Answering Christianity Research Center

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mclinkin94, I don't have time at the moment to respond to your article about evolution being supported by the Quran. But, in short words: the Quran in some places tells us that the man was created from dust and in some others from a liquid. To make it clear, the Quran says that it was Adam who was created from dust, which means that whenever the Quran talks about people being created from a liquid etc is talking about other people: “And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am going to create a human (Adam) from sounding clay of altered black smooth mud.  So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him (his) soul created by Me, then you fall down prostrate to him.” (Quran 38:71-72).
When the Quran talks about stages, it talk about the stages of forming the dust or stages of embryo. This article refutes everything that has to do with evolution in the Quran: http://www.qurandeniesdarwinism.com/4.html

Assalamualykum brother
Where are you getting this idea from that we are not supposed to use our intellect when looking at the Qur'an.The Quran tells us over 70 times to use our reason and intellect.
It also tells to ponder over its verses.

Wa alaykum salaam brother,
Yes, you are right. The Quran tells us to use our reason and intellect, in order to come to the conclusion that God exists (by pondering over his creation etc), that the Quran is a book revealed by him (due to its uniqueness, scientific and linguistic miracles etc) and that Muhammad was his messenger, not to give fatwas.

Not only that but it also challenges us to find an error in it. So your statement is obviously false.

This is directed specifically to the non-believers. By not being able to find any error on it, it will become clear to them that this books is indeed from God. And again, challenging us to find errors does not mean it allows us to give fatwas.

It is this view of Islam that got muslims where they are today.

The only reason why Muslims are where they are, is because they are not following their religion.

If I were to switch the word "Qur'an" with "Bible" in your post I honestly wouldnt be able to tell the difference between you and a fundamentalist christian preacher. Why would I follow anybody blindly, when the Qur'an condemns people for doing the same thing. The Qur'an condemns anybody for being a blind sheep. Your sects argument is fallacious, because you don't realize that the best way to destroy these sects is with intellectual arguments, not by telling people to follow scholars blindly.

The concept of blind following is not that simple. I have watched a lof of lectures on this topic. There are rules. Remeber, the majority of the ummah is not able to study their religion, so the scholars of Ahlus-Sunah allowed blind following. As for the muslims who can study, they should know the argument. So, we should ask for an argument when a scholar gives a fatwa. After that, even if it may not seem to us like a strong argument (which generally happens due to our own desires) we are required to follow it. Don't you follow a math formula blindly, even if you don't have a verification of it? Yes, because you know mathematicians studied it for centuries. If a scholar is wrong, we won't be punished about that because we acted according to the Quran (4:59). If there is more than one opinion (I'm talking about opinion given by schools of thought, scholars and not any opinion of any person) we should use our logic and follow that which we think is right. The first source for giving fatwas is the Quran. However, the Quran may be misinterpreted, so we should see what Prophet Muhammad and his companions thought of a verse. Example: the Quran (32:4) says that Allah is above the throne. Different sects tried to interpret this on different ways. So what the scholars did, was taking the opinion of Prophet Muhammad and the companions regarding this verse, and this means that the second source is authentic Sunnah or hadiths. The third is the consensus of scholars. If there is no consensus among some scholars about an issue, they should go back and see whether there was consensus among the sahabas, tabiins and tabi-tabiins (the first three generations of muslims) about the same issue. If there is, they should follow it; if there is not, now the intellect comes in. You can never destroy sects with intellectual arguments, because their arguments are also a product of their intellect, so there will be an endless debate. What they should do is return back to the Quran, the Sunnah and the beliefs of the majority of Muslims.

I agree with you in that reading your positions in to the Quran is wrong. I dont understand what your problem is with rejecting ahadith that contradict with science, even Imam al Ghazali said that any hadith that contradicts with science must be discarded.

A hadith which contradicts the Quran or established scientific facts, of course is not true, and that's why we have scholars who clasify them as correct, weak hadiths etc. Don't forget that something may seem as a scientific error, but it is not. I took the example of Sun rotating. It seemed as an error some decades ago, but today is a fact. The same way, a hadith may look like it contradicts with science, but we should not be fast on judging. So we Muslims who are not scholars should be silent about those hadiths and let the scholars do their work on classifying them.

I don't even believe in evolution but i'm still going to refute your argument against it. You say that just because the scholars don't believe in evolution It must not be true. this is fallacious reasoning because the majority of the scholars aren't even familiar with the evidence for and against evolution.

I just can't believe an important belief such as the creation of men will be left unclear by Allah. The reason why I think we should follow scholars in something which is consensus is because they studied Islam their entire life, and it is irrational to believe that for 1400 years Allah let them believe something that is wrong. Yes, for other things, especially with those that have to do with science and which are not so important for a muslim to believe on them or not, it is not necessary to follow a scholar. I took the example of the Flath Earth earlier.

Anyways most scholars have authority over fiqh, fatawaa, etc... but they do not have valid authority over science because they dont even study it.

You misunderstood me. I didn't say that the scholars studied the theory of Darwin and they found proofs against it. What I said was that they were not able to find any connection between this theory and the Quranic verses. They studied the Quran and all of them, for 1400 years believed in intelligent design.