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Harun Yahya: An Invitation to Dogmatism

By Francois Tremblay

"Harun Yahya" (the pen name of Adnan Oktar) is the name of a popular proponent of
Islamic apologetics, born in 1956, whose books and articles are said to receive wide
publication in Turkey and other Islamic countries. He also claims himself to be an
intellectual hero against neo-Darwinism.
His 180 books include such enlightening tomes as "Allah is Known Through Reason",
"The Design in Nature", "The Other Name for Illusion: Matter", "The Collapse of the
Theory of Evolution", "Disasters Darwinism Brought to Humanity", and "The Qur'an
Leads the Way to Science". Some others look more like Chick tracts, with names like
"Crude Understanding Of Disbelief", "Solution: The Values of the Qur'an", "Jesus Will
Return" and "Romanticism: A Weapon of Satan" (!).
Because of his popularity and body of work, we should be interested in examining more
carefully his web site, called Harun Yahya: an Invitation to Truth. The full texts of some
of his books are also available.
I myself have a web site about philosophy, and try to be as lenient as possible:
unfortunately, the front page of the site (as I see it in June 2002, anyway) does not
inspire confidence. While it is professionally-made, it includes an ironic placement: the
header "The True Islamic Morals", telling us how Islam leads to love and justice, side-by-
side with "Perished Nations", telling us that Allah destroyed ancient nations because
they rebelled against him. It also includes such titles as "The Fact of Creation" and
"Fascism: the Bloody Ideology of Darwinism".
Such contradiction and absurdity may be superficial assessment on my part, but does
not reflect well on what Yahya sees as important issues: it implies that the contents of
his web site are inane and anti-scientific.

1. Articles on Faith & Wisdom

His articles are divided into three sections: "Articles on Faith & Wisdom", "Articles on
Science & Faith" and "Articles on Social Issues". The articles are sprinkled with Qur'an
verses and praises to Allah, and this makes the content, once again, very uninspiring.
Most of the articles in this first section consist of two manoeuvres: praising Allah for
creating everything, and the argument from design.
In his books and articles, Yahya seems inordinately fond of the simple version of the
argument from design (that is, descriptions of complex entities and systems, followed by
the assumption that they must have been created). It seems his Turkish audience is
very unrefined in theological matters: at least here in North America we have people like
Behe and Dembski to attempt to spice it up for us. While the latter also fail miserably,
the process of refuting them is more challenging than refuting Yahya.
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This robotic transcription of facts, as if they represented some kind of higher truth, is
lengthy and unfruitful. An example: "The solar system revolves around the centre of the
galaxy at 720,000 km an hour. The velocity of the Milky Way itself, comprising some 200
billion stars, is 950,000 km an hour. This continual movement is inconceivable. The
earth, together with the solar system, each year moves 500 million kilometres away from
its location of the previous year".
What is this, and other facts about the galaxy, supposed to prove? That "the universe
we live in is created by a Creator, whose existence and attributes are revealed in
everything that exists". But such expositions of facts do not show us a Creator, and
neither do they make obvious the necessity of a Creator: they only show us the majesty
of natural law. The burden of proof is on the religious apologist: he must demonstrate
that natural law is impotent in explaining a particularity of nature.
Yahya also finds it necessary to constantly praise Allah for his supposed creation. For
example, in "Basic Questions of our Lives", we learn that sociology is impossible without
belief in Allah:
"Essentially, the existence of Allah and the reality that there is no deity other than Allah
are crystal clear facts. But in 'the society of ignorance' where people fail to use their
reasoning due to their habit of indifference and indolence, they grow blind and cannot
comprehend this reality. As a matter of fact, that is the reason why they were
stigmatised as a 'society of ignorance'".
The entire section is filled with rhetoric’s of this nature, and therefore I will not pick them
apart individually. I will, however, discuss one point raised, which is particularly
laughable in its absurdity. While the author discusses, in the same article, the "miracle"
of childbirth, he quotes the book of Al-Mumenoon, which says:

