Scientists restrict the concept of life to the conditions that obtain on or beneath the outer surface of our planet. Therefore, when they have looked for extra-terrestrial life what they have looked for is conditions which are the same as or similar or closely correspondent to the conditions in which life is evident on the surface of earth. But surely, if they had retained a sufficient sense of the absolute wonder of life (and that absolute wonder is an aspect of life’s being a direct manifestation of the Ever-Living) they should not have ruled out forms and conditions of life which are at present beyond their understanding. In their view, the arguments put forward by Said Nursi, a Muslim scholar from Turkey who wrote mostly in the first half of this century, for the existence of angels and other spirit beings may not be worthy of consideration. However, the latest discoveries in deep sea biology may persuade them to review Nursi’s arguments. Said Nursi wrote at the beginnings of I 930s:

Reality and the wisdom [purposiveness] in the existence of the universe require that the heavens should have conscious inhabitants of their own as does the earth. These inhabitants of many different kinds are called angels and spirit beings in the language of religion.

It is true that reality requires the existence of angels and other spirit beings because the earth, although insignificant in size compared with the heavens, is continually being filled with and emptied of conscious beings. This clearly indicates that the heavens… are filled with living beings who are the perfect class of living creatures. These beings are conscious and have perception, and they are the light of existence; they are the angels, who, like the jinn and mankind, are the observers of the universal palace of creation and students of this book of the universe and heralds of their Lord’s kingdom.

The perfection of existence is through life. Moreover, life is the real basis and the light of existence, and consciousness, in turn, is the light of life. Since life and consciousness are so important, and a perfect harmony evidently prevails over the whole creation, and again since the universe displays a firm cohesion, and as this small ever-rotating sphere of ours is full of countless living and intelligent beings, so it is equally certain that those heavenly [realms] should have conscious, living beings particular to themselves. Just as the fish live in water, so those spirit beings may exist in the heat of the sun. Fire does not consume light, rather, light becomes brighter because of fire. We observe that the Eternal Power creates countless living beings from inert, solid substances and transforms the densest matter into subtle living compounds by life. Thus it radiates the light of life everywhere in great abundance and furnishes most things with the light of consciousness.

From this we can conclude that the All-Powerful, All-Wise One would certainly not leave without life and consciousness more refined, subtle forms of mater like light and ether, which are close to and fitting for the spirit; indeed He creates animate and conscious beings in great number from light, darkness, ether, air and even from meanings and words. As He creates numerous species of animals He also creates from such subtle and higher forms of matter numerous different spirit creatures. One kind … are the angels, others are the varieties of spirit beings and jinn. (The Words I, Truestar l993,pp.113-12)

Half a century after Said Nursi wrote this, nearly 300 animal species, almost all of them previously unknown, have been discovered living around hydrothermal vents which form when sea-water leaking through the ocean floor at spreading ridges is heated by the underlying magma and rushes into the cold ocean. Verena Tunniclife writes:

All life requires energy, and nearly all life on earth looks to the sun as the source. But solar energy is not the only kind of energy available on the earth. Consider the energy that drives the movement and eruption of the planet’s crust. When you look at an active volcano, you are witnessing the escape of heat that has been produced by radioactive decay in the earth’s interior and is finally reaching the surface. Why should there not be biological communities associated with the same nuclear energy that moves continents and makes mountains? And why could not whole communities be fuelled by chemical, rather than, solar energy?

… Most of us associate the escape of heat from the interior of the earth with violent events and unstable physical conditions, with extreme high temperatures and the release of toxic gasses-circumstances that are hardly conducive to life. The notion that biological communities might spring up in a geologically active environment seemed fantastic. And until recently, few organisms were known to survive without a direct or indirect way to tap the sun’s energy. But such communities do exist, and they represent one of the most startling discoveries of 20th-century biology. They live in the deep ocean, under conditions that are both severe and variable.

This ‘startling’ discovery of biology contains clues to some other realities, which sciences should consider. The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, states that angels are created from light. We read in the Qur’an that God created man from dried earth, from wet clay and, from an extract of clay. According to the Qur’an, man has been made a khalifa on the earth. Khalifa means one who succeeds. Many interpreters of the Qur’an have concluded from this that the jinn once ruled the earth and they were succeeded by men.

Starting from the clues above, it should be possible to do formal studies to determine the worth of conclusions such as these:

God first created pure light (nur) and then light. The process of creation followed a gradual, regular accumulation of identities and/or a saltational sequence of abrupt leaps. Fire followed light and then came water and earth. God spread one existence through another, compounding and interweaving. He also created living beings in every phase of creation appropriate for each phase. While the universe was in a state of pure fire or some other high energy, He created the appropriate life-forms. And when the earth became conducive to life, He created plants, animals and man. He adorned every part and phase of the universe with creatures, among them living ones, that are appropriate for that part and phase.

Finally, just as He created innumerable beings from light, ether, air, fire, water and earth, so too, from every word and deed of man, He forms either his paradise or hell. In other words, as He grows a tree from a tiny seed through particles of earth, air and water, so He will build the other world from the material of this world which He will adapt for the other world during the convulsions of Doomsday. And He will use the words and actions of human beings in preparing the paradise or hell of each.

At reception, he was met by the doctor who introduced him to a nurse who accompanied him to the ward and indicated his bed. He felt he was being processed-routine procedures, no doubt. He noted his surroundings with the nervousness of someone about to undergo his first operation. There was a plain white smock for him to put on. He undressed completely behind curtains which enclosed the bed and put on the smock. The transition from the many bits of his normal clothing to the single, bare hospital smock put him in mind of a corpse being dressed in a shroud. The nearness of the afterlife came home to him sharply, and he thought: ‘There is too much of show and display in our lives. It makes us heedless of death and the hereafter.’

The anaesthetist and the nurses who wheeled him on a stretcher-bed to the operating theatre seemed hardly to be aware of him. They talked mostly to each other, and religion was no part of their conversation. They did their work routinely. He could not feel any friend- liness or warmth towards them. Clinical sterility and all the hardware of modem medicine around him reminded him of darkness rather than light, of cold and not warmth, of pessimism and not hope, of death rather than life. He felt himself a stranger in this world, an alien, as he sometimes did also among people on the street, in the bus, at the market.

The anaesthetic when administered was most effective; he must have passed out after only a few seconds…

He woke to find himself in the ward again, and in pain as if oppressed by a heavy burden. It must be all over, he thought, somewhat amazed. Whatever needed cutting out must have been cut out. He felt as if he had been given a new life. As he was coming to, he heard other patients complaining of their pain: ‘0 God, I cannot bear it. 0 Lord, help me!’ Why must it be so? Why do we not grasp our neediness, our weakness, before God, until our suffering is extreme? To knock so urgently at the door of His mercy when we experience hardship, while we fail to thank Him in prosperity, is something peculiar to man.

He had been freed from a bodily illness. The skill of the surgeon had cut out the local cause of his pain. Good. Now, if only there were illustrious doctors who could cure the wounds, the pain and sufferings, of his spirit, who could cut out the tumours of his sins!

After being discharged from hospital he returned home where he lived alone for some time. He received news of the death of his grandmother. He wouldn’t be able to see her again and kiss her hands as he used to do on festival days, nor hear her recite, in her supplication to God after the dawn prayer, the names of all her relatives, one by one, praying with sincere tears for the well-being of each of them.

One by one all his loved ones would be separated from him. That was certain, living in solitude was good and proper. It helped him to feel the closeness of the real Friend. Family and friends and colleagues could be a comfort at times, but they also inculcated routine and habit. For this reason, perhaps, serious-minded people have always felt a need to go into retreat for a short period. A famous man who suffered greatly in this age used to be fearful of what was familiar and altered by human handiwork and familiar with what had remained unaltered, wild: therefore, he used to go into mountains and stay in the company of his Compassionate Lord who knew the innermost secrets of his heart.

His lifetime and the lifetime of his loved ones were short. Either he would leave them or they would leave him: separation was certain. He had noticed in the mirror that white hairs were beginning to appear on his head. Old age and death… Despite the white hairs, he felt himself a child, not even an adolescent. To experience the reality of old age and death is something quite different from what is presented on the subject in books and movies. Certain realities can only be understood with the passage of time and by directly experiencing them; they cannot be understood through words or images about them, however eloquent or moving.

He drifted on waves of intense emotion, at times supposing he was very far away from Him, at other times feeling that He was very near. New windows were opening in his mind for why he believed what he believed, why he had said what he had said, why he had lived through what he had lived through. He saw these words in a light-filled book: ‘We shall seek to sell our selves and our goods (which were only ever on loan to us) to God, in exchange for Paradise, the realm of eternal bliss, and for His pleasure which is a goal whose value no mind can measure’. Is it such a heavy bargain that most people do not sell? No, indeed it is not. For the circle of the permitted things is broad enough to know many pleasures and find ease and contentment in this life. There is no need at all to venture into the circle of the unlawful. The obligatory duties are neither many nor burdensome. To be a slave and soldier of God is a rank of such honour, the delight in it can scarcely be expressed in words. And our duty is to act for the sake of God, and to give and take for His sake, and to move within the circle of His permission and law, so that we may attain peace.

Peace of mind, soul and heart… The peace felt in the bones through the sheer ease of observing the bounds, of not transgressing. Who knows how many people are seeking this peace? How many are fed up with the unlawful ways, who long to rise up against their sins, but plunge back into them after finding no support and becoming depressed…

Looking through a photograph album, he slipped into old memories. The adventure of his life was covered with the leaves of years. Regret at not maintaining the innocence he had been born with increased as he turned the pages. How should so many sins be cleansed, so many spiritual wounds be healed?

Whenever he felt helpless he would turn to his book of supplications and recite from it. He did so now. After a few sentences he was overcome with weeping. He had thought after the operation: ‘If only there were an illustrious doctor certificated by the Healer who could cure the illness and sufferings of my spirit.’ Now, it was as if that doctor were standing but a few steps ahead of him: ‘O my Lord! Peace and blessings from You upon our master Muhammad, the chosen one! In his example is the healing and remedy of hearts, the wholeness and cure of bodies, the light and brightness of eyes.’

Denton, an Australian doctor and scientist, distinguishes a special (or micro) theory of evolution from the general theory. The former would claim only that closely related species can (and did in the past) evolve from others. But the general theory (the one that is widely accepted) claims to explain the origin and current diversity of all species as purely random mutations accompanied by natural selection over a very long period of time. While Denton accepts the special (micro) theory, he demonstrates so many flaws in the general theory that it must be rejected outright: its claims cannot be softened or modified in any way that could rescue the theory.

