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SCIENCES SPEAK OF GOD
AND MAKE HIM KNOWN EACH IN ITS
PARTICULAR TONGUE
In Kastamonu - Turkey
a group of high-school students came to me and asked, ‘Tell us about our
Creator, our teachers do not speak of Him.’
I said to them:
The sciences you study
continuously speak of God, the Creator, and make Him known, each in its
particular tongue. Listen to them, not to your teachers.
For example, a
well-equipped, well-designed pharmacy in which there are many bottles and boxes
containing medicines and pills made up of different components in precise
measures doubtless points to an extremely skilful and learned pharmacist. The
pharmacy of the earth is bigger and more perfect and better equipped than any
pharmacy, with its life-giving cures and medicaments in hundreds of thousands
of bottles and boxes, that is, all the species of plants and animals. The
pharmacy of the earth shows and makes known, through the measure of the science
of medicine, even to the blind, the All-Wise One of Majesty Who is the
Pharmacist of the largest pharmacy of the earth.
As another example, a
wonderful factory where thousands of sorts of cloth are woven from a simple
material undoubtedly makes known a manufacturer and skilful mechanical
engineer. Likewise, this traveling machinery or factory of the Lord which we
call the earth, is bigger and more perfect than that human factory. With its
hundreds of thousands of parts in each of which there are hundreds of thousands
of machines, the factory of the earth shows and makes known, through the
measure of the science of engineering, its Manufacturer and Owner.
‘To take another
example, a store or shop in which numerous varieties of provisions brought from
all sides have been stored up in regular and orderly fashion doubtless makes
known a wondrous proprietor, preparer and distributor of provisions and
foodstuffs. This food-store of the All-Merciful One known as the earth, this
vessel of the Glorious One, in one year travels regularly a very wide orbit,
and houses hundreds of thousands of species of beings requiring different
foods. Passing through seasons on its journey, the earth fills spring with
thousands of different provisions like a huge wagon and brings to the poor
living creatures whose sustenance has been exhausted in winter, this depot and
shop of the Lord, holding thousands of varieties of goods, equipment, and
conserved food. It makes known, through the measure of the science of economics
which you study, the Owner, Manager, and Organizer of this depot of the earth,
and makes Him loved.
‘Again another
example: Let us imagine an army which consists of hundreds of thousands of
tribes. Each tribe requires different provisions, uses different weapons, wears
different uniforms, and undergoes different drills, and is demobilized
differently. This huge army camped on a very wide area has a miracle-working
commander who on his own provides all these different tribes with all their
different provisions, weapons, uniforms, and equipment without forgetting and
confusing any of them. Then surely the army and the camp point to the commander
and must make him loved and appreciated. The same thing happens in just the
same way, on the camp of the surface of the earth every spring. A newly
recruited Divine army of hundreds of thousands of species of animals and plants
are given their varying uniforms, rations, weapons, training, and
demobilization in entirely perfect and regular fashion by a single
Commander-in- Chief without forgetting and confusing any of them. This makes
known through the measure of the military science which you study, to the
attentive and sensible, the Ruler of the earth, and its Lord, Administrator,
and Most Holy Commander, causing admiration and acclaim, and makes Him loved
and praised and glorified.
Another example: Suppose
there is a strange, magnificent city which is illuminated by millions of
electric lamps, some moving, some fixed, with fuel and power source never
exhausted. This evidently makes known a wonder-working craftsman and
extraordinarily talented electrician who manages the electricity, makes the
lamps, establishes the power source, and brings the fuel, and causes others to
admire and congratulate him, and to love him. In just the same way, some of the
lamps-stars and planets-in the roof of the palace of the world, in the city of
the universe, are a thousand times bigger than the earth and move with an
amazing speed. Still they move in a very delicate order and do not collide with
one another, nor are extinguished, nor their fuel exhausted.. The sun is a lamp
and stove in the guest-house of the All-Merciful One, several billion years old
and a million times bigger than the earth. Astronomy says that for our sun to
continue burning each day as much oil as the seas of the earth and as much coal
as its mountains or as much logs and wood as ten earths are necessary.
