Re: Why is Cambridge platforming Islamic creationism?

On Mon, 17 Aug 2026 13:30:13 -0000 (UTC), Tara <[email protected]>
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…
>
>
You know the old saw, if it is too good or too bad to be true..
then what?
-- 
Noah Sombrero mustachioed villain
Don't get political with me young man
or I'll tie you to a railroad track and
<<<talk>>> to <<<YOOooooo>>>
Who dares to talk to El Sombrero?
dares: Ned
does not dare: Julian  shrinks in horror and warns others away