“Free radicals” are a special type of atom that have been linked to many age-related diseases. They form as a result of a process called Oxidative Stress, which takes place when an oxygen molecule splits into single atoms with unpaired electrons. The nature of electrons is such that they like to be in pairs and as a result will “freely” and “radically” search throughout the body for another electron to pair with. They could almost be considered romantic if they were not so dangerous!

Their main danger comes from the damage that they cause to cells or cell membrane, proteins, and DNA. Cellular damage occurs when free radicals travel through cells and disrupt the structures of other molecules. The gradual accumulation of them, and the increased damage that builds as more and more of them collect, is what helps cause many of the aforementioned aging diseases. Our body is under constant assault from oxidative stress, and cells may function poorly or die if it occurs too frequently and without proper bodily maintenance.

Free radicals are a waste byproduct that form as a result of various chemical reactions that take place during our bodies’ normal metabolic processes. They are then “dumped,” and their eventual buildup will often harm our bodies much like how factory waste harms the environment However, they are not entirely useless; it is impossible for our bodies to turn air and food into chemical energy without a chain reaction of free radicals. Free radicals are also a critical part of the immune system, as they additionally move through our veins and can confront foreign invaders [1].

What are free radicals?

Understanding free radicals necessitates an elementary knowledge of chemistry.

Electrons orbit around atoms in levels called shells. Each shell is filled by a fixed number of electrons, and when the first shell is full then electrons will start to fill the next shell.

If there is an atom whose outer shell is not full then it may bond with another atom by using the electrons to fill its outer shell. These types of atoms are known as free radicals.

Atoms that have a full outer shell become stable, however free radicals are unstable. They are “desperate” to acquire the full number of electrons that are necessary to fill all of their shells and will therefore react quickly with other substances.

Take the example of oxygen molecules. If they split into single atoms that have unpaired electrons then they too will become unstable free radicals that seek other atoms or molecules to bond to. If this procedure continually occurs, then it will begin a process called oxidative stress.

Smoking, UV rays, air pollution, fast food, pesticides, ionizing radiation, drugs, and inflammation have all been linked to the formation of free radicals. We must be diligent when it comes to understanding how these influences can affect our bodily health, and then fight back with natural antioxidants.

Free radicals are heavily linked to aging

One of the effects of oxidative stress is that it can damage our body’s cells and thus promote many of the diseases and symptoms related to aging, such as wrinkles and gray hair. They will take electrons from other atoms in order to become more stable, a process that may cause diseases or signs of aging [2].              

In 1956, the “Free Radical Theory of Aging” was outlined as a way to understand how exactly our bodies age over time. Everybody ages, and as we age our body loses its ability to fight the effects of free radicals. Over time our bodies produce more free radicals and more oxidative stress, which increases the rate at which cells are damaged and thus can bring about degenerative processes.

Many age-related diseases such as muscular degeneration, certain cancers, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, emphysema, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ulcers and all inflammatory diseases such as arthritis and lupus, and many others are linked to free radicals. Free radicals can be found in the food we eat such as fried foods, the medicines we take, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. Free radicals are also found in alcohol, tobacco smoke, pesticides, and air pollutants.

Several studies and theories have been linked to oxidative stress and the buildup of free radicals including: [3]

• Genetic degenerative diseases, such as Huntington’s disease or Parkinson’s
• Age-related changes in appearance, such as loss of skin elasticity, wrinkles, graying hair, hair loss, and changes in hair texture
• Cataracts and age-related vision decline
• Diabetes
• Cancer, which is associated with chromosomal effects and oncogene activation due to the reaction of free radicals [2]
• Central nervous system diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and various forms of dementia
• Cardiovascular diseases due to clogged arteries
• Autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer

The free radical theory of aging is comparatively new; however, several studies boost its credibility. Researchers focused on cell’s mitochondria, the “powerhouse” that process nutrients to power the entire cell. Experiments on rats, for example, showed a noteworthy increase in free radicals as the rats aged. These alterations coincided with age-related declines in their health. These experiments also showed that free radicals produced in the mitochondria harm the substances that the cells need in order to work properly. This damage causes mutations that produce more free radicals, thus accelerating the process of damage to the cell. This helps explain aging since aging quickens over time. The gradual, but increasingly rapid buildup of free radicals, offers one explanation for why even healthy bodies age and depreciate over time [2].

Antioxidants can stave off free radicals

Antioxidants, molecules that prevent other molecules from oxidizing and thus undergoing oxidative stress, can help to avert the harmful effects of free radicals. They can also decrease or even nullify the effects of free radicals, as they can provide an electron to free radicals and thereby reduce their reactivity. The uniqueness of antioxidants is that they can donate an electron without becoming reactive free radicals themselves.

There is no single antioxidant that can combat the effects of every free radical. Free radicals have different effects in different areas of the body, and every antioxidant performs differently due to its chemical properties. Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, glutathione, and plant estrogens called phytoestrogens all scavenge the body and help remove free radicals. Honey can also function similar to antioxidants by removing free radicals. Additionally, selenium, a trace metal that is required for proper function of one of the body’s antioxidant enzyme systems, is sometimes included in this category. The body cannot manufacture these micronutrients so they must be supplied in the diet.

