The Muslim Thinker Who Challenged Biologists To Believe | Hamza Karamali (Author,Why Islam Is True): OnePath Network-Aug 28, 2026
YouTube Video:
https://youtu.be/GUSWqfzZaNU?si=ob55mEF3nDA7hYHe
Neanderthals, evolution, and now artificial intelligence. On this OnePath Podcast, Hamza Karamali argues the problem was never the science. It is that we stopped teaching our children how to think. We cover the Sapiens claim that religion was invented as a useful fiction, the argument from contingency, and then evolution at length. Does it remove the need for a Creator? Where do Neanderthals and the fossil record sit alongside the Quranic account of Adam? And what happens to our children's faith when they reach a university where evolution is settled fact, and take their hardest questions to a machine instead of a teacher? Hamza Karamali is the founder of Basira Education and the author of Why Islam Is True, a book and website setting out Quranic arguments for the existence of God, the messengerhood of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and the purpose of life. Originally from Canada and now based in Turkey, his work draws on the classical science of rational arguments preserved in the tafsir tradition. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 1:40 Introducing Shaykh Hamza Karamali 2:34 Why He Wrote "Why Islam Is True" 3:54 Why Is There So Much Doubt in the World Today? 5:40 Blind Imitation Is Blameworthy in Matters of Belief 6:34 How Our Institutions of Learning Were Dismantled 8:32 Sapiens: Was Religion Invented as a Useful Fiction? 9:37 Emperor Cults, Ephesus and State-Engineered Myths 11:03 Why the Prophets Left No Monuments Behind 12:29 The Other Evidence That Sapiens Ignores 14:45 The God of the Gaps Objection 15:59 Necessary Existence: What the Name Allah Means 17:48 The Analogy of the Long Line of Leaning People 18:50 Why There Is No Conflict Between Religion and Science 20:17 Does Evolution Remove the Need for a Creator? 23:33 Why the "What About the First Cell" Argument Is a Trap 24:52 Adam, Eve and the Possibility of Miracles 28:58 Why Debating Evolution Is a Strategic Disadvantage 30:18 Protecting the Faith of Muslim Students in Science 33:05 Neanderthals, Hominids and the Fossil Record 35:28 Human and Chimpanzee DNA: Common Ancestry 37:31 The Interbreeding Theory and Why It Fails 40:08 "I Don't Want My Children to Hear About Evolution" 41:45 Why "It's Just a Theory" Is the Wrong Answer 43:22 The Islamic Dilemma Explained 44:15 Why You Shouldn't Debate a Christian on This 46:17 The Historical Evidence That the Bible Was Corrupted 47:14 The Johannine Comma and the Anonymous Gospels 48:03 What the Quran Actually Confirms About Previous Scriptures 52:44 No One Can Change the Words of God 55:34 If the Prophecies Were Clear, Why Didn't All Jews Believe? 56:44 Dialectic vs Demonstrative Arguments 1:00:46 Why the Prophecies Are Demonstrative Evidence 1:02:18 Closing Message: Don't Take Your Religion From Machines 1:03:55 Knowledge Is Taken Away by Taking Away Scholars 1:04:51 The Only Legacy the Prophet Left Behind 1:05:32 Closing Dua and Farewell. Source:https://www.amazon.com/Why-Islam-True-Arguments-Muhammad/dp/B0C12D3JB4
Bismillah | 01: What is Islam? The Shaykh surveys some of the common meanings that are given to “Islam” and then clearly defines what these presentations mean when they say that “Islam” is true. 09:01 | 02: God Exists If Islam is true, then it would make sense for God to have communicated evidence of His existence to us. In fact, He did. This presentation unpacks a key Qur’anic verse that argues that the contingency of the universe is evidence that God exists. 32:41 | 03: What is a "Necessary Being"? In this episode Shaykh Hamza unpacks the meaning of “necessary being” in order to show that it is not a mysterious philosophical concept. Rather it is exactly what religious believers mean when they speak about God. 49:36 | 04: Response to a Materialist Objection A widespread objection to the argument for God's existence, is that positing God as the solution to the problem of contingency is an arbitrary solution, and that one could just as well replace God with the physical universe or with the Big Bang. In this episode, Shaykh Hamza shows that this is a hasty and fallacious objection that does not take the time to understand the meaning of the conclusion that God exists. 