For the past few weeks, I have been home as the setting sun gleams through the window of my northwest-facing flat in potent shades of red and orange, before swiftly descending beneath the rim of the Arabian Gulf somewhat visible in the distance. I'll usually be cooking dinner at this time but find myself drawn to stand for a few minutes at the kitchen window to watch the sun's retreat. At the crisp moment the sky dims, the call to prayer becomes audible only faintly beyond monotonous clamour of traffic rushing by on the highway below.
While I have always held some appreciation for the nature around me, one consequence of my endeavour to enrich my relationship with God is that I have become incredibly more receptive to the beauty and divine precision inherent in nature than I was before. Like many people, I tended to take for granted God's pivotal role in creation and directing the flow of events in everyday life. We often attribute the mechanisms of nature to indistinct concepts like Mother Nature, assuming the circle and cycles of life somehow simply exist without reflecting on why they exist.
Before I truly embraced my Islam, an Arabic term meaning submission to God, I perceived faith as something we needed to enter into with eyes closed, without rationale, analysis or intellect. To my surprise as I investigated Islamic teachings more thoroughly, I realised that it was through the acquisition of knowledge and use of reason and logic that certainty of God's existence becomes most palpable.
While reading the Quran I was struck by the number of times God asks us to seek wisdom, use our reason and look at evidence in nature and history in order to grow deeper in faith. In virtually every verse we are called upon to ponder its divine messages. The best of believers are not those who blindly submit, but rather "those who reflect" (45:13), "those who use their reason" (2:164), "those who consider" (13:3), "those who have knowledge" (35:28) and so on.
The perfect balance of nature is described superbly in the Quran, which I read in full for the first time last year. We learn that watching, reflecting on and understanding nature are among the principal ways to gain certainty in God's signs and be receptive to His message to humanity.
There is an order to things in nature: birds glide through the sky and make their homes in trees as ants structure their productive communities on or near the ground. Leaves flutter in the wind, change colour and disintegrate into the ground, and the ground appears stationary until it shakes to remind us of our fragility. The clouds converge and disperse, the rain falls and stops, the sun rises and sets according to a meticulously balanced system that can only be divinely weaved. All of the world's vegetation and animal life are constantly obedient to Him; that is, except for humans, who often lose their connection with Allah, the Arabic word for the Almighty God.
In the creation of the heavens and of the earth; in the alternation of night and day; in the ships that sail the ocean bearing cargoes beneficial to man; in the water which God sends down from the sky and with which he revives the earth after its death, scattering over it all kinds of animals; in the courses of the winds, and in the clouds pressed into service between earth and sky, there are indeed signs for people who use their reason. (Quran 2:164)
People of various faiths who are spiritually in tune with God experience glimpses of the Divine in everything. I recall marvelling to learn that the Quran refers to ants and bees as feminine; science proved that worker ants and bees are female only about ten centuries later. I was amazed further when I came to verses describing how animals are created out of water, bodies of the world's sweet and salt waters are separated with a partition, the sun and the moon glide in orbits, the foetus develops in distinct stages and much more.
Having faith requires that we reflect on what we read in the holy books and in messages relayed by the great prophets. I find it counterintuitive to observe animals, vegetation, weather patterns, human diversity, etc, and assume that they simply exist without having been sprung into being by an Almighty force. Once you gain certainty, you accept that while you may not have all of the answers, research and discovery will uncover God's secrets in nature over time.
About a year ago, research findings based on new computer simulations showed how the parting of the Red Sea, described in the Bible and the Quran, could have been caused by strong winds, enabling Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, to cross with fleeing Israelites before the waters engulfed the Pharaoh's soldiers.
Other discoveries of modern science lend credibility to more routine teachings embedded in holy books and prophetic wisdom.
A friend recently related a Hadith, or saying of the last Prophet, where Muhammad, peace be upon him, advised that if a fly is to touch the surface of your food or drink, you should submerge it completely rather than trying to shoo it away. I was initially repulsed at the thought, until I learned the wisdom behind it. The reason, according to the Prophet, was that, "under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote."
This Hadith alludes to two things. The first--that flies can carry disease-causing pathogens triggering such ailments as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and tuberculosis--was discovered only centuries after this Hadith. It was only in the late 19th century that germ theory, the idea that microorganisms cause many diseases, became a fundamental tenet of modern medicine.
The second, that flies produce their own antibiotics, has come to light in recent research, such as a widely cited study by bioscientists in Australia this past decade. They hope confirmation of this could lead to better treatment for human infections.
I believe God appeals to our rationality if we are willing to explore and listen to His messages and signs, with an open mind. Discovering my faith has led me to be more receptive to the signs that were under my nose all the time. Now even witnessing something as commonplace as the daily setting of the sun prompts me to utter "Subhan'Allah," an Arabic phrase roughly meaning "Glorious is God."