Foods that are rich in antioxidants include citrus fruits such as oranges and limes, berries, and many other fruits that are rich in vitamin C. Carrots are known for their high beta-carotene content, while the soy in soybeans, and some meat substitutes, are high in phytoestrogens. Apricots, spinach, mangoes, pumpkins, broccoli, and eggplants are all also helpful, along with a plethora of other fruits and vegetables [4].

More research needed

A 2010 study on antioxidant supplementation for the prevention of prostate cancer found no benefits. Furthermore, a 2012 study found that antioxidants did not lower the risk of lung cancer. On the other hand, the study found that people who were already at a heightened risk of cancer, such as smokers, actually had a slightly elevated risk of cancer due to antioxidants.

Some investigators have found that supplementation with antioxidants is injurious when people take more than the recommended daily allowance (RDA). A recent analysis found that high doses of beta-carotene, or vitamin E, appreciably increased the risk of dying. One study found that long-term use of beta-carotene could reasonably reduce the risk of age-related mental problems [4]. But perhaps one of the most important discoveries is that antioxidants are unable to “cure” the effects of free radicals completely [5].  

Additionally, we do not yet fully understand why free radicals form in the first place. They may result as an early sign of cells fighting diseases, or that free radical formation is simply a natural expectation that comes with aging. It is not possible to understand them completely without more conclusive research, which should be encouraged considering the significant impacts that free radicals can have upon our bodies.

References

1. https://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/antiox.html
2. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318652#How-do-free-radicals-damage-the-body
3. http://www.mytruehealth.info/mytruehealth_antioxidants_freeradicals.html
4. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318652#Antioxidants-and-free-radicals
5. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318652#What-we-do-not-know

Diabetes is one of the most serious public health risks today. The United Nations declared diabetes as a global threat in 2007 in order to highlight just how widespread and destructive diabetes had become.

Diabetes is one of the oldest known diseases, and was even mentioned in the ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese texts. Ancient Egyptian texts defined diabetics as “… so thirsty that if they drank all the water of the Nile, their thirst would still not be quenched.” The ancient Indian and Chinese texts mention insects and flies swarming over the urine discharged by the diabetics.

Ancient scientists Al-Razi and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) made important findings about diabetes. Al-Razi linked diabetes with obesity and nutrition habits. Ibn Sina specified that no tissues or organs could survive diabetes, which additionally caused sexual dysfunctions and gangrenes.

There are two main problems that emerge in relation to diabetes:

• Type 1: Lack of adequate secretion of the insulin hormones from the pancreas
• Type 2: Non-functional and insulin-resistant tissues, regardless of adequate insulin secretion

These two types do not coexist in one patient. The first occurs mostly among children or young people. The second occurs mostly among the elderly who largely contract diabetes due to obesity. Diabetes can be detected by a surge of sugar in the blood and urine. If blood sugar exceeds a certain limit then sugar will appear in urine.

Diabetes reveals itself by a surge of sugar in the blood and the urine. It not only impairs the sugar balance of the body, but also disrupts the fat and protein metabolism. Cells fail to absorb sugar, fats, and amino acids, which in turn increases sugar, fat, and amino acid levels in the bloodstream. It can plainly be said that diabetes complications originate from an increase in fat levels, not sugar levels, in the blood. Additionally, diabetic disorders in fat metabolism cause the lethal appearance of acid levels in the blood (acidosis) and vascular stiffness (arteriosclerosis). Decrease in protein-synthesis ability among patients with long-term diabetes leads to depletion of tissues and multiple cellular dysfunctions. Consequently, diabetes originating from insulin deficiency disrupts the fat and protein metabolism along with the sugar metabolism.

The pancreatic gland is where insulin is released in our body. The surgical removal of this gland in experimental animals showed that fat levels in their bloodstreams increased faster than sugar levels. In diabetics, fat around the abdomen and hips oozes into the bloodstream, thus leading to an increase in neutral fat (triglyceride) and cholesterol levels in the blood along with an accumulation of fat in the liver.

If fats remain in the bloodstream after nutrition, then they begin to adhere to vein walls which can cause clogging and stiffness in blood vessels. That is why it is crucial to transfer fat from the bloodstream to fat storage around the abdomen and hips by means of sugar and insulin. The storage fat is called neutral oil, or triglyceride. A triglyceride molecule contains three units of oil and one unit of sugar. Therefore, almost 25% of the fat storage is sugar. Without sugar supply from bloodstream, as in the case of diabetes, the cells which by default store fat are unable to do so. Diabetes, as a serious disorder, even reverses this mechanism: fats start moving from the storage to the bloodstream, not from the bloodstream to the storage. This causes the surge of all fats including the triglycerides, cholesterol and phospholipids, and this is when the body becomes even more prone to disease.

