Pre-Darwinian era biologists in Islamic world are believed to have some glimpse of evolution (adaptations and natural selection), mainly biologists like the famous Al-Jahiz and Allama Rumi.
In Kitab al-Hayawan ('Book of the Animals'), the 9th-century Muslim scholar al-Jāḥiẓ references several facets of natural selection, such as animal embryology, adaptation, and animal psychology. One notable observation al-Jāḥiẓ makes is that stronger rats were able to compete better for resources than small birds, a reference to the modern day theory of the "struggle for existence." Al-Jāḥiẓ also wrote descriptions of food chains.
Animals engage in a struggle for existing, and for resources, to avoid being eaten, and to breed... Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming them into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to their offspring.— Al-Jahiz, Book of the Animals
In 10th century Basra, an Islamic Encyclopedia titled Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity introduced the earliest attested evolutionary framework. The Encyclopedia expanded on the Platonic and Aristotelian concept of the great chain of being by proposing a causal relationship advancing up the chain as the mechanism of creation, beginning with the creation of matter and its investment with energy, thereby forming water vapour, which in turn became minerals and "mineral life". Coral, with its branch-like structure, was the highest mineral life which gave rise to lower plants. The date palm was considered the highest plant, giving rise to lower animals, and then through apes came barbarian man, followed by superior man, including the prophets. Thereafter the chain continues in the traditional form using less causal clarity, with the angels being above man, and above the angels being God as both the originator and the pinnacle. Muhammad Hamidullah summarises this concept found in the work: "Everything begins from Him and everything returns to Him."
In the 11th century, the scholar Sami S. Hawi argues that Persian scholar Ibn Miskawayh wrote about the evolution of man in his Fawz al-aṣghar.
The 14th-century influential historiographer and historian Ibn Khaldun wrote the Muqaddimah or Prolegomena ("Introduction") on what he referred to as the "gradual process of creation." Some of Ibn Khaldun's thoughts, according to some commentators, anticipate the biological theory of evolution.
Ibn Khaldun asserted that humans developed from "the world of the monkeys," in a process by which "species become more numerous". He believed that humans are the most evolved form of animals, in that they have the ability to reason. He also stated that the Earth began with abiotic components such as "minerals." Slowly, primitive stages of plants such as "herbs and seedless plants" developed, and eventually "palms and vines."
Ibn Khaldun also believed that the black skin, practices, and customs of the people of sub-Saharan Africa were due to the region's hot climate, a theory that according to Rosenthal may have been influenced by the Greek geographical ideas expounded by Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. Ibn Khaldun viewed the Hamitic theory, where the sons of Ham) became black as the result of a curse from God, as a myth.
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