Are Islam, Modern Science, and Evolution in fierce conflict or well-mannered harmony?

Dr. Nidhal Guessoum, the Algerian Muslim professor of Physics and Astronomy at the American University Sharjah, UAE spoke in September at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute about the relation between Islam and modern science.

Science, or more generally knowledge, has always occupied a central and high place in the Islamic culture.

In recent times, however, the modern scientific knowledge of nature has challenged some long-held traditional Islamic worldviews like the origin of the universe, how it started and how will it end, beside other topics like origin of life and how living organisms originated on Planet Earth.

This lecture reviews the principles, methodologies, and theories of modern science that often make (traditional) Muslims uncomfortable, focusing to some extent on the Big Bang and Darwinian evolution.

The various positions of Muslim thinkers vis-à-vis modern science as a whole, and these theories in particular, are presented along with an approach and proposal for reconciliation.