The Cambrian Period

Life on Earth exhibits the most amazing variety. From the Poles to the Amazon, from mountain peaks to the ocean deeps, our planet overflows with an endless variety of life forms. Its many organisms, from bacteria to worms, from ants to trees, from sea gulls to dolphins, have each been equipped with extraordinarily sensitive systems and gloriously complex structures, thanks to which they can survive in such close harmony with their environment. These systems, whose details are still being discovered by biologists, contain features that astonish human beings.

Scientists and thinkers have investigated nature in all periods of history, witnessed its flawless harmony and planning, and have sought to answer such questions as these:

* How did such a wide variety of living things first appear on Earth?

* How did they acquire the ideal systems in their bodies that permitted them to thrive?

* How is such harmony and equilibrium between these organisms possible?

During the Cambrian Period, life forms with very different characteristics and very complex structures emerged suddenly, with no ancestors preceding them. These species emerged with no intermediate forms, but left their flawless forms in the fossil record. This is the result of Allah's immaculate creation.

In any search for the answers to these questions, the origin of multi-celled organisms assumes a particular importance, because they make the greatest contribution to the biological variety on Earth. It is indisputable that single-celled organisms are highly complex life forms that make an enormous contribution to the survival of life on Earth. Yet the structures possessed by single-celled organisms are far less complex than those in multi-celled organisms, which display an extraordinarily advanced variety and complexity.

The Cambrian Period is the name assigned to that geological age when all the present-day phyla of multi-cellular organisms suddenly appeared. So sudden and comprehensive was their appearance that many scientists refer to it as "the Cambrian Explosion." The late evolutionist paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould has described this phenomenon as "most remarkable and puzzling event in the history of life," while the evolutionist zoologist Thomas S. Ray writes that the origin of multi-cellular life is an event of comparable significance to the origin of life itself.

The last 25 years have seen a major increase in our knowledge of the Cambrian Period, and the extraordinary nature of its "explosion" has attracted enormous scientific interest. Scientists analyzing the discoveries made by various disciplines have realized that this phenomenon is one that took place even more suddenly, and in an even more unique manner, than they had previously imagined. Our better understanding of the concrete facts and characteristics unique to the Cambrian explosion has resulted in reliable explanations for the origins of multi-celled organisms and of life in general.

This information, obtained in the light of modern science, actually constitutes proofs of Allah's flawless creation during the period in question. Modern scientific discoveries regarding this phenomenon-which Darwin himself described as a "serious difficulty"-have sounded the death knell for the theory of evolution.

The subject of the origin of life on Earth cannot be fully understood without a thorough knowledge of what actually took place in the Cambrian explosion. To that end, all the details and facts discovered to date about the Cambrian Period have been set out in this book.

The first section deals with the ingeniously complex structures of Cambrian life forms, the invalidity of Darwinist attempts to interpret the fossil record, and the current hopeless situation of evolutionists and their unscientific beliefs. The second section considers the living fossils that defy the theory of evolution.

The Cambrian explosion is just one of the glorious creations of Allah that modern science has managed to discover. Almighty Allah brought all living things into existence simply by commanding them to "Be!" His flawless creation is revealed as follows in one verse:

He is Allah-the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. Everything in the heavens and Earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Hashr, 24)