Richard Dawkins, evolution, and Muslims.

Sorry, this took me a while to find again because I forgot to bookmark it. It was an interesting debate about Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? Not having studied Islam, it didn't occur to me that there is a greater controversy among Muslims about evolution than there is with some practitioners of Christianity and I was glad to see that there are those who have not only kept an open mind, but who have actively considered what it means for their faith (and that it's not a deal-breaker because science is about the "how" not the "why"). This debate was nearly canceled, and did have to be modified, due to strong opposition from student groups.

The Importance of Evolution and Islam debate in London by Salman Hameed

I'm now back in US and I'm glad that I had a chance to attend the London debate, Have Muslims Misunderstood Evolution? It was organized by The Deen Institute and I posted some quick thoughts on Saturday.

You can find a good summary of each speaker's presentation at Farrukh's blog .

Here are a few reasons why I think the London debate on evolution and Islam may turn out be a game-changer in the way Muslims look at evolutionary biology, and science, in general.

This was an intra-faith debate. There is no question that the topic was controversial. However, the conversation on evolution often gets derailed by common misconceptions and juvenile creationist ideas. The debate would have been a failure, had it been simply between biologists and those who follow Harun Yahya.

The reason for the success of the debate was that almost all of the speakers (with the exception of Harun Yahya acolyte, Oktar Babuna) accepted the scientific consensus on evolution. Then the question became: Can Muslims reconcile human evolution with their faith? Now this is an important question.

Read more for the "few take-aways from the London debate:"