Allah Created Ādam on His Image

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says, in the hadith narrated by Muslim: khalaqa Allāhu Ādama ʿalā ṣūratih. In the beginning, we know that Allah (swt) has created Ādam with His own hands. Ādam was honoured that he was created with the hands of Allah (swt) — a great honour. And that is mentioned in the hadith of al-shafāʿah, when the humans would go to Sayyidunā Ādam on the Day of Judgment, and they would say: you are the one whom Allah (swt) blew His soul into; and you are the one whom Allah (swt) created with His own hands; and you are the one whom Allah (swt) made the angels bow down to, make sujūd. That is the honouring that Allah (swt) has given to Ādam: he was created with the hands of Allah.

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) says, in the hadith narrated by Muslim: khalaqa Allāhu Ādama ʿalā ṣūratih — Allah (swt) has created Ādam on his image. On his image. And al-Nawawī gives an explanation to this hadith. He says: what is meant by "Allah has created Ādam on his image" is not talking about the image of Allah; it is talking about the image of Ādam. Allah created Ādam on the image of Ādam.

You might wonder: what does that mean? What do you mean, Allah created Ādam on Ādam's image? That would mean that Allah (swt) created Ādam as he was, in his adult form, that remained with him. In other words, Ādam did not go through the stages that we go through, of being an embryo, and then a fetus, and then an infant, and then a child, and then an adult. Khalaqa Allāhu Ādama ʿalā ṣūratih: Ādam was created on his image. He didn't go through changes of images like we do.

We go through different changes of images, from embryo to fetus; it looks very different. When you go from the one cell, when it then multiplies, and the embryo is in the early stages, and then the fetus — if you look at it, the image could change within days. But with Ādam, he was created on that image from day one.

And this is diametrically opposed to what the theory of evolution says. The theory of evolution states that human beings came through an evolution process that started with a chemical reaction, and then the one cell, the single cell, and then multiple cells, and then it goes up, and up, and up, until it reaches the human being at the end of that long chain. That is contradicting — completely contradicting — the truth, because Allah (swt) has created Ādam with His own hands, on that image that remained with Ādam until he died.

But let me say that Islam does not completely disapprove everything in the theory of evolution. Islam disapproves some and approves some. Islam disapproves the part of the theory of evolution that states that nature is the creator, or that things came out of random. Islam is against the part of the theory of evolution that states that the human being evolved from a single cell, and then it went up to the ape — which they call the closest relative of the human being — and then the human being. But Islam is not opposed to the part of the theory of evolution that says that species adapt to their environment. We see that around us: different species learn how to adapt to different environments. But we say that that happens with the will of Allah.