Obesity or excessively fat-based (steatopygic) diet is one of the main causes of diabetes. People are already overweight before the disorder strikes. However, if they do not receive treatment after contracting diabetes, the diabetics start losing weight quickly and more than they should. This happens because relatively harmless fats in storage start to dissolve into the bloodstream.

The entity called metabolic acidosis, which can cause coma and death in diabetics, actually originates from the surge of fat products in the blood and the liver, not from the surge in blood sugar. In diabetics, when the cells cannot use sugar, they resort to obtaining their energy from fats. Consequently, stored fats start to dissolve and ooze into the bloodstream. Fats traveling to the liver through the bloodstream turn into acidic substances called ketone bodies (acetoacetic acid, beta hydroxy butyric acid, and acetone). These acidic substances pass from the liver to the bloodstream and are received by the cells to meet their energy needs. However, in diabetics, cells cannot convert these acidic fat products i.e. ketone bodies, into energy. Oxaloacetic acid from sugars is required for the energy production cycle called the Krebs cycle. In short, humans need sugar to burn fat. This is why it is normal for some people to feel the need to eat something sweet after a fatty meal, because they need sugar to dissolve the fats in their bloodstreams. Since the cells cannot draw sugar from the blood, they suffer from the deficiency of oxaloacetic acid to convert fats into energy. Fats and ketone bodies teem in the bloodstream and, since ketone bodies are acidic, they can cause acidity levels to surge to extremely high levels in the bloodstream which can result in a coma or even sudden death. The lethal substances here are not sugars but ketone bodies, or fat products.

The most crucial abnormality caused by diabetes is vascular stiffness (arteriosclerosis), which originates not from excess sugar but excess fat in the bloodstream. In diabetics, triglyceride, cholesterol, and phospholipid levels increase in the bloodstream due to the reasons described earlier. Fats in the bloodstream do not circulate freely; they are carried in micro-droplets called lipoprotein. The liver loads the fats onto lipoprotein “trucks” and sets them into the bloodstream to be used by the cells. However, due to insulin deficiency in diabetics, lipoproteins cannot empty their shipments of fat into fat storages. The most dangerous lipoproteins for vascular stiffness are classified as LDL (low-density lipoprotein) and HDL (high-density lipoprotein) types. HDLs are like empty trucks specially produced by the liver, which dispatches them into the bloodstream. While circulating in the bloodstream, these “trucks” collect the fat and cholesterol stuck on the vein walls like magnets and, after cleaning the inner vein walls, they return as loaded trucks back to the liver. Using the HDL “trucks,” the liver removes fat from the bloodstream. Physicians gauge the LDL and HDL levels while checking their patients for the risk of vascular stiffness. An increase or decrease in LDL rate is not good for patients, whereas high HDL rate is a positive sign.

Other causes of vascular stiffness include lack of exercise, sedentary life and work habits, smoking, alcohol consumption, obesity, overconsuming foods rich in animal fat, and high blood pressure. Vascular stiffness is one of the leading causes of cardiac dilatation (enlarged heart), cardiac insufficiency (heart failure), and heart attack. In addition to these complications, vascular stiffness may also lead to high blood pressure, cerebral hemorrhage, paralysis, kidney failure, and vascular occlusion in the brain or other organs. If not treated, almost all of these disorders result in death.

Diabetics should follow an effective treatment regime to keep their blood sugar level under control. Fasting is known to be beneficial for controlling blood sugar. If blood sugar is normal, the fats in the bloodstream will move to the storage and not damage the blood vessels. Among the elderly and the obese diabetics, any damage originating from high blood sugar does not surface immediately, and this may mislead patients. It is extremely crucial to check blood sugar in order not to fall into this error. Treatment should never be neglected. If blood sugar can be effectively reduced, it is not right to give up sugar completely in the diet. As mentioned earlier, humans need sugar for storing fats or converting fats (or ketones) into energy in the Krebs cycle.

In short, high blood fat is a more serious cause of diabetes than high blood sugar.

Humans take up residence in all kinds of environments ranging from sprawling metropolises to some of the most remote corners of the globe that are largely devoid of our modern luxuries. Oftentimes though, we emigrate to other societies for a variety of reasons; curiosity, financial profit, for the sake of adventure, service, to spread one’s beliefs, or to learn about others. Richard Nelson, a white man that taught in one of Los Angeles’ toughest African American schools, is one of those people that left his home behind to learn more about himself and overcome his subconscious prejudices. His article “My White Experience in the Black Community” is an emotional and gripping memoir that can help all of us open our hearts to others.

In worst case scenarios, people flee from their homes to avoid persecution, enmity, exclusion, or even ethnic cleansing. Many Turks have had to flee their home country of Turkey, often via illegal and unsafe practices, with the hope of escaping a brutal dictatorship that no one wanted them to call Turkey their home. Zain Hussain recounts his emotional and life changing encounter with Turkish refugees on his volunteer trip to Greece.

Some of Earth’s most beautiful islands and oceans are home for other creatures, such as Pacific Golden Plovers and Loggerhead Sea Turtles. Despite lacking free will or methodology, they utilize a variety of complex systems to consistently find their way home even if it means travelling hundreds of miles across giant swaths of lands or water. These natural phenomena are astounding and still perplex scientists to this day.