"Man We did create from a quintessence (of clay); Then We placed him as (a
drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed; Then We made the sperm into a clot
of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (foetus) lump; then we made out
of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it
another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!" (23:12-14)
Anyone who thinks this is a good explanation of how Allah creates a foetus must be
illiterate. The foetus is not made of clay, neither is the sperm transformed into congealed
blood, or developed into another creature. Bone development depends on bone-
producing cells - flesh. Bones in the human foetus do not begin to form until the 40th
day (Cell and Molecular Biology of Vertebrate Hard Tissues, Caplan and Pechak, 1988).
This is all basic embryology, which would be available even to desert dwellers of the
time, let alone Allah.
The verses I have quoted are, I assure you, a staple of Islamic apologetics. That they
use such an absurdity in a widespread manner shows how little science there is in the
Qur'an.
Furthermore, other statements in this article, which imply that Allah creates every foetus
individually, betray an ignorance of modern biology. His college education in "Mimar
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Sinan University's Academy of Fine Arts" may be a problem to his understanding of

science, which is limited to regurgitation.
In "Never Plead Ignorance that Quran is the Just Book", the book of Yunus is invoked:

"This Qur'an is not such as can be produced by other than Allah; on the contrary
it is a confirmation of (revelations) that went before it, and a fuller explanation of
the Book - wherein there is no doubt - from the Lord of the worlds. Or do they
say, 'He forged it'? say: 'Bring then a Sura like unto it, and call (to your aid)
anyone you can besides Allah, if it be ye speak the truth!'" (10:37-38)
It seems that Yahya does not know that many Christians have indeed made suras like it,
and succeeded. Internet Islamic fanatics attacked the biggest web site about these
made-up suras.
There is no need to continue indulging this nonsense. My conclusion is that these
articles exhibit an abundant amount of faith, but virtually no wisdom.

