Table Talk
by Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din
Chapter 6: Darwin and Evolution
Darwinism is on the wane. No one cares to trace his origin to ape ancestry. Even physically, there are many gaps to fill between man and monkey. The research of the last fifty years could not find out “the missing link” between man and orangutan.
That imaginary thing is a non-entity, and will remain, so ever. The genesis of man as given in the first book of the Bible could not satisfy Darwin. No one with an intelligent head on his shoulders can satisfy himself with the account given in the Bible. But that is no reason why we should swallow the pill prepared by Darwin. His theory, no doubt, has plausibility, and could possibly be accepted, if man was only flesh and bone. His charts may disclose some resemblance between the human skeleton and the physical frame of a monkey; but what about the consciousness of the two entities? The gulf between human and ape-consciousness is wide enough to disprove the Darwinian theory. His naked eye even with the help of science could not see that vast difference between human brain-cells and ape brain-congeries which the two consciousnesses disclose. The frame of the human body, apparently, may show a little improvement on the physical constitution of the monkey, but there is no comparison worth the name between the human mind and that of the most perfect in the ape category.
Human Consciousness:
Man is the miniature of the Universe. The Quran teaches us so. Many among the subsequent philosophies support this Quranic view. Every atom in nature finds room in the human frame. I may go further and say that every organism has its representative in the human constitution. This theory specially holds good as far as human consciousness goes. Every animal has special traits in his consciousness: if consciousness is only the sum total of certain passions, hankerings, and appetites differently observable in different animals, the theory of Darwin falls to the ground when the consciousness of the various animals is examined. The consciousness of a cat is quite different from that of a pig. The lustful, dirty and unclean habits of the animal — the flesh of which makes a delicious dish to some tastes, carrying along with it the ways of the animal to its eaters — cannot be observed in the tidy, manner of a cat. It would be an interesting pursuit to study the manners of different animals, as in it lies the study of their consciousness, but the diversion would be a digression from my subject. Suffice it to say that there is a big contrast in the animal consciousness of different categories. While human consciousness marks a new departure in this respect, it collects within itself every animal consciousness. Nature collocates the minds of every other animal in the human mind, cat and dog, wolf and lion, pig and horse, serpent and crocodile; in short, wherever there is the exhibition of consciousness in animal lives, it finds its place in human consciousness. Human consciousness, so to say, is cosmic-consciousness.
If such is the case, and man cannot be the descendant of an ape, even a thousand generations removed, what are we to say of the one or two missing links suggested by Darwin, between man and ape. If the monkey was our ancestor, his mind should have collocated at least the minds of a hundred other animals, as our mind represents millions of minds. Even on the basis of our physical constitution, Darwin was not a true prophet. His charts showing the skeletons of different animals, may excite admiration in a few superficial minds but if mentality is the outcome of the physical frame, the variety in mentality observable in various categories of animals, necessitates variety of physical frame. Hence, different species in the animal kingdom cannot be in lineal descent from each other. There may be apparent kinship in different physical frames to the extent of deceiving the human eye — and Darwin was unfortunately misled by it — but really there exists no kindredness, even between the body-fabric of the different species of animals.
Origin of Species:
It is difficult to locate the origin of species, but one thing is certain. Species is not the outgrowth of natural selection, as suggested by Darwin. In their classification you may arrange divisions and subdivisions under certain genera, but in the light of what has recently come within scientific ken, any species can be traced, for its origin, to the world of atoms. Ethereal specks are no sooner converted into electronic complex, than they travel with mathematical precision, on prescribed lines, to reach their goal in some particular organism. In various stages of development, they may undergo different specializations or collocations, but they never leave the prescribed course. They seem to know it; like the bee, they may travel hundreds of miles without making transgression from the route already chalked out for them. They know the very organism they are going to become a component of, and they cannot mistake it for another. If this can be accepted as a scientific truth, it destroys the very fabric of Darwinism, and science has only come to support what the Quran said some thirteen hundred years ago:
رَبُّنَا الَّذِیۡۤ اَعۡطٰی کُلَّ شَیۡءٍ خَلۡقَہٗ ثُمَّ ہَدٰی ﴿۵۰﴾
“Rubbu-nallazi a‘ata kulla shai-in khalqahu thumma hada.” [The Holy Quran, 20:50]
My creator has given to every particular thing its particular form, measure, and mode of its creation. He prescribed a course for it, and gave guidance to it.