Re: Why is Cambridge platforming Islamic creationism?

On 8/17/2026 6:30 AM, 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…
> 
You just can't make this stuff up! Wheres Nick?

Messianic Judaism — a movement blending elements of Jewish tradition 
with the belief that Jesus (Yeshua) is the returning Messiah.