Follow Daliah Merzaban on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Desert_Dals
Nature news - Islam and science, 2006
People are eager to credit god with the rainbows and the waterfalls, but choose to ignore blindness-causing parasites, among other things. Nature may be complex, but it is neither serene, nor divine, nor just.
As for the marvellous Quranic science you speak of: Humans don't grow up to be 900 years old, and they don't build boats that can accommodate every species of animal on the planet. But let's just ignore that, aye?
I picture the sun rising over the ocean, casting a golden glow on the shores before me, reflecting into the cerulean skies, and mingling with the clouds, out of which the gulls appear, gliding and calling at the first light. I imagine a landscape of wildflowers, as far as the eye can see, against the red earth, where hemlock and pinyon pine dot the hillsides. I imagine a freshly-fallen snow, where Cardinals, impossibly bright in their red feathers, with their mates, before they disappear back into the thicket. I remember the sun setting over the Grand Canyon, where golden temples appear to float in an indigo blue sea. I've seen all these things, and in each one, I see a creativity that goes far beyond the work of mankind.
I find this troubling:
"I find it counterintuitive to observe animals, vegetation, weather patterns, human diversity, etc, and assume that they simply exist without having been sprung into being by an Almighty force. Once you gain certainty, you accept that while you may not have all of the answers, research and discovery will uncover God's secrets in nature over time."
So, your "intuition" leads you to choose illogical counter-rational belief that continues to divide humanity into believers and non-believers while threatening, even destroying, glorious Nature?
And, what exactly is so wrong or frightening about the fact that this wondrous Cosmos "simply exists?"
"Have we not expanded the earth and made the mountains as tent pegs" (Koran 78:6-7)
" We have cast into the earth anchors lest it shake with you" (Koran 31:10 etc.)
This fact was discovered less than 150 years ago by scientists and now accepted as a fundamental law in geology, the concept of isostacy.
"G.B Airy in 1855 suggested that the crust of the earth could be likened to rafts of timber floating on water.
Thick pieces of timber float higher above the water surface than thin pieces and similarly thick sections of the earth's crust will float on a liquid or plastic substratum of greater density. Airy was suggesting that mountains have a deep root of lower density rock, which the plains lack.
Four years after Airy published his work, J.H Pratt offered an alternative hypothesis...By this hypothesis, rock columns below mountains must have a lower density, because of their greater length, than shorter rock columns beneath plains.
Both Airy and Pratt's hypothesis imply that surface irregularities are balanced by differences in density of rocks below the major features (mountains and plains) of the crust. This state of BALANCE is described as the concept of ISOSTACY (Selby1985:32)
http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/asadi-koranscience.shtml
Most people who reject God claim to be rational. They believe in Science. This is because people who’ve grown up in orbits of other religions see religion and science as a conflict. This is however not true for Islam. Day after day, discovery after discovery, Islam is being proved right in matters of scientific facts. (Read the article, ‘Quran: A Scientific Miracle’ for more details)
In this video, Dr.Maurice Bucaille shows how perfect Quran has been in terms of scientific facts. It is impossible that a book that originated in the “dark ages†of science could have mentioned numerous scientific facts that have only been recently discovered with the help of modern equipments. This is possible only because God, as the creator of Universe and laws of nature, could easily mention it back then, while we discover it today.
http://scanislam.com/video/quran-and-modern-science-dr-maurice-bucaille/
It is patently irrational to attempt to defend them all, simply because they were incorporated as doctrine more than thousand years ago..
Oh, I suppose that's why Christians adopted Jewish Scripture and Greek Ptolemaic geo-centric model of the Universe. I do recall something about your Answer being a Jewish rabbi also... hmmm..
I also recall those... um... mishaps with Copernicus and Galileo who where proclaimed heretics by the Church for denying Greek cosmological model.
Sorry... to go factual on you.
Do try to ask your minister on these subjects. Good luck and blessings.
and ...If the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." -—Bertrand Russell (1952)
Both belief systems (evolutionists and creationists) require faith. I'll admit that sometimes Christianity gets in the way of itself, ultimately however, the Bible is truth. My bible also tells me that I must have faith, the evidence of things not yet seen (Heb 1:1). Science sometimes ignores faith to take leaps in theories. Theories are theories because they are not provable. Evolution is a theory. Evolutionists, therefore, have faith in their theory, I have faith in my God and believe Jesus when he says he is the way, the truth and the life. Know Jesus, Know Life.
No need to bash anyone.
But it is rational and civilized to point out errors of those who reject apparent and basic facts.