1:09:03 | 05: God and Science Atheists frequently claim that the only reason why people have historically believed in God was that they feared natural phenomena, and that by giving scientific explanations for those phenomena, scientists have rendered that belief obsolete. In this episode, Shaykh Hamza explains that this is a straw-man argument that misrepresents the facts (a) that belief in God has historically been based on evidence and (b) that belief in God coexists (rather than conflicts) with science. It concludes by explaining that contradictions between religion and science prove that those religions are man-made, not that God does not exist, and that because Islam is not a man-made religion, modern science corroborates its truth rather than conflicting with it. 1:35:40 | 06: The Universe Began to Exist The Qur’an cites the universe as evidence for God’s existence for two reasons: (1) because it is contingent (as was explained earlier) and: (2) because it began to exist. In this episode, Shaykh Hamza explains the scientific evidence for the beginning of the universe and concludes with a brief explanation of why that is such compelling evidence for God’s existence. 2:05:55 | 07: The Kalam Cosmological Argument Muslim theologians formalized general Qur'anic arguments for the fact that the universe began to exist into precise philosophical arguments. Their arguments, historically unknown in the West, have only recently been introduced into contemporary philosophical discourse as the "Kalam Cosmological Argument". In this episode, Shaykh Hamza explains the Qur'anic context of the argument and then unpacks the argument according to the clear, intuitive, and easy-to-grasp approaches of traditional Muslim theology. 2:29:01 | 08: Infinity is an Imaginary Concept The strongest objection to the “Kalam Cosmological Argument” hides behind the seemingly complex uses of various kinds of infinities in modern mathematics. In this episode, Shaykh Hamza explains the history and nature of modern mathematics, numbers, set theory, mathematical infinities, and the philosophy of mathematics, all in terms that anyone with a good high-school education can understand. The straightforward conclusion of the explanation of these concepts is that modern mathematical infinities are completely unrelated to the “Kalam Cosmological Argument”. Not only that, but the explanation also reveals several additional arguments that make the “Kalam Cosmological Argument” even stronger. This presentation is significantly longer than the other presentations in this series. 4:17:12 | 09: God Did Not Begin to Exist The beginning of the universe is evidence for the existence of a being that did not begin to exist, just as the contingency of the universe is evidence for the existence of a being that is not contingent. In this short episode, Shaykh Hamza recaps both of these arguments and concludes a series of presentations (2 to 9) that show that the universe is evidence for the existence of a being who is necessary and beginningless. 4:23:07 | 10: God is a Volitional Agent People have historically believed in two kinds of necessary being. Non-religious philosophers such as Aristotle and Avicenna argued for the existence of a necessary being who is the necessary and volitionless cause of the universe. Religious believers, on the other hand--Muslims, Christians, and Jews--have held that the necessary being who made the universe is someone who freely chose to create it, that He is alive, and that He has knowledge, will, and power. This presentation gives evidence for why the religious believers are right and why the non-religious philosophers are wrong.