Chapter I traces the dramatic transformation of Darwin’s stance from a ‘fundamentalist’ acceptance of the Bible’s account of creation to outright rejection. Known facts about the geological age of the earth (the Bible implies 6000 years), fossil evidence of extinct species (Genesis states that all species were rescued from the flood), might justify a rejection of a literal reading of the Bible. But they do not justify a rejection of the concept of conscious design in the creation (implying a Creator). Yet, as Chapter 2 shows, this is just the position Darwin (and his followers) take: it is of the essential core of Darwin’s theory that natural selection is a blind process: ‘Darwin himself clearly stated that the mechanism responsible for … genetic variations [must] be entirely blind to the adaptive needs and requirements of the organism. Evolution by natural selection is therefore, in essence, strictly analogous to problem solving by trial and error, and it leads to the immense claim that all the design in the biosphere is ultimately the fortuitous outcome of entirely blind random processes – a giant lottery.’ This idea is frequently reflected in populist remarks like Carl Sagan’s: ‘given enough time, chance will work miracles’. But as anyone familiar with the relevant mathematics knows, ‘time in itself tells us nothing of the probability of achieving any sort of goal unless the complexity of the search can be qualified’. (Denton shows some of this complexity in Chapter 13, ‘Beyond the reach of chance’.) The universe simply isn’t old enough for even life, let alone life in all its diversity, to have arisen by chance.

Chapter 3 describes how Darwin’s theory turned into a general dogma largely because of the unacceptability as scientific theory of the alternative (conscious design implying a Creator). Yet, if stripped of the philosophical and metaphysical pretensions it so quickly assumed, the theory of evolution could be respectable as a ‘partial truth’. Denton explains in Chapter 4 that there is strong evidence (supporting the restricted claims of the special theory) for closely related animals or plants evolving from each other and forming distinct ‘species’, the term ‘species’ being understood as ‘a reproductively isolated population of organisms’.

According to Denton: ‘There are only two sorts of evidence for evolution which do not depend on actual observation of the process: finding a sequence of inter-grading forms leading unambiguously from one to another; or reconstructing them hypothetically by providing an entirely plausible genealogy including all the intermediate forms and thoroughly convincing explanation of how each stage of transformation came about.’ Example cases for the first sort of evidence are: the peppered moth, two species of European gull, and the droshopila species of Hawaii. Examples for the second sort of evidence include Mengels work on wood warblers of North America on Hawaiian honey-creepers by Amadon, and on small lizards of the Caribbean islands by Gorman and Atkins. How-ever, as Denton emphasizes, such evidence for special (micro) evolution in no way justifies the general theory. ‘However attractive the extrapolation, it does not necessarily follow that, because a certain degree of evolution has been shown to occur, therefore any degree is possible. There is obviously an enormous difference between the evolution of a colour change in a moth’s wing and the evolution of an organ like the human brain, and the differences among the fruit flies of Hawaii, for example, are utterly trivial compared with the differences between a mouse and an elephant, or an octopus and a bee.’

Denton gives good analogies and illustrative examples to argue the general principle that: ‘while sentences, machines and other sorts of complex systems can undergo a certain degree of gradual functional change, there is invariably a limit beyond which the system cannot undergo further gradual change. To cross as it were from one ‘type’ of system to another necessitates a relatively massive reorganization involving the redesign or respecification of all or almost all of the interacting component subsystems. Systems can undergo gradual micro-evolution through a succession of minor changes in their component structures but macro-evolution invariably involves a sudden ‘saltational’ change [i.e. non-gradual change by ‘leaps’]. Clearly, in all such cases, the extrapolation from micro- to macro-evolutionary change does not hold.’ Gradual random processes are incapable of producing ‘simultaneous highly specific correlated changes throughout [an] entire system’ which is precisely what they must be capable of if macro evolution is to work. (This argument is further elaborated in Chapter 13.)

Chapters 5 and 6 describe the ‘typological perception of nature which sees (and classifies) organisms as distinct groups separated by non-trivial, large gaps. There is abundant evidence for this approach and historically classification schemes were based on it. However, following widespread acceptance of the general theory of evolution, some felt the need to construct literally tree-like diagrams – many branches from a single trunk and root. Inevitably, such diagrams had many blanks, many wholly conjectural ‘branches’ needed to link known species through unknown transitionary species to alleged ancestors.

Chapter 7 discusses homology which, once thought to provide supportive evidence for evolution, turns out to be evidence destructive of the theory. 1-lomologous organs cannot be traced back to embryological development and there exist homologous limbs which, according to the theory, must have evolved from very different parts of the embryo. In short, homology does not imply common ancestry.

The subject of Chapter 8 is the key issue of fossil evidence. Darwin was expecting paleontological explorations to uncover the crucial missing ‘links’ predicted (and required) by his theory. However, as the evidence from fossil records has grown, so too has the untenability of Darwin’s theory.

To begin with, we need to know that fossils are a record only of skeletal remains: 99% of any organ ism is soft tissue which is not preserved in fossils. The coelacanth (a favourite with evolutionists) had been presented as a ‘link’ between fish and amphibians. Yet, its skeleton is identical to that preserved in aneien fossils which are as far from having been amphibians as are any other fish, The lesson is that conclusions based on skeleton forms alone do not count for much. Insects preserved in amber from hundreds of millions years ago, identical to modern insects, provide further examples of ‘living fossils’ which somehow evaded evolution.

Mother fossil record favourite with evolutionists is the horse series. Denton writes: ‘The difference between Fohippus and the modem horse is relatively trivial, yet the two forms are separated by sixty million years and at least ten genera and a great number of species. The horse series therefore tends to emphasize just how vast must have been the number of genera and species if all the diverse forms of life on earth had really evolved in the gradual way that Darwinian evolution implies. If the horse series is anything to go by, their numbers must have been indeed the infinitude’ that Darwin imagined. If ten genera separate Bohippus from the modern horse then think of the uncountable myriads there must have been linking such diverse forms as land mammals and whales or molluscs and arthropods. Yet all these myriads of life forms have vanished mysteriously, without leaving so much as a trace of their existence in the fossil record.’

The appeal by evolutionists to the incompleteness of the fossil record as an excuse for clinging to their theory might he worth attending to if the gaps, the incompleteness, were unsystematic or random. But the facts are otherwise: ‘The fundamental problem in explaining the gaps in … is their systematic character – the fact that there are fewer transitional species between the major divisions than between the minor. Between Eohippus and the modern horse(a minor division) we have dozens of transitional species, while between a primitive land mammal and a whale (a major division) we have none. And this rule applies universally throughout the living kingdom to all types of organisms, both those that are poor candidates for fossilization such as insects and those which are ideal, like molluscs. If the gaps really were lhe result of an insufficient search, or the result of the imperfection of the record, then we should expect to find more transitional forms between mouse and whale than between dog and cat.’

The hard evidence should make any objective inquirer ask, not whether we may one day fill the gaps in our record, hut whether gradual evolution ever occurred at all: ‘If the gaps cannot he adequately explained by appealing either to an insufficient search or the imperfection of the record, then this leaves a more or less saltational model of evolution as the only explanation of the gaps.’

In Chapter 9, Denton begins to draw the argument towards the conclusion that: Ultimately there is… absolutely no reason why functional organic systems should form the continuum that evolution by natural selection demands. In the world of physics and chemistry many phenomena are discontinuous. One cannot gradually convert one molecular species into another, neither can one convert gradually one type of atom into another. Between such entities there are jumps. Might not functional organic systems be similarly separated by discontinuities?’ He goes on: ‘It is possible to allude to a number of species and groups such as Archaeopteryx, or the rhipidistian fish, which appear to be to some extent intermediate. But even if such were intermediate to some degree, there is no evidence that they are any more intermediate than groups such as the living lung-fish or monotremes which… are not only tremendously isolated from their nearest cousins, hut which have individual organ systems that are not strictly transitional at all.’

The frustration at the failure to find intermediate forms and the difficulty of conceiving of gradual functional transitions led some scientists to an alternative to gradualism, namely ‘the concept of evolution by saltation, the idea that new organs and types emerge suddenly following some sort of massive macro-mutation.’ Advocates of the idea include the popular contemporary writer Stephen Jay Gould and his predecessor Goldschmidt who introduced the notion of the ‘hopethl monster’ in his the Material Basis of Evolution (1940) as a ‘means of getting from one type to another suddenly in one jump’.

The possibility of such a ‘hopeful monster’ had been likened to a ‘miracle’ by Darwin. The great majority of biologists have followed him in that judgement ever since. So-called freaks of nature do, of course, occur but they have little chance of reproductive survival given that they are horn into an environment where the non-freaks (the normal) survive to reproduce. Denton sums up by saying that: While it might he theoretically possible to avoid the impasse of gradualism by opting for saltation it seems unlikely that purely random processes would ever throw together suddenly adaptations like a feather or the avian lung or the amniotic egg.’

In Chapter 10, the process of DNA replication and protein synthesis is explained for readers unfamiliar with the subject. Equivalents of concepts like ‘universal Turing machine’ and ‘fault tolerant computing’ can be observed in perfectly economical design in the world of molecular genetics.

‘The Enigma of Life’s Origin’, the title of Chapter Il indicates the enormous conceptual and empirical difficulties evolution theory has faced in yet another once-promising area. It was hoped that as the nature of living organisms was more fully understood, the gap between them and inanimate forms would he narrowed. Exactly the opposite happened. The gap that separates the simplest living systems from inanimate systems seems unbridgeable: there is not a hint in inanimate systems of the DNA, messenger RNA, and the protein synthesis mechanism (implying self-replication), found in living forms.

Attempts to explain the origin of life through evolutionary means come up against two other major hurdles. The first is the so-called ‘oxygen-ultraviolet conundrum’. One has to assume that there was no oxygen in the early atmosphere because otherwise any organic compounds would rapidly oxidize. However, this assumption implies that there was no ozone to shield these compounds from deadly doses of solar radiation. In other words, this is a ‘catch 22: If we have oxygen we have no organic compounds, hut if we don’t have oxygen we have none either.’ The second hurdle is the shortage of time for the first life forms to evolve: ‘An Australian group reported the remains of a simple type of algae in rocks at least 3.5 billion years old… So life had to form between 3.9 and 3.5 billion years ago. Just a few hundred million years from nothing to organic compounds to the whole DNA, M-RNA, protein system.’