2. Articles on Science & Faith

Fortunately for the reader's sanity, the articles on science are less spasmically religious
and more serious. Unfortunately, they also fully display Yahya's basic scientific
ignorance. His numerous arguments are dispersed in the various articles in this section,
so I will make a list of those that pertain to evolution, Yahya's pet subject:
1. Darwinism is based on chance ("Darwinism's Contradiction With Religion")
2. Punctuated Equilibrium says that jumps in evolution are possible, like birds popping
out of reptile eggs, instead of the gradualism of neo-Darwinism. It was made to cover up
the "fossil fiasco" ("The Evolution Deceit").
3. All living creatures are designed and ordered, and therefore were created ("The
Design in Nature", "The Signs in the Heavens and on the Earth").
4. Darwinism disrupts the natural harmony of science and religion, proof that it is false
("Scientists Confirm the Signs of God").
5. Instincts do not exist: rather, all animal behaviour is inspired by Allah ("Self-Sacrifice
in Animals", "Spiders' Fishing Techniques").
6. No beneficial mutations have ever existed ("The Design in Nature").
7. Vestigial organs do not exist ("Yet Another Blow to the Myth of Vestigial Organs").
8. "Laboratory experiments and probabilistic calculations have definitely made it clear
that the proteins from which life arises cannot have been formed by chance" ("The
Evolution Deceit").
9. Cells, DNA, and the information in DNA, cannot come to exist by chance ("The
Evolution Deceit", "The Miracle of Design in the Cell").
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10. No transitional forms have ever been found. Allah created each species - in scientific
terms, this is called Special Creationism ("The Fossil Record Refutes Evolution", "The
Evolution Deceit", "Darwinism's Contradiction With Religion").
11. The Cambrian Explosion is proof that Allah created the variety of life at once ("The
Fossil Record Refutes Evolution", "The Evolution Deceit").
12. The systems in the human body are so interlocked that they cannot have evolved -
this is Behe's "Irreducible Complexity" ("A System Planned in its Every Detail").
Also, some features of nature are extensively described, and propped up as proof of
creation, including: DNA ("The Evolution Deceit"), the immune system ("The Defence
System"), the bees ("The Honey Bee"), the Earth as supportive of human life ("The
Earth: A Living Planet", "The Obvious Existence of God"), the coordination of the human
body ("Co-Ordination in Human Body"), butterflies ("From a Caterpillar to a Butterfly"),
bird migration ("Migration and Orientation in Animals"), rain ("Rain by Design"), water-
spiders ("Spiders' Fishing Techniques"), water ("The Design in Water"), ants ("The
Perfect Social System of Ants"), woodpeckers ("The Design of the Woodpecker"), and
more. As explained before, these examples prove nothing except the power of natural
law, and that Yahya is capable of regurgitating common science, but not of
understanding it.
Some of these arguments are laughable and betray a fundamental ignorance of the
theory of evolution, and you may doubt that they are really proposed - feel free to
consult the articles listed besides them to get confirmation. But let me now take these
arguments one at a time. For the sake of space, I will discuss the arguments against
evolution - the cosmological arguments would require more lengthy discussion, although
the Big Bang argument on order is also answered in point 3.
1. Darwinism is based on chance.
This argument demonstrates that Yahya, like most Creationists, has no knowledge
whatsoever of what biological evolution is. It is probably too much to expect for religious
fanatics bent on disproving a menace to their religion to actually know what it is they are
trying to disprove.
This bromide is not only false, but doubly false. From a metaphysical point of view,
"chance" is mostly an illusion caused by our incapacity to perceive everything. For
example, when we say that the throw of a normal die entails a probability of 1/6 for each
side, what we are really saying is that we do not have the information about the throw,
the air, and the table necessary to say which side will come up. Of course, the real
probability is of 1 for one side and 0 for the others.
From a scientific point of view, this claim is also false. Neo-Darwinism (which I assume
here is what is meant by "Darwinism", perhaps in the author's confusion) is based on
mechanisms such as natural selection, mutations, sexual selection, genetic drift, and
others. None of these mechanisms are based on "chance". Even mutations have definite
properties, dictated by genetic processes and natural law: there are germ mutations,
