Turkish Muslim creationist Harun Yahya is considered a hero by mainstream Muslims here for bringing back science to the embrace of Islam.

His books -- among the most popular, The Evolution Deceit and The Atlas of Creation -- are said to have strengthened the faith of Muslim believers. The books claim to prove that the Koran, which is believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, is compatible with science and miraculously anticipates modern scientific discoveries.

When Harun Yahya was sentenced to prison in May this year, the Indonesian Islamic online news portal hidayatullah.com defended him, saying that Yahya was jailed because he had destroyed evolution. Yahya was found guilty of establishing an illegal organization.

His books and videos on the miracles of creation -- loaded with a bulk of Koranic references demonizing Darwinism -- are sold in mosques and Islamic bookstores. Though he is not as popular as he was in early 2000, when a number of conferences on creationism and his works were held in Jakarta and other big cities, his works remain widely circulated.

Baiq Hana Susanti, a science lecturer at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), said students download Yahya's articles from his websites almost daily.

Science students at public universities like the University of Indonesia (UI) and Jakarta State University (UNJ) are also aware of Yahya's thoughts and, according to UI lecturer Noviar Andayani, some of them "had fallen into him".

In Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, science faculties are often dominated by young Muslim activists who are affiliated with Islamic groups, such as the Justice Prosperous Party or the Hizbut Tahrir, through the religious organization Lembaga Dakwah Kampus.

Although most university Muslim academics regard Yahya's arguments as pseudo-science, they acknowledge the appeal of the Muslim creationist to their students and Indonesian Muslims in general.

Harun Yahya (Arabic for Arron John) is the pseudonym of Adnan Oktar. He was born in Ankara in 1956 and developed his thoughts in the late 1970s during his studies at Mimar Sinan University's Academy of Fine Arts. During those years, he conducted research into the prevalent materialistic philosophies and ideologies around him.

A believer in conspiracy theories, Yahya links Darwin's evolution to such ideas as communism and fascism. He even blames the theory for all the bloody wars in the twentieth century. For that reason, he has a unique view on interfaith relationships.

While most of his admirers here might renounce the idea that Muslims could join hands with the Jews and Christians, or People of the Book, Harun Yahya is advocating an alliance of "three revealed religions" to achieve a common objective: The demise of secularism and other materialistic ideologies.

"The task of sincere Christians, Jews and Muslims who possess a conscience and common sense is to wage a joint struggle against evil and those who engage in it, to help one another and to act in a spirit of unity and cooperation.

"That unity must rest on the principles of love, respect, tolerance, understanding, harmony and cooperation. We must bear in mind the urgency of the situation, and factors likely to give rise to conflict, argument and division must be scrupulously avoided," he writes on his website, www.harunyahya.com.

Harun Yahya believes the three faiths are in harmony "on matters of faith" as well as "on moral matters". Moreover, although it is not central to Islamic teaching, Yahya believes that, like Christians, the second coming of Jesus Christ, or Isa Almasih, on earth is crucial to world peace.

According to Turkish scholars U. Sayin and A. Kence, who conducted research on Islamic creationism in Turkey, The Science Research Foundation (BAV) chaired by Yahya has a long history of contact with American creationists at the Institute for Creation Research in the United States.

His pluralistic view is relatively unknown in Indonesia. He thus escapes the attention of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), which has issued an edict that pluralism is incompatible with Islam and, thus, is a heretic view.

An Indonesian cleric Abu Hudzaifah al-Atsari, however, spots a deviation in Yahya's theological view. On his website http://abusalma.wordpress.com, al-Atsari argues that in Evolution Deceit, Yahya says, "it is impossible to conceive Allah as a separate being outside this whole mass of matter (i.e the world) Allah is surely 'everywhere' and encompasses all.

"This is obviously the saying of the sufis, which bears the idea of wihdatul wujud (pantheism). This is a fatal error and every Muslim and believer must shun this belief."

Al-Atsari, however, acknowledges Yahya's noble effort to Islamize secularized science and made a disclaimer that he does not consider him a heretic. He begins his writing with the notion that to err is to be human.

Fahma, a lecturer at UIN, said that not all Muslim scientists share Yahya's views that Islam and evolution are mutually exclusive. Many stress that Darwinism and Yahya's creationism are not the only views in the discourse of science, and encourage Muslims to be critical on both theories.

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