Iranian Scholars’ Contemporary Debate between Evolutionary Human Genesis and Readings of the Qur’an: Perspectives and Classification

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I read an earlier version of this paper when it was submitted to another journal (ZYGON). I rejected it then because it did not engage with the existing literature well enough and because it had methodological flaws. 

The current article is much improved than the first reading, but the originality and strength of the arguments lack adequacy. The authors use Shi'i scholars as a foil to come up with a classification that seems to present something new, with mostly a focus on how much is and isn't excluded from the Qur'an. 

There are some significant issues with this approach. First, excluding hadiths is not a wise decision. Both Sunni and Shi'i sources utilise hadith for their narratives. To then focus on the Quran is a massive methodological error that the authors need to work on. Second, I don't understand the focus. Are the authors focusing on Iranian scholars or Shi'i scholars, or both? Third, the new classification that they are suggesting seems to exist in the current literature, with some authors claiming explicit proofs of evolution, some indirect, while others maintain tawaqquf. So, I am unsure what the newness is in this approach. Is it simply exhausting all the logical options when it comes to evolution and the Qur'an? Is this a creedal, jurisprudential, or exegetical analysis? Which methodological framework is being used? Furthermore, why are Iranian/Shi'i scholars being used for this purpose? For example, Jalajel, a Sunni scholar, uses tawaqquf to argue for Adamic exceptionalism, but this is simply not acknowledged. In short, the methodological precision of the paper is not clear enough to understand the contributions of the paper. Furthermore, there have been developments in Shi'i scholars' opinions on evolution. Most recently, Ali Paya published the following: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14746700.2022.2084855 

Lastly, there are several errors in the article. These include grammatical and formatting issues, which make the reading cumbersome. 

For these reasons, which are significant, I have decided to reject the paper. However, I do hope the authors work on clarifying their approach, as I do believe their work has some merit, but it remains to be seen what it clearly is. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I initially liked the thrust of the paper but it is too long and goes off on too many tangents. I think the author needs to be more critical of the views of the scholars. As it stands, it’s a paper on classification—neither very philosophically nor scientifically critical. And the author should or could distance him or herself from various positions – does the author thinks to know x is to be certain of x? Does the author think there are proofs in the natural sciences? Is there certainty in the non-biological sciences? Doesn’t anyone point out the obvious problem that keeps being raised—nothing in the empirical sciences is certain. There are no proofs in the empirical sciences. There are objectors to most scientific theories. This paper could use some familiarity with contemporary philosophy of science. 

 

Needs to be proofed by a native English speaker. 

 

For example, the author writes: “These are the points that even continue to misunderstand the public mind and make it all too easy to be dismissed.” I think the author means: “These points continue to be misunderstood by the public mind, making it all too easy for them to dismiss the theory of evolution.” I think this is what the author means. There is no antecedent to “it” in the original. I’m not sure why all of a sudden we are talking about the public mind. I take it that the problem is that Islamic thinkers misunderstand quite a bit.

 

Malik’s classification:

1. Creationism 

2. Human exceptionalism 

3. Adam exceptionalism and

4. No exceptions 

I don’t understand how 2 and 3 are different. How they are different is worth a comment or a footnote.

Does Malik separate 2-3 just so he ends up with more categories than Guessoum? I don’t find that helpful

 

 

categorized into four groups. Three on the text and interpretations: 

1. Compatible with evolution 

2. Incompatible with it -at least for Adam, 258 

3. …

4. Separated those who hesitated on the validity of the evolution theory. 

These are garbled. They need a better tie-in sentence and they need to form complete sentences with the tie-in sentence.

 

“Ghafouri-Fard and Akrami appear to be focusing on science and scripture while remaining on the road of compatibility and incompatibility with evolution.”

I don’t understand this sentence.

 

“The knowledge that we expect to have been accurately understood from Darwin’s theory, which is often not the case.”

I think I understand the author, but I’m not sure.

 

Sentences 271-285 are red herrings and should be deleted. The author needs to get to the point of the author’s own classification.

 

Why is it improbable that Iranian (Shiite) religious scholars would entirely oppose evolution?

“would have”????

 

“Explicit texts are rarely to be found in the Qur’an”

According to the author? To most exegetes? 

 

“if a Qur’anic verse or a hadith is contrary to a proposition known with certainty”

Then you have Galileo’s problem – that no natural science is known with certainty. 

 

“The idea is that evolution as a fact is certain and incontrovertible.”

This is a strong statement. One I think is untrue. But one that is hard to judge since the author has not defined evolution (others have but the author has not). The author defines evolution a few pages later.