The electric lamps of
the palace of the world in the magnificent city of the universe point with
their finger of light to an infinite power and sovereignty which illuminates
the sun and other lofty stars like it without oil, wood, or coal. They do not
allow them to be extinguished or to collide with one another, and they are
bigger than the lamps in the above example and their management is more
perfect. Through the measure of the science of electricity and the testimony of
those radiant stars, they make known the Monarch, Illuminator, Director, and
Maker of this biggest exhibition of the universe; they make Him loved,
glorified, and worshipped.
Another example: Let us
imagine a marvelous book in each line of which a different book is finely
written, and in each word of which a sura of the Quran is inscribed with a fine
pen. The book is most meaningful, most expressive and all of its subjects
corroborate one another. It shows without doubt and as clearly as daylight its
author together with all his extraordinary perfection, arts, and skills. It
makes him appreciated with phrases like, ‘What wonders God has willed!’ and
‘Blessed be God!’ And just the same is the ‘macro-book’ of the
universe. We see with our own eyes a pen at work, inscribing on the face of the
earth, which is a single one of its sheets, hundreds of thousands of plant and
animal species. These are in fact like hundreds of thousands of volumes, all
together, one within the other, without any error, without confusion, so
perfectly and finely as to compress an ode in a word like a tree, and the
complete index of a book in a point like a seed. This infinitely meaningful
compendium of the universe, this macro-Qur’an of the cosmos, in each word of
which are numerous instances of wisdom, is greater, and more perfect and
meaningful than the book in the example. Through the extensive measure and
telescopic vision of the science of nature that you study and the sciences of
reading and writing that you practice at school, it makes known the Inscriber
and Author of this book of the universe together with His infinite perfection.
In the meaning of ‘God is the Greatest,’ it makes Him known. In the
glorification of ‘Glory be to God,’ it describes Him. Through praises like
‘All praise be to God,’ it makes Him loved.
Like those mentioned,
hundreds of sciences make the Majestic Creator of the universe known by His
Names, each through its extensive measure, its particular mirror, its
far-reaching view, and searching and instructing perspectives; they make known
His Attributes and perfection.
The decisive proof
explained above is a magnificent and brilliant proof of Divine Oneness. It is
in order to teach this that the Quran of miraculous expression describes our
Creator to us so often through the phrases, the Lord of the Heavens and the
Earth, and He created the heavens and the earth.
I added:
Man is a living machine
both subject to thousands of kinds of sorrow and capable of knowing thousands
of different kinds of pleasure. He is a wretched being who, while being wholly
impotent, has innumerable enemies of a physical and spiritual nature; who,
while being wholly destitute, has countless external and inner needs, and who
continuously receives the blows of decay and separation. Yet if, through belief
and worship, he is connected to the Majestic Monarch, he finds a point of
support against all his enemies and a source of help for all his needs.
Everybody takes pride in the honor and rank of the highly-placed one to whom he
is connected, especially if one is connected, through belief, to the infinitely
Powerful and Compassionate Monarch. If one enters His service through worship,
and if (in doing so) one changes the announcement of one’s execution at the
appointed hour into welcome discharge documents-you can easily understand by
comparison how contented and obliged, how thankful, how full of pride one
becomes.’
I repeat to the
calamity-stricken prisoners what I said to the school boys, ‘The one who
recognizes Him and obeys Him is prosperous even if he is in prison, while the
one who forgets Him is wretched and a prisoner even if he lives in a palace.’
‘Even, while being
executed, one wronged but unfortunate man said to the wretched wrong-doers who
were executing him, ‘I am not being executed but being discharged from my
duties and going to eternal happiness. Moreover, as I can see you even now
condemned to eternal punishment, I am taking complete revenge on you.’ That
fortunate wronged man then pronounced, ‘There is no god but God,’ and died
happily.’
Glory be to You! We have
no knowledge save what you have taught us. Surely, You are the All-Knowing, the
All-Wise.
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