Even the most microscopic creatures find homes for themselves, whether in our bodies or in the bodies of other animals. One such creature, though we would definitely consider it not welcome in our systems, is the trypanosome, a lethal parasite that is a scourge across much of Africa. Such parasites travel through a variety of hosts including worms, eggs, snails, birds, and flies to eventually end up within our bloodstreams.

I am sure that there are a lot of people who’ve found themselves in a similar situation to the man above. Unfortunately, most of us are usually not aware of the things happening in this universe. One of the things we tend to overlook is the cleanliness of nature. This is a topic which needs to be considered carefully, but I will just touch on some important aspects of this issue.

First, let’s look at the oceans. The oceans cover three-fourths of the Earth’s surface. There is a bigger world under the ocean than above it. This huge mass hosts jelly fish and tuna, dolphins and octopus, crabs and plankton, sea stars and sea plants. Currently, there are 120,000 species living in the ocean. This is just the number of the species, and doesn’t account for how many variations there are within each species. When we consider the number of living organisms, there are millions of them. Every single day, lots of these organisms die. If there are millions of organisms and thousands of them die each day, then why cannot we see them on the surface of the ocean? Even if these dead organisms are very small, such as plankton, which has a size range from 0.2 m to 20mm, when millions of their dead bodies cluster on the surface, we should be able to see them. The answer lies in a perfect arrangement. For example, the job of cleaning the dead bodies of plankton (also the live bodies!) is performed by fish, sharks, and whales. A large percentage of the daily diet of these animals depends on plankton. Since these animals perform their job well, it is impossible to see any dirt that would have been caused by the dead plankton.

It might seem easy to get rid of the dead bodies of plankton, because they are small organisms. But what about big animals such as whales? What happens to dead whales? Let’s consider the cleaning of dead whales. When a whale dies, its dead body sinks to the bottom of the ocean. This is called a “whale fall” by scientists. There are a lot of species whose diet depends on dead whales. In 1988, a group of researchers at the University of Hawaii found that there are at least 12,490 single organisms which supply their daily diet from a whale fall in the deep North Pacific Ocean. After bigger organisms, such as fish, finish their job, which includes eating the flesh of the dead whale, the other cleaners come to the scene to perform their roles. At this part of the fall, bacteria play a key role in cleaning the bones left from the whale fall. This is not as easy as it might seem. Actually, it takes several years to really clean the dead body from the bottom of the ocean. This is not just a cleaning process at all. While the whale fall is being cleaned from the bottom of the ocean, the ecosystem is supported by the energy from the dead whale.

This cleaning process is not only seen in the oceans, but also on the land. Even though it is more apparent than undersea, we are not totally aware of the cleaning process on land. Decomposition is the chain of events by which a dead organism breaks down to its smaller parts. We must stop here and ask this question: “What would happen if these dead organisms stayed on the land forever?”

So let’s look at what happens to a dead animal on land.

When an organism dies, the process of decomposition starts shortly after its death. There are some stages in the decomposition of an animal. Shortly after the death of the organism, the enzymes in the cytoplasm of the cells start to break down the tissues. This process is called autolysis. It is one of the stages of decomposition in which bacteria plays a role. Bacteria start to break down the tissues. This is called putrefaction. Bacteria are not the only players who have roles in this process. Besides them, some fungi, insects, and even some carnivores are also involved. Live animals, water, air, and temperature (higher temperatures increase the decomposition rate) also help this process. During this time, fungi and bacteria, by using compounds from the dead organisms, convert carbon to carbon dioxide and organic nitrogen to ammonium (NH4+), and so they contribute to both the Carbon and Nitrogen Cycle. After this process is done, many organisms living in the ecosystem have benefitted. At the end of this cycle, soil is enriched with new nutrients which will help the new plants to grow up and the Carbon and Nitrogen cycles are enhanced.

By looking at the processes above, as well as other cycles (e.g. the Carbon cycle), it can be said that the Earth has its own recycling system. While modern societies have only recently understood the importance of recycling, Earth has been using this system thanks to the arrangements given to it.

The things shown here are just some examples of the extraordinary systems existing on the Earth. These systems have always been like this, since the very beginning of the universe. These perfects systems in nature perform their tasks without any human help. The only thing for us to do is to appreciate this harmony, understand its value, and keep it going for the next generations.

from the memoirs of an inventor that lived long, long ago

I especially love when the spider webs shine with the sunrise. The little water beads on them make an extraordinary scene in the early morning. Talking about spiders, how they make their webs is also another beauty. It still blows my mind that they can make such long arches despite their tiny bodies. With the colorful designs on their bodies, spiders are the manifestation of beauty that penetrates even into the smallest holes of the earth. As I am talking about spiders, I would like to tell you a lovely memory of mine about how my admiration of them led me to the discovery of my life.

At the time, there was not much to do other than hunting and picking leaves and fruit. I wanted to do something else. For example, the skins that animals had on them were so fitting, flexible, and nice. We used to take them to put on ourselves; but they did not fit us. They did not cover our bodies totally, and they were stinky. I had a desire to come up with a new way of covering our bodies. I used to sit by the spiders and reflect on this idea a lot while watching them make their webs.

