RADIO DAWN: I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan (in Arabic). Dear listeners, welcome to the show. And I am very pleased to say that I have on my right Doctor Musharraf Hussain. So good to have you at my side. Doctor Musharraf Hussain, welcome.
DR. HUSSAIN: Alaykum Salam. It is a very great pleasure to be on your show.
RADIO DAWN: So we have a doctor today and we have on the line from Turkey live via satellite, I believe, Harun Yahya, the well known writer, or perhaps more accurately, his translator, Oktar Babuna. So are you brother Oktar on the line at the moment?
OKTAR BABUNA: Yes brother, we are listening.
RADIO DAWN: Selamun Alaykum.
OKTAR BABUNA: Alaykum selam.
ADNAN OKTAR: Salamun Alaykum.
RADIO DAWN: OK, good, we’ve got you on the line, that is fantastic. Thank you very much. I think you have actually contacted the Creative Institute to request this interview. So thank you very much for doing that. This is a very interesting opportunity. Now we have got Doctor Musharraf Hussain and myself that we all had fold up.
DR. HUSSAIN: Salamun Alaykum brother Harun.
ADNAN OKTAR: Assalamu Alaykum ve Rahmatullahi ve Barakatuhu.
RADIO DAWN: So just to set the scene; really who we have got on the line; brother Oktar who is going to translate our questions to Harun Yahya, the well known author in Turkey. Harun Yahya, the well-known author of books such as “The Evolution Deceit,” of course. You can find his books in pretty much every Islamic book shop. And so we are going to be having a wonderful opportunity to talk to him today and ask some questions while brother Oktar can translate these for us and get some feedback and answers ready. So we have got a few questions; hopefully we can get some interesting feedback from yourselves, for some questions from the site. So, brother Oktar, just to set up the introduction really. If you could give us a little bit of background, or perhaps brother Harun Yahya could give some background and personal information on how he has come to be writing all these books and you know, giving these talks and radio interviews around the world. And also how the Science Research Foundation was set up to accomplish all this. That will be I think a good starting point.
ADNAN OKTAR: I produce these books together with a group of 30 colleagues, made up of professors and assistant professors. They collect information from me from all over the world, in foreign languages, German, English or French. They bring me the relevant photos and pictures. I put these information together and interpret them and establish the links between them. We then give it to the proof-reader, and I am thus able to produce these books very rapidly. In other words, I am not involved in the illustrations or some of the research. My colleagues do that. I have written more than 300 works. They have been translated into more than 60 foreign languages. Eighteen million have been sold this year alone, and 80 million of my books have been downloaded over the Internet. This year alone. The numbers are increasing with every passing year, masha’Allah. They can download my books from the www.harunyahya.com web site.
RADIO DAWN: OK. Well, you can download them, that’s a very interesting piece of information, and I’m sure, we’re sure that we can get these details at the end of the show as well. Now, Harun Yahya is a person perhaps most famous for his work on evolution in the world around us. So if I could just set the scene for you, when we look around us, we have this magnificent, truly all inspiring planet around us. These millions countless, literally countless species of different types of plants and animals, birds, sea creatures, you know, small insects and so on. And I just wanted to understand really from brother Harun Yahya, what his perspective was and how this had come about? You know, have all these creatures always been here? Have some come and some gone? What is his perspective on that please?
ADNAN OKTAR: Allah created these gradually, spreading them over the course of time. He created one specific part at the beginning, another part later and another one after that. He created human beings last of all. We can see this from the fossil record, but we also see that they never changed at all after that. Because more than 250 million fossils, almost 300 million, have been discovered. And they all prove Creation. Looking at the appearance living things have now, compared with what they looked like then, we can see they have never changed. And that means that living things never evolved. This is very clear and explicit evidence. And there is no need for any other evidence. Because 250 million fossils means 250 million pieces of evidence. And they all prove Creation. Were evolution true, living things should have changed in some way. But they have never altered.
