Divine foreknowledge) would end up producing a critical mass of virtuous descendants to make the action worth it (like the children of Ishmael). This is partially evidenced by the “successor” connotation of the word khalifa, which is a word Allah uses in the Qur’an to describe the role of humans on earth.
5. To honor this creation and his descendants, Allah created them in a special, intimate way- not through the instrumentality of natural laws.
6. The creation looked identical to the human beings alive on earth- meaning the existing human design would’ve been adequate for the spiritual purposes of this new creation. However, one would benefit from some additional theological justification as to why Adam looked identical to the human beings on earth, especially since this gives the wrong theological impression (i.e. that we evolved).
7. Allah provided special spiritual training to His new creation- by putting the imprint of His worship in their souls, subjecting the first members of this creation to a trial, teaching them repentance, and then intervening when the need called for it. Because of this special relation with Allah, Adam and his descendants had a unique psychological makeup compared to other human beings then alive on earth.
8. Adam and his descendants bred with other human beings on earth, who were of a “different religion” so to speak- and produced offspring. People alive on earth from at least the 7^th century CE onwards were derived either exclusively from Adamic intra-breeding, or Adamic-non-Adamic inter-breeding. Ultimately, we can all trace our lineage back to Adam and Eve, no matter what the percentage of that shared lineage might be. I don’t know if this phenomenon would leave any detectable mark on the genome of humans currently alive, or whether Adam and Eve being our genealogical (and not genetic) ancestors is something that can be accommodated with scripture.
9. The people who were created exclusively from the stock of non-Adamic human beings went extinct some time before the advent of Islam.

This is the best we can do if we want to believe in scripture and human evolution at the same time.

3.2. Positives of the model

To be sure, there are some hiccups in this picture- especially point 8, and perhaps less seriously, point 6. I personally don’t think these issues are fatal for the model, but other people might disagree. I would tentatively classify Jalajel’s approach as an overall success- one can adopt it without significant cognitive dissonance.

Beyond this, there is another important upside to this model: It’s constructed in a way that it is maximally safeguarded against scientific falsification. Other than one possible conflict with population genetics (that I’m not sure even exists- it’s only a possibility), no part of this model can be tested with empirical evidence. As such, we wouldn’t have to worry about this picture being proven wrong by science, now or in the future (unless we discover time travel, but that’s a whole other ball game).

This is an upside that can be uniquely enjoyed by a model that accepts human evolution. For any other model- like the one I will be developing- it has to contend with the possibility of being disproved. Given how little we know about many aspects of human evolution (and how much more there is to know about it), that concern isn’t misplaced by any means.

As such, regardless of what one thinks about extended Jalajel’s model, I think it’s a great option to “fall back on”. Even if one adopts a model of Adamic creation that contradicts modern scientific consensus about evolution, I think they should keep a “safe” model like this in their mental arsenal, as a last resort. This is smart practice in other fields of apologetics as well, having multiple explanations for a phenomenon with different empirical commitments.

3.3. Rooms for improvement

Let me wrap up our extended discussion with suggestions of rooms for improvement of the model. They can entail keeping Jalajel’s core model as is, and adding new improvements on to it, or even adopting a different model.

1. An explanation for the apparent evolved-ness of humans. We discussed this in 2.2.6- and as I said, I will address the topic in a subsequent blog post.
2. A model that doesn’t involve Adamic-non-Adamic interbreeding. This would mean Adamic creation would have to be located so far back in the past that marks of a single couple bottleneck would no longer be detectable in the human genome today. Swamidass says a single couple human origin before half a million years would render such a bottleneck invisible. That of course invites other problems: did humans back then have language? At least some scientists remain skeptical. Alternatively, one could preserve the recent origin of Adam and but adopt non-mainstream solutions. That, of course, contradicts the basic motivation for a model like Jalajel’s: to preserve conformity with the scientific consensus to the extent possible.
3. Positive evidence. This is not a “problem” for Jalajel’s model by any means, at most a room for improvement. While the model is reconcilable with scientific data, there’s no positive evidence for it. Jalajel wouldn’t mind- after all, there’s no independent positive for Jesus being born without a father, or any other such miracle. Be that as it may, a model with positive evidence would still be preferable, all other things being equal, than one without. In a subsequent blog post, I will discuss some positive evidence for particular models of Adamic creation, and consider whether those lines of evidence can be available for a model like Jalajel’s.