4d. Oneness of Allah as the Absolute Creator and Sustainer ... continue

TAUHIID AL-KHALIQ-QIYYAH WAR-RUBUB-BIYYAH

(Attestation to the Oneness of Allah, as the Creator and the Sustainer)

...... to continue

وَڪَأَيِّن مِّن دَآبَّةٍ۬ لَّا تَحۡمِلُ رِزۡقَهَا ٱللَّهُ يَرۡزُقُهَا وَإِيَّاكُمۡ‌ۚ

وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلۡعَلِيمُ

وَلَٮِٕن سَأَلۡتَهُم مَّنۡ خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٲتِ وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ

وَسَخَّرَ ٱلشَّمۡسَ وَٱلۡقَمَرَ لَيَقُولُنَّ ٱللَّهُ‌ۖ فَأَنَّىٰ يُؤۡفَكُونَ

"And how many an animal there is that beareth not its own provision! Allah provideth for it and for you. He is the Hearer, the Knower.

And if thou wert to ask them: Who created the heavens and the earth, and constrained the sun and the moon (to their appointed work)? they would say: Allah. How then are they turned away? "

(Qur'an: Ankabut: 29: 60-61)

HUMAN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM [1]

Digestion: The digestive system can be looked upon as a factory where food is tasted by the tongue, then crushed by the teeth, moistened with saliva and finally, - after elaborate precautions to avoid shunting mistakes, - is pushed through the gullet into the stomach, a chemical plant where the most astonishing changes occur: Here millions of cells, too small to be seen, produce a dozen highly complex chemicals which break up the food we have eaten, whether it be meat, spinach, or rice, or cheese, into simpler substances which can be absorbed by the cells of our body and built up into our flesh and bone.

The chemical changes that take place are truly mar­vellous - well beyond the capacity of the best equipped of our laboratories. And there are five million of these little chemical units in the stomach, some forty million in the intes­tines, and more than three and a half billion in the liver. They produce, not only the chemicals needed to digest our food, where and when required, but also effective remedies against diseases like cholera and dysentery. At the same time the liver manufactures substances which help the body to burn some of the food we have eaten to provide the heat and energy every living being needs. The digestive system is not only a chemical factory, but a power house as well.

THE HUMAN LUNGS [1]


The Lungs: These are organs which bring the blood into contact w1th clean fresh air - for they knew, long before we ourselves were aware of the fact, that to purify the blood nothing is better than a good bath of oxygen.

At each breath, air is drawn into more than 1,500,000 little air sacs in the lungs, which if spread out would cover an area of some 200 square yards - the size of a nice little vegetable plot. These little balloon-like sacs are made of a thin elastic tissue which allows air to pass through but prevents blood from oozing in. The blood is carried to the lungs through 50,000,000,000 tiny hair thin tubes which form a close network all along the outside of the little balloons of the lungs. Each day they bring in some 10,000 litres of blood. Oxygen is sucked in by the red blood cells, while waste products of the body like carbon dioxide and water are given up by the blood, pass into the little air sacs, and are breathed out.

As long as a child is in the womb of its mother, its lungs do not function, and the flow of blood is turned away from the lungs by means of a special little door in the heart. As soon as it is born, the baby, who is on the verge of suffocation, utters a loud cry. The cry produces a whole series of wonderful changes. The great bags of the lungs open and air rushes in to fill them. A great flow of blood is drawn into the lungs which like a violent draught of air slams shut the little door inside the heart which had hitherto turned the blood away.

HUMAN SKIN [1]

The Skin, with its vast network of sensitive fibres spread over the body's surface is equally fascinating. The moment a hot object comes in contact with our skin, or even comes close to it, about thirty thousand hot cells feel it, and instantly report it to the brain. Similarly, there are 250,000 "cord cells" within our skin which crowd the brain with messages as soon as contact is made with a cold object. The body then begins to shiver and veins in the skin become dilated in order to make up for the loss of warmth in the body. When intense heat is "reported" to the brain, three million perspiratory glands are activated to release the cool fluid we recognise as perspiration. The nervous system is divided into different parts, one of them being the autonomic branch, which deals with reflex functions that are performed within our body, such as digestion, respiration, heart beats and so on. This autonomic branch is further subdivided into two systems: the sympathetic system, which causes activity and the para­sympathetic system, which serves as a brake. If our body were under the exclusive control of the sympathetic system, the heart would beat so rapidly that death would result. And if our body were left to the mercy of the parasympathetic system, the beating of our heart would be totally arrested. Both these sys­tems function in perfect co-ordination with each other. Whe­never our body is exposed to excessive stress and strain, caus­ing a sudden need for extra strength to withstand it, the sympathetic system dominates, making the lungs function more rapidly, and pumping adrenalin into the system from which the body may derive extra energy; But while we are asleep, the parasympathetic system has the upper hand, anaesthetizing all our bodily activities.

CONCLUSION

After observing so many wonderful organs in ourselves, each organ is prepared with such complexity and amazingly equipped to function in such a manner to sustain us - and these are outside our conscious ability to directly manage them, but somehow are being managed for us - surely, we have to concede of the power of Allah, the Creator Who designed them, and Whose power Sustains and continue to manifest a Will over them for us. To deny this is sheer arrogance and surely prepostrous to merely ascribe it to 'nature'. And what is 'nature'? An unknown entity, devoid of any attribution of Will nor intelligence. ... yet it can sustain us?? How stubbornly foolish! Nay, if we sincerely look within our heart and mind, especially reinforced and supported by our pure intuition (fitrah), these evidence prove clearly of the existence of an absolute Creator and Sustainer - and there can only be One Who is the Absolute - and to deny this is to conceal or cover an obvious truth (the attitude termed 'kufr'). Na-'uudzu billaah min dzaalik!

WaAllaahu 'alam

Wabil-laahi taufiq wal-Hidaa-ya

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[1]. ibid "God Arises - Evidence of God in nature and in Science" by Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (The Islamic Centre, New Delhi -1991).



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