Unfortunately, not everyone was appreciative of the spiders and my interest in them. Whenever my father caught me watching the spiders, he used to mock me and reprimand me for being lazy. He always told me that we needed to get going to hunt something edible, in order not to sleep with empty bellies. You can imagine what torture it was for me to hunt. Killing something of beauty is not beautiful… I knew we had to eat to survive. But maybe I was not the right person to do the killing part. I could cook, I could pick fruit…

One day, when I was watching a spider, I saw a cocoon hanging down from the tree. That was it! The cocoon’s cover was what I was looking for: a large spider web woven densely enough to cover us up. You should have seen me when the idea first came. I couldn’t help but smile so broadly. It had been a long time since I had smiled such a joyous smile. I started running and climbed the hills. To get some rest, I watched the valleys below. Then, once again I took off, and soared down from the hill running; my arms wide open like a bird’s wings.

When I came home, empty-handed to be sure, my mother was not happy at all. “If you don’t want your dad to ruin your night, go and find something before he comes,” she said. Fortunately, I knew some trees that were in fruit just then. I rushed to gather from them to make everybody happy.

Later that night, I had a very scary dream. I was running, and then I suddenly fell into a pit where there was a long snake. The snake started to wind itself around me so that I was totally covered. Then I saw that there was a scorpion in the pit, but it could not approach me because of the snake. Frightened, I woke up screaming. My parents came in to check on me. After a second’s silence, my father said, “I told you not to watch those spiders too much.”

Although I was not really bothered, my parents were getting more and more concerned about me. I was growing to the age of marriage, and they wanted me to have sound spiritual health. The next day, we went to the respected man of God in the village for him to interpret my dream and to get some advice. He said, “The snake in your dream did not harm you. So, it is to be hoped that God will bless you with a cover that is going to protect you from worldly and heavenly harms.” This interpretation was definitely unexpected both by me and by my parents.

Soon after that dream, I talked about my inspiration to my mother, and she told me something invaluable. She said that our great great-grandparents had had beautiful things to wear before they came to this world. When they were sent down here, their beautiful clothes were ripped off. Now that I was thinking about making beautiful garments, maybe this was a heavenly message. Mom wanted me to keep this secret.

I did keep my hopes and inspirations secret, but I did not stop working on them. I was finally inspired by another creature: birds. They made their nests by weaving plants and branches together. That observation brought me to the brim of the discovery of my life, but I was not aware of it at the time.

One day, mom wanted to have a private conversation with me. She said that now I was not a girl anymore but a young woman it was time that I united my life with someone else’s. She said that the guests that had come a few days earlier had come to talk about that issue. They asked my parents for me. At first, I was perplexed to hear all this. I wanted to have some time to prepare myself for the idea. Not long after, the preparations for the wedding were underway, and I was very willing because of the person asking for me.

My groom was the man of God that had interpreted my dream. To suit his status, I wanted to wear something special on the day of the wedding, something never seen before. The days were running by too fast, and bothered by my inability to come up with that special thing, I started spending more time with the spider webs by myself. Mom thought that a gloomy state had befallen on me due to my prospective wedding. She tried to reassure me, calm me, but that was not the case at all. As my state persisted, my parents’ worries grew too. They did not want any trouble in this wedding.

Then one day, I received the first gift for my wedding, before the wedding actually happened. I was inspired to weave the leaves and stems of plants to cover myself just like the winding of that snake in my dream and the cocoon of the spider. With the joy of this heavenly gift, I quickly finished making my garment. This discovery was certainly a heavenly beauty that was sent to celebrate my wedding. With the new garment on me, I was so beautiful, and with the man of my life, I was so happy.

Seth Mette has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at West Virginia University. He has a special interest in psychological fiction.

The Creator of the universe, the eternal power of existence who has constant awareness of the activity of every cell in our bodies, has endowed us with many fascinating characteristics in the features of our diet and process of reproduction to enable us to live within the ecological stability and principles of adaptation in our natural environment. I will try to explain some of these features to the best of my ability to give you a brief but significant idea of our unique and amazing creation.

Unlike humans, for whom the total development of the fetus and organs takes around 280 days in the womb, we remain in our mother’s womb for a much shorter period. Following a 34–36 day pregnancy, we are born into the world around the size of a bean, blind and earless. As soon as our mothers give birth to us, we crawl by divine inspiration into a pouch created for our protection and development on our mother’s belly. This pouch is why you define both us and kangaroos among the animal kingdom as marsupials. If we did not climb into the pouch created for us to complete the process of our development, we would not be able to live for the first five months of our lives. We feed by sucking the taps of nourishment, the two teats found within the pouch, for the first five months of our lives without leaving this cozy place of security. After about five months hidden in the pouch, we gradually begin to stick our heads out to learn how to benefit from the other substances God has created for us in the universe. While the younger mothers of our species can give birth every year, the older females only give birth every two years or so.