RADIO DAWN: OK. I mean just to take an example of you know, a cat, you know wandering around, you know some people have a pet; we have one next door that you can call Charlie. So I mean, is your position that it has always been since you know for ever; how did that cat come to be? I want to understand really, just to get an understanding of your position.
ADNAN OKTAR: When we look at cat fossils, at fossils dating back 20, 30 or 40 million years, we see they have remained exactly the same. There are 70-million-year-old lion fossils, and they have never changed at all. The same goes for tiger skulls. There are tiger skulls that have been discovered in China dating back 70 or 80 million years, and these have never changed. They are exactly the same as they were at the beginning. In other words, they have not changed in the least, in terms of tooth structure, bone structure and external appearance. This is the artistry of Allah, and the way that Allah proves it through fossils is another marvel all its own. It is a miracle of Allah.
RADIO DAWN: Dr. Musharraf, if you can come in on that, you are working as a bio-chemist and also from your experience at Al-Azhar University. What is your reaction to that?
DR. HUSSAIN: What I’d like to understand from brother Harun is, where does he get this notion from, well demonstrable, science really?
ADNAN OKTAR: There is not a single intermediate fossil or anything else suggestive of evolution in the paleontological evidence. I have said I will give 10 trillion liras to anyone producing any such evidence, if there is any. If anyone has any such evidence let them produce it, or I can go to them. I swear that I will give them 10 trillion Turkish liras, just so long as they can show me just one intermediate fossil.
RADIO DAWN: If I could just say, I’ve read this on the website, I just want to understand; could you give me an example of a transitional form that would qualify for the award? So we can understand what you mean by that exactly. What do you mean by a transitional form?
ANDAN OKTAR: Like that person said. Strange, mutated beings belonging to previous stages of cat or tiger evolution, for instance. Abnormal entities, pathological and asymmetrical, that have changed as a result of mutation. If anyone can show me any such specific living group, or even a single fossil, then I will give them the money straight away. But we who hold the opposite view reveal 250 million fossils, 250 pieces of evidence, and we can place that all before people’s eyes in a matter of moments. We can put our evidence on the table as we speak, but Darwinists can put nothing on the table. They cannot produce a single piece of evidence. It is also impossible for proteins to form coincidentally. Science has shown it is impossible for a single protein to come into being by chance. Leave alone proteins, even amino acids can not form by chance. Darwinism is in an insoluble dilemma right from the outset. Darwin himself even says there are no intermediate fossils. He himself says that not a single intermediate fossil has been unearthed as a result of the excavations all over the world. And whole strata of the earth had been dug up in Darwin’s time, but not one intermediate fossil was ever found. We can see this today, none of those people engaged in paleontological excavations have ever encountered what is known as a transitional fossil. My colleague will now cite you Darwin’s own words, and you will see this clearly for yourselves.
RADIO DAWN: Well, you know brother I think can I just stop you here. I think, how does this go against the, you know this idea of Creation? Can you explain that?
ADNAN OKTAR: Look the angels were not created through evolution. The djinn were not created through evolution. The houris and maidens in Paradise were not created through evolution. The mansions of Paradise were not created through evolution. Evolution is a deception laid on Muslims. Those birds you mentioned are still around today, in this century, and have never altered. The Hoatzin, for example, is a bird with both teeth and claws, but it has been in existence for around 100 million years and has never altered in the slightest.
DR. HUSSAIN: Now let me just ask you this question. We know that the Qur’an says “I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed satan” (in Arabic). “When your Lord said to the angels, ‘I am putting a khalif on the earth,’ they said, ‘Why put on it one who will cause corruption on it and shed blood when we glorify You with praise and proclaim Your purity?’ He said, ‘I know what you do not know.’
“Arabic”. Here Allah is talking about, He is talking to the angels, saying to them “I want to create My Khalife on the earth”, OK? You know, this is very clear, Allah created mankind. My understanding of this and of course again people can differ with this is that Allah created mankind.
