A Muslim fundamentalist with a good deal more money than sense - and a penchant for distinctly dodgy suits - is flooding schools and universities with an expensive tome entitled the Atlas of Creation.

The book, by Adnan Oktar of Turkey who writes under the name Harun Yahya, claims that creatures today are just like creatures that lived in the fossil past, so evolution must be impossible.

He says he seeks to unmask ‘the imposture of evolutionists’, and the links between their scientific views and modern evils like fascism, communism and terrorism. He also hopes to encourage readers ‘to open their minds and hearts and guide them to become more devoted servants of God.’

At 11 x 17 inches and 12 pounds, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, Atlas of Creation is probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin’s theory, which Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran.

Kevin Padian, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, found an unsolicited copy of the book in his mailbox.

He said people who had received copies were ‘just astounded at its size and production values and equally astonished at what a load of crap it is.’

See the full New York Times report here.