# Neanderthals were more intelligent than people think

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/2/
- Date: 2022-01-19 · Kind: lesson · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Neanderthals And Denisovans & The Islamic Narrative | Mufti Abu Layth (8:16–10:10)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voxmwEQ6rz4&t=496s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/

**Topics:** Human origins

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Neanderthals were not stupid: he puts their intelligence at roughly that of an eight or nine year old child, far above chimpanzees.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says Neanderthals were probably about as intelligent as an eight or nine year old child.

**Evidence, his words at 8:53:** “they were probably as intelligent as maybe like an eight nine year old child which is pretty intelligent” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voxmwEQ6rz4&t=533s)

## Longer summary

Responding to remarks in the chat, Mufti Abu Layth says Neanderthals were not stupid, even though people use the word as an insult. He says they were more intelligent than people assume, not like chimpanzees or gorillas, and probably about as intelligent as an eight or nine year old child, compared with chimpanzees at about the level of a three year old. He adds that an adult human brain can think in an abstraction that a child cannot, but that an eight or nine year old is not dumb by any measure.

## Transcript (machine tier, 8:16–10:10)

[7:37] now one thing what it did mean is something that comes after now you see or something that comes at the end of because half the word half in arabic means behind something that comes so this thing comes then behind it or at the end of it khalifa comes this thing and it would make sense that in a chain a series of manifestations the final succession to all of that all of these homonyms is the ultimate which will result in the

[8:15] cognitive revolution which will result with mankind as we know it i think that's a an amazing beautiful way to read these verses of the quran right so let's move on inject humans with massive bones neanderthals weren't stupid by the way they were i know we used that term to say you neanderthal but neanderthals were you know they were

[8:53] more intelligent than we think obviously they weren't more intelligent than us today as humans but they were more intelligent than humans think they were so humans think of them like chimpanzees or gorillas they weren't like that they were much more intelligent than that so they were probably as intelligent as maybe like an eight nine year old child which is pretty intelligent so you know that's that's quite sophisticated so don't don't think that

[9:31] whereas chimpanzees may be about as intelligent as maybe like a three-year-old child so it's not you know there's quite a substantial difference obviously a eight-year-old child nine-year-old child with a sophisticated mature man or woman let's say who 40 year old with the kind of sophistication of the brain that we have is is incredibly complex and we can think in immense abstraction that a child just can't comprehend even you know concepts yet so but they're not

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment voxmwEQ6rz4/s/2. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/voxmweq6rz4/s/2/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.