These and other apparently insoluble difficulties led the Nobel-prize winning scientist Crick to comment:

‘An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to he almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.’ The problem of the origin of life is an example of what Denton calls ‘the universal principle that complex systems cannot be approached gradually through functional intermediates because of the necessity of perfect co-adaptation of their components as pre-condition of function.’ Crick is also famous for running away from the problem by suggesting that life must have originated somewhere outside the galaxies known to us and been cast down amid cosmic dust as a ‘seed’ – his so-called panspermia’ theory.

The subject of Chapter 12 is the modern molecular biological techniques which have provided biologists with an entirely new way of comparing organisms at a biochemical level (as opposed to the classical anatomical comparisons). Again, the comparisons established that: ‘the pattern of diversity at a molecular level conforms to a highly ordered hierarchic system. Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology.’

The gaps in the ‘chain of being’ are seen at both empirical and theoretical level: wherever we find significant empirical discontinuities in nature we invariably face great, if not insurmountable, conceptual problems in envisaging how the gaps could have been bridged in terms of gradual random processes. We saw this in the fossil record, we saw it in the ease of the feather, in the case of the avian lung, and in the case of the wing of the hat. We saw it again in the ease of the origin of life and we see it here in this new area of comparative biochemistry.’

In Chapter 13 (‘Beyond the Reach of Chance’) Denton illustrates the impossibility of reaching functional complex systems via blind random processes.

In Chapter 14, we imagine ourselves in a cell magnified a thousand million times and try to grasp the wonderful reality of life. What we see is a system much more complex and perfect than any human artefact built so far. The elaborate Soviet lunar exploratory machine, the Lunakod, which moved on articulated legs, highlights by comparison the sheer ease of solutions provided in nature for such problems as self-location, stability and locomotion. The amazing storage capacity and efficiency (size and energy economy) of biological information storage and retrieval is another striking example of the ease of nature and the hardship’ humans face to match it even crudely by artifice.

Denton comments: ‘According to Paley, we would never infer in the case of a machine, such as a watch, that its design was due to natural processes such as the wind and rain; rather, we would be obliged to postulate a watch-maker. Living things are similar to machines, exhibiting the same sort of adaptive complexity and we must, therefore, infer by analogy that their adaptive complexity is also the result of intelligent activity.’ And he adds: ‘The conclusion may have religious implication but it does not depend on religious presuppositions.’

Chapter 15 (‘Priority of Paradigm’) gives Denton’s explanation of why the theory of evolution has been so pervasive in our age despite overwhelming contrary evidence.

It is a modern example of a scientific community defending a theory just as tong as ii holds sufficient intrinsic appeal.’ He likens it to the defence by medieval astronomers of the Ptolemaic theory of the heavens, and by the eighteenth-century chemists of the phlogiston theory of combustion.

There is not space here to argue at sufficient length against the widely held stance of modern scientists that the concept of a Creator-God is of no relevance to a properly scientific understanding of how the natural world is or how it operates, that, in brief, it cannot he a part of any scientific explanation or theory. We must insist, however, that scientific knowledge cannot exist (any more than its dominant theories can com -about) in some sort of vacuum, isolated from the complex of human knowledge, attitudes and relationships. The social implications of the ‘central claim of Darwinian theory that humanity was not born by the intentions of a Deity hut by a completely mindless trial and error selection of random molecular patterns…’ have been, in general, very had. A theory so certainly false should never have imprisoned scientific imagination for as tong as it has. Ii could not have done so if the aspiration to scientific knowledge had been tutored in the humility that comes with a serious, religious consideration of our status as creatures and servants of God. Only a religious perspective teaches that all human curiosity – its perceptive faculties, its intelligence and the instruments it devises to extend its powers – exists as the gift of the One All-Merciful God who created us and the intelligibility of the world so that we might draw nearer to Him. At least in the field of biology, the alternative to believing in a Creator did not, as is claimed, offer freedom from dogmatism: the lasting value of Denton’s hook is to have demonstrated that reality with clear argument and a large body of hard evidence.

A person living fifty years ago would have found nothing extraordinary in this verse. Yet it is, read in the light of what we know now of atmospheric physics, extraordinarily rich in meaning and significance.

The materialists of the last century regarded rain as the simple precipitation of water vapour and even expected, in their godless arrogance, to be able to produce rain at will. Moreover, they ridiculed those who would pray for rain. It was not realized at that time that the phenomenon of rainfall, i.e. the conversion of a cloud into rain, is not such a simple event after all. An atheistic science was unable to pose, let alone seek to answer, a number of key questions:

1. How can vapour, which is regarded as gaseous water, remain in the same form in atmospheric strata, such as the Siberian skies, where temperatures can drop to forty degrees below zero? Why does it not fall as ice blocks?

2. How does the size of raindrops come about, and in what measure and form do raindrops descend to earth? What are the preconditions for the formation of raindrops of such a convenient size and shape?

3. How does a cloud vaporize, and how and whence does the salt in clouds come to be there, seeing that salt cannot be vaporized at the boiling point of water?

Over the last twenty years, rational-if still only partial-answers have been found to these puzzling questions. Let us now re-read the sacred verse, and identify its relevant points:

a. God regards rain as a physical event of the same order of significance as the resurrection of the dead. That is the meaning of His saying that we will be brought forth from the earth just as He has sent water from the sky in due measure and brought a dead land to life.

b. The Qur’an describes rain as a carefully measured descent of water, the idea of ‘measure’ being conveyed in the phrase bi-qadarin which indicates an ordered and calculated, willed and deliberate, measuring-the definition of a mathematical program.

c. ‘…and We raise to lift therewith a dead land.’ This sentence, the central portion of the verse, is likewise no ordinary statement. It refers directly and specifically to a dead land being raised to life; it does not say ‘plants emerge from it’. We shall examine the implications of this choice of phrasing below.

Let us now briefly review the scientific aspects of the miracle of rain. The results of the latest research have shed light on many previously unknown points relating water, clouds and rain. In doing so, they provide a wonderful exposition of the verse we are considering. We may summarise these points as follows:

1. A study done in the United States by Vincent J. Schaeffer has revealed that particles of water do not freeze down to -40 C when they are very fine and pure. Water has to be impure and formed of large masses in order to freeze at 0 C. A cloud is a special physical structure that is formed of water vapour which is immediately converted into minute water droplets. It therefore does not share the properties of ordinary water. Atmospheric clouds do not freeze and descend even at -30 C.

2. Clouds are formed by the agglomeration of tiny water droplets around particles of salt or cosmic dust. These tiny nuclei constitute the basis for rain. The origin of cosmic dust is unknown; also, the way in which the dust particles become lodged in the cloud is not yet well understood. However, it is believed that the water at the ocean surface participates in the vaporization process by contributing particles of salt.

3. It is conjectured that there are about one billion water particles per cubic millimeter during cloud formation. There are 50-500 cloud droplets per cubic centimeter in clouds. How these droplets are converted into raindrops is a matter of considerable controversy.

4. Up until 1950, the theory of Bergeron-Findeisen was the most widely accepted explanation of cloud droplets. According to Bergeron-Findeisen, the water droplets first form condensation nuclei, and raindrops then coalesce around them.

However, according to more recent studies, the growth of a cloud droplet over time proceeds concomitantly with various circumstances. A drop of water gradually assumes the nuclear state, overcoming conditions even of forty degrees below zero, and produces rain through a very complex equation:

5. As for the production of rain, minute water particles first coalesce around the condensation nucleus. Then, as they grow, the surface area of these water particles increases as they approach the ground. The increase in surface area in turn allows the velocity of the raindrop to be checked by air friction, with the result that rainfall acquires a gentle descent. This balancing process is a miracle of Divine compassion: by the time the raindrop touches ground, it has slowed down to make a soft landing, almost as if by a parachute. The equation for this descent and balanced speed is:

In the light of current scientific knowledge, the sentence Who sends down rain from the sky in due measure can only mean to us that the descent of rain is a matter of the finest, most subtle calculation. Linking it to the latter part of the verse, it is a miracle of Divine science akin to the raising of the dead.

Present day atmospheric physics also regards rain formation and rainfall as a scientific wonder, and many volumes have been devoted to the subject. Interested readers may usefully consult Robert Byes’ Elements of Cloud Physics and Louis J. Nin’s Cloud Physics and Cloud Seeding.

We now come to the implications of the second sentence in the verse: and we raise to life therewith a dead land.

When soil is dry, it is apparently lifeless. In fact the soil is very much alive, needing rain for its life to he activated. What does science have to say about this?

There are a million times a million bacteria in a gram of soil. These bacteria become wholly inactive, dormant, when it does not rain for a long time. It is as if they change into lifeless genetic codes. All these microbes revive when rain falls, and initiate a large production campaign beginning with nitrogen fixation. Their activity gives life in turn to thousands of small organisms. It is as if a dead underground city has come to life. Fertilizers form, the seeds of innumerable small plants revive, opening channels under the ground with their roots, like the roads of a city. Next, small insects and ants, each with their own nests, burrow under the earth, making it comparable to a large city. This is how a ‘dead land’ is revived.

What is the life-giving secret of rain? This part of the verse directs our attention to the connection of rain, and so of water, with life.

The basic chemical substance of living things is a bridge of hydrogen, lending continuity to the life of an organism, which we call the ‘hydrogen bonds’. The hydrogen is changed frequently, forming new bonds and transferring vitality. Since this hydrogen can be replaced only by the hydrogen produced during the ionization of water, water is indispensable for life.

This rule holds for all living things. A dehydrated organism is like a frozen skeleton even if it preserves its DNA and its genetic code: it can neither move nor reproduce. When water arrives and donates hydrogen from its separating H and OH ions, the code of life jumps into action. This is easily seen, particularly in the case of microbes. In more developed organisms, vitality cannot be restored even when water arrives because the tissue layers have been damaged by dehydration. The ‘revival of the dead land’ alludes to such profound biological laws.

We now turn to the last part of the verse: even so will you be raised [from the dead]. Our resurrection, the verse here declares, is a similar activation by Divine command of our codes remaining in the soil. It declares that just as the rain activates the genetic codes in a dead land and suddenly regenerates life, the codes will be processed and revived with the speed of a computer as soon as the Divine Will gives the order: ‘Come to life, arise.’ And finally, the analogy with rain means that God, Who gives life under the ground by sending a hydrogen ion, can doubtless also restore us to life when He wills.

