Islamic Theology and Extraterrestrial Life - by Jörg Matthias Determann & Shoaib Ahmed Malik

About the Book

"Over the last thirty years, humanity has discovered thousands of planets outside of our solar system. The discovery of extraterrestrial life could be imminent. This book explains how such a discovery might impact Islamic theology. It is the foundational reference on the subject, comprising a variety of different insights from both Sunni and Shi'i positions, from different Muslim contexts, and with chapters that compare and contrast Islamic perspectives with Confucianism and Christianity. Together, they address some of our biggest questions through an Islamic lens: What makes humans unique in the cosmos? What are the ethics of dealing with other sentient beings? And how universal is salvation? Given the accelerating advances in exoplanet research and astrobiology, the book is at the frontier of science and Islamic thought. Contributors include a range of leading experts from Muslim theologians, scholars of comparative religion and philosophers, to historians, social scientists and natural scientists"--

Book Synopsis

Over the last thirty years, humanity has discovered thousands of planets outside of our solar system. The discovery of extraterrestrial life could be imminent. This book explains how such a discovery might impact Islamic theology. It is the foundational reference on the subject, comprising a variety of different insights from both Sunni and Shi'i positions, from different Muslim contexts, and with chapters that compare and contrast Islamic perspectives with Christianity. Together, they address some of our biggest questions through an Islamic lens: What makes humans unique in the cosmos? What are the ethics of dealing with other sentient beings? And how universal is salvation?
Given the accelerating advances in exoplanet research and astrobiology, the book is at the frontier of science and Islamic thought. Contributors include a range of leading experts from Muslim theologians, scholars of comparative religion and philosophers, to historians, social scientists and natural scientists.

Review Quotes

The Qur'an meets exotheology. This is a most informative, comprehensive, and reflective compilation of Islamic thinking about the prospect of sharing God's cosmos with other intelligent creatures on exoplanets. Now, aliens do not seem so alien any more.
Ted Peters, Co-Editor, Theology and Science

This is a fascinating collection - due both to the intrinsic interest of the topic, and to the richness and creativity of the Islamic philosophical, theological, and literary traditions engaging with it. Out of this world.
Stephen Bullivant, Professor, St Mary's University, UK,

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.
Steven J. Dick, Former NASA Chief Historian, Former Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology

About the Author

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).