I'm an American Muslim, born in Germany, I grew up Christian, and later became an Agnostic. In 1996 I accepted Islam. I say this only to explain that I may be able to add a new perspective on this matter.

I think one of the biggest problems in this discussion is that Evolutionism and Creationism are somehow percieved to be mutually exclusive. This is probably due to the historical context in which these theories evolved. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church was responsible for a lot of persecution of Scientifically minded people, including Galileo, as well as anyone who dissented from their views. Later this caused the scientific community to seek to undermine the validity of Christianity, by putting a literal interpretation of the Bible up to scientific scrutiny.

In the Muslim world, no such division ever took place, the sciences were encouraged in the Quran, so science flourished for a long time in the Muslim world, and actually helped to revive the sciences in Europe, leading to the Rennaisance. The idea that God(Allah) caused the universe to evolve over time, is perfectly in accordance with the teachings of the Quran. One important reason for this is that while the Quran does mention the heavens and the earth being created in 6 days, the word for 'days' in Arabic can also mean 'periods of time'. There's no problem scientifically in understanding the evolution of the universe to have occurred in 6 time periods, so again we have harmony between religion and science.

In regard to the Christian view, it is quite possible that the English translations of the Bible, are not quite capturing the exact meanings of the original Hebrew text. Perhaps in ancient Hebrew, days means "periods of time" too. Muslims believe that prophets were sent to all people, including Moses, Jesus and many others. While we hold that the Torah and the Gospel were divinely inspired books, we also acknowledge that some tampering and missinterpretation has occurred to the texts over the centuries. The Quran warns us of this phenomenon, which is why such great pains were taken to preserve its original text.

Back to the topic, I think the facts of evolution should definitely be taught in science class, but some of the conclusions, which are not scientific, should be avoided. The idea that evolution should lead one to believe that there is no God, is a stretch, and probably stems from the historical controversy I mentioned earlier. I don't think God can be proven or disproven scientifically, but it is a matter of personal experience. I can easily prove the existance of God to myself, and I can offer some convincing arguments for others to consider, but I know they do not stand up to scientific scrutiny, nor can they be measured by scientific means. It's a personal choice, ultimatly that I've made to believe.

I don't think schools should leave out religion either. Religion is a powerful force in our society, and we need to understand how other peoples beliefs cause them to act. Perhaps creationism could be taught, as suggested earlier, in a sociology class, or social studies, as part of the lesson on Christianity.

There were a couple other things I'd like to address, which came up earlier in this discussion...


Their moms didn't keep them out of science class, they kept them out of "our religion module", which was probably Chritianity.

Also, someone mentioned how Religions try to confuse people first, then offer a clear solution i.e. "the Bible Says...". I think this is a human problem, not a religious problem. Yes religions have been missused, and are missused to this day, to justify horrible things. We Muslims are as guilty as any of this, but so are many other philosophies, like nationalism, secularism, and even Darwinism.

I hope this helps...