Muslim Creationism - A Case of Interfaith Dialogue?

Just as some Christians feel the Theory of Evolution stands in conflict with the Bible, some Muslims feel it is in Conflict with the Quran. This is perhaps not so odd in itself, but I at least was surprised to find out that these groups actually stand in contact with each other.

During a visit to the University of Göttingen in Germany last week, I was given a publication in which Dr. Martin Riexinger tells the interesting story of Turkish Creationism. The history goes back to the 19th century, but gets interesting during the 1980's, when the school books in the (until then?) rigorously secular state schools were modified so that not only were creationism introduced as an alternative to evolution in biology, but fierce anti-evolution polemics was introduced in the books on religious education (a subject introduced at the same time).

The Turkish found inspiration among American Evangelicals, who were often cited as western scientists. The reason that evangelical protestants were noted in Muslim circles in Turkey also had to do with the fact that US creationists repeatedly visited Turkey to look for Noak's ark on mount Ararat. However, the evangelical argumentation for a young earth was of no interest to the Turks, since the Quran does not contain any narrative comparable to that of Genesis regarding the early generations of humans.

Even more fascinating is the fact that the contacts have also gone in the other direction, from Turkey to the US. In 2004, Mustafa Akyol, who teaches an Islamic variation of the "Intelligent Design"-theory, was invited to a hearing at the Kansas Department of Education, at which the question if ID was to be taught in Kansas Schools was discussed. The idea was to bring in a Muslim in order to rebut the argument that ID is based on Christian Theology.