RADIO DAWN: We can see that just in the last two or three thousand years, when mankind has had the capability to select different crop types or breed different types of animals.
ADNAN OKTAR: In that time Pharaoh used to espouse evolution. The Prophet Musa (as) cast down his staff and it immediately turned into a snake, and Allah thus showed people how He instantaneously creates living things. The people around Pharaoh thus concluded there was no such thing as evolution. Belief in evolution was an idea espoused by Pharaoh. He believed that animals and human beings came into existence in the muddy waters of the Nile, as the result of chance. And he made his people believe that, too. But people who saw that evidence immediately came to have faith. The Prophet Musa (as) proved Creation in a single moment. That was the first thing he proved. There was also the belief in evolution in the time of the Prophet Jesus (as). He made something out of clay, and that immediately turned into a bird. So he proved creation in a single moment, too. Allah showed the people there that He creates living things by commanding them to “Be!”
These are only a small part at the moment. In other words, a great many of these animal species have been lost. Allah created other species of dog. There were other types of cat, many other types of fruit and birds, but these species disappeared over the course of time. You would have been even more amazed if they had also survived. There were a great many other species. There were many other species of dog, cat and other animals. But many of these disappeared in time.
The way that Allah created so many species and such variety is evidence of His artistry. Allah thus showed His might. He therefore created very many animal species. There is nothing extraordinary with that. It is a sign of Allah’s might. You may be amazed, but it is Allah’s creation. That is what the evidence clearly shows.
RADIO DAWN: Can I just ask brother Harun how old he thinks the Earth is?
ADNAN OKTAR: The age of the Earth, of the whole universe in other words, is around 10-15 billion years. They think that 10-15 billion years have passed since the Big Bang. Species are a show of Allah’s might. The species currently in existence represent almost only a tenth of the total. The species left today represent only one in 10, or even one in 100. Twenty percent may have survived in other places. But the general figure is a survival rate as low as 1%. So there used to be many more species. This is a sign of Allah’s might.
RADIO DAWN: OK, thank you very much for that. Let’s move on a little bit. You’ve also written, I don’t have the book with me unfortunately, but I think you have written quite widely about the environment, and our duty as a Halifa, our stewardship of the Earth. And I just wanted to know if you could give some background on that, on the prospects of how we should look after the environment, thinking about the trees, you know the lungs of the world and the environment in general. And if brother Harun could give a broad outline of his vision, that really that would be quite interesting.
RADIO DAWN: And how should a Muslim should safeguard the environment? Or maybe we shouldn’t safeguard the environment? How we should approach that really? I am thinking particularly about forests, trees and that kind of thing.
ADNAN OKTAR: Muslims must love the environment, of course. Everywhere is full of Allah’s creations. All plants, animals, people and the whole universe are all manifestations of Allah. They must protect them with an extraordinary care and strive to maintain their natural appearance and life style.
The idea of evolution is a pagan belief that was around in ancient Sumeria, ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. They therefore wanted to lead Muslims in the direction of that pagan belief. But I have demolished the idea with the means provided by paleontology, biology, biomathematics and all branches of science, thanks be to Allah.
RADIO DAWN: OK. Very interesting, thank you. You know, all these books you are printing, I just want to know how you approach it, what steps you take for the paper you use in the millions of books that you are printing?
ADNAN OKTAR: That is a very fine joke. It is far better for them to turn into information for human beings, to be instrumental in their salvation and in the Hereafter, than for the just to remain as trees. I mean, if we ask whether it is more important for a tree to remain as a trunk or else to become information representing the Qur’an, moral virtue and faith, then it is more important for it to become the Qur’an, moral virtue and faith.
DR. HUSSAIN: You manage the forests, you replant trees, which is one of the sunnah of Rasulullah (sas) that you must keep on planting trees. I think that is what we want to see how you are promoting and properly managing our wonderful natural resources that Allah has blessed us with.
