:salam2:
Welcome to TTI sister.
First of all let me tell you that there is no such thing in Quran as you will find in Bible where Rabbis have written in Genesis in "great detail" how the universe was created in 6 days. Like tree was created before sun was created etc, and then on the 7th day God was tired so he rested.
We consider it as blasphemy to accuse that God became tired and then he rested. God Almighty is way above all this and he created this universe just as a testing place for us where we come and do our part (every moment we live here we are tested how we live and what we do in that moment) and then we go back and wait for the Day of Judgment.
Now... I have a done Master of Science (MS) in Physics, so I know something about science.
I first have to say that brother
ayman always do an great job of posting excellent answers.
But here is my take on this topic.
Allah (SWT) says that he has created this universe in 6 days, but no scholar or sheikh I have seen says that this means 6 days of our earth. because in the Quran Allah himself says that even time is relative (just like in the theory of relativity). So 6 days are really 6 periods, where each could be even 2 or more billion years long. Only Allah knows the best.
With that in mind we can imagine that Allah started this universe with a big bang and then based on His plan galaxies got created with huge stars which burned through their fuel much faster, then exploded, throwing away their heavy elements into the space and creating secondary stars like our sun. Then earth was formed and then when it cooled down the oceans came into being and then single cell life was created according to Allah's will and then it became more complex and then came vertebrae. Then life came on to the land and became insects and amphibians. Then came reptiles and mammals etc. etc.
So the evolution exists, it is a processes created by Allah (SWT) by which He creates new species. Those people who move to a more sunlight place see their skin become darker and less sunlight makes skin lighter. Seals obviously look like they are mammals who lived on land - right? But now their hand and legs look totally different. Older skeleton of whales have their nostrils in the front and it traces back to Paki-Sedas fossil in Pakistan when this animal transitioned from land to a sea animal. And none of these contradict any of the verses of Quran or teachings of Islam.
Having said that since Allah (the high and mighty and glorious) has said in Quran that he has created man from clay. So we believe that Allah has created us directly from clay, and we humans are NOT a branch of mammalian tree. But since some people think evolution mean that you have to accept that man is also from monkey so they immediately reject the whole process of evolution.
But I believe that evolution is a process created by Allah. But Allah has specially created man using a different and direct method because Allah is a living and active God on who we all depend upon, who listens to our supplications (duas) and answer them. He has not created his laws of nature and then went into hiding. Rather each and every thing which is happening in this universe is happening with His will and He is in complete command of all things. He has angels who do a lot of work but we don't see them working, like attaching soul to the fetus in the womb and taking souls out of a body which we call death.
But since Allah has kept himself hidden from our view and we can't see Him, therefore for our teaching He has sent messengers who received instructions from Him through angels and communicated those instructions to us. The last such package of instructions is called Quran which came down to Prophet Mohammed (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
Now understand this that evolution is still a theory (to some extent) and it is a very small portion of overall science. Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry etc are much bigger and more fundamental branches of science.
Quran talks about "7 heavens". Through-out the history non-Muslims have joked about it and Muslims couldn't explain it, but now there is this String Theory which is proving that there are seven heavens.
Studies of string theory have revealed that it predicts higher-dimensional objects called branes. String theory strongly suggests the existence of eleven space-time dimensions, as opposed to the usual four (three spatial and one temporal).
The string faithful now await the result of the experiment this year or in 2010, when energy will measurably leak into extra dimensions from a bang in a machine called the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. This leak would vindicate this theory probably for good. Then you will see this theory in the text books.
What do you think about that?
...................but i guess i can still disagree on the equation grounds.