UK Med Students Snub Darwin, Say He Contradicts Islam

Muslim students enrolled in one of the UK's leading medical courses are boycotting lectures on evolution, claiming that the theory is in conflict with creationist ideas in the Koran.

Faculty members of the University College London have expressed concern at the increasing number of students boycotting lectures on Darwinist theory, which is part of the medical syllabus, citing their religion, the Daily Mail has reported.

Muslims believe that Allah created the world, humankind and all known species in a single act, as opposed to the Darwinian theory. Similar opinion is found among fundamentalist Christians too.

Steve Jones, emeritus professor of human genetics at University College, London, is left wondering why such students would want to study biology at all when it obviously conflicts with their beliefs.

"I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches, now it is Islamic overwhelmingly," he told the Sunday Times.

"They don't come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or e-mails saying they shouldn't have to learn this stuff.

"What they object to - and I don't really understand it, I am not religious - they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God."

Earlier this year the imam of the Masjid al-Tawhid mosque, Usama Hasan, in Leyton, received death threats for suggesting that Darwinism and Islam might be compatible.

The newspaper reports a growing creationist trend among Muslims following Turkish author Harun Yahya's writings denouncing Darwinist theory. Yahya is believed to have been influenced by Christian creationist ideas from America.

Yahya, whose books and videos are available at many bookshops in the UK and regularly run on religious TV channels, associates Darwinism with Nazism.

In the last couple of years, speakers of Yahya's beliefs have toured Britain and delivered lectures on his teachings.

This year's talks have been given in London, Manchester, Leeds, Dundee and Glasgow.