4:33:37 | 11: Science Reveals God’s Unrestricted Agency Modern science has revealed that God can do anything. We have always discerned purposes in the universe--the purpose of our eyes is for us to see and the purpose of our ears is for us to hear. But modern science has delved deeper than ever before into these purposes to reveal a unimaginable, unfathomable, undeniable intricacies in way that God made the universe. These intricacies incontrovertibly reveal that God can do absolutely anything. 5:12:35 | 12: Who Designed the Designer? Atheists object to the argument for God’s existence from design by asking the question, “Who designed the designer?” This objection is, in fact, a sound objection because the design argument in its common formulation by Christian theists is, in fact, flawed. But it is not a valid objection to the inferences that Muslim theologians make from design because they make a different argument. “Why Islam is True” is a series of 40 short presentations that analyze the claim, “Islam is true,” by dividing it into a series of sub-claims and then evaluating their truth by examining the evidence for them, as well as the evidence against them. As they do this, the presentations explain the relationship between Islam and science; the fallaciousness of the arguments of contemporary atheists; the relationship between Islam and other faith-traditions; the role of prophecy in human history; the nature of life, death, and the human soul; and the purpose of human existence. While the presentations are all grounded in the traditional Islamic sciences—particularly the sciences of Islamic theology (‘ilm al-tawhid), Islamic logic (mantiq), Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), and legal theory (usul al-fiqh)—their goal is to answer the questions that any open-minded and thinking graduate of a contemporary high-school or university—Muslim or not—would ask about Islam. The conclusion of this series of presentations is that God does, in fact, exist; that the Prophet Muhammad (God bless him and give him peace) was, in fact, His messenger; that He did, in fact, teach us the purpose of our existence on earth; and that we will, in fact, be resurrected after our deaths to stand before and be judged by God. Shaykh Hamza Karamali is one of the teachers at SeekersGuidance. Visit Visit (http://www.seekersseekersguidance.org/courses) to register for one of his courses. All courses are free.
About The Book:
Other religions are cultural preferences, but not Islam. Islam is objectively true and you can prove it. Based on the seminal online course designed and taught by instructor Hamza Karamali, this textbook provides students with detailed, evidence-based knowledge of all the core tenets of Muslim belief. It tackles the central questions facing young Muslims, including how we know that God exists, how to respond to the arguments of modern atheism, and the meaning of suffering in the world. By working through this textbook, students are empowered to use logical reasoning, science, and revelation to nurture sincere faith that is supported by proof. Why Islam is True is the first course in Basira's Modern Curriculum series.
About Basira Education:
Our mission is to develop intelligent and conservative Muslims whose grounding in the Muslim scholarly and spiritual traditions enables them to critically integrate modern science and culture into their religious worldview.
Our goal is to help conservative Muslims preserve their religious worldview and pass it on to their children by providing a religious curriculum that is thoroughly grounded in the traditional Islamic sciences while explicitly engaging the difficult questions raised by the physical sciences and the humanities in the curricula of modern schools and colleges.
Religious curricula that are taught at home or in the mosque are disconnected from the curricula that children and young adults are taught in schools and colleges. This creates a conflict in the minds and souls of religious students.
The conflict lies in two areas: (1) in the physical sciences, which train students to analyze the universe through the lens of materialism, and (2) in the humanities, which acculturate them into a non-religious worldview that moralizes autonomy and suspects authority and tradition, particularly when it is religious.
This conflict sows confusion into the minds of religious students. Strong relationships with healthy religious families and communities can overpower the confusion and the religious students can grow into religious adults who are successful in their families, communities, and careers.
But when these relationships are absent, or when they turn sour, or when they are overpowered by other non-religious relationships, then the seed of confusion grows into religious doubt, and students’ religious confidence in public settings begins to wither. Eventually, their faith can shrink, their religious practice in private settings can wane, and they may lose interest in their religious identities.
Atheism is spreading rapidly among all religious communities, and Muslims are no exception. It is spreading even in the Muslim heartlands, where some have estimated rates of atheism as high as 5%. The justifications of formerly-Muslim atheists always return to one of the two areas of conflict—the materialism of the physical sciences or the moralized autonomy of the humanities.
Other religions are cultural preferences, but not Islam. Islam is objectively true and you can prove it. Based on the seminal online course designed and taught by instructor Hamza Karamali, this textbook provides students with detailed, evidence-based knowledge of all the core tenets of Muslim belief. It tackles the central questions facing young Muslims, including how we know that God exists, how to respond to the arguments of modern atheism, and the meaning of suffering in the world. By working through this textbook, students are empowered to use logical reasoning, science, and revelation to nurture sincere faith that is supported by proof. Why Islam is True is the first course in Basira's Modern Curriculum series.
