On 16 September 2007, the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, known as the best small daily in the USA, carried an article about Atlas of Creation. This, written by Larry Duthie, who is the publisher of the newspaper, referred to the Atlas in these terms:
“… Last week a book publisher… sent two copies of his tome, one addressed to the editor and the other to me.
They are heavy, big-format books, some 800 pages of beautifully printed glossy pages bound with elaborate covers. I rarely see review copies, but the big one was addressed to me …
… It is titled ‘Atlas of Creation.’ I skimmed through it …
The majority of the 800 pages are comprised of photographs of fossils reproduced in coffee-table-book quality. The photos snap and the color is beautifully balanced. …
The author, Adnan Oktar, writes under the pen-name Harun Yahya …
The fossil photos are each juxtaposed with a photograph of a similar contemporary animal or plant.
On page 566, for instance, he shows us a photo of an insect fossil alongside a photo of a contemporary mayfly larva. … The caption says the fossil is between 156 and 150 million years old, the late Jurassic Period. ‘Mayfly larvae alive today and ones that are 156 to 150 million years old are the same,’ the author says, ‘showing that evolution is a scenario not based on science.’
It is the same succinct message he delivers, with little variation, page after page alongside every fossil photo. His message is simple: evolution is the fiction of materialistic Charles Darwin, and Darwin"s theory is the root of much of the world"s evil.
… Harun is a … Muslim. If the world would only embrace Islam and denounce evil evolution, it would be a better place, he claims.
… Tuesday, I was leisurely flipping through pages in this book when an image of the Twin Towers - photographed just as the second airplane hit - caught my attention. Tuesday, you"ll recall, was Sept. 11. It was a jolting coincidence. …
‘Darwin and Terrorism,’ read a headline on that page. The caption under the photo said this: ‘No matter what ideology they may espouse, those who perpetrate terror all over the world are, in reality, Darwinists. Darwinism is the only philosophy that places a value on - and thus encourages conflict.’
… I turned back a few pages to see where this came from. Not only does Harun Yahya blame Charles Darwin for the terrorist suicide airline hijackings, he charges him with the rise of fascism and communism in the previous century.
… In February he sent volumes of ‘Atlas of Creation’ to scientists and schools in Britain, Scandinavia, France and Turkey. Now he"s apparently sending them to newspaper editors and publishers. …
As I closed the big book it occurred to me that … his is a far better form of radical Islam activism …”
