Review of Muntasir Zaman's "The Height of Prophet Adam": Towards a universal framework for resolving conflicts between science and scripture

I recently finished writing a comprehensive constructive review of Mufti Muntasir Zaman's recent book, The Height of Prophet Adam: At the Crossroads of Science and Scripture. I think it's one of the most important works in Islamic intellectual discourse, which is why I felt the need to really do a deep dive into it. My essay is available on my new academia.edu page. Here's the abstract and table of contents:

Abstract

In his recently published book "The Height of Prophet Adam: At the Crossroads of Science and Scripture", Mufti Muntasir Zaman comprehensively addresses the putative conflict between, on one hand, Prophetic hadiths stating that humans on Earth started off ninety feet tall and then gradually decreased; and on the other, what modern science deems possible on the matter. The scope of the book is wider than just this one putative conflict, however: even for those who do not think this is an issue worth taking seriously, it is still valuable as a demonstration of how to systematically address conflicts between science and hadith. In this review, I attempt to first provide what I think is an improved version of the Mufti’s solution to the problem, relying almost exclusively on the resources and analytic tools presented in the book itself. I then comment on aspects of the Mufti’s treatment that require modification, particularly his handling of a Divine intervention explanation of giant humans on early earth. Finally, I briefly comment on how the Mufti’s approach can be modified into a tentative universal framework for handling science-hadith conflicts in general.

Table of contents

Section no.	Section title
1	Introduction
1.1	Significance of the book
1.2	Structure of the review
2	The proposed framework and implementation
2.1	Framework for resolving science-scripture conflicts
2.2	The book’s implementation of the framework
3	Evaluating the narrations
3.1	Epistemic categories of hadiths
3.2	Evaluating the epistemic weight of the hadiths
3.2.1	The hadiths in question
3.2.2	Disclaimers about the assessment of hadith probability
3.2.3	Four issues with the narrations reporting Adam’s height being sixty cubits
3.2.4	Two additional issues with the narrations reporting humankind gradually decreasing in length
4	Constructing a Solution
4.1	Harmonization – Can the hadith be interpreted differently?
4.2	Maybe the decreasing height narration is unreliable?
4.2.1	Reasons for considering the narration unreliable
4.2.2	Reasons for considering the narration reliable
4.3	“Reliable” hadiths are reliable to a probabilistic degree
4.3.1	Hadith narrations as probabilistic reports
4.3.2	Some low-probability “reliable” hadiths might not have been Prophetic
4.3.3	Completing the solution
4.4	Suspending judgment and taking stock of evidence base
5	Points of disagreement
5.1	Prioritization as a strategy to solve science-hadith conflicts
5.1.1	What is prioritization?
5.1.2	Why this type of prioritization is inadequate
5.1.3	Comparison between prioritization and appealing to probabilistic nature of narrations
5.2	Problems with “settling the science”
5.2.1	Scientific impossibility of “human giants”
5.2.2	How would an Earth with giant humans look?
5.2.3	Miracles as refuge
5.2.4	How to move forward
6	Future prospects
6.1	Unanswered questions
6.2	A universal framework for science-hadith reconciliation

Looking forward to y'all's thoughts and comments on it!