MR. ADNAN OKTAR AND THE ATLAS OF CREATION
IN SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

The July 8, 2007, edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s main dailies, carried an article about the great impact of Adnan Oktar’s works on the subject of Creation, particularly the Atlas of Creation. The article, by Kai Strittmatter, contained the following statements:

MOBILIZATION FOR ANCIENT RABBITS… 

With his material means and power, the most influential Muslim creationist is spreading across the world.

Adnan Oktar, who is struggling against Darwin, is asking, “Are you now going to burn our books?”

Wearing a suit that shines in the Istanbul sun, the author, who writes that the world is merely an illusion, boards a boat. He is dressed head to foot in a white suit of silk… His belt buckle, cuff links and tiepin are all made of gold … Underneath his snow-white tie is wearing a snow-white shirt … Just about all the young people in his entourage are wearing striped suits and leather shoes…

Both the writer and those around him seriously maintain that the universe is merely an image, and matter just an illusion. The author smiles as he says, “I am a scientist. There is no need to be afraid, the subject is actually crystal clear.” We have just three hours.

We are on the yacht with Adnan Hodja, as the press here calls him. The author, Adnan Oktar, is also known as Harun Yahya. Adnan Oktar – or Harun Yahya – is one of Turkey’s most prolific authors.

We all know that Hitler, Stalin and Mao were the most tyrannical criminals of the last century. So what do they have in common? Adnan Oktar says that they were all Darwinists: “Communism and fascism are Darwin’s teachings.” Freemasons, as well as Darwin, are responsible for wild capitalism and the growth of PKK terror.

Adnan Oktar maintains that Darwinism must be eliminated in order to achieve a peaceful life. He goes on to add: “If there were such a thing as evolution, it would inevitably appear in the Qur’an.” He then says, “I have completely undermined Darwinism.” At that point, some of the invited journalists examine the writer’s books on the shelves. One of these is A Historical Lie: The Stone Age…

With his striking profile, combed back grey hair and carefully groomed beard and sideburns, Adnan Oktar reminds one of royal diplomats kissing the empress’s hand in old black-and-white movies. The only difference is that he is wearing imposing sunglasses instead of an eye mask. “They are in a state of panic,” says Adnan Oktar. “The book is so impressive that they said there was no alternative but to ban it.” Here the author refers to the Frenchmen. Oktar sips at his cherry-juice and says, “but how can it be possible to forbid the sun?” … So effective has the Atlas of Creation been that the authorities are unwilling for it to be given to young students without supervision. Indeed, they think it will have a damaging effect on young pupils.

The book provoked a wide reaction in France last spring. Thousands of copies of the book fell, as if from a lofty void, onto the desks of teachers, school principals, library curators and editors. The book is printed on glossy paper, 800 pages long and weighs around 6 kilograms… Its message is clear: Darwin lied. There is no evolution. God created the world, and created all at once. There is an easily understood method of proof employed on every page: to the left is a fossil rabbit, to the right a picture of a cute-looking one… the captions beneath read “There is no difference between a rabbit that lived 38 millions years ago and a rabbit alive today. This proves that the rabbit never evolved and that, on the contrary, it was created.” On the next page is a fossil fawn, a picture of a living specimen, and a similar text. Six hundred of the book’s pages are all in that same format. Then comes the appendix: Darwinism is the source of all the evils in the world, and world is nothing but an illusion… The answer the reader finds to the questions in the book is this: God exists, and our salvation lies in Islam.

The French press became enormously excited in the wake of the book’s arrival in France… Outdated Christian opponents of evolution were no strangers to them. But Muslim opponents of evolution were new to them. How long have they been around? The Parisian authorities immediately gave the book to the biologist Herve Le Guyader to examine. Soon after his examination, Le Guyader concluded that “Islam and science” were extremely dangerous. According to Le Guyader, only very few students possessed the intellectual equipment to reject the arguments of the book. On the yacht, Adnan Oktar asked us, “What will they do now? Will they burn our books?”

Fossils on Display

Muslim anti-evolution campaigns along the lines of Christian fundamentalists are relatively new. … There are also other Muslim creationists in Turkey. But none has achieved the success of Adnan Oktar, who does not look favorably on intelligent design…

Most Muslims have no problem fitting the millions of years of the earth’s history into their own viewpoints. The work of American creationists has been reflected in Muslim circles over the last two decades. Particularly in Turkey, which country is officially a secular republic. In 1985, immediately after the last military coup d’état, creationism entered the school curricula as the state attempted to break the leftist tendency among Turks with the help of religion.

And today? According to a survey carried out in 2006, only one in four Turks regards evolution as a fact, while half have doubts about evolution…

Haluk Ertan, a geneticist at the Istanbul University, says that Turkey has become the headquarters of Creationism in the Middle East.

… The BAV (Science Research Foundation), of which Adnan Oktar is honorary president, holds conferences all over Turkey. One can come across fossil exhibitions in restaurants, in the Tunnel, and even Metro stations. More than 8 million copies of Adnan Oktar’s 250 or so books have been sold. Altuğ Eti of the Global Publishing proudly announces that more than 1 million works are downloaded over the Internet every month. The books have been translated into many languages, from Urdu to Indonesian and German.