Approximately ten billion human beings have lived on earth since Adam. The size of each individual’s code is about 1 micron; if you collected them all, they would not fill a glass. If God were to pour the genetic codes of all the humans He created from a glass into the soil, including those whose codes have been lost, and were to say ‘Now, Be!’, all human beings would be recreated in the twinkling of an eye

This is the similitude that God provides through this verse, for those possessed of knowledge with understanding. In effect, He is declaring: ‘Just as I have given life to an entirely lifeless land by means of a raindrop, it is no trouble at all for Me to reactivate the hydrogen in your biological genetic codes.’

He was born in Cordova in 52OAH (1126) and named after his grandfather Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Rushd, who died in the same year. His grandfather was the Chief Judge in Cordova and the foremost authority in Maliki jurisprudence. To distinguish him from his illustrious ancestor, Ibn Rushd was later known as Ibn Rushd al-Hafid (the grandson).

Cordova, where Ibn Rushd grew up, was a thriving centre of all the diverse arts of civilization and culture attracting many great scholars from around the then known world to its wonderful libraries. Ibn Rushd studied and memorized the Qur’an and the Muwatta of Imam Malik. He was an excellent student of jurisprudence and quickly qualified to give legal opinions and sit as judge.

Following his work in the sciences of law, language and Hadith, he went on to study mathematics, astronomy and astrology and then medicine. He was a friend to the most prominent thinkers and writers of his age: Ibn al-Tufayl (d. 1186/6), author of the famous allegory Hayy ibn Yaqzan (said to have influenced Robinson Crusoe ); the philosopher, Ibn Bajja (Avempace in the West, d. 1139); the great jurist and judge Abu Bakr ibn al ‘Arabi (d. l148); the famous physician Abu Marwan ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar in the West, d. 1161) and his son Abu Bakr (d. 1198).

Ibn Rushd served as a judge in Ishbiliya (Seville) in 1171 and then in Cordova two years later. His reputation for wide knowledge, correctness and fairness in giving verdicts, led to his appointment as Chief Judge. His book Bidayat al-mujtahid wa nihayat al-muqtasid (The reference for the searcher and the resort for the fair) remains an important reference for students of jurisprudence and is still taught in universities to this day. Although he was a Maliki he used the ideas of other schools of thought. Because he had so many activities and interests besides his public duties, Ibn Rushd had to organize his time very fully: he spent his days working as a judge, teaching, and in academic discussion with other scholars; he reserved his nights for reading and writing.

His friend Ibn al-Tufayl wrote to invite him to visit Marrakech, the capital of the Muwahhidun (Almohades) who had established a powerful and stable state in North Africa after they took over from the Murabitun (Almoravides), and were famous for their patronage of scientists, physicians, theologians and philosophers. Ibn Rushd’s intelligence, learning and ideas so impressed the ruler, Abu Yusuf ‘Abd al-Mu’min, that he was appointed to reform the educational system. This he did successfully before returning to Cordova.

When Abu Ya‘qub ibn ‘Abd al-Mu’min came to power, he appointed Ibn Rushd as his personal physician after Ibn Tufayl. Ibn Rushd held this post for a year (1183) when he was appointed as Chief judge. His success provoked court envy and he was falsely accused of heresy, in particular that he adhered too closely to the doctrines of Aristotle. He was indeed a supporter of Aristotle’s doctrines after these were properly reformed and adapted to Islam. Ibn Rushd fell out of favour at the court and was ill-treated. His books on philosophy were burnt, though his works on medicine and theology were not censored. When Abu Ya‘qub discovered he had been misinformed, he tried to invite Ibn Rushd back to apologise to him, but he was too late. Ibn Rushd died on 9th Safar 595AH (December 1198).

His writings

Ibn Rushd was broadly cultured indeed and wrote on many different subjects. Here we can mention only the most famous of his great works. In jurisprudence, as noted above, he wrote Bidayat al-mujtahid wa nihayat al-muqtasid (The reference for the searcher and the resort for the fair). In philosophy, he wrote Tahafut al-tahafut (refutation of the refutation), his response to Imam al-Ghazali’s famous Tahafut al-falsafa (refutation of philosophy). Ibn Rushd combined both philosophy and religion in mainly two books: Fasl al-maqal wa taqrib ma bayna l-shari‘a wa l-hikma min al-ittisal (an authoritative treatise on the convergence between the religious law and philosophy), and Kitab al-kashf ‘an manahij al-adilla fi ‘aqa’id al-milla wa ta‘rif ma waqa‘a fiha bi hasb al-ta‘wil min al-subah al-muzayyifa wa 1-bida‘ al-mudilla (an exposition of the methodology of demonstrating the creeds and description of the confusions and innovations in interpretation which confound truth and lead to error). In medicine, Ibn Rushd wrote the Kitab al-kulliyyat fi al-tibb (a general reference on medicine) which was translated into Latin and Hebrew and European vernaculars. It was a major reference in medicine though it never reached the standard of al-Qanun fi al-Tibb of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037) which was used everywhere as simply T he Canon of Medicine.

Ibn Rushd had prepared this book especially for practising physicians and students of medicine. He apologised for the work’s brevity, a limitation he attributed to his preoccupation with commitments to judging, political affairs and philosophy. He advised those who sought greater detail to consult al-Taysir (The simplification) of Abu Marwan ‘Abd Al-Malik ibn Zuhr. Al-Kulliyyat is organized under seven broad headings or chapters:

1. Anatomy
2. The function of the organs
3. Diseases (pathology)
4. Syndromes: a brief clinical review
5. Health care, especially sports, massage and sleep
6. Medication and diet
7. Healing (particularly of different types of fevers).

The chapter on anatomy in al-Kulliyat

Ibn Rushd criticized the physicians and students of medicine of his time for neglecting anatomy. His own presentation of the subject is both concise and precise. He divides it into two major areas:

a. Anatomy of ‘simple’ organs such as bones, flesh, and veins.

b. Anatomy of ‘compound’ organs-for example, the arm which comprises bones, flesh, veins, tendons, nerves etc.

His description starts with the bones of the head and the teeth. 

Bones

There are six bones in the cranium and 14 in the upper jaw (the maxilla) and the ear, and two in the lower jaw (the mandible). All these bones are attached by seams except the two bones of the mandible that are articulately joined. This was later established as untrue-the mandible in fact has a single bone not two. The first to discover this was the physician and linguist ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (Ibn al-Labbad). He examined 10,000 cadavers removed from the hills of al-Muqattam, east of Cairo, during the construction of a road. He realized this fact after observing thousands of examples. This was revealed in his wonderful book al-Ifada wa l-i’tibar fi l-umur al-mushahada wa l-ahwal al-mu‘ayana fi ardi Misr, (review and lessons from examinations and experiences in Egypt).

Ibn Rushd wrote of the teeth that there are 16 in each jaw-two central incisors, two lateral incisors and two canines, and five molars and premolars on both right and left sides. There are three or four roots in the maxilla but only two in the mandible, the remaining teeth have only one root.

He also described the large aperture in the back part of the skull, the foramen magnum, and its relation with the seven vertebra of the neck (cervical vertebrae), which have apertures on the sides. The vertebrae of the chest region are twelve; in the lumbar there are five, linked to the sacrum in which he counted three bones (in fact there are five) attached to the bone of the coccyx which is also composed of three attached vertebrae.

Ibn Rushd said that all vertebrae are articulate except the first two from the neck, because the first vertebra is attached to two appendices ramified from the skull.

He also said the bone of the sacrum is attached from the sides of the hips, in each of which is the acetabulum (socket) which contains the ‘head’ of the thigh bone (femur), often referred to as the ‘pomegranate’.

Ibn Rushd described in detail the bones of the front side starting from the clavicles up to the pubic bone, passing by the ribs and the bones of the shoulders. He also described the upper and lower limbs very precisely. What he wrote is not different from what we know today except that, for the bones of the arm, he uses ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ zanad (forearm) to mean the radius and the ulna. He indicated the bones of the leg, nowadays known as the fibula and tibia, in the same terms.

Veins and arteries

In the old days, the arteries were called the ‘beating veins’ (dhawarib ), and jugular veins were the ‘non-beating’ veins (ghayr al-dhawarib ). Ibn Rushd made a precise distinction between the two types of veins which remains accurate and valid. He wrote:‘Arteries come out of the heart whereas the jugular veins come back to it.’ He also described the difference precisely, the arteries are more solid and have two similar layers: the fibres of the inner layer are crosswise while the outer layer fibres are length-ways-even by modern standards a very professional anatomical description.

Two arteries of different size come out of the heart, the smaller one goes to the lungs and ramifies into them (pulmonary artery). The other (aorta) is larger, divided into many sections and ramifies into the whole body, one section going up to the head and upper limbs, another going alongside the vertebral column with branches leading to the chest and abdomen; it ends in the lower body and feeds the two lower limbs.

Ibn Rushd’s fascinating description is confirmed as correct and accurate. However, he failed to observe the circulation of the blood accurately. This was not properly described until nearly a hundred years later by Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288) a Damascus-born physician who worked in hospitals in Cairo, and many centuries before William Harvey (1578-1657). 

The nervous system

The nervous system is the most complicated organ in the human body and its anatomy has only gradually become known over recent centuries. Nevertheless, Ibn Rushd was able to describe the brain, its membranes and the cranial nerves. He describes the smelling nerve perfectly, pointing out that it ends with a nipple like that of the breast. He does not consider this nerve as the primary one, giving that distinction to the optical nerve. The first pair of nerves issue from the brain and form the sclera inside the cranium, then come out to the eyes each from its side. This is a wonderfully precise description.

Ibn Rushd then describes the nerves that feed the muscles of the eye. According to modern anatomy, these nerves are the third, fourth and sixth, but Ibn Rushd considers them all as the second pair that ramifies in the muscles of the eyes. He considers the third pair as related to the next (the fourth), and these feed areas of the face, the ear, the palate and the nose-in fact, he was writing about the fifth and seventh pair of nerves according to modern anatomy. As for the fifth, Ibn Rushd says that a part of it leads to the ears and the muscles of the cheeks, whereas this is identified as part of the seventh pair.

Ibn Rushd writes that the sixth nerve feeds the pharynx and the tongue and part of it leads to the muscles near and around the shoulder and another part deviates to the neck and a branch of that goes to the larynx. This is actually the eleventh nerve (the accessory nerve) and there is some confusion in Ibn Rushd’s account with the description of the tenth nerve (vagus; the wandering or confused nerve). Although he attributes many characteristics of the vagus nerve to the accessory one, Ibn Rushd is very accurate in the description of the characteristics themselves. He observes that some of the branches of this nerve lead to the chest and feed the heart, lungs, and esophagus; that it runs through the diaphragm and makes the link with the cardiac and liver membranes, the spleen and the rest of the intestines/bowels.