After the first six months we obtain sustenance from our mothers which contains the bacteria and nutritional weaning supplement our digestive system requires to enable us to make the transition from our mother’s milk to the nutrient which becomes the main provision we depend on for the rest of our lives, eucalyptus leaves. In the eighth month of our lives we become a bit more active and sometimes leave our pouch and ride on our mother’s back but we climb back into our pouch at the first sign of danger. We begin to fend for ourselves and eat the eucalyptus leaves with no help from our mothers a year after our birth. We have our very own eucalyptus tree, sometimes even more than one, and we mark the tree by scratching it with our claws, a kind of signature that defines which of us lives in a certain tree.

It may seem unbelievable to you but we hardly drink any water. This is why our name is said to derive from a word of the Aboriginal language meaning “No drink.” This is mainly due to our diet because our need for water is provided by the eucalyptus leaves we eat, which contain 40–60% water, enough for our bodies. As well as this our digestive system and kidneys have been created with a structure that takes the maximum benefit from the water in eucalyptus leaves and wastes the least possible amount of water. The rate of our metabolism is quite low compared to that of other mammals. This is another factor which greatly reduces the loss of water from our bodies, so we do not have to constantly climb down from the trees we live in to find water.

Those who call us lazy because we sleep a lot, an average of twenty hours a day, unfortunately do not know very much about us. Sleep is necessary for us because fibrous eucalyptus leaves contain very little protein and very few other nutrients. This means they provide us with a low energy diet so we have to optimize our use of this energy. The Creator adapted us so that we sleep for 18–20 hours a day to save energy. So never compare us with those who have the ability or energy to be active but waste their valuable lives in unnecessary actions or idleness.

The high content of aromatic oils and various chemical components of cyanide found in eucalyptus leaves are extremely poisonous to many plant-eating animals but we are an exception. God created us with a unique digestive system because the main ingredient of plants, cellulose, is such a hard substance to digest that we have been created with a caecum, a section of intestine much longer (200cm) than that of other mammals, which acts as a chamber of fermentation. Here the high-cellulose eucalyptus leaves are easily broken down by bacteria and microorganisms living in our caecum, a process which then enables our digestion of the leaves. Some of the harmful oils and components (phenol compounds) in the leaves are refined by our liver, which works in an excellent manner, and then these oils are excreted from our body. The creation of our liver, which acts like a special laboratory that can even transform the most dangerous of poisons into harmless substances, has been referred to by evolutionists ludicrously as “a coincidence” or “unaware mutation.”

There are certain things that we must be wary of in our diet. Out of around six hundred different kinds of leaves we can only eat twenty of them, so from around nine kilos of leaves that we pick every day, we only eat one kilo of the least poisonous ones. We usually choose the fresher leaves, and we detect the amount of poison in each leaf by its odor. This is why our noses are one of the most sensitive organs of our bodies. Sometimes we eat earth to obtain the minerals lacking in our bodies. This sharpens our teeth at the same time.

God Almighty, who created even the smallest detail of the universe perfectly, also created our bodies to meet our every requirement. The All-Knowing Designer of the universe created us with arms and paws so we can easily climb up into the eucalyptus trees we use as our homes, our places of habitat. The soles of our paws that are covered in a thick skin, and our arms and legs, which are equipped with strong muscles, and our hook shaped claws enable us to grip onto the trunk and branches of the tree. We can even sleep while we are hanging from a branch. We have five claws on each of our front paws and two of these claws are placed like the thumbs on your hands. These claws enable us to grip and keep a hold on branches. The second and third claws on our hind paws are joined together to enable a stronger grip. We can grip with all four of our paws just like a human grasps with his or her hand and this helps us to walk up the branches and move around in the tree with great ease.

Our body temperature is perfectly adjusted for outdoor life, and our rainproof fur also protects us from the cold, heat and wind. Our fur changes and adapts every season in length and thickness according to our temperature requirements, Australia is situated in the southern hemisphere, so those of us who live in the south have been created with a longer more bristly fur than those in the north so we can cope with the harsh winter conditions. Our fur has patches of different colors on different parts of our bodies; the darker fur on our backs has been created to absorb and preserve heat while the fur on other parts of our bodies is relatively light in color.

To protect ourselves from strong winds we roll our ears up into a kind of ball and turn our backs, the most insulated part of our bodies towards the wind. The fur on our backs is as protective as that of the animals that live in the Arctic. If you see us curled up on a branch in the winter, don’t worry. Due to our incredible fur coat we are as warm and comfortable as you are in your homes.

Unfortunately, we have been subjected to the never-ending desires and ambitions of humankind. The dingoes, iguanas, and some of the eagles and owls that live in Australia do cause us harm from time to time but the massacre inflicted on us by humans in the nineteenth century was heartless and barbaric. Especially from about 1910 to the 1930s my ancestors were killed for our fur and around 80% of our main source of nutrition was destroyed by cutting down eucalyptus trees. In 1927 our species was subjected to the largest massacre ever. They say that over two and a half million of my brothers and sisters were barbarically killed then. It is reported that there are between two and eight thousand of us living today, and the drop in our population is mainly due to agriculture, urbanization and the destruction of the trees we depend on for our habit and nutrition. There has been a huge increase in deaths among us from contagious diseases and attacks by domestic animals like dogs. In recent years, all praise to our merciful Creator, by the great efforts of some foundations and organizations we have been placed under a conservation order.

