Islamic Theology and Extraterrestrial Life

Shoaib Ahmed Malik is Visiting Researcher at St Mary’s University, UK.. He is the author of Islam and Evolution: Al-Ghazali and the Modern Evolutionary Paradigm (2021) and various peer-reviewed journals. He specialises as an interdisciplinary researcher in the field of Islam and science.Jörg Matthias Determann is Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University, Qatar. He is the author of four books published by I.B. Tauris: Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life (2020); Space Science and the Arab World (2018); Researching Biology and Evolution in the Gulf States (2015); and Historiography in Saudi Arabia (2013).

• Introduction Shoaib Ahmed Malik and Jörg Matthias Determann1. Theological Information on the Existence of Intelligent Life Outside Our Solar System: Metaphysics, Scripture, and Science Hamza Karamali2. Does the Qur?an Affirm Extraterrestrial life? A Hermeneutic Analysis of the of Surat al-Na?l (Q. 16:8) Moamer Khalayleh3. Islamic Sacred Resources on Extraterrestrials and Their Possible Eschatological Implications Mohammad Mahdi Montasseri4. Extraterrestrials and Moral Accountability: Nonhuman Moral Personhood through the Lens of Classical Sunni Theology and Law David Solomon Jalajel5. Classical Muslim Thought and the Theological Implications and Possibility of Non-Human Entities Bearing Higher Intelligence Faisal Abdullah6. Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life and Islamic Beliefs: Investigating Six Potential Conflicts Shoaib Ahmed Malik7. The Alien in the Lamp? The Jinn and Alien Life in Islamic Theology Richard Playford8. A Qur?anic Ufology? Seven Exotheological Hypotheses of the Indonesian ‘Islamic UFO’ Community Ayub and Ilham Ibrahim9. Exotheology in Contemporary Egyptian Science Fiction – A Comparative Appraisal Emad El-Din Aysha

This landmark interdisciplinary volume fills a huge gap in our discussions of the theological impact of the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. Heretofore the focus has been on Christianity, but for the first time we have multiple scholarly views of the potential impact on Islamic theology and the Earth’s two billion Muslims. This is a substantial contribution to the new and growing field of astrotheology, and should be read by anyone interested in the future evolution of religions on Earth.