Ibn Rushd describes the seventh nerve as starting from the back of the brain and ramified in the tongue: he is describing accurately the twelfth nerve (hypo-glossal).

He describes as accurately as modern anatomy does, the nerves that go along the vertebrae. He mentions the eight pairs of cervical nerves, sixteen pairs of dorsal nerves, and five pairs of lumbar nerves.

He misses the correct number of the sacral nerves, they seemed only three to him because they are very closely attached-in fact they are five. Three nerves come from the bone of the coccyx and a single nerve comes out on the sides from the middle. This is absolutely accurate.

Ibn Rushd wrote;

‘The brain has two nipple-shaped appendices that grow from its two advanced abdomens (olfactory bulb). They reach the bone that resembles the cribrium (cribriform plate), which is perforated with many holes [i.e. like a sieve], not smooth but rough with its position in the cranium, where it reaches the end of the nose.’

It would be very hard to improve on the concision or accuracy of this account even today.

About the membranes of the brain, he wrote, again with wonderful, inspiring accuracy:

The brain has two membranes, one is hard and thick (dura mater), and the other is thin (pia mater), they cover the brain very closely and in some locations are completely joined. The thick one is adherent to the cranium. This membrane has many perforations in two places, the first at the canal at the end of the nose (cribriform plate), and the second at the bone of the palate. Under the brain on the thick cover, there is the mysterious net composed of veins that go up to the head.’

The structure of eye

Ibn Rushd’s ability and competence as an anatomist is most clearly demonstrated in his description of the eye and its layers, which compares most favorably with what is known today except some minor differences in terminology. Ibn Rushd had even established the original development of the layers of the eye in the fetus, and discovered that they appear to imitate the layers of the brain and its membranes. Ibn Rushd combined accurate observation with brilliant exposition, sight with insight, presenting the structures of the eye as well as any twentieth-century expert could, and did so many centuries ahead of any physician in Europe.

He wrote:

The eye is composed of seven layers and three liquid areas. The first, from the side of the cranium, is a membranous layer that develops from the thick layer (sclera). The next layer from outside develops from the thinner membrane of the brain; it is called al-mashima (choroid). The next is a layer similar to the net (retina). It grows from the same nerve that comes out of the brain. In the middle of this layer, there is a soft and liquid area called al-rutuba al-zujajiyya (vitreous humour). Inside it, there is another spherical body but with some minor flatness. It is as clear as the ice and called al-rutuba al-jalidiyya , and we call it nowadays al- ‘adasa (lens).’

Ibn Rushd continues this wonderful description, by mentioning al-rutuba al-ma’iyya al-amamiyya (aqueous humour), he also called it al-rutuba al-baydhiyya because its liquid is similar to the soft liquid egg-white:

‘On the outside of this liquid appears a soft body whose inner texture is velvet-like, that follows the al-rutuba of baydhiyya (aqueous humour); smooth from the outside its colour is different from the body of the other, it can be very black or less dark or even blue.’ This is an extremely precise description of the iris (quzahiyyatu al-‘ayn) and the ciliary body (al-jism al-hudhabi).

He adds:

‘Inside the ciliary body, next to the lens, a hole that widens and narrows depending on the extent of darkness that it needs, the hole is called hadaqa (pupil) and the membrane itself is called the inabiyya (grape- like) layer.

‘Next to this layer, a cover that has a hard and clear white and thin plate which is called al-qarniyya (cornea). It takes the colour of the layer below it. On the top of this rises a white body called al-multahim (conjunctiva).’

Ibn Rushd also wrote about the physiology of sight:

‘The sight is not a thing that comes out of the eye as Galinius used to think. The eye receives the colours through the reflecting objects in which they are held, in the same way as a mirror does. Once the colours are reflected in the eye, the object is then conceived by the visioning power.

‘This could well be proved in natural science (physics). That is why any of those parts of the eye is able to reflect the colours because of its very glossy surface. So that body is the special tool to the lens and the advantage of the qarniyya (cornea) is . . . [that] it is made clear and thin so that it does not prevent the ice-like liquid (lens) from receiving the images.’

This is an accurate description of the eye and the physiology of sight that does not differ much from what we know today.

From this brief dip into a chapter of al-Kulliyyat fi al-Tibb , we realize the importance of the work of Ibn Rushd-jurist, philosopher, physician. He was an expert in each of these fields and the most distinguished scholar in Spain and North Africa. He neither experienced nor discovered any contradiction between his religion and his science; rather, his quest for knowledge and excellence, his wonderful curiosity, enlightened and improved his faith. His famous observation- who practises autopsy, his faith in God increases -should silence the false allegation that Muslims never practised anatomy and that they are against applied sciences. What has been written by so many Muslims in all fields of knowledge refutes this allegations. Medicine and the other applied sciences are a necessary and essential contribution to the well-being of humankind. Therefore, to work in them is fard kifaya , a collective obligation upon the community of Muslims as a whole, an obligation which some members of the community must undertake on behalf of the others who cannot.

Islam is the guide for those who seek true and sound knowledge in every subject. All sciences, so long as they are directed to God and not to merely worldly ends or personal glory, bring their students closer to God and make easier the way to approach and please Him: Those who fear God, amongst his servants, are those who have knowledge. And God is the Guide to the straight path.

God Himself is the Most Compassionate of the compassionate (A‘raf, 7,15: Yusuf 12.64,92) and the best of those who forgive (Mu’minun, 23.109,118). This means that compassion is an emotion whose source and original is the Divine attributes, the Compassionate and the Merciful. Our beloved Prophet, upon him be peace, explains how even animals have compassion: ‘God divided His Mercy into a hundred portions. He held back with Himself ninety-nine portions and sent the other one down to earth. It is out of that one portion that living creatures find compassion for each other. Even an animal is careful with its leg so that its young are not hurt’ (Bukhari, Adab, 19; Muslim, Tawba, 17). The reason why compassion is a noble quality is that it is a portion of God’s infinite compassion.

Bearing this in mind Muslims are inspired to help one other and other living creatures, and treat them with mercy, as a religious and moral duty. Those who fail in this duty, who do not have compassion for others, are believed to remain deprived of God’s compassion and people’s forgiveness. The Prophet said: ‘The one who does not forgive is not forgiven’ (Bukhari, Adab, 106: Muslim, Fada’il, 65); ‘God does not forgive the one who has no mercy (Muslim, Fada’il, 66; Tirmidhi, Birr, 16).

We all know that Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, always treated children, the elderly and the sick, women, widows and orphans, indeed all people who might be in need, and even animals, with tolerance and mercy. Once he said: ‘Often I start my prayer intending to prolong it. However, when I hear a baby crying I feel myself urged to cut it short in order to ease the mother’s distress’ (Bukhari, Adhan, 163). He also instructed Muslims who lead prayers to keep the prayers short in order not to distress or tire the sick or the weak and elderly in the congregation (Bukhari, Ahkam, 13).

In Islam, compassion and mercy are a universal duty. The Prophet said: ‘God forgives those who forgive. You should have mercy for those on earth so that those in heaven shall have mercy for you’ (Abu Dawud, Adab, 58). Therefore, a Muslim must treat all people- Muslim or non-Muslim-and all living creatures with mercy and tolerance. The saying of the Prophet that a sinful woman obtained God’s pardon because she felt pity for a dog dying of thirst and troubled herself to draw water from a well and give it to the dog, is a clear message to people that they should have mercy for all creatures.

Once a man accompanied by a child came to the Prophet. When the man started to kiss and caress the child, the Prophet asked: ‘Do you feel mercy for the child?’ The man said, ‘Yes’. The Prophet said:

‘Because of your mercy for the child you also deserve God’s mercy, since He is the Most Compassionate of the compassionate.’

Mercy means a love that includes feelings of protection and guardianship. The saying of the Prophet just cited tells us that he loved children and instructed believers to treat children with care and mercy. We should remember that the Prophet used to greet children, give them food, hug and caress them, and let them ride on his camel. He also cherished non- Muslim children. When some children were killed by both sides in a battle, the Prophet became very sad. Some people tried to console him and said that he should not be so distressed for non-Muslim children. He replied: ‘These children, even though they are non-Muslims, are better than you [because they are sinless]. Be careful not to kill children. Do not kill children!’

During the caliphate of ‘Umar, the great Caliph was discussing the duties of a man he was about to appoint as governor. During their discussions a small boy came in. Caliph ‘Umar was merciful towards children. He took the boy on his lap and kissed him. The man was so struck by ‘Umar’s behaviour with the boy that he asked if he was the Caliph’s son. ‘Umar said: ‘No, he is an orphan of a man who was martyred in a battle.’ The man said:

‘O Commander of the Believers! You show such love for another man’s child, hugging and kissing him! I have three children and have never done the same with them.’ On hearing this, it was ‘Umar’s turn to be astonished. He said to the man: ‘The one who lacks love and mercy for his own children cannot have those feelings for other people. Therefore I have changed my mind and will not appoint you to that post.’ ‘Umar recognized that love and mercy are among our religious obligations and a means of spiritual nourishment. If we do not treat children with love and mercy, particularly orphans, their emotional and psychological growth may be stunted and their spiritual life damaged-lack of love can harden the human heart.

Love, compassion and mercy are three golden keys to deliverance and peace of mind and heart. We hope that humanity will regain their commitment to these values which are and always have been of the highest relevance and importance for our well-being.

The Qur’an, which contains the Divine guidance necessary for humankind, gives the social dimensions of human life the most importance. That is why Muslim scholars reflected upon and wrote about sociological matters long before sociology was recognized as a formal discipline in Europe. Even acts of individual worship commanded by Islam have an essentially social or collective aspect which is evidently beneficial to the community, enabling mutual care and solidarity as well as identity and cohesion. 

The principle of worship

Part of the rationale behind the duties of worship established by the Qur’an is to maintain social order by training individuals in submission to the One God of all. The Qur’anic concept of worship is inclusive-it means fulfilling the commands and avoiding the prohibited. Every aspect of a Muslim life is interrelated with every other and oriented to worship. Verses 21-22 of Chapter al-Baqara give the reason for calling human beings to worship:

O people! Worship your Guardian-Lord who created you and those who came before you, that you may have the chance to learn righteousness; who has made the earth your couch and the heavens your canopy; and sent down rain from heavens; and brought forth therewith fruits for your sustenance. Do not then set up rivals to God when you know [the truth].