This description of our exceptional organs, our behavior we are inspired to adopt, and the many blessings bestowed upon us must have explained to you and enlightened you about certain things. May the greetings of the Almighty, He who created us with a liver to enable us to cope with the poisonous leaves, who enables us to feed our offspring in the security of the pouch on our bellies, who created everything in the universe in total cooperation and harmony with each other, be upon you all…

Termites, one of the most common insects in the ecosystem, have very interesting specifications and social behaviors. These insects are of interest due to their ability to digest cellulose and to recycle organic foods found in rotten leaves, dead wood or wood chips. Although they are considered by some to be harmful to the economy-in the USA alone 600 million dollars every year-because they eat wood, in truth they bring about more benefit than harm. As a result of the activities of these insects, our forests are able to respire and regenerate. Termites break down old, decayed, and fallen trees, digesting them and thus helping nature to renew with a continuous circulation of vital substances. Despite the depth of information that is known about the ecological and economical importance of termites, only a little is known about their biological structure and behavior. Two characteristic features of these insects are that they live in social colonies and that they are very susceptible to infections, as they build their nests in soil or rotten wood. Since their environment is covered with damp and warm earth, they are also surrounded by an abundance of bacteria.

How termites arrange their social lives and how they protect themselves against illness are two main subjects being investigated by biological scientists. When termites encounter fatal fungal infections, the termites that first become aware of the disease start to send warning signals to the other members of the colony. Even at the cost of their lives, these members will continue to send warning signals. That is, for the health and prosperity of the whole society, some individuals of the group will sacrifice their own lives. One of these signals consists of the contractions and vibrations sent by the termite that caught the disease. One type of termite that makes its nest in wood starts to eat and destroy its nest when it catches an infection. The vibrations and sound of this activity are received by the other members of the colony, and they quickly realize that they are faced with an emergency situation. They then spring into action to move their nest to a more secure place. These communication experts exhibit different movements and behavior in order to inform others of different kinds of dangers. They use different methods to warn others about the existence of an intruder, or a hole in the nest, or a disease they have caught. Consequently, the vibrations and oscillations caused by the movements of the termites constitute a kind of Morse code for termites. In other words, termites talk to each other through these oscillations and vibrations, which to us appear as no more than a strange puzzle for us.

J. Traniello from Boston University investigated the communication systems termites use to inform each other about disease-making microorganisms as his research subject (Mechanisms of Disease Response in Termites) . He made a rectangular shaped Perspex (clear acrylic) nest which he has divided into two sections. The material used for the divisions allowed the termites to pass from side to side. Moreover, some tubes were also placed around the nest so that the termites could leave the nest. He placed termites in both of the sections. After an adaptation period, one part of the nest was infected by spores of a fatal fungus called Metahizium anisopliae, with the change in the behavior of the insects being observed and recorded. Termites that sensed the infected parts of the section started to move their bodies up and down and back and forth, as if they were breathing deeply and continued to depict seismic waves like oscillations and vibrations. Termites in the clean part of the nest felt these vibrations and within an hour had completely abandoned the nest. An interesting observation in the experiment was that the termites in the infected part stayed in the nest and continued to vibrate. In order to determine that the termites left the nest only after receiving the vibrations sent by the termites that had detected the infection, sound absorbent foams were placed between the sections, and the same experiment was carried out three times more. In the experiments conducted with the absorbent foam, despite the existence of the disease, the termites in the uninfected sections did not leave the nest. This proves that termites were receiving the vibrations from the infected termites and were replying to them by immediately deserting the nest.

It was thought that the termites in the infected area would also leave the nest after sending messages to the termites in the other section. This hypothesis, however, proved to be false. They stayed where they were and continued sending warning signals until they died. This was another example of the sacrifice observed in social insects that give up their own lives for the continuation of their society. The termite perceives the existence of a fatal bacteria attack and immediately starts to send warning signals; and by not abandoning their nest, they successfully put into effect a quarantine system. These social insects, without any intelligence, apply the quarantine system in such a precise manner that the disease is completely prevented from spreading. What is more, by sacrificing themselves for their society, they show that the principle of “if a person’s endeavor is for his nation, that person becomes a miniature nation on his own” is not only valid for human beings.

Ants, using a different method than termites, synthesize bacteria eliminating chemicals in their saliva glands that protect them from infectious diseases. These chemical combinations are very effective against bacteria and fungi. Ants protect themselves by covering their bodies with these substances at certain intervals. Termites, although in appearance not very different from ants, do not produce antiseptic substances in their bodies. Termites use a different strategy by establishing a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria that live in their intestines. Some termites that feed on decayed wood need enzymes to digest the cellulose. The cellulose needed by termites is synthesized by the bacteria in their intestines and turned into sugar. Thus, termites receive the glucose they need for survival and bacteria are provided with a comfortable berth in the bodies of the termites. Because of this symbiotic relationship, the production of fatal antibiotics that would kill the bacteria would be harmful to the termites themselves.