Adnan Oktar describes his attitude towards the negative accusations made regarding him thus: “It is normal for someone whose ideas shake the world to be subjected to slanders. Everyone with a cause has experienced such things.” Adnan Oktar happily describes how the Pope has been influenced by his ideas. But is there a sect behind Adnan Oktar? He answers: “All I have around me are my friends and brothers.” Does he regard himself as the Mahdi? On his web site he writes how one of the greatest portents of the Mahdi is that the Mahdi will never claim that title. Do the journalists who criticize him have to be afraid of him? Adnan Oktar replies: “Some members of the press may think I harbor negative feelings about them, but this is definitely not the case.” He lightly touches his beard: “Allah has determined everyone’s destiny.”

As the yacht approaches the shore, Adnan Oktar dons his glasses. He tells us that everything taking place today points to the beginning of the Golden Age, “Insha’Allah we shall all live to see those days. Thank you for coming.” We approach the jetty. A group of young people in striped suits forms a cordon around the two sedans. The writer, in his snow-white clothes, gets into the black Mercedes. A Land Rover sets off immediately after it to ride shotgun. The Atlas of Creation is still shining on the shelves on deck. The German version has only just come out. The writer said that science knows no bounds.

A survey at Dortmund University has shown that young biologists doubt evolution.

According to the poll, one in every eight students harbors serious doubts about evolution. A poll of 1228 students entering the university last year made this very clear. According to the survey findings, 12.5% of students in the biology teaching department doubt the existence of evolution.

And 13% of students reject the view that man is related to chimps; 18% believe that human beings were directly created in their present form.

Dortmund University’s Professor of Biology Dittmar Graf was amazed when he calculated the number of opponents of evolution on Wednesday 25 April, 2007. “We were surprised because we saw how much of an influence Creationist ideas had on even biology students. It appears that these views are spreading.”

The findings of the paper’s poll regarding whether evolution took place or not are as follows:

Evolution? No, thanks.

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung poll, 87% of respondents think that human beings are created with a Divine design, while 10% believe that evolution actually happened.

Islamic Creationist and a Book Sent Round the World

In the United States, opposition to the teaching of evolution in public schools has largely been fueled by the religious right, particularly Protestant fundamentalism.

Now another voice is entering the debate, in dramatic fashion.

It is the voice of Adnan Oktar of Turkey, who, under the name Harun Yahya, has produced numerous books, videos and DVDs on science and faith, in particular what he calls the “deceit” inherent in the theory of evolution. One of his books, “Atlas of Creation,” is turning up, unsolicited, in mailboxes of scientists around the country and members of Congress, and at science museums in places like Queens and Bemidji, Minn.

At 11 x 17 inches and 12 pounds, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, “Atlas of Creation” is probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Mr. Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran.

In bowing to Scripture, Mr. Yahya resembles some fundamentalist creationists in the United States. But he is not among those who assert that Earth is only a few thousand years old. The principal argument of “Atlas of Creation,” advanced in page after page of stunning photographs of fossil plants, insects and animals, is that creatures living today are just like creatures that lived in the fossil past. Ergo, Mr. Yahya writes, evolution must be impossible, illusory, a lie, a deception or “a theory in crisis.”

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The book caused a stir earlier this year when a French translation materialized at high schools, universities and museums in France. Until then, creationist literature was relatively rare in France, according to Armand de Ricqles, a professor of historical biology and evolutionism at the College de France.

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Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University, said he and his colleagues in the life sciences had all received copies. When he called friends at the University of Colorado and the University of Chicago, they had the books too, he said. Scientists at Brigham Young University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Georgia and others have also received them.

“I think he must have sent it to every full professor in the medical school,” said Kathryn L. Calame, a microbiologist at the Columbia University medical school who received a copy. “The genetics department, the biochem department, micro — everybody I talked to had it.”
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In the book and on his Web site (www.harunyahya.com), Mr. Yahya says he was born in Ankara in 1956, and grew up and was educated in Turkey. He says he seeks to unmask what the book calls “the imposture of evolutionists” and the links between their scientific views and modern evils like fascism, communism and terrorism. He says he hopes to encourage readers “to open their minds and hearts and guide them to become more devoted servants of God.”

He adds that he seeks “no material gain” from his publications, most of which are available free or at relatively low cost.
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Support for creationism is also widespread among Muslims, said Dr. Edis, whose book “An Illusion of Harmony: Science and Religion in Islam” was published by Prometheus Books this spring.

“Taken at face value, the Koran is a creationist text,” he said, adding that it would be difficult to find a scholar of Islam “who is going to be gung-ho about Darwin.”

Perhaps as a result, he said, Mr. Yahya’s books and other publications have won him attention in Islamic areas. “This is a guy with some influence,” Dr. Edis said, “unfortunately for mainstream science.”

Dr. Miller agreed. He said he regularly received e-mail messages from people questioning evolution, with an increasing number coming from Turkey, Lebanon and other areas in the Middle East, most citing Mr. Yahya’s work.
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“My hypothesis is, like all creationists, they believe that they have a startling truth that the public has been shielded from, and that if they present the facts, in quotation marks, that the scales will fall from the eyes and the charade of evolution will be revealed,” said Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which fights the teaching of creationism in public schools. “These people are really serious about this.”

On its web site The New York Times carried the above report together with examples of the colored illustrations in the Atlas of Creation. Some 65,000 other web sites carry links to the New York Times site.

International Herald Tribune, July 18, 2007

The same report appeared in the International Herald Tribune, a global daily published in 180 countries and on 33 web sites internationally, on July 18, 2007.