The comprehensiveness of worship reflects the comprehensiveness of the Divine attributes upon which human life depends and of which it is always needy. This is clear in the great opening chapter of the Qur’an, al-Fatiha. Before saying You we worship and to You we turn for help, we praise and glorify God as Lord and Sustainer of all creatures and creation, as the Most Merciful and Compassionate, as Master of the Day of Judgement.

As the Qur’an emphasizes in many verses, worship strengthens and matures the conscience making it individually and socially active on behalf of good. Without it, the Islamic virtues do not become a part of the normal character of either individual Muslims or of their communities. The present condition of Muslims in the world, in spite of their huge numbers, illustrates how, if worship is neglected, families and societies lapse into mutual distrust, feuding and internal wars, making them vulnerable to external manipulation and thereby weakening them further as Muslims.

Worship is the means to contentment both in this world and in the Hereafter. It harmonizes worldly and otherworldly aspirations and activities because it sustains a vigorous, honourable bond of each and all with their Lord and, through their worshipping as the creatures of One God, with each other. Just as people working for a highly regarded company or enterprise are proud to declare their association with it, so too are alert, practising Muslims proud to declare their belonging to God through the service of worship and say: inna li-llah – we are for God, we belong to God.

How worship provides for man’s worldly contentment can be explained as follows:

1. Man is privileged compared to other creatures by his subtle and complex senses and faculties. He is most selective and scrupulous and is born with an inclination towards living rightly and seeking perfection, and a corresponding aversion to what is bad, ugly and gross. The inclination towards perfection means that he has almost infinite needs. Indeed, even to satisfy the needs essential for survival, namely food, clothing and shelter (security), he is obliged to co-operate with fellow human beings. Therefore, man is, essentially a social creature.

The development of three basic faculties-thinking, desiring and using force to achieve objectives-are restrained in all creatures except man. Because man is uniquely charged with the duty of stewardship of the creation, God has put no restraints upon the development of these faculties in man. There is, in consequence, a potential in man to unjust and unruly conduct, to do wrong to his best nature, to live selfishly at the expense and in disregard of others. But social life requires some measure of discipline on the part of a society’s members if it is to function effectively to secure the basic needs for all.

However, though all people agree upon the need for justice, their understanding of justice will differ according to a number of factors such as cultural background and level, conscience, experience, interests and relationships. Hence the need for an overarching authority whose command is acceptable on account of its universality and impartiality. This authority is religion. As the laws of physics, set by Divine command, are constant in their operations and neutral as regards man’s interventions in the natural world, so too the ordinances of religion (the laws of human relationships and relationship with God) are constant, unchanging and impartial.

For man to consent to obey the commands of religion, he must be alert to the Divine Power which created him and all things. He must understand and remember the principles of belief, in particular that he is sent to this world to be tested and perfected, that the One who sent him observes him constantly and knows the condition of his innermost being and hears his every petition. Worship is the principal means to maintain this state of mind and to improve it.

2. Worship awakens conscience and therefore keeps people honest in their social relations and duties.

3. Worship, because of its social dimensions, maintains the quality of human relationships. Regular prayer enables meeting and interaction with other Muslims in the mosque; fasting at least one month each year reminds the prosperous and well-fed of the conditions of the less-fortunate and unites all in a shared discipline; the obligation to pay the alms-tax requires an effort to create prosperity and then share it to achieve distributive balance in the economy; the greater pilgrimage to Makka assembles all the diverse tribes and nations of Muslims in a great, public demonstration of unity and solidarity under One God.

It is hard to conceive of any more effective means of establishing social harmony and mutual responsibility than the duties of worship in Islam.

The principle of striving

One of the laws set in the universe by God is work or striving. As God is always active (Qur’an, 85.16) He commands human beings to be active also and renew themselves. The whole creation is constantly busy in glorifying and praising God (e.g. 59.1). The world of living organisms hums with the rhythms of labouring:

And your Lord taught the bee to build its cells in hills, on trees, and in [men’s] habitations… (Nahl, 56.68)

Many verses (e.g. 56.11-4) tell that day and night, sun and moon and stars etc., are for the service of human beings, to enable their striving in every dimension of human life.

Striving is so much a part of the structure of the universe that to resist it is more burdernsome than to go along with it. That is why a person who lies in bed all day making no effort is less happy than one who strives and struggles.

The principle of constancy in truth

The Qur’an tells us that God will help those who are constant in their adherence to and striving for the faith:

So neither lose heart nor fall into despair: for you must gain mastery if you are true in faith. (Al ‘lmran, 3.139)

The promised help is conditional:

1. There are two Ashari’ahs: the natural and the revealed, or the book of the universe and the Book of Revelation, the Qur’an.

The recompense for obedience or disobedience of the laws given in the Qur’an is seen mostly in the Hereafter whereas the recompense of following the laws given in the universe is mostly seen in this world. For example, the reward of perseverance in the laws of religion is ultimate victory, the reward of incompetence in understanding or applying the laws of nature is misery. It follows that a truthful person may be unsuccessful if he uses the wrong means and an untruthful person may be successful if he uses the right means.

2. Though a Muslim should be the bearer of all Islamic qualities it does not always happen so: a non-Muslim may be a better example of an Islamic quality. That’s why it can happen that an Islamic quality of a non-Muslim triumphs over the un-Islamic one of a Muslim.

Absence of the concept of ‘primitive’ peoples

Sociological and anthropological theory in the West still adheres to the notion that, at the beginning of human history, human beings and societies were ‘primitive’ and gradually evolved and progressed until they reached the ‘civilized’ state of societies as they are today.

The Qur’an does not teach any such notion of ‘primitiveness’. All human beings are descended from the Prophet Adam, who was taught the names of all things, and his wife, Eve. Neither their mode of life nor their relationships nor their religious worship were ‘primitive’.

Human societies frequently declined from their true or original state of recognizing and worshipping One God, and Prophets and Messengers were sent to teach them and guide them to righteousness. Throughout history, many societies and nations of so-called ‘high civilization’ were destroyed on account of their spiritual and moral decadence, and the Qur’an gives warning narratives about them. It is in part because of the absence of a concept of ‘primitiveness’ that Islamic rule over so many diverse peoples of the world has been, in general, tolerant, patient and assimilative with their diversity, whereas Western rule has been, in general, impatient, brutal and destructive.

All civilizations or cultures have a span of life, just as an individual human life has its determined span:

To every people is a term appointed: when their term is reached, not an hour can they delay it, nor advance it. (A’raf, 7.34)

Comparison with Western civilization

The Christian peoples by and large rejected the Qur’an’s offer to hold some common ground between themselves and the Muslims and to leave their differences to the Will of God (see. e.g., Al Imran, 3.64).

Though hard to believe now, at the time of the rise of Islam, the lands of the southern Mediterranean were the wealthiest part, in intellectual, cultural and economic terms, of the then Christian world. When these lands were conquered by Muslims and, with the passage of time, great numbers of Christians accepted Islam, many clerics became quite irrational in their attitude to Islam and presented it, willfully, in the most outrageously false manner. The early climax of this irrational hatred of Islam was the long wars of the Crusades. This dreadful campaign against Islam was formally abandoned seven centuries ago. However, an important part of it was the embedding of images which remain deep in the cultural attitudes (and the languages) of European peoples. Just as it is impossible, despite all the historical evidence to the contrary, to alter the image, created by centuries of Church propaganda, of witches or of Vikings, so too, it seems, it is impossible to alter the negative image of Muslims and Islam in popular Western consciousness.

After the Renaissance, civilization in Europe separated itself from the Christian religion and moved towards materialism and humanism. It took rather more of its inspiration from Greek philosophy and Roman political and administrative order and very little from Christianity. The Islamic civilisation which protects the Revelation continued to be regarded as the major threat and rival throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. When the military and economic balance had shifted, following the industrial revolution in Europe, overwhelmingly against the Islamic world, the Europeans tended to regard Muslims more with contempt than fear

Now, after the collapse of Communism, some authoritative Western figures have explicitly declared that the only enemy of the West is Islam. At this cross-roads, both parties, Western civilization and Qur’anic civilization, should state clearly what kind of people and society they want so that a choice can be made between them:

According to Western philosophy the basic rule in collective affairs is selfish conflict over who controls and profits from available resources. The outcome of this conflict is determined by power. The best that civilized society can offer is to balance powers within and between groups so that conflict is mitigated to some extent. Solidarity within the group has commonly been expressed as an extension of selfishness to embrace a particular nation or race. This means that the Western nations have felt free to exploit weaker peoples beyond their frontiers, to regard them as lesser beings who do not deserve the same rights and privileges, and should not expect the same share of the world’s goods, as themselves. The consequence of this philosophy has been continual tension between peoples expressed in overt or covert war. Within societies the same philosophy has been expressed in the conflict between economic classes and in ever-increasing levels of alienation and anxiety. In certain respects, community life, even family life, have ceased to function as a resource for people. Having no other status than as consumer units, and finding no other means of consolation, of belonging to society, the great mass of people are reduced to pointless consumption.

In absolute contrast, the Qur’an assures us that the basic rule in both individual and collective life is seeking the pleasure of God. Since God is the Most Merciful and Compassionate, seeking His pleasure means seeking virtue and contentment instead of pleasure and self-aggrandisement. It means that virtue is a practicable goal for a human society, that the governing principle of collective life is cooperation, not conflict. It means that what unites a people as a community is not primarily race or nationality but their shared status as servants of the One God and the bond of religion. That is why, in the Islamic world, by and large, mutual help and social welfare programmes were reasonably effective in spite of comparatively low levels of gross wealth. In the Western countries, expenditures on such programmes constitute a fraction of gross wealth and are under constant threat because the basic motive of these programmes is not mutual caring but the avoidance of class conflict: if gross wealth declines (as is happening at present) the level of ‘social spending’ is reduced in spite of the ‘social cost’ in civil unrest and crime.

Western civilization, for all its many splendid achievements is bound to fail, because of its radically unsound basic principles, to bring happiness to humankind. It can and does provide great material prosperity (amid great waste) to a segment of a segment of the human population. The Qur’an commands a balanced growth and development because it defines human beings, individually and collectively, as belonging to this world and the Hereafter, and as answerable, all equally, to their One Creator.

Genetics is commonly taken to refer to a part of biology that concerns itself with the study of the transmission of hereditary characters. This fascinating science would have remained quite benign if this was all that it was. However, recombinant DNA technology with all the power it offers for biological control has changed all that. By making it possible to manipulate the reproductive potential of an organism, modern genetics has the power to alter the course of development of living organisms. Life can be changed, for good or ill; it can be enhanced or retarded or mutilated. Moreover, whatever molecular genetics can do to the biological world can in principle, be done to human beings. Molecular genetics poses a grave threat to our notions of human life, its intent and its meanings.