What’s the difference, for example, between evolution as a theory and evolution as a fact?

Where did Darwin make the fact-theory distinction?

This is a philosophically uninformed section—I know of few scientists who say evolution is certain and incontrovertible. The author even implies this on the top of p. 9

The author needs more nuance here. 

441: I still don’t know what the author means by “evolution as a fact”

 

481: I don’t see any probabilities in the figure

 

“the Qur’an’s main (explicit) text” – is there an accepted understanding of this?

494-499: are those texts part of the main explicit text?

 

552ff: I finally get a sense of evo as a fact and evo as a theory. That things evolved—is the fact (is common descent that fact?). How they evolved—that’s the theory. Should be clearer earlier on. 

 

“Regarding Darwin’s theory of evolution, however, he believes that it is not indubitable and unquestionable, since it has been subject to objections by some biologists, although he suggests that if the theory is proved beyond doubt, then the apparent meanings of prima facie contradictory verses should be interpreted away through the methods of contradiction-resolution in the principles of jurisprudence…”

Every scientific theory, or nearly so, has objections. 

 

“the latter falls short of adjudicating what took place billions of years”

Is Shirazi skeptical of cosmology and geology? 

 

“Even those scholars 747 who believe that man was created independently of biological evolution still believe that 748 such independent creation is temporal, gradual, and evolutionary.”

I haven’t seen the evidence of this view in the theologians. I don’t really know what it means.

 

“Having outlined these preliminaries, Muṭahharī claims that the theory developed by Darwin and his successors is not sufficient 807 as an explanation of creation, although it might not be false. It needs to be supplemented 808 by the supernatural guidance”

I don’t see why. The author needs to make Mutahhari clearer.

 

“Iranian scholars who are authoritative as regards the Qur’an-evolution conflict or harmony” 

What do Iranian biologists say? Or believe – maybe they are afraid to say? I’d be shocked if many of them denied the evolution of humanity. Why? Because the empirical evidence is compelling.  So I wonder in what sense the theologians are authoritative. 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Well done for significantly improving the paper. The article is much better and has a tighter focus. 

A few points that need addressing:

1. In line 340 it says, "Although he did not specifically include it in his classification, it is addressed in the book's section on the definition of evolution." It's not clear what this sentence is saying. It can be removed. 

2. In line 346, the author says that in Malik's new classification instead of exceptionalism, he uses the term  "accommodative." This is incorrect. Malik initially used the accommodative and then used exceptionalism. It's the opposite of what the author is saying. 

3. The authors sometimes use exceptionalism and exclusivism synonymously, particularly when referring to Malik's classification. The terminology used by Malik is exceptionalism, and it would be better to keep this consistent. Otherwise, the reader may think that the authors are reinterpreting Malik. 

4. The discussion in Footnote 11 is key to the motivation of the article and therefore should be brought to the main text. 

5. Figures 1 and 3 are not Figures, but Tables. I recommend the authors rectify this. 

6. I recommend the author has a summary table for each classification and its positions, e.g., one for Guessoum, Gharfouri, and Malik each. This will help the reader with comparing their ideas visually. This will be nice to see when leading up to Figure 1 when all of them are compared together.

7. Also, I recommend redrawing Figure 1 in an excel sheet. Currently, it looks like a snapshot was taken of the Figure in word and then added here. It would look much better with a table. 

8. I recommend the orientation of Figure 2 as a full-size landscape as opposed to a portrait. This way, the writing and diagram are clear. I also recommend using different colours for each tier to make the divisions, sub-divisions, and sub-sub-divisions clearer, but this is merely an aesthetic point.

9. The authors focus a lot on jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) and exegesis (tafsir). What about theology (aqida/kalam)? Isn't that the preferred thought for discussions like evolution? If not, why not? Why do/would Persian/Shi'i scholars resort to usul al fiqh when aqida/kalam has a higher threshold?

10. I strongly recommend that you get an editor to:

a. Improve the English of the paper. Sometimes the writing standards are quite weak, which makes the reading very difficult to read and thus appreciate. 

b. Normalise your Arabic transliterations. Currently, the transliterations are all over the place. Choose one Arabic transliteration system and then follow it consistently. This is a basic requirement for a top-tier journal like Religions MDPI. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I think this paper is now worth of publication. I'd recommend an edit by a native English speaker.

Author Response

Great thanks for your time and consideration, and thank you in advance for your kind recommendations the paper is now edited for writing standards and English improvement in three stages with 2 natives and a professional editor. Wishing you find the manuscript suitable for publication. 

With best wishes 

and Happy New Year