Planting The Flag

Here's a depressing story about an imam in London who had to apologize for his belief that Islam and evolution are compatible.  But what really caught my eye was this aside:

Like Christianity, Islamic opinion is divided over evolution. More than a millennium before Darwin, Muslim scientists had posited ideas about species survival and generational change that bore striking similarities to Darwin's eventual theory.

Striking similarities?  I doubt it.  You see this sort of claim from followers of religions and folk beliefs all the time--that centuries ago they figured out something, or had amazing insights, which science is only now getting around to.  In almost all cases, it's interested parties retrofitting old words to make them sound modern, or overstating their significance.  It's especially ironic here that while many Muslims want to deny the theory of evolution, others would like to claim they came up with it first.

What I don't understand is how this bit of public relations was dropped into a news story.