Re: Why is Cambridge platforming Islamic creationism?

On 17/08/2026 15:29, Tara wrote:
> On Aug 17, 2026 at 9:43:08 AM EDT, "Julian" <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> On 17/08/2026 14:30, Tara wrote:
>>> Julian <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> An academic project hosted by Cambridge University platforms
>>>> creationism, the belief that the world was created by God in seven days.
>>>> It promotes an academic paper demanding that schoolchildren be taught to
>>>> “actively resist” the science of evolution.
>>>>
>>>> At Charles Darwin’s old university, where a college is named after him,
>>>> Darwin’s discovery is now described by one Cambridge researcher as an
>>>> example of “potential challenges posed by Eurocentric monoculture.”
>>>>
>>>> It is the latest sign of fundamental problems at Cambridge’s education
>>>> faculty, the same department which hired Jason Arday.
>>>>
>>>> The project which platforms the creationist claims, the Islamic Educator
>>>> Learning Community (IELC), is led by Cambridge’s assistant research
>>>> professor of education, Farah Ahmed, a former activist in the since
>>>> banned terror group Hizb ut-Tahrir. Ahmed’s extraordinary CV, and her
>>>> long record of grossly bigoted, extremist and separatist views, were
>>>> revealed by a 2002 pamphlet exposed by The Spectator on Tuesday.
>>>>
>>>> IELC is “hosted by” and “partners with” a university body called the
>>>> Cambridge Teacher Research Exchange, Camtree. Camtree is a project of
>>>> Hughes Hall, the Cambridge University college where Ahmed is a governing
>>>> fellow. Ahmed is also an “affiliate” of Camtree.
>>>>
>>>> IELC publishes on its website, with a Camtree address, a paper on
>>>> “Islamic scientific critical consciousness” which asks: “Does the common
>>>> modern biological assumption that humans have common ancestry with other
>>>> life forms conflict with [Islamic] religious beliefs about God creating
>>>> Adam and Eve?”
>>>>
>>>> The author of this paper, Usama Javed Mirza, was at the time a
>>>> researcher at Cambridge University’s faculty of education and at Ahmed’s
>>>> IELC. He still is, according to his LinkedIn entry.
>>>>
>>>> The paper says that “countering colonial hegemony in science education
>>>> for Muslims” could include “identifying gaps in fossil records to make
>>>> the case that the evidence of humans descending from apes is inconclusive.”
>>>>
>>>> It adds that “fitna” (trial or temptation) “may occur, for example, when
>>>> a Muslim student in the science classroom begins to believe that humans
>>>> emerged on Earth without any role played by the Creator.”
>>>>
>>>> It says that fitna “boil[s] down to two beliefs being inculcated in
>>>> students that are problematic from an Islamic standpoint,” namely that
>>>> “the meaning of existence is socially constructed as an evolutionary
>>>> response. There is no afterlife or soul; and the universe exists by
>>>> chance, and runs according to mindless laws of physics…. To counter
>>>> these hegemonic ideas, it is not enough just to intellectually dispel
>>>> them. Rather… it is necessary to also instil within students a capacity
>>>> to actively resist the influence of this monoculture.”
>>>>
>>>> On Tuesday, in the wake of the Jason Arday scandal, The Spectator
>>>> revealed that Ahmed had been given the prestigious assistant
>>>> professorship. We noted that in a 2002 pamphlet, republished in 2017,
>>>> she attacked ‘western education’ as a ‘threat’ to Muslims, condemned
>>>> democracy and integration, and criticised British schools for teaching
>>>> that child marriage is wrong. Like the paper’s author, Mirza, Ahmed has
>>>> also said that modern science is a problem, because in the “teaching of
>>>> evolution, Muslim children will be exposed to ideas that contradict
>>>> Islam.” She said in 2010 that she was no longer a member of Hizb
>>>> ut-Tahrir and did not agree with “all” its views.
>>>>
>>>> After that story created a storm, the education faculty took decisive
>>>> action. It removed the names of all its staff from its website,
>>>> presumably to stop anyone who doesn’t know about web archive tools
>>>> checking to see if they’ve hired any more wrong’uns (spoiler alert: they
>>>> have.)
>>>>
>>>> Other action has been less forthcoming. The faculty clearly hopes to
>>>> ride this one out, issuing a statement that it is “committed to academic
>>>> freedom and freedom of speech within the law.” Well, we must reluctantly
>>>> agree that Ahmed – benefiting from the democracy she condemns – should
>>>> have the freedom to say that English is “one of the most damaging
>>>> subjects” a school can teach, or (while teaching at Cambridge) write
>>>> that Muslim students shouldn’t have to worry about “gaining literacy and
>>>> numeracy and other disciplinary skills demonstrated through qualifications.”
>>>>
>>>> But that’s quite different from believing that Cambridge University
>>>> should fund her to promote her ideas to the future leaders of the country.
>>>>
>>>> Still more indisputable is that a university subject, even one as
>>>> debased as Education at Cambridge, should not promote baseless,
>>>> anti-scientific twaddle in the name of academic research.
>>>>
>>>> But it does.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Andrew Gilligan
>>>>
>>>
>>> I seem to be living in a perpetual “I don’t believe this is happening!” or
>>> “this just can’t be true” mode.
>>> Alas…
>> Behold the fruits of a decades long ideological subversion campaign.
>> It's the old, tried and tested, divide and rule.
>> "If you can't beat them by force set them against each other."
> 
> age old tactic.
> We should know better by now, recognize it and stop it before it grows into a
> monster.

I'm trying. It's my hobby.  :)