ADNAN OKTAR: Of course, we will plant a great many trees, and plant flowers all around. We will raise animals. We will prevent cities becoming huge masses of concrete. We will try to give them a pleasant, natural appearance. But this will happen in the time of Hazrat Mahdi (as), Hazrat Messiah (as). We have already entered that age, insha’Allah. Such an excellent age is already emerging. The prophet (saas) says that Hazrat Mahdi (as) “will plant a dry tree, and the branches will immediately flourish.” He says that the birds in the air and wild animals will all be pleased with him. This is a beauty of the End Times.
Generally speaking, only 1% of species are alive at present. But that level varies for some species, of course. But the general total is 1%. You would be really amazed if the others were still alive, too. Today, there are between 10 and 30 million living species. If these species were to appear before people’s eyes you would much better comprehend the might of Allah. Yet His might is far greater even than that, incomparably greater. Had Allah wished, He could have created an infinite number of species. But in order for us to understand, He created between 10 and 30 million.
For example, on pages 172 and 280 of his Origin of Species, Charles Darwin says, “Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties?” This means the collapse of Darwinism. Darwin himself spoke the words that finished Darwinism, in his own day and age. They have sent tens of thousands of workers underground and investigated every single stratum, but they have never come across a single intermediate form. That spells the collapse of Darwinism in Darwin’s own words.
RADIO DAWN: Yes. If I could just jump in for a second... I have read I think 2 or 3 pages from your website. And I have tried to check some of these references out, and when you just put part of the quote in and then you don’t put the rest…
ADNAN OKTAR: These words of Darwin’s my colleague just cited put a complete end to the matter. In other words, the most important thing in the intellectual struggle against Darwinism is the information that demolishes it. For instance this is the information that demolishes it from its foundation. It is the 250 million fossils that demolish it. It is the information that protein cannot come into being by chance. In other words, once a building has collapsed, there is no need to tear the tiles off the roof, as well. The theory has collapsed from the very roots.
RADIO DAWN: I think you have made it quite clear.
DR. HUSSAIN: Can I just end by saying it has been wonderful talking to you brother Harun, and really I admire your masha'Allah work and all those wonderful books that you’ve written. I think I really enjoy your books, you are doing great work, masha'Allah. Keep it up and may Allah bless you and spread this great practice.
ADNAN OKTAR: Look, we need to be very careful here; 250 million fossils prove Creation and have never changed. When 250 million pieces of evidence are laid out, Darwinism will in any case collapse. There will be no debate about it. There exists not one single intermediate fossil. To espouse evolution in the absence of intermediate fossils is to fly in the face of science. If there were at least 3 or 5 intermediate fossils then we might say, “well, perhaps...” But there are none. What there is, we have these 250 million fossils. We cannot talk of evolution while these are in existence. We cannot talk of evolution when it is scientifically impossible for a protein to come into being by chance. Darwin himself says that, not us. He says, “There are no intermediate fossils.” He says, “My fossil will be finished in the absence of intermediate fossils.” He says, “They may be found in the future.” That means, if they are found in the future, then my theory may be true. If intermediate fossils are found in the future. But they were not found in the future. Look, we are now getting on for 300 million fossils that prove Creation. How can we speak of evolution when we have all these? That would be a totally unscientific logic.
RADIO DAWN: I think you have made these points before a couple of times. Dr Hussain, thank you also very much for coming on the show. It has been very interesting.
DR. HUSSAIN: And I thank you very much for this interesting debate, and brother Harun, pray for us and may Allah bless you for your wonderful work and may you continue doing it. Assalamun Alaykum.
ADNAN OKTAR: Yes. Let me finally say this, Alaykum Selam, in the same way that the djinn, angels and houris of Paradise were not created through evolution, that the plants and the fruits of Paradise were not created through evolution, neither were the fruits, plants, human beings and other life forms in this world created through evolution. The animals of Paradise were not created through evolution, and neither were the animals of this world created through evolution.
RADIO DAWN: I believe that was created by Allah, yes, no doubt about it. Anyway this was a fascinating debate, thank you very much.
Web Sites
Articles