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point mutations, frame-shift mutations, and so on. As such, the statement that neo-
Darwinism is based on "chance" is an elementary lie.
2. Punctuated Equilibrium says that jumps in evolution are possible, like birds
popping out of reptile eggs, instead of the gradualism of neo-Darwinism. It was
made to cover up the "fossil fiasco".
Punctuated Equilibrium is a hypothesis, promoted notably by Eldredge and Gould, which
proposes that the tempo of evolution is made of accelerated and slow periods, instead
of constant change. It does not cover up any "fossil fiasco": in fact, it puts the focus on
what we observe in the fossil record. If the fossil record was a fiasco, then any number
of hypotheses could not cover it - the hypothetical corrupt scientists in Yahya should
rather have kept the problem quiet than try to reconcile their theory with it.
3. All living creatures are designed and ordered, and therefore were created.
Yahya simply assumes design and order, jumps to a Creator, and then jumps again to
his favourite deity, Allah. But all these steps are faulty.
He defines design as "a harmonious assembling of various parts into an orderly form
towards a common goal", and that this applies to animals:
"Can a bird and mechanics of its flying be a design as well? (...) The goal at hand, in this
case, is to fly. For this purpose, hollowed bones, strong muscles that move these bones
are utilized together with feathers capable of suspending in the air. Wings are formed
aerodynamically, and metabolism is in tune with the bird's need for high levels of energy.
It is obvious that the bird is product of a certain design."
It is not, in fact, obvious at all. His definition of design is an assumption of Creationism,
nothing more. The rational way to determine design is to compare the power of natural
law with the possible design alternatives. Since evolution explains the adaptation of
organisms sufficiently, there is no need to invoke design. Also, it is not obvious that
animals have "goals", except if we again assume Creationism - a goal implies a goal-
giver. Order and design are in fact both staples of natural law, not design.
Finally, it is not necessary for the hypothetical design to have been made by a Creator,
neither is it necessary for the hypothetical Creator to be Allah. This whole argument is
pure circularity and assumption.
4. Darwinism disrupts the natural harmony of science and religion, proof that it is
false.
Is Yahya right in saying that science has always been theistic, until evolution came in
the picture, and that it is therefore an aberration? Certainly not. While the strength of
religion and the relative paucity of scientific explanations made most scientists of earlier
times profess religion, scientific discovery has at all times been opposed by religion.
Science is based on reason, materialism, and discovery, while religion is based on faith,
supernaturalism, and the occult.
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Virtually all the great scientists and discoveries in history until recent times - like
Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and even today researchers in genetics -
have faced tremendous religious opposition. To claim harmony is disingenuous, and to
disqualify a sound theory on its basis, ridiculous.
5. Instincts do not exist: rather, Allah inspires all animal behaviour.
Yahya tells us that "[the] instincts [of living things], which Darwin was unable to explain
within the scope of evolution, are actually the inspiration given by God to all living
things", and that "God is the master and supervisor of everything and that every living
creature acts on His inspiration".
Not only is this a lot of unnecessary work for a deity, but we would have to answer, what
is the difference? We cannot distinguish between behaviour motivated by the brain and
a behaviour inspired by Allah: both produce the same tangible effects. By Occam's
Razor, we must therefore reject the idea that Allah is involved in the production of
animal behaviour.
In fact, Yahya's example of self-sacrifice (in "Self-Sacrifice of Animals") is already well
explained by the fact that it is genes that tend towards adaptation, not individuals. The
name given in evolution to this phenomenon is Hamilton's Rule - the evolutionary
pressure for an action is proportional to the benefits it confers to the genes of the
individual present in other members of his family (for example, a brother or sister has in
average one-half of the species-specific genes in an individual). This is not a mystery or
divine revelation, but simple science.
6. No beneficial mutations have ever existed.
I have Sickle Cell anaemia, a mutation of red blood cells that gives them a sickle shape
