Amar Razali

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullah,

Dear my brothers and sisters in Islam. I have a friend who seems really interested in Islam. Recently, he asked some questions about Islam, and I really need your help to answer some of these questions.

My Top Three Questions Concerning the Islamic Religion

1. It is claimed that the Qur'an is a book that contains the word of a God. What is the evidence for this? I looked at some of the text and it is not obvious that such is the case.

2. If Allah is an omniscient God, then before he creates a soul, S, at time = 2, there was a time = 1 when he knew he was already going to make such a soul ('S'). Furthermore, Allah must have known, at t = 1, where S would be at every point in time between t = 2 and t = 1000 (where t = 1000 is the time of the death of S's body).

Let us say that S does something that ruins his chance to enter paradise when he is 25 years old, at time= 250. At time=1, Allah must have known that he was going to create a soul 'S' who would eventually go to hell for eternity.

In other words, at time=1, Allah knew that he would create a soul, S, who, at t=250, would commit a religious crime that would result in an eternal life in hell. If Allah created us and is also omniscient, then it implies that he knew who was going to heaven and who was going to hell before we even existed, and purposely created people who were doomed to go to hell. How, then, can we have free will? (I am perfectly fine with the answer: "we have no free will".)

However, if we do not have free will, then how can Allah rightly punish us for our actions? Furthermore, if my reasoning is correct and we have no free will (assuming Allah exists), why would a God create life such that some are doomed to burn in hell?

3. Evolutionary theory seems to be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt. If the reader does not accept evolutionary theory then I can produce numerous well-sourced documents that make an excellent case for evolutionary theory. I have not always said this. However, it has been 4 months of steady research, and I have read many articles from a myriad of the top scientific magazines, journals, and organizations (Including Science, Nature, Scientific American, and Proceedings from the National Academy of Science).

I will be more than happy to produce copies of my findings, which are well-sourced, to any honest skeptic of evolutionary theory. IF evolutionary theory is indeed true, then it seems to contradict several verses of the Qur'an. Many lines in the Qur'an seem to imply that humans were created directly out of materials such as mud, blood, and water, rather than by the molecular evolution of deoxyribonucleic acid.

The question arising from this paragraph depends on whether the reader already believes evolutionary theory:
a. Case 1: The reader believes that evolutionary theory is false.
i. My response: I will attempt to show you the evidence that I have collected, and show how they imply evolution of life over the past 2-3.5 billion years. Just as importantly, I will attempt to show that my sources are incredibly reputable.

b. Case 2: The reader accepts evolutionary theory.
i. How is the Qur'an consistent with evolutionary theory?

Please help me to answer these questions, and you can email me privately at amar.razali@gmail.com, so we can discuss about these matters together.

Syukran wajazakumullah khair.