About Basira Education:
Our mission is to develop intelligent and conservative Muslims whose grounding in the Muslim scholarly and spiritual traditions enables them to critically integrate modern science and culture into their religious worldview.
Our goal is to help conservative Muslims preserve their religious worldview and pass it on to their children by providing a religious curriculum that is thoroughly grounded in the traditional Islamic sciences while explicitly engaging the difficult questions raised by the physical sciences and the humanities in the curricula of modern schools and colleges.
Religious curricula that are taught at home or in the mosque are disconnected from the curricula that children and young adults are taught in schools and colleges. This creates a conflict in the minds and souls of religious students.
The conflict lies in two areas: (1) in the physical sciences, which train students to analyze the universe through the lens of materialism, and (2) in the humanities, which acculturate them into a non-religious worldview that moralizes autonomy and suspects authority and tradition, particularly when it is religious.
This conflict sows confusion into the minds of religious students. Strong relationships with healthy religious families and communities can overpower the confusion and the religious students can grow into religious adults who are successful in their families, communities, and careers.
But when these relationships are absent, or when they turn sour, or when they are overpowered by other non-religious relationships, then the seed of confusion grows into religious doubt, and students’ religious confidence in public settings begins to wither. Eventually, their faith can shrink, their religious practice in private settings can wane, and they may lose interest in their religious identities.
Atheism is spreading rapidly among all religious communities, and Muslims are no exception. It is spreading even in the Muslim heartlands, where some have estimated rates of atheism as high as 5%. The justifications of formerly-Muslim atheists always return to one of the two areas of conflict—the materialism of the physical sciences or the moralized autonomy of the humanities.
YouTube Video:Why Islam is True with Shaykh Hamza Karamali (SeekersGuidance): (5:21 Hours Course)-Jan 22, 2020
4:33:37 | 11: Science Reveals God’s Unrestricted Agency Modern science has revealed that God can do anything. We have always discerned purposes in the universe--the purpose of our eyes is for us to see and the purpose of our ears is for us to hear. But modern science has delved deeper than ever before into these purposes to reveal a unimaginable, unfathomable, undeniable intricacies in way that God made the universe. These intricacies incontrovertibly reveal that God can do absolutely anything. 5:12:35 | 12: Who Designed the Designer? Atheists object to the argument for God’s existence from design by asking the question, “Who designed the designer?” This objection is, in fact, a sound objection because the design argument in its common formulation by Christian theists is, in fact, flawed. But it is not a valid objection to the inferences that Muslim theologians make from design because they make a different argument. “Why Islam is True” is a series of 40 short presentations that analyze the claim, “Islam is true,” by dividing it into a series of sub-claims and then evaluating their truth by examining the evidence for them, as well as the evidence against them. As they do this, the presentations explain the relationship between Islam and science; the fallaciousness of the arguments of contemporary atheists; the relationship between Islam and other faith-traditions; the role of prophecy in human history; the nature of life, death, and the human soul; and the purpose of human existence. While the presentations are all grounded in the traditional Islamic sciences—particularly the sciences of Islamic theology (‘ilm al-tawhid), Islamic logic (mantiq), Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), and legal theory (usul al-fiqh)—their goal is to answer the questions that any open-minded and thinking graduate of a contemporary high-school or university—Muslim or not—would ask about Islam. The conclusion of this series of presentations is that God does, in fact, exist; that the Prophet Muhammad (God bless him and give him peace) was, in fact, His messenger; that He did, in fact, teach us the purpose of our existence on earth; and that we will, in fact, be resurrected after our deaths to stand before and be judged by God. Shaykh Hamza Karamali is one of the teachers at SeekersGuidance. Visit Visit (http://www.seekersseekersguidance.org/courses) to register for one of his courses. All courses are free.
Why Islam is True Website:
Hamza Karamali Website:
Basira Education Website:
Why Islam is True Podcast:SeekersGuidance:
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