and extra hardness. This mutation is widespread in many regions, including Latin
America, Southern Europe, and Arab countries, and confers a greater immunity to
malaria. It seems that Yahya does not live in these regions, otherwise he would already
know about that widespread example!
Most mutations are destructive in nature, but some are positive. This is enough for
evolution to generate adaptation in species.
7. Vestigial organs do not exist.
Yahya demonstrates his ignorance of basic definitions again, by defining vestigial
organs as "non-functional organs", and complaining that they "[turn] out to be organs
whose functions had not yet been discovered", thus once again disproving evolution. But
a vestigial organ is only an organ with reduced functions compared to its previous uses
in evolutionary ancestors. The appendix used to be a part of the digestive system, but
now only houses some immune system cells.
8. "Laboratory experiments and probabilistic calculations have definitely made it clear
that the proteins from which life arises cannot have been formed by chance".
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9. Cells, DNA, and the information in DNA, cannot come to exist by chance.
The probability of proteins is a common calculation amongst Creationists, which consists
of calculating the probability that each part of a protein somehow clicked into place by
chance. Yahya, fearing that his readers may not have the imagination to grasp the
probability involved (1 in 10^950), conveniently included the complete notation of the
number 1 with 950 zeros. Unfortunately for him, his childish appeal to big numbers fails
because evolution does not claim that proteins arose by chance, but rather by a gradual
process (see point 1). The same is true for cells and DNA.
10. No transitional forms have ever been found. Allah created each species - in
scientific terms, this is called Special Creationism.
11. The Cambrian Explosion is proof that Allah created the variety of life at once.
These two arguments are contradictory. Yahya contends that "[t]he fossil record clearly
indicate that different living species (...) appeared on earth suddenly fully formed and
without any preceding ancestors similar to them" and that this entails that "God created
every species individually and at one moment". Then how is it possible that the
Cambrian Explosion is an indication that "living things did not evolve from primitive to the
advanced forms, but instead emerged all of a sudden and in a perfect state"? Either
Allah created all species at once during the Cambrian Explosion, or he created them
individually over time. Either solution contradicts the theory of evolution and the fossil
record, but at least Yahya should try to be internally consistent.
As it turns out, both arguments are distortions by Yahya of the theory of evolution. In
one sense, there is no such thing as a "transitional form", since we always classify a
species as being part of one or the other phylum: there is no "official middle ground"
simply because taxonomy doesn't work that way. The transitions between species are
themselves well documented in any textbook of evolution (beginners can start with
chapter 22 of "Vertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution", Carroll, 1988, or "The evolution
of mammalian characters", D.M. and K.A. Kermack, 1984, and work their way from
there).
The Creationist interpretation of the Cambrian Explosion is also a naive interpretation of
taxonomy. Should we be surprised that phyla suddenly appear at a certain era? Not any
more than we should be astonished that the major branches of a tree start growing
around the same time. The so-called "explosion" is the consequence of our classification
of animals in groups and sub-groups, not of any creative action.
12. The systems in the human body are so interlocked that they cannot have
evolved - this is Behe's "Irreducible Complexity".
Yahya's arguments here are simpler than Behe's, and refuting the latter is adequate for
refuting the former. I therefore refer you to a document on Talk Reason about Behe's
arguments. Suffice it to say here that the argument that interlocked systems cannot
evolve is easily disproven by simpler forms in nature of the organs or systems which
Behe and Yahya consider "irreducibly complex", as well as by the adaptation of systems
from one function to another.
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The already prohibitive space I took to refute these general arguments stops me from
answering his cosmological arguments, as well as more specific arguments against,
amongst others, molecular biology and the Urey-Miller experiment. It will suffice to say
that Yahya's track record in arguing generally against evolution does not inspire
confidence in his capacity to nitpick.

