Fifth objection: similarities between humans and monkeys
The Darwinists refuse to discuss the points of similarities between humans and monkeys.
Al-Mashrîq's response: the similarities between humans and monkeys do not go beyond outward appearances and have no further implication. God created diverse types of vertebrates, each endowed with a range of characteristics while keeping within the unity of the species. He has wished to make humans the uppermost stratum. The disparities between humans and monkeys are plain to see. They are apparent not just in their behaviour and their life activities but even in their morphology. Monkeys can climb trees and their whole organism suits this purpose. They are different from quadrupeds and from humans by the prehensile function of their long limbs: their feet endowed with an opposable thumb and the strength of their tale that serves as a fifth hand. Their nature is closer to that of dogs. They prefer to move on all four and only walk upright upon being trained. As against that the human body structure, the shape of the feet, and even the position of the head and face force humans in the upright posture, a privilege granted them by God, making them different from all other creatures. However, because of these many gaps, the Darwinists refused to say that humans were directly descended from monkeys and preferred to slip in intervening stages, which were being investigated in a number of studies.
Al-Mashrîq's stressed in evidence to the contrary, the behavioural differences between humans and monkeys. Humans speak, think and back up their opinions through reasoning and they work towards an intended goal. Endowed with a spirituality, man is pious and displays a drive to perfection. His eyes, smiles and all his gestures bear out his intelligence and his sensitivity. Monkeys do not speak, do not understand anything, cannot adhere to a faith, nor join an order, nor have a conscience. Ernest Haeckel used transformation and evolution only in order the better to reject God's existence and the world's divine creation. It is thus hardly surprising that he should have considered humans as the duplicate of animals, bereft of spiritual yearnings. By claiming humans to be descended from monkeys, he denied the existence of a transcendent divinity, spirituality and the immortality of the soul and above all, all thought of eternity and heavenly reward, or punishment in hell. He ended up trivialising morality, whether social or religious, abolished all differences between good and evil, thus allowing anyone guilty of such crimes as murder, theft, adultery to escape human and divine justice. In the world, might is right, for individuals and nation alike and there is no other rule than personal interest regardless of justice. Scientists and religious folks would not accept such a doctrine. It is enough to compare a new born baby and an animal cub to establish the difference. Human children are born, grow and reach maturity eliminating his ignorance through the acquisition of knowledge, unlike animals who are given at birth the instinctive knowledge inherited from their parents without the struggle of education.
