Respectfully Disagreeing with Javed Ghamidi on the Subject of the Glorious Quran and Evolution: Humans Did Come from Apes

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times I respect Javed Ahmed Ghamidi as one of the most knowledgeable Muslim scholars. I love him because of his pluralistic views. He never tries to monopolize the truth or promote prejudice against other sects or points of views. Nevertheless, his views…

May 4, 2025

3–4 minutes

evolution, god, philosophy, science

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

I respect Javed Ahmed Ghamidi as one of the most knowledgeable Muslim scholars. I love him because of his pluralistic views. He never tries to monopolize the truth or promote prejudice against other sects or points of views.

Nevertheless, his views on evolution are simply incoherent. If we follow his views on the subject over time, there may have been some evolution or change. But it is difficult to examine coherence in incoherence.

So, today I will examine only this video and offer brief comments on this video with suggested reading at the end to narrate my views about guided and theistic evolution.

In the second part of the video, it becomes clear that he is denying the common ancestry of all life forms on our planet in denying our link with other apes; he specifically names chimpanzees. So, all the evidence that I will link below for our common ancestry will refute Ghamidi’s position.

The other pressing argument against Ghamidi’s position is that there is no geological, fossil, or molecular biological evidence for his position. He suggests some unique independent evolution for humans, but it is merely a claim. Whatever happens on our planet leaves its traces to be examined. The simplest aspect of this reality is that the flow of river leaves a track on land even when it changes its course. Similarly, the present-day theory of evolution is not just a claim but is based on incontrovertible evidence in several fields of science. Respectfully, may I say, Ghamidi has only a baseless claim regarding evolution without any empirical evidence whatsoever?

Ghamidi also describes a phenomenon that has a label in scientific discourse and the truth of it is possible only if conventional biological theory is accepted.

The phrase “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” encapsulates a historical hypothesis in biology, suggesting that the development of an individual organism (ontogeny) mirrors the evolutionary development of its species (phylogeny). This idea was prominently advocated by German biologist Ernst Haeckel in the 19th century. Wikipedia+1WIRED+1

According to Haeckel’s theory, as an embryo progresses through its developmental stages, it sequentially exhibits features resembling the adult forms of its evolutionary ancestors. For instance, he proposed that human embryos display pharyngeal arches akin to fish gills, indicating a fish-like ancestral stage. vedantu.com+2Wikipedia+2Wikipedia+2

However, this theory has been largely discredited in modern biology. Contemporary research indicates that while embryonic development can reflect certain aspects of evolutionary history, it does not strictly replay ancestral adult forms. Embryos may exhibit similarities across species due to shared genetic pathways, but these do not constitute a direct recapitulation of evolutionary stages. Wikipedia+1Wikipedia+1

In summary, while Haeckel’s concept highlighted intriguing parallels between development and evolution, it oversimplified the complexities of embryology and phylogenetics. Modern evolutionary developmental biology recognizes that ontogeny and phylogeny are interconnected but not in the linear, stage-by-stage manner Haeckel proposed.

“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” will be examined further in a separate article.