Those Who Understand

Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day,-there are indeed signs for men of understanding,-

Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of ) creation in the heavens and the earth, (with the thought): “Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.

Chapter 3, Verses 190-191


In this verse, the Quran is inviting us to ponder. It is inviting us to ponder upon the creation of this universe, how it came into existence, what it is made up of, what are its different phenomenon, and the signs of the Existence of God in those phenomenon. This invitation is given to those people who use their intelligence, their intellect to know the truth.

Quran wants that a human should feel the Existence of God. He/She should believe that there is Someone, Who has the supreme authority and He is the Creator of this whole Universe and He is watching us all the time. A human’s intelligence cannot visualize the God into its circle. But a human intelligence can feel The God’s presence, His existence in this universe. This is why the Quran describes to us, different signs in this universe which clearly indicates towards the existence of Our Lord, the God.

Secondly, Quran also wants that a person should realize that he/she has been given tremendous number of boons, gifts and luxuries by the God and therefore he/she should be thankful to his/her God. For this, the Quran points towards different boons of the God in its various verses. Please refer to this post.

In this verse, the Quran describes two important signs of identification of those who use their intelligence and intellect (for those who understand):

1.  To remember The God in every state and condition
2.  To think and ponder over the creation of this universe

The reason for the creation of the human is this that he/she should become the one who makes The God happy and this is not possible for a human without completing his/her “humanity” in real sense. 

When a person remembers his/her God in every state and condition and then he/she ponders over the creation of this universe, he/she then truly understands the purpose of the creation of this universe. He/she then understands, why he/she has been sent into this world. He/she then understands, that the God exists around us, inside us. So both of the above stated conditions should be met simultaneously if we want to make ourselves closer to our Creator, Our God.

Life and death

Thou causest the night to gain on the day, and thou causest the day to gain on the night; Thou bringest the Living out of the dead, and Thou bringest the dead out of the Living; and Thou givest sustenance to whom Thou pleasest, without measure.”

Chapter 3, Verse 27

In the whole year, the duration of of night and days keeps changing steadily and gradually. Sometimes, nights are long and days are short and sometimes days are long but nights are short. Similarly, we can say that the some part of night gets included in the day and some part of the day gets included in the night. This keeps happening throughout the year.

This verse tells us that this changing of durations of night and day is ordered by The God. Our God is the one Who sometimes makes days long and nights short and sometimes nights long but days short.

This verse contains the word “gain”. This means that the inclusion of the part of day into night or a part of day into night happens gradually and steadily. It doesn't happen abruptly.

We see that whenever the morning comes, the daylight slowly enters and the darkness slowly exits. Similarly when evening comes, the darkness slowly enters and the daylight slowly exits.

Why the duration of days and nights keeps changing?

This is because the earth is axially tilted at about 23.50 degrees in its orbit. This is why sunlight falls at different timings in the parts of earth.

But what is the advantage of this night and day duration changing?

It is due to this System of night and day duration changing that we have different seasons on our planet namely Summer, Winter, Autumn and Spring. These seasons affect directly to the minerals, plants and living beings.

The Birth of Living from the dead
Billions of years ago, when life opened its eyes on earth, there were inorganic substances upon earth from which a complex process was started. From this process, the life process was started since then, one living being is extracted or comes into existence from another already existed living being.

The living being’s body is made up of food and the food primarily is made up of a mixture of non-living matter components. A plant absorbs water and other chemical compounds from its roots. It absorbs Carbon dioxide from the air and gathers sunlight with the help of its leaves and other green parts. Then with the help of this sunlight, it prepares “food” by mixing these non-living matter components through a complex and long process.

When a human eats this food, it becomes a part of his/her body after digestion and takes part in the growth and development of living cells.

The Conversion of Living into Dead
When a living being dies, its body undergoes a decay process and splits into the non-living components of matter again.

In every living being (plants, animals and humans), there are two processes which take place. One is called “Anabolism” and the other is “Katabolism”. They are known collectively as “Metabolism”.

In Anabolism, in every cell, non-living components of matter which enters into our body through either digestion or respiration, are converted into living form through a complex process.

While in Katabolism, the living matter in a body converts into non-living form such as water, Carbon dioxide and other nitrogen compounds.

This is the system devised by The God. In this system, the non-living matters are converted into living and the living gets converted into non-living.

In broader meanings, the rule of life and death is followed throughout the universe.  A star is born from dust and gases. It passes through different development stages and in the end it dies.

The rule of life and death is also followed among nations. There are many nations in the world which rise from different parts of the world, pass through different periods of time and then fall one day. This process continues.

So my dear friends, don’t you think that our God is extremely powerful. He is the One who converts a dead piece into living and a living piece into dead. There are many people in this world who consider that this life is the only one they have got. The would never live again once they are dead. But this verse informs us that The God is capable to make us living again even after our death. When we will die, our body will be completely decayed even our bones will no longer exist. But even then The God can convert us back into living just like He did before. We were nothing but the non living components of matter. But He converts us into living from that non living. And therefore we should have faith upon this that our God can repeat it again. He would give us the new life for the “Day of Judgment”. When we will be presented in the Court of God and He will decide our eternal place which will be either Hell or the beautiful heavens (Jannat).

If you think that you want to discuss something over this matter then you can always use the commenting section. Remember the God invites you to first  ponder and then decide what is correct and what is wrong. I hope that you would accept this “Invitation to Ponder”.

Knowledge of everything and the mother’s womb

From Allah, verily nothing is hidden on earth or in the heavens.

He it is Who shapes you in the wombs as He pleases. There is no god but He, the Exalted in Might, the Wise.

Chapter 3, Verses 5-6

This verse tells us that the God, the Creator of this whole universe, is the one who has all the knowledge. Knowledge of everything. There are many other verses in the Quran which indicates towards the God’s “Knowledge of everything”.

This is the God’s decision, His choice for a person, His rule of creation according to which a child grows up inside the wombs of his/her mother. His/Her shape, hands, feet, lips and many other body parts are formed inside his/her mother’s womb.

The modern embryology has proved that a child is born after a long, complex development process inside the womb of his/her mother. In the very beginning, it is just a cell. We call it a “Zygote”. Even the Zygote is made up of two cells; one is called “Sperm” which comes from the father(male) and the other is called “Ovum” which comes from the mother(female). This zygote then grows through a no. of development stages and finally takes into the form of a complete child. We will discuss this process in detail later posts Insha Allah.

 

Inside the womb, genes are responsible for the type of shape, its size, other physical properties.

So my dear friends, don’t you think that this is the power of the God, our Creator that he forms a complete child , a complete human being from a little cell? Yes, indeed this is an example of The  God’s power. He has the knowledge of everything. We know many things and we don’t know many things but Our God knows everything. And if you just try to ponder you would find that the God’s definition is incomplete without having the knowledge of everything.

So do you accept the invitation to ponder? if yes then please go ahead and answer to the call of your Creator.