Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching Interdisciplinary Courses on Islam and Evolution: A Theology-Centric Perspective

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Special emphasis needs to be added that this paper is not about teaching a course on evolution per se or evolution in relation to some other religions, such as Christianity. Rather it is about a course on evolution in its relation to the Islamic religion. Otherwise, why should anybody teaching evolution in the US should care about its link to Islam. The pedagogical context of the paper needs to be stressed by recognizing alternative courses on evolution, at least. 

The author has successfully identified various aspects of the debate over evolution. There is the scientific aspect. There are philosophical interpretations of the scientific foundation of the theory. There is finally a context in which the link between religion (Islam more specifically) and the scientific basis of evolution is assessed. The author gave a compatible interpretation of Islam and evolution as a scientific theory (not its philosophical interpretation as naturalist evolution). Yet the question is, what would happen if there were no such compatible interpretations at hand? Would the author advise teaching a course on evolution and Islam if there were no compatible interpretations at hand? More precisely, what is the criterion in structuring a course, particularly in its relation to Islam? Imagine that there is a discipline called X that apparently contradicts Islam. No interpretation renders them compatible as of now. Would the author approve of teaching a course on “Islam and X” under this circumstance? What is the deeper pedagogical approach in the background?     

These points could enrich the discussion in the paper, which is already beyond a satisfactory level.    

Typos in the paper and some suggestions: 

p. 2, 96-97: “some partic-  ipants” the term at the end of the line was divided wrongly.  

p.6, line 262: “Cultural can aspects make evolution more difficult to understand and/or accept” ; “Cultural” will be “Culture”

p. 13, line 549: “There are find several benefits”; “find” seems to be unnecessary.

p. 9, line 407-408: “A broader meaning of metaphysics is the study of reality to understand what there is and how it is.” A better characterization of metaphysics would be to say that it studies the fundamental features of reality and how it works.

Author Response

Thank you so much for the very helpful feedback. 

1. I have added the word 'interdisciplinary' to the title to make the focus explicit: Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching Interdisciplinary Courses on Islam and Evolution

2. The reviewer asked: "Yet the question is, what would happen if there were no such compatible interpretations at hand?" - for this article, I am explicitly focusing on evolution. So, I won't be tackling this question here. However, I have an upcoming monograph that looks at this very question, which will be coming out with Routledge in 2024.

3. I have corrected all the typos. Thank you for spotting them. 

Reviewer 2 Report

"Evolution entails naturalism". (line 298) It might be best to simply say "philosophical naturalism" here if you do not wish to go into an in-depth discussion about Muslim misunderstandings about naturalism and its various forms. Evolution definitely entails naturalism in that it provides a complete and coherent naturalistic account for biodiversity. However, it does not commit to ontological or metaphysical naturalism which excludes the supernatural and other explanations. The reason why evolution is perceived as a threat is because it does indeed genuinely provide a full naturalistic account, and if this is taken through an ontological lens, it is seen as a threat to God's existence.

The examples from lines 393-397 need to have references. The same for the necessary and contingent discussion from lines 412-419.

This statement is inexact: "What God can or cannot do or create is based on the laws of logic." (line 419) This suggests giving ontopriority to certain "laws" of logic. It would be a better reflection of the theologians' thought to say something like: "God is understood to be able to do anything that is logically possible. The only thing that is not seen as an object of God's power is a logical impossibility."

The idea of God creating "through" other means is problematic for Sunni theological perspectives, particularly the Ash`arite perspective. It hints at a form of dependency on secondary causality that they would object to. In Sunni Divine Action Models, everything is God's direct action, so God is not understood to work "through" anything. He directly existentiates everything. Rather say something like: "Can God create the world with the characteristic of deep time" (line 426) "Can God create a world wherein He manifests common ancestry?" (line 427) "Can God create the world wherein He manifests patterns of natural selection and random mutations?" (428) The same goes for line 461,The very idea that a theistic acceptance of evolution would entail God working metaphysically through other means would be more than sufficient grounds for a classical Sunni theist to categorically reject the theory of evolution.

You may wish to specify ontological or philosophical naturalism here. (line 466 and line 467)

You say "I am committed to the following" (line 515) and "I am not committed to the following" (line  522) and "I am open to" (line 529). I know you disclose your Ash`arite leanings earlier, but the change to the personal in this section is a bit disconcerting. Also, it would be best to re-emphasise here that a Sunni theological hermeneutic methodology is being employed.

Regarding multiverses (lines 591-592) know that there is a robust conversation among Turkish theologians today on multiverses, with some saying that they are necessary due to God's wisdom or perfection, or impossible because the threaten to make God's existence superfluous. Both side's arguments would be highly defective based on the theological principles that you outline in your paper, but such discussions exist and you might wish to acknowledge them in a footnote if you wish to use the multiverse example.

Author Response

Thank you so much for these really helpful comments. They were so helpful that I implemented every one of them. 

Reviewer 3 Report

Page 1, Line 12: "classroom room" sounds weird, "classroom" would be enogh.

Page 1, Line 21: "Origin of Species" is a better alternative than "Origins of Species" as a shortened title of Darwin's work.

Page 2, Line 57: "Abrahamic civilizations believed that" sound strange. Maybe you can say "the followers of Abrahamic faiths"

Page 3, Footnote 1: I do not think we need this as a footnote. At least we do not need that much detail about a book that is not published yet. 

Page 4, Line 144-147: For some this is the case, but for others this works as a pretext to reject evolution. You kind of emphasized that point in the next paragraphs  but I think you should point to that fact in here, at least in one sentence.

Page 4, Footnote no 2: I think this is unnecessary.

Page 6, Line 262: Should be "Cultural aspects can" rather than "Cultural can aspects"

Page 7, Line 300-302: Please refer to Dawkins' work directly rather than referring to secondary resources. 

Page 7, Line 302-303: "This false bifurcation has resulted in a noticeable number 302 of Muslims leaving Islam..." This is a bold claim. Is there any study which seems to support this claim?     

Page 9, Line 394: Please explain what "hadith" is in a footnote.

Page 10, Lines 464-474: Evolutionists differentiate between "random" and "chance". One need to know what Lamarckian evolution claims in order to grasp the use of "randomness" in Darwinian evolution better. Maybe you can briefly dwell on that discussion here.

Page 10, Line 478: Even in the Quran the word "day" is used to refer to thousands of years. I think you need to mention it here. 

Page 12, figure 1: Please upload a high quality photo. It is really hard to read this one. 

Page 12: Please do mention that there are Muslims who believe that "no exceptions" position is scriptually possible.    

Page 13, Line 549: "There are find several benefits" Do you mean "There are several benefits"?  

Page 14, Lines 606-608: "The theory of evolution, particularly the idea of common ancestry, was never discussed nor imagined prior to the nineteenth century in Muslim discourses." What about early Muslim thinkers who believe in evolution, such as Jahiz and Nazzam?  

Finally, I think you need to explain what you mean by "creationist/creationism" in the first parapraph these terms appear.  I think that must be page 5.  

Author Response

This was a very helpful review. I have amended the entire manuscript in light of these points.

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper furnishes wide background but does not go deep on a specific point. need some empirical examples. 

Author Response

Thank you for your feedback. However, I did not find this review to be constructive or helpful. As mentioned in the title, this is an autoethnographic perspective, which is a valid form of research. While I do agree with the necessity of empirical studies, and I hope that my article can inform them in future work on the pedagogy and reception of Islam and evolution, this is not the methodology of this particular article.