Re: Why is Cambridge platforming Islamic creationism?

On 8/17/2026 8:28 AM, Noah Sombrero wrote:
> 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?
 >
Like Bill Maher said:

"I'm not voting for anyone who thinks the wrong side won the Cold War or 
cheers for the Intifada like it's the World Cup."