Editing Seyyed Hossein Nasr (section)

====Theory of evolution====
Professor Judy D. Saltzman recalls in an article dedicated to Nasr, that the vast majority of [[Charles Darwin|post-Darwinian]] scientists claim that life appeared after matter, while for Nasr no inert matter can transform into living matter in the absence of a pre-existing life energy, just as it is impossible, according to mathematical theory of information, to extract more information from a system than it contains.{{sfn|Saltzman|2001 |p=595}}{{sfn|On the question of biological origins|2006 |p=5-6}} For Nasr, "life comes before matter, the subtle world before life, the Spirit before the subtle world, and the Ultimate Reality before everything else".{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=204}}
 
For Nasr, the results of modern scientific investigation of nature are defined by the "oblivion of intellect" and, thus, are "severed from Divinity and highly compartmentalized". He maintains that the [[Big History|scientific explanations for the origins of the natural world]] are "[[Naturalism (philosophy)|purely physical]]" and "aimed at [[Reductionism|reducing man to matter]] while excluding divinity and [[teleology]] from nature".{{sfn|Bigliardi|2014|p=14}} On this basis, Nasr rejects the [[Evolution|theory of evolution]],<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Deniz|first1=Hasan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EXlhDwAAQBAJ&q=%22hossein+nasr%22+%22evolution%22&pg=PA299|title=Evolution Education Around the Globe|last2=Borgerding|first2=Lisa A.|date=2018-06-21|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-90939-4|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hameed|first=Salman|date=2008|title=Bracing for Islamic Creationism|journal=Science|volume=322|issue=5908|pages=1637–1638|doi=10.1126/science.1163672|issn=0036-8075|jstor=20176996|pmid=19074331|s2cid=206515329}}</ref> claiming that it is "an ideology, it is not ordinary science,"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Nasr|first=Seyyed Hossein|date=Winter 2006|title=On the Question of Biological Origins|url=https://cis-ca.org/_media/pdf/2006/2/TEM_temotqobo.pdf|journal=Islam & Science|language=en|volume=4|issue=2|page=182}}</ref> that it is "more a pseudo-religion than a scientific theory,"<ref>{{Cite book|last=Nasr|first=Seyyed Hossein|url=https://archive.org/stream/HosseinNasr/Nasr%2C%20Seyyed%20Hossein%20-%20The%20Philosophy%20of%20Seyyed%20Hossein%20Nasr%20%282001%29%20%28Scan%2C%20OCR%29#page/n39/mode/2up/search/darwinism|title=The Philosophy of Seyyed Hossein Nasr|publisher=Open Court|year=2001|location=Chicago and La Salle, Illinois|pages=21}}</ref> that it "requires more faith than is claimed by any religion for its founder or even for God,"{{sfn|Bigliardi|2014|p=14}} and that evolution is both metaphysically and logically impossible.{{sfn|Ghaly|2014|p=220}}{{efn|Nasr rejects this theory for the following reasons. In ''Knowledge and the Sacred'', 1989: the sudden appearance, noted by scientists, of new species in various geological periods and over very extended areas, such as some unrelated vertebrate groups, which contradicts an evolution in the direction of progressive complexity (p. 206); the almost total absence, in the stratigraphic records, of fossils that should exist as intermediates between the major groups (p.206); the testimony of biologists and paleontologists who, while accepting the theory of evolution in the absence of a plausible scientific alternative, remain "fully aware of the fantastic and even surrealistic character" of this theory (p.207 + Hahn, 2001, p. 755); the variations which are presented by advocates of evolution as "buds" of a new species are only variants within the framework of a single species, each species possessing a potential for development which can only manifest itself within the species in question; this micro-evolution is the only possible evolution (pp. 206–207 + ''On the Question of Biological Origins'', 2006, p.4). In ''On the Question of Biological Origins'', 2006: the impossibility of the appearance of sight in a blind animal or a pair of wings in an insect or a fish which, moreover, would have to practice flying (pp. 6, 10); the impossibility, starting from an animal intelligence, of developing a capacity of reasoning as sophisticated as that which characterizes the human being, whose consciousness is able to reflect on itself, to be conscious of being conscious (p. 12 + Saltzman, 2001, p. 595); finally, the impossibility, on a qualitative level, that the "less" can generate the "more" (p. 5).}} The sociologist Farzin Vahdat sees this as part of Nasr's relativization of secular reason and secular science, and more broadly of his criticism of the modern mentality.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vahdat|first=Farzin|title=Islamic Ethos and the Specter of Modernity|date=2015|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1-78308-436-4|pages=215–216|jstor=j.ctt1gsmz2q}}</ref>

[[Marietta Stepanyants|Marietta Stepaniants]] observes that, for Nasr, "the absurdity of that theory" is that it offers only "horizontal and material causes in a unidimensional world, to explain effects whose causes belong to other levels of reality".{{sfn|Stepaniants|2001|p=801}} As an alternative, Nasr defends his vision of an Islamic [[philosophy of science]] that accepts "limited biological changes" occurring throughout time, but rejects the idea that solely natural mechanisms account for what he calls "creativity". He contends that [[evolutionary biology]] is a "[[Materialism|materialist philosophy]]" rather than a "real science with a true empirical foundation" and contrasts a [[Darwinian]] vision of life with his God-centered perspective of nature based in the traditional Islamic understanding of life and creation.{{sfn | Edis | BouJaoude |2013| pp=1679}} Nasr contends that [[evolutionism]] is one of the cornerstones of the contemporary worldview and has contributed directly to the modern world's degradation of the spiritual significance and sacredness of God's creation, as stated in "sacred scriptures" such as the [[Torah]], the [[Bible]] or the [[Quran]].{{sfn|Ghaly|2014|p=220}}

For Nasr, the modern scientific world is incapable of conceiving that each species emanates from the "immutable world of archetypes",{{sfn|Knowledge and the Sacred|1989 |p=204}} – a subtle world beyond the material world –, by "crystallizing" on earth at "a particular moment in the history of the material cosmos", in accordance to the divine "will".{{sfn|On the question of biological origins|2006 |p=3}} The human being, for example, appeared on earth as a human being.{{sfn|On the question of biological origins|2006 |p=11}}