3. Articles on Social Issues

If the articles about science betrayed Yahya's scientific ignorance, the articles about
societal problems betray his ethical ignorance. Their rhetoric is simplistic: faith makes for
a good society and good values, and faithlessness makes for a bad society and bad
values.
Even for the uninitiated, this seems as bizarre as Yahya's claims that religion has never
conflicted with science. The most destructive times in history were times when religion
was prominent. The countries and continents with the greatest concentration of religious
beliefs also experience the most scientific, political and economical retardation
(including, do we need to mention, Islamic countries).
Putting aside Yahya's self-righteousness evident in every article, we can list some
attributes of what Yahya calls "ignorant societies" - people who live in disbelief of Allah.
Without evidence, he proposes that they are to be associated with: lawlessness,
dishonesty, lies ("Moral Degeneration"), the abolishment of morality and the rise of
whim-worship, degeneracies like sexual perversion and drug addiction, falsehood and
betrayal, the abandonment of doing good and self-sacrifice because our lives are finite
("The Depressions of a Faithless Society"), Social Darwinism and racism ("Superiority
Comes from Character, Not Blood", "The Real Ideological Root of Terrorism - Darwinism
and Materialism"), elimination of the family, social anarchy and general hatred, suicide,
thievery, the end of solidarity and generosity because everyone evolved from an ape
("The Disasters of an Irreligious Social System"), war ("The Pacifism of Islam").
What, then is his alternative? Fear of God ("Moral Degeneration"), divine "knowledge"
("In Every Age there Existed an Ignorant Society"), servitude and faith to God ("The
Depressions of a Faithless Society"), accountability in the hereafter ("The Disasters of
an Irreligious Social System"), to struggle against one's nature ("The Pacifism of Islam"),
peace, well-being and happiness, the end of all evil acts, tolerance and freedom of
speech, respect for life, modernism, progress, compassion, forgiveness ("The True
Islamic Morals", "Why an Authoritarian Rule is Against Islam?").
I ask you, are these the words of a rational man? Perhaps I should not ask rhetorical
questions: but it seems to me that to pin all the ills of mankind on lack of belief in one
particular deity is fanaticism pushed to the extreme. Once again, we are forced to
wonder what kind of people believes this extremist pablum.
While it would be unproductive to examine all his propositions individually, I will examine
a number of them here. Let me first clear the question of Social Darwinism. Yahya uses
evolution, as we say in French, in all sauces: it is his hammer, and he sees every
problem as a nail. But even a cursory understanding of logic would let him know about
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the Naturalistic Fallacy - that is, that associating behaviours found in nature with ethical
behaviour is fallacious. There is no necessary relation between the behaviour of lower
animals and ours, and no serious philosopher would propose it. I have never heard it
being used as a serious argument by anyone: it is simply a non-issue.
What are the facts about the social superiority of Islam? Yahya himself does not
propose any such facts, but asserts this superiority as a given. I have discussed at
length the moral inferiority of Christianity, and many of these arguments still apply here
(see my article Religion's Devils).
Data specific to Islamic regions - the Middle-East (MEC) and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
- likewise show negative results on two out of four variables. Violence-related death rate
is highest in SSA and MEC, and homicide rate and war-related death rate are highest in
SSA. However, suicide rates were lowest in SSA and average for MEC. In reverse,
established market economies, which tend to be more secular, show the best results
except as regards to suicide rates (data from "Epidemiology of violent deaths in the
world", Reza, Mercy and Krug - please note that use of the data is not meant as
complete endorsement of the paper in question).
As it is well-known, Islamic societies are based on violence, intolerance,
authoritarianism. Harsh treatment to women (including female genital mutilation), and
severe curtailing of any non-religious liberties, based on the Qur'an, is the norm. Iran
and Saudi Arabia are two of the five countries that contribute most to capital punishment
(another being the United States), and Iran still executes juveniles.
Yahya's ethical points are no more valid. His fundamental point is that an "ignorant
society" is "a society where people live only for the satisfaction of their own desires", and
that in such a context, "it surely is not possible to maintain peace, love and amity".
However, this is either trivial or false. It is trivial in the sense that everyone seeks the
"satisfaction of their own desires", even the Islamist, whose obedience of Allah exists
only because he desires to be obedient. It is false in the sense that prosperity and
harmony of interests can only obtains if people act neither for their own detriment, nor
for the detriment of others. Self-sacrifice and its derivates, Yahya's proposed solution,
goes against his calls for peace, well-being and happiness, the end of all evil acts,
respect for life and progress.
Yahya also seems to be confused, or dishonest, in his discussions of the afterlife and its
ethical consequences. The finiteness of our lives is not a motivator to do evil: on the
contrary, the fact that our life is the only one we have motivates the atheist to try to
make the best life for himself on this Earth. Doing evil would only be a waste. But for
someone who is assured of living forever, such considerations are irrelevant: his only
accountability is to believe in Allah. There is no reason for a religious person to do good,
except by imitation of the behaviour of non-religious people.
As for his accusations of falsehood, well, Yahya's articles themselves provide the best
argument against that, don't they?
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As I already mentioned, his claims of results for Islam are contradictory. Self-sacrifice is
not compatible with accomplishment. Likewise, his calls for fear of God, faith, servitude,
and struggle against one's own nature, are all negative psychological factors, which go
against his positive claims. These are not the words of self-accomplishment, but the
words of delusion and psychosis.
That much is acknowledged by any person of sense, religious or not. Yahya, however,
sees no problem in this, and rather contends that believers like him are in the minority
and persecuted because Allah wants to test them:

"Surely this is not a coincidence but a special situation created deliberately by

God for a certain cause. That believers are in the minority makes their virtuous
conduct even more precious in this world. Furthermore, this is a factor enhancing
their rewards in the Hereafter".
Surely it should be questioned why a good god would create 6 billion people, and then
throw them in Hell, with the sole goal of testing believers. One way or another, it reflects
little except Yahya's high opinion of himself and his fellow "true believers".
There is little in Yahya's work, as represented by his web site, which is intelligent,
laudable, or even original. His exposition of complex natural systems is marred, like
Behe's, by an arrogant "design" premise. In the end, there is nothing to recommend it.

Some related links:

 Who is Harun Yahya?
 On Harun Yahya and his Book - The Qur'an Leads the Way to Science T H
Huxley
 Evolution and Miracle of Design T H Huxley
 7 Layers of Heaven: Rebuttal to Harun Yahya Ali Sina
 Islam and the “Big Bang”: A Refutation TH Huxley
 Islamic embryology T H Huxley
 Does Quran Have any scientific miracles? [Part-1, Part-2] Avijit Roy
 Harun Yahya disses "Islamic Scientists" (Part 1 , Part 2) T H Huxley
 Harun Yahya AKA Adnan Oktar: Can We Trust His Words? An Islamist