Darwin was an atheist and he claimed that man’s forefathers were monkeys and that with the elapse of time man evolved to be man. That was his ideology.

Somebody asked Moulana Thanwi (R.A) : “People are going astray because of Darwin’s theory. Please write your evidence to refute it.”

Hazrat Thanwi (R.A) replied: “There is no need for it!”

The person again said: “Many people are getting misled by this theory and are beginning to really believe that we were monkeys originally and that slowly we evolved into human beings.”

Hazrat said: “Everybody has pride in his ancestors. Someone is a Sayyid – he is proud of it. someone is a Khan, someone is a Moghul – they are all proud of their ancestry. A Bengali is proud of being a Bengali. A Gujerati is proud of being a Gujerati. So if Darwin and company are all proud that their origin is a monkey – so good luck to them.”

In fact, we make Shukr to Allah – because Allah says:

“I have created Adam (A.S) with my two hands” – not hands like ours but Allah created Adam (A.S) with great care and precision. So our forefather, Hazrat Adam (A.S), Allah forbid, was not a monkey. The other thing is that if there is any shortcoming in our parents or ancestors, we must try to hide it. If these people (Darwin etc.) were humans, they would have hidden this shortcoming. But we see that these people spend millions of dollars and university time – America being in the forefront – just to prove that their forefathers were monkeys. In reality they are animals.

Hazrat Moulana Hakim Akhtar Saheb (D.B) has answered them in the best way. When he came to South Africa, he saw many monkeys in the wild. He remarked: “Why is it that only Darwin’s monkey evolved into a man? There are millions of monkeys around the world. Why didn’t any of these monkeys transform into a man? If one monkey could transform into a man, the other monkeys could have also transformed into men.”

In fact these people are the real monkeys and are playing monkey tricks with the whole world. Among their monkey games, one game is such that one person throws the ball, the other person hits it with a bat, and 50 000 people clap their hands. This monkey game is called cricket. This throwing of a ball and hitting it – is it a job of dignity? But these people are doing the jobs of animals.

The skin of a pig – that is called ‘a ball’. Eleven people this side and eleven people that side – the game is called soccer. This side team’s job is to place the ball between the two poles on that side – is this the job of a human being?

An extract from “The virtues of knowledge” by Moulana Abdul Hamid Ishaq Sahed.