Introduction

The twentieth century was one of the darkest and most deadly in all of human history. Vast amounts of blood were spilled and people subjected to the most terrible fear and oppression. Such dictators as Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot inflicted genocide on millions. Hitler had those whom he regarded as “useless” exterminated in the gas chambers. Hundreds of thousands of people in many Western countries—from Great Britain to Germany, from the USA to Sweden—were compulsorily sterilized or left to die just for being sick, crippled or old. All over the world, people were oppressed and exploited because of ruthless competition. Racism became the ideology of certain states, and some races were not even regarded as human at all. Because of the conflicts and hot and cold wars between East and West, the peoples of communist and capitalist countries, and even brothers, became one another's enemies.

The main point not generally realized, however, is the nature of the ideological foundation that propelled the 20th century towards such disruption, chaos, war and conflict, and gave rise to such hatred and enmity. The groundwork of this ideological foundation was laid by the British economist Thomas Malthus. This twisted concept, widely accepted by people far removed from religious moral values, was further strengthened by another Briton, the sociologist Herbert Spencer, and disseminated by the theory of evolution put forward by yet another Englishman, Charles Darwin.

As dictated by the ideology they advocate, these three figures entirely ignored such religious moral virtues as cooperation, altruism, protecting the poor and weak, and regarding all human beings as equal. In contrast, they proposed the falsehood that life is a battlefield, that the oppression and even extermination of the poor and those races whom they regarded as “inferior” was justified; that as a result of that pitiless struggle, the “fittest” would survive and the rest would be eliminated—and that all this would lead to human “progress.”

With his theory of evolution, Darwin sought to apply this philosophy of selfishness to the natural sciences. Ignoring the examples of solidarity and cooperation created by God in nature, he maintained that all living things were engaged in a ruthless struggle for survival. On the basis of no scientific evidence whatsoever, he even claimed that this same ruthlessness applied to human societies. When his theory of evolution was applied to human society, social Darwinism appeared on the scene.

Some people suggest that Social Darwinism was born in the second half of the 19th century and lost its influence during the second half of the 20th. But this theory has had far more permanent and damaging adverse effects. A twisted world view, in complete contradiction to religious moral values, has spread, alleging that life is a “struggle for survival,” and that people need to compete in order to succeed in that struggle, or at the very least to survive. New lifestyles emerged that were the source of totalitarian and bloody ideologies like communism and fascism, ferocious capitalism that ignores social justice; racism, ethnic conflicts, moral degeneration, and many more disasters that inflicted catastrophes on humanity.

All of a sudden, Social Darwinism imparted an alleged scientific validity to existing evils, ruthless policies and practices. Adopting that trend, which lacks any scientific basis whatsoever, many people failed to live by religious moral values and began to regard ruthlessness, savagery and cruelty as unexceptional. They ignored the fact that religious moral values require virtues such as compassion, affection, understanding, self-sacrifice, solidarity and mutual support between individuals and societies. Perpetrators claimed a scientific foundation to their cruelty, and that therefore, the savagery they inflicted could be regarded as justified. These false claims and suppositions were of course a terrible deception.

Social Darwinism provided an alleged scientific justification for many ruthlessness that regarded the lives of the poor as unimportant.

In this book, we shall be examining and illuminating two main subjects: First, the dangers of educating young people in the light of Darwinism and of the theory's wide acceptance will be shown to people unaware of, or who ignore, the threat that it poses to societies and individuals.

Second, it will respond to those who maintain that Darwin and evolutionists are not in total agreement with Social Darwinists, and will show that every evolutionist who signs up to the theory of evolution is in fact signing up to Social Darwinism as well.

Throughout, we shall be emphasizing that the model proposed by the theory of evolution, regarding human beings as a species of animal, is an error based on ruthlessness, lovelessness, selfishness and self-interest. Darwinism seeks to construct a world where humans live and behave like animals. Social Darwinism's teachings and practices make this quite clear. According to its twisted views, it is perfectly acceptable for an elderly, needy person to be dragged out of his home and taken away to be killed; or for handicapped people to be rounded up and left to die in concentration camps. According to this distorted thinking, those in the “inferior” classes can be ruthlessly persecuted, exploited and eliminated. Those who believe that human society can progress only when these savage policies are implemented regard such slaughter, genocide, cruelty and ruthlessness as a kind of success. They maintain that individuals and societies—indeed, entire cultures and nations—unable to achieve that success, must be done away with.

Without doubt, that is a most perverted and dangerous way of thinking. Perceiving this danger is of the greatest importance for those who oppose the theory and the ideologies based on it. Societal models based on Darwin and Darwinism are models that will lead to the most dreadful catastrophes. On the other hand, the moral values that God commands to humanity and reveals in the Qur'an will always bring with them peace and well-being.