magine visiting a vibrant green archipelago in the middle of the ocean. On this bit of land separated from the mainland by thousands of kilometers there is a beautiful, rich variety of plants and animals found no where else in the world. Living things one never encountered before abound here in great variety. If you found yourself in such a place with this magnificent view in front of you, what would you think?

Left: A representation of the ship "Beagle" on which Darwin made his journey. Middle and Right:The Galapagos Islands where Darwin worked out his theory.

With such wonderful colors, vitality and variety before your eyes, you would, no doubt, feel a deep sense of pleasure and would ask yourself how all these beautiful things came to be. You would conclude that in the middle of the ocean on a tiny piece of land a great creative artistry is displayed and that everything is part of an extraordinary creation.

However, when Darwin saw this awesome variety in nature, he did not react as most people would; he instead concluded that every living thing came to be as a result of coincidence. He did not consider that every one of these things was created by the eternal power of Allah; Darwin's logic led him in the opposite direction.

Darwin encountered many living things that most westerners had never seen before during his five year journey, especially on the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands are a place where there are countless numbers of living species that a scientist may study. In the course of his journey Darwin (in spite of collecting thousands of living things which he preserved in alcohol) paid most attention to various kinds of finches. After examining the physical differences between their beaks, he began to shape his theory.

What Darwin really did was to make exaggerated speculations about certain observations he had made. It is true that among finches there has been a wide variation in so far as the gene pool has allowed. But this does not mean that the finch evolved from another bird species or that it can develop into another species. Modern evolutionists have admitted that claims made by Darwin based on the variation in the beaks of finches are exaggerated unscientific suppositions.

Indeed, no thinking person can accept inferences made about the origins of every living thing merely on the basis of differences in the beaks of finches. How could that lead to conclusions about the emergence of giant whales, elephants with their distinctive features, flies with their amazing abilities, the magnificent symmetry of the wings of a butterfly, the great variety of fish, crustaceans, birds, reptiles, and most importantly, human beings with intelligence and consciousness?

When a true scientist examines living things, variation is not the only aspect to be taken into account. On the contrary, it is evident that a much more important and basic matter is the extraordinary design found in these beings. When dealing with finches, he would consider their flawless flying mechanisms, wings so wonderfully constructed with perfect technology. He would explore the aerodynamic quality of a single feather, its delicate but pliant structure that enables the bird to fly, and the millions of small hooks holding the feathers together. A scientist with open-minded awareness and no preconceived ideas will see a plain and evident truth: this flawless design, matchless beauty and innumerable variety can only be the work of the Creator.

The reason that Darwin and his followers put this reality out of sight is their psychological attachment to materialist philosophy, a spiritual condition which is clearly perceived in Darwin. His comment on the structure of the eye and the feathers of the peacock is a good example: I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of complaint and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!

This is certainly a demonstration of Darwin's prejudiced point of view with regard to what he encountered in nature. Because of the great variety of living creatures he observed in the Galapagos Islands, he was content to store them away in alcohol and refused to think about the extraordinary qualities he noticed in them. Yet, one need not go to the Galapagos Islands to see the proofs of distinctive creation throughout the universe. By simply gazing into the heavens he can see countless proofs of the existence, power, wisdom and intelligence of Allah.

In the illustration on the left are only twenty-two parts of the eye; actually, it is composed of forty parts and is a magnificent example of creation

An eye, the thought of which once made Darwin cold all over, is just an example of these countless proofs. The eye possesses a structure which is far too complex and perfect to have been the result of chance. It is composed of forty different components; one of its important aspects is its "irreducible complexity. " This means that the eye, to be able to function, must contain every one of these forty components at once. The eye would be useless if even one component was missing. Besides that, every one of these forty components has its own complex internal design. For example, the retina at the back of the eye is composed of eleven different layers, and one of these layers is a web of blood vessels. This layer, which is the body's densest web of blood vessels, provides the oxygen needed by the cells of the retina to interpret light. Each of the other layers has its own function. No evolutionist can give a convincing answer to the question of how such a complex organ was formed because the eye is one of the signs of the perfect creation of Allah. In the Qur’an, Allah says:

"He is Allah, the Creator, the Inventor, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names. Whatever is in the heavens and earth is exalting Him. And He is the Exalted in Might, the Wise."

Those who blindly devote themselves to following Darwin and proclaim him as the "lord of the species" must certainly consider what we have said so far about his character. They must see that Darwin's theory depends on a fairytale about the “Temple of Nature” that he learned from his grandfather, mistaken inferences derived from an amateur's knowledge of biology, an extreme prejudice for the rejection of Creation based on speculations about these mistaken inferences, and a superficial 19th century culture that believed atheism to be science. This picture, compiled from ancient pagan cultures, is part of the false belief known as the Scala Naturae proposed centuries ago by Aristotle.

The only reason why false religion is stubbornly espoused is that it is seen as an instrument in the propaganda against true religion, that is, belief in Allah. Phillip E. Johnson of Chicago University, who occupies an esteemed position in academic circles despite his criticism of the theory of evolution, explains:

In short, the triumph of Darwinism implied the death of [belief in] God and set the stage for replacing ...religion with a new faith based on evolutionary naturalism. 56

In another book Johnson describes this aspect of Darwinism: Prejudice is a major problem, however, because the leaders of science see themselves as locked in a desperate battle against religious fundamentalists, a label which they tend to apply broadly to anyone who believes in a Creator who plays an active role in worldly affairs. These fundamentalists are seen as a threat to liberal freedom, and especially as a threat to public support for scientific research. As the creation myth of scientific naturalism, Darwinism plays an indispensable ideological role in the war against fundamentalism. For that reason, the scientific organizations are devoted to protecting Darwinism rather than testing it, and the rules of scientific investigation have been shaped to help them succeed. 57

As Phillip E. Johnson has said, materialist philosophies found support for their own views in the theory of evolution and propagandist activities against religion found strength in Darwinism. Therefore, the promotion of Darwinism is one of the most important aims of anti-religious forces, and the most prominent proponents of Darwinism are adversaries of religion and of those who practice it.