What's islam's stance on stuff like neanderthals and homo erectus? Apparently we have neanderthal DNA in us?
Even Chimpanzees Gorillas etc has more than 90% identical DNA with humans ..... but we know as muslims “Allah does what He pleases.†Allah can create His creatures in any manner that He chooses.
In Islam ,human beings living on the Earth today, are all descendants of a male and a female
Allah also says: “O mankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another. Verily, the most honorable of you with Allah is the one who is the most God-fearing.†[Sûrah al-Hujûrât:13]
We also see that Allah created the first male "Adam" and female ,directly from "dust ,water,mud...."" without the agency of parents ,or any kind of ancestors.
The direct creation of Adam (peace be upon him) can neither be confirmed nor denied by science in any way. It is a matter of the Unseen and something that science does not have the power to confirm or deny. As a matter of the Unseen, we believe it because Allah informs us about it.
when it comes to all the living things ,other than humans ,the Qur’ân neither confirm nor deny the theory of biological evolution or the process referred to as natural selection. The question of evolution remains purely a matter of scientific enquiry. The theory of evolution must stand or fall on its own scientific merits – and that means the physical evidence that either confirms the theory or conflicts with it.
Sheikh `Abd al-Wahhâb al-Turayrî wrote:
The role of science is only to observe and describe the patterns that Allah places in His creation. If scientific observation shows a pattern in the evolution of species over time that can be described as natural selection, this is not in itself unbelief. It is only unbelief for a person to think that this evolution took place on its own, and not as a creation of Allah. A Muslim who accepts evolution or natural selection as a valid scientific theory must know that the theory is merely an explanation of one of the many observed patterns in Allah’s creation.
As for the fossil remains of bipedal apes and the tools and artifacts associated with those remains, their existence poses no problem for Islamic teachings. There is nothing in the Qur’ân and Sunnah that either affirms or denies that upright, brainy, tool using apes ever existed or evolved from other apelike ancestors. Such animals may very well have existed on Earth before Adam’s arrival upon it. All we can draw from the Qur’ân and Sunnah is that even if those animals once existed, they were not the forefathers of Adam (peace be upon him).
And Allah knows best.