In his book Responsible Science (1986), Robert Nelson wrote: 

The challenge of molecular biology to traditional humanistic and religious concepts of human life needs to be taken very seriously. Not only the nature of life, but its purpose and worth are called into question by the rapidly growing knowledge of DNA and cellular development. If the human organism can ostensibly be reduced to an assortment of proteins and amino acids, hardly distinguishable at molecular levels from those of other organisms, where is the distinctiveness of human life to he found? And if found, how explained?

Biology, especially in the form of using genetics and evolution to explain social phenomena, has become a reductionist exercise. Reductionism means trying to explain the properties of complex wholes-molecules, say or societies-in terms of the units of which those wholes are composed. Scientists who are reductionists would argue, for example that the properties of a protein molecule could be uniquely determined and predicted in terms of the properties of the electrons, protons, etc., of which it atoms are composed. In a similar way, they could (and some do) argue that the properties of a human society are no more than the sum of the behaviours and tendencies of the individual humans of which that society is composed.

Genetics and evolution, as indicated above, have been used to explain social phenomena. This is the area of science called sociobiology. It is a discipline that passes moral judgement on many social issues because it presents biology as the human fate, an inescapable reality of nature. Since it is natural, the implication is that it is immutable.

Sociobiologists equate the social with the biological and maintain that differences of class, race, colour, gender and even economic status originate in individual biology. This type of thinking could lead to dangerous conclusions of a sort most of us would regard as immoral and unethical. It can lead, for instance, to the belief that some races are born ‘inferior’ to others; that women are inferior’ to men; IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is genetically determined; that social inequalities (wealth and poverty) are biological in origin. The big problem with this is that political leaders could use such arguments to assert that the current social order must prevail because it is the law of nature.

Sociobiology reached its peak when some biologists claimed to have discovered absolute evidence for genetic determinants of human behaviour. In his popular book The Selfish Gene (1976), Richard Dawkins wrote:

We, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness… Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense … If you wish … to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously towards a common good; you can expect little help from biological nature.

The selfish gene thus operates to enhance its own selfish interests. The theory is based on the belief that genetic differences lead to behavioural differences, and that organisms are hosts to genes rather than the other way round. This provides the basis, as sociobiologists themselves claim, for the systematic study of the biological basis of all forms of social behavior, including sexual and parental behaviour, in all, kinds of organisms, including humans.

More and more human attributes are being subjected to a biological explanation. The Islamic view of human nature, however, does not consider biology as an inevitability. Human morality is the most important determinant, encompassing the spiritual dimension beautifully: The most honoured among you in the sight of God is the most righteous among you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted [with all things]. (Hujurat, 49.13)

Emphasis on bodily perfection while neglecting moral and spiritual development is not a part of Islamic tradition. Equally, emphasis on spiritual training based upon contempt or denial of the bodily life is not a part of Islamic tradition. Islam is, in almost every respect, characterized by the quest for balance, harmony and unity of means and ends. Therefore, Islam is not a way of either denial or indulgence, but a way of discipline.

Discipline and orderliness with sufficient flexibility to allow for spontaneity of actions and feelings are the defining general characteristics of an Islamic upbringing. Children who do not grow up in an atmosphere of orderliness and self-control are unlikely, as adults, to meet their responsibilities in a consistently calm and dignified manner. Rather, they are likely to lead strained and miserable lives, however successful they may become in their working lives.

By way of illustrating Islamic upbringing, we shall focus discussion here on the familiar areas of eating and sleeping habits and the importance of cleanliness.

In general, if a family’s daily routines are steady and consistent, the children’s lives and characters will follow a similarly ordered pattern, both within the home and outside. If not, they will most probably be disorganized, lacking in will and concentration, and tend to fits of antisocial behaviour. Children imbibe orderliness and discipline from the adults immediately around them and develop strong character. If, on the other hand, they grow up in a confused, unstable haphazard atmosphere, they too will become confused and unstable, liable to aimlessness and depressions and all the unhappy consequences of these.

In practice, orderliness means that children know when they are expected home, and how their time is normally spent when they are at home and outside the home. They should learn as early as possible how to allocate their time between work and play so that what they have to do gets done in time and they enjoy their lives. They should learn how to make moral choices, how to co-operate within the family and with others outside the family. They should learn the importance of regular prayer and be helped to mature a taste for contemplation and devotion to God. They should be brought up to be, as full human beings are, both active and reflective. They should understand the importance of their own lives while learning, through good manners and awareness of the needs and feelings of others, the value of humility. 

Eating habits

The eating habits of a family should be based on sound dietary principles. This means having regular eating times, avoiding excess, choosing as far as practicable to eat in company (rather than alone) and sharing with others (rather than preferring oneself); avoiding those things that are harmful to the mind, the will and the body (for example, rushing food in a disrespectful manner); and it means cleanliness, both of the food consumed and the way it is consumed.

In this respect, to start eating again without fully digesting what has already been eaten, that is, eating randomly and always keeping the mouth busy and the stomach full, is injurious to the body and poisonous, even lethal, to the will. The Creator has expressed strong dislike of such manners. Any food eaten in the wrong way is harmful, but worst of all is to eat harmful food in a harmful way.

Prodigality or wasteful excess is an act of disrespect and ingratitude for the Creator’s infinite blessings. Those who over-indulge themselves puzzle and confound their appetite, or they drown in food without ever tasting contentment or satisfaction. Wastefulness is such an offence and so ruinous to the heart and soul that the individual will, eventually, be prepared to eat anything and everything, regardless of whether it is permitted or prohibited, whether he needs it or not, even of whether he likes it or not,

Sensible diet is a matter of discipline and awareness of the nutritional and social values of good manners. A family who can teach their children self-control in what and how they eat must be considered most fortunate, for they have laid the foundations for their children’s spiritual progress as well as of the health of their bodies. Children should therefore be taught the aims and principles of sensible diet so that they begin to choose good habits for themselves and not simply copy the habits to which they are exposed. If parents are unable to articulate or explain the importance of diet and nutrition, they should ask a competent and knowledgeable person to do so for them. 

Sleeping hours

To discipline sleeping habits is of as much importance as disciplining eating habits. We need to rest at particular times in order to stay healthy and have command of all our resources, physical, mental, emotional and psychological. The balance and stability of our personalities depends upon non-disruptive patterns of working and resting. The greater part of the day should be set aside for working and the night for rest and sleep. It is not reasonable to change this order. Trying to change it means risking tensions and conflict in social relationships, contradicting the natural rhythm of the universe and ruining one’s health.

It will be useful to mention a few principles for resting and sleeping hours which might be suitable for everyone.

1. The routines of family members should he co-ordinated with each other. If resting and sleeping hours are orderly, most of the work needed to maintain a happy family has been done. Disorderly sleeping habits affect eating times, they affect mood and temperament, and give rise to many insoluble difficulties and disputes.

2. Similarly, the lives of neighbours should correspond with each other. Otherwise we disrupt each other’s working and resting periods.

3. Particular times should be allocated to resting and working. Randomly changing resting and working hours will disrupt sleeping patterns, which, in turn, negatively affects both one’s rest and work.

4. Whatever injures sleep should be avoided. Sometimes a few cups of tea, sometimes a little food, sometimes boredom, may ruin a night and therefore the working day that follows it.

Cleanliness

It is commonly accepted that habits of cleanliness are passed from parents to children. Imitation is a vital part of human development-it must be so as human beings have so much that they need to learn quickly in order to take their place in adult life. Children will believe in the importance of cleanliness if they see it in their immediate environment, if they see the adults around them keeping themselves clean, and if cleanliness is stressed as something necessary and desirable. Conversely, if they see no effort to maintain tidiness and cleanliness, they will grow up negligent of their responsibility to be personally clean and to keep their immediate surroundings in order

The importance of cleanliness could hardly be more emphasized in a culture than it is in Islam. Worship in Islam is a commitment of the body as well as the mind and spirit. A part of the dignity of being a Muslim worshipper is to do a partial ablution (washing the normally exposed parts of the body) before each of the five obligatory prayers and a full ablution (or bath) at least once a week. In addition, it is strongly commended, almost obligatory, to wash one’s hands before and after meals, not to touch the mouth as soon as one wakes from sleep but only after washing them, to keep one’s hair and nails properly trimmed and clean, etc.

In sum: orderliness and discipline are not social devices to burden the individual and enforce a rigidly patterned conformity. Rather, they are the means to ensure the health of body and mind and will, the stability of the whole character, so that the individual acquires the grace and dignity of person which can only come from strength based upon self-control. The role of the family in equipping children for such dignity with and in their lives is decisive.

Mary, the mother of Jesus belonged to the family of ‘Imran, one of the noble lineages mentioned in the Qur’an. Her father was from the line of the Prophets David and Solomon.

Mary’s father died before she was born. Her mother dedicated her child-to-be to the service of God:

I dedicate to You what is in my womb for Your special service: so accept this of me: for You hear and know all things. (Al ‘Imran, 3.35)

She had expected a son:

O my Lord! I am delivered of a female child!’-And God knew best what she brought forth-the male is not like the female. ‘I have named her Mary, and I beg Your protection for her and her offspring from Satan the accursed.’ (Al ‘Imran, 3.36)

Mary was favoured by God with nobility and virtue. A sura (chapter) of the Qur’an is named after her. Her motherhood to Prophet Jesus raises her rank. She was constant in prayer and remembrance of God, guarded her chastity, kept company with the righteous, and so attained moral perfection.

God protected Mary through her uncle, Prophet Zakariya, as He always protected His beloved slaves, albeit orphaned or poor:

Most graciously did her Lord accept her: He made her grow in purity and beauty: she was assigned to the care of Zakariya. (Al Imran, 3.37)

Moreover, God provided her with sustenance:

Whenever he [Zakariya] entered the sanctuary to see her, he found her supplied with sustenance. ‘O Mary! Whence [comes] this to you?’ She said: ‘From God…’(Al ‘Imran, 3.37)

Mary’s answer inspired Zakariya to pray to God for the child he had so long desired (3.38). His prayer was answered with the promise of the birth of John (Yahya). In view of Zakariya’s being very old and his wife hitherto infertile, the birth of a son was a miracle of Divine power. There is a close parallel (not identity) in the words of the Our’an about the births of John and Jesus:

He said: ‘My Lord! How can I have a son when age has quite overtaken me and my wife is barren?’ He [the angel] said: ‘Just so. God does what He wills. (Al ‘Imran, 3.40)

She said: ‘My Lord! How can I have a child when no man has touched me? ‘He [the angel] said: ‘Just so. God creates what he wills….’ (Al ‘Imran. 3.47)

The announcement to Mary of Prophet Jesus

The angels reminded Mary of God’s favour to her and called her to obedient worship:

And when the angels said: ‘0 Mary! God has chosen you and purified you, and preferred you above the women of all nations.

O Mary! worship your Lord devoutly: prostrate yourself, and bow down [in worship] with those who how down.’…

And when the angels said: ‘O Mary! God gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name is the Messiah [Christ] Jesus son of Mary, honoured in this world and in the Hereafter, and among those nearest [to God]. (Al ‘Imran, 3.42-45)

All the descendants of Prophet Adam, who was created from dust (3.59), were created from male and female spouses (49.13). The birth of a child without a father, as announced to Mary, was an event never yet witnessed. Therefore she exclaimed:

‘….O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?’

The answer was short and absolute:

‘Just so. God creates what He wills. When He has decreed a matter, He but says to it, “Be!” and it is.’

God sent the angel Gabriel to Mary: he appeared to her in the form of a man (Maryam, 19.17). She said:

‘1 seek refuge from you in the Most Gracious: [Do not come near] if you fear God.’ He said: ‘No. I am only a messenger from your Lord, [to announce] to you the gift of a holy son.’ (Maryam, 19.18-19)

The Qur’an continues the narrative:

So she conceived him, and she retired with him to a remote place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree. She cried out [in her pain]:‘Would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight.’ But [a voice] called to her from below [the palm-tree]: ‘Do not grieve! For your Lord has provided a rivulet beneath you; and shake towards yourself the trunk of the palm-tree: it will let fall fresh ripe dates upon you. (Maryam, 19.22-5)

When Mary came back to her people with the baby in her arms, she was met with words that accused her by implication of the gravest misconduct. She pointed to the child as if he would speak in her defence. They were amazed to be asked to converse with an infant in a cradle. But by Divine Power the infant did speak to them and silenced their calumny:

Then she brought him to her people carrying him. They said: O Mary! truly, you have brought an amazing thing! O sister of Aaron! Your father was not an evil man, nor was your mother unchaste!’ Then she pointed to him [the infant]. They said: ‘How can we talk to one who is in the cradle, an infant boy?’ He [the infant] spoke: ‘Surely I am a servant of God: He has given me Revelation and made me a Prophet; and He has made me blessed wherever I may be, and has enjoined on me prayer and charity as long as I live. And [He has made me] dutiful to my mother who carried me, and neither overbearing nor wretched. Peace is on me the day I was born, the day I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life!’ Such [was] Jesus the son of Mary: [this is] a statement of truth about that of which they are in doubt. (Maryam, 19.30-4)

The Qur’an makes a comparison between Jesus and Adam, one born without a father and the other without father or mother:

The similitude of Jesus with God is as that of Adam; He created him from dust, then said to him: ‘Be!’ and he was. (Al ‘Imran, 3.59)

The general principle of sound faith is that every human being is individuality the creature of God and that every person’s being human is dependent upon his being God’s creature. The fact that Adam had no father or mother does not make him God nor the son of God. The same is true for Jesus as well. God is not his father but his Creator, as he himself said (3.51, quoted below).

Prophet Jesus was supported with the Holy Spirit (ruh al-quds) (2.87). He knew the Scriptures and was literate (3.48). He was a most righteous and pious man (6.85) and blessed by God (5.113). In the Qur’an he is referred to as ‘the Messiah [Christ] son of Mary’, as ‘a Messenger from God and His word’, and as ‘a spirit from God’ (e.g. 4.171), but he is never referred to as ‘the son of God’.

The Prophethood of Jesus

Jesus announced his Prophethood to the Israelites after it had been revealed to him (3.48):

[I have come to you] to attest the Law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what used to be forbidden to you with a sign from your Lord. So fear God, and obey me. It is God who is my Lord and your Lord; then worship Him. This is a Way that is straight. (Al ‘Imran, 3.50-1)

However, the Israelities, against this invitation to faith, tried to defend the Torah which they had distorted and disregarded (3.93). They would not believe him. Then Jesus showed them some miracles and said:

I have come to you with a sign from your Lord in that I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird and breathe into it, and it becomes a bird by God’s leave: and I heal those born blind, and the lepers, and I quicken the dead, by God’s leave; and I declare to you what you have eaten, and what you store in your houses. Surely therein is a sign for you if you believe. (Al ‘Imran, 3.49)

The Israelites rejected the miracles as sorcery or illusion (5.113).

The miracles of Prophet Jesus, like his creation, were different from those of other Prophets. They can be regarded as reflections in his prophethood of his extraordinary creation. If one believes in the miracles of Jesus such as reviving the dead-which were related by many trustworthy sources-then it is not reasonable for one to doubt the manner of his birth without a father.

His Disciples

In the face of the Israelites’ obstinacy and recalcitrance, Jesus called for helpers. Those who stepped forward were his disciples and, as they committed themselves to serve, they declared their submission to God:

When Jesus found unbelief on their part, he said: ‘Who will be my helpers toward God?’ Said the disciples: ‘We are God’s helpers. We believe in God, and bear you witness that we are Muslims. Our Lord! we believe in what You have revealed, and we follow the Messenger. Then, write us down among those who bear witness.’ (Al ‘Imran, 3.52)

The faith and support of the Apostles was a gift of God to Jesus as stated in the following verse:

I inspired the disciples to have faith in Me and My Apostle. They said: ‘We have faith, and do you bear witness that we surrender to God as Muslims.’ (Ma’ida, 5.114)

The disciples believed in Jesus and asked for a miracle from God:

The disciples said: ‘0 Jesus, son of Mary! Can your Lord send down to us from heaven a table set?’ Said Jesus: ‘Fear God if you have faith.’ They said: ‘We only wish to eat thereof and content our hearts, and to know that you have indeed told us the truth; and that we ourselves may be witnesses to the miracle.’ Said Jesus, son of Mary: ‘0 God our Lord! Send us from heaven a table set, that there may be for us-for the first and the last of us – a solemn festival and a sign from You; and provide for our sustenance, for You are the best Sustainer.’ God said: ‘I will send it down to you but if any of you afterwards refuses faith, I will punish him with a penalty such as I have not inflicted on any one among all the peoples.’ (Ma’ida, 5.115-8)

It is not clear weather the table came or not.

The ascension

The Israelites were resolute in their unbelief in Jesus and planned to have him assassinated. But God prevented their plans (3.54-5). Though they announced: ‘We killed the Messiah [Christ] Jesus the son of Mary’ (4.157), it was not the truth, which the Qur’an affirms as follows:

But they killed him not, nor crucified him, but so it was made to appear to them, and those who differ therein are frill of doubts with no [certain] knowledge but only conjecture to follow. For a certainty they killed him not. No! God raised him up to Himself; and God is Exalted in Power, Wise. (Nisa’,4.157-8)

As the verse clarifies, Prophet Jesus was raised up without being killed. Prophet Muhammad, during the night of his ascension, saw him (see the hadith recorded in al-Bukhari, Anbiya’, 48).

Distortions about the message

Only a few believed in Jesus during his lifetime. Many of those who believed in him afterwards were caught in misconceptions and distortions. The most widespread distortion was the doctrine of the ‘Trinity’ which accords to Jesus and Mary a form of divinity beside God. Some said: ‘Jesus, the son of Mary, is God’ (5.75); others said: ‘he is the son of God’ (9.30); others said: he is ‘one of three’ (5.76).

It is stated most explicitly and emphatically in the Qur’an that all such doctrines are without foundation in truth and amount to blasphemy and unbelief (kufr):

O People of the Book! Do not commit excesses in your religion: nor say of God anything but the truth. The Messiah [Christ] Jesus son of Mary was [no more than] a Messenger of God, and His word, which He bestowed on Mary, and a spirit proceeding from Him…. (4.171)

The Messiah [Christ] son of Mary was no more than a Messenger…. (Ma’ida, 5.78)

Once Prophet Jesus said to the Israelites:

‘O Children of Israel! Worship my Lord and your Lord’. Whoever joins other gods with God, God will forbid him the Garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will be for the wrong-doers none to help. They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a trinity: for there is no god except One God. (Ma’ida, 5.75-6)

The questioning of Jesus on the Day of Judgement and his reply

Prophet Jesus had no part in nor carries any responsibility for the doctrine of the ‘Trinity’ believed by some Christians. This becomes clear from the following verses of the Qur’an:

And God will say: ‘O Jesus son of Mary! Did you say unto men: Worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God’? He will say: ‘Glory be to You! Never could I say what I had no right [to say]. Had I said such a thing, You would indeed have known it. You know what is in my heart, though I do not know what is in Yours. For You know in full all that is hidden. Never did I say to them anything except what You commanded me to say: ‘Worship God, my Lord and your Lord’. And I was a witness over them whilst I dwelt amongst them. When You took me up You were the Watcher over them, and You are a witness to all things.’ (Ma’ida, 5.119-20)

The Messenger foretold by Prophet Jesus

Prophet Jesus, son of Mary, completed his mission of proclaiming the true religion despite the Israelites’ efforts to prevent him. Before he was raised up, he announced the Messenger of God to come after him:

‘O Children of Israel! I am the Messenger of God to you, confirming the Law before me, and giving glad tidings of a Messenger to come after me, whose name shall be Ahmad.’ (Saff, 61.6)

Also, the Prophet Muhammad said about Jesus: ‘I am the closest person to Jesus, the son of Mary, both on earth and in the Hereafter’ (Tajrid, IX.180). ‘There is no Prophet between me and Jesus’ (Tajrid, IX.179).

That, in brief, is what the Qur’an and other Islamic sources tell us about Mary and Jesus, upon them be peace. In the light of these sources, we know that there is no relation between Jesus and Mary and God other than as His beloved and distinguished servants. Though Jesus brought in essence the same message as other Prophets, there is a parallel, as taught in the Islamic sources, between the creation of Adam and that of Jesus. The special feature of his Prophethood, different from all Prophets, is that the whole life of Jesus represents Divine Power to us in the form of extraordinary, supernatural miracle. The extraordinariness begins in his mother womb, continues through his birth and life and the miracles he did, and goes beyond the limitation of a lifetime with his ascension to God. However, despite all of that, Jesus was a creature of God, a man; in the words of the Qur’an, he was the Messenger and the servant of God.