Instead of producing chemical compounds or antibiotics like ants, the seismic movements and self-sacrificing behavior depicted by the termites has given scientists the idea that it may be possible to benefit from termites as an early warning system for earthquakes. This idea is reflected in the Holy Qur’an, chapter Naml (The Ant), verse 18:

Until, when they reached a valley of ants, one of the ants said: “O you ants! Get into your dwellings lest Solomon and his army crush you unawares.”

This verse shows us the sensitivity of ants to vibrations. They have organs in their feet that are sensitive to movement. For one of those ants to have been able to warn the other ants, it must either have seen or sensed the coming of Prophet Solomon’s army. As obviously an ant cannot see an army coming from a long distance, they must have felt the vibrations made by the feet of the soldiers. We know that sound waves move very fast and are strong in solid objects. Because of this, by placing an ear onto railway track one can hear the vibrations of a train from far away. Termites most likely have an organ that receives vibrations that is similar to that of ants, because if a species can produce a signal (e.g. light, sound, or vibrations) for communication, they must also have an organ that is capable of receiving this signal. Since termites communicate with vibrations, they must also have an organ that is sensitive to weak vibrations. From this respect, if the code that is based upon some of the behaviors and vibrations used by the termites can be decoded, then are techniques of predicting earthquakes can be considerably improved.

A: The Qur’an was revealed to make us aware of the Creator, affirm that He is known through His creation, direct us to belief and worship, and order individual and social life so that we attain happiness in both worlds. Today, many Muslims pursue science to obtain a better understanding of Him and His creation. Keeping this in mind, consider the following Qur’anic allusions to scientific facts:

Soon We shall show them Our signs on the furthest horizons, and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is truth. Is it not enough that your Lord witnesses all things? (41:53)

Our thinking and research affirms the Creator’s Oneness, as the true nature and interrelationship of microcosm and macrocosm are further disclosed and better understood. Scientists seem to be very close to proving this Divine truth. Even now we feel that soon we shall hear and understand creation’s testimonies and praises to God, as mentioned in 17:44.

O humanity, if you doubt the Resurrection, (consider) that We created you out of dust, then out of sperm, then out of a leech-like cloth, then out of a lump of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order that We may manifest (what We will) to you… (22:5)

We created man from a quintessence (of clay). Then We placed him as (a drop of) sperm in a place of rest, firmly fixed. Then we made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood. Then of that clot We made a lump (embryo); then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh. Then We developed out of it a new (distinct, indi-vidual) creature. (23:12“14)

He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness … (39:6)

These three veils of darkness are the parametrium, miometrium, and the endometrium, three tissues enveloping three water-, heat-, and light-proof membranes (the amnion, corion, and the womb’s wall).

In cattle will you find an instructive sign. From what is from their bodies, between excretions and blood, We produce, for your drink, milk, pure and agreeable to those who drink it (16:66)

The Qur’an details this process: food’s partial digestion and absorption, followed by a second process and refinement in the glands. Milk is wholesome and agreeable for people, yet is rejected by the cow’s body and bloodstream as useless.

Glory be to God, who created in pairs all things, of what the soil produces, and of themselves, and of what they know not. (36:36)

We know that people, animals, and certain plants have counterparts. But what about the pairs in all things and of what they know not? This may refer to a whole range of inanimate and animate entities, subtle forces, and principles of nature. Science confirms that everything occurs in pairs.

Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and Earth were joined together (as a single mass) before We clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? (21:30)

Every living thing was created of water. What is important here is that the universe is a single miracle of creation, not how life came about. Everything in it is an integral part of that miracle, bears signs that prove it, and is interconnected. The verse emphasizes water’s vitality and significance.

The sun runs its course (mustaqarr) determined for it. That is His de-cree, the Exalted in Might, the All-Knowing. (36:38)

In fact, mustaqarr here may mean a determined orbit in space or time, a fixed place of rest or dwelling. Thus the sun has a specific orbit, moves to-ward a particular point, and will rest when its task is finished. Such words were spoken at a time when people thought the sun orbited Earth.

The firmament: We constructed it with power and skill, and We are expanding it. (51:47“48)

This verse reveals that the distance between celestial bodies is increasing, for the universe is ex-panding. In 1922, the astronomer Hubble claimed that all galaxies, ex-cept the five closest to Earth, are moving further into space at a speed directly proportional to their distance from Earth. Le Ma tre, a Belgian mathematician and priest, later proposed and developed the theory that the universe is expanding.

God raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see… (13:2)

All celestial bodies move in order, balance, and harmony. They are held and supported in this order by invisible pillars, known to science as the balance of centripetal and centrifugal forces: He holds back the sky from falling on earth except by His leave… (22:65)

By the moon’s fullness, you shall travel from stage to stage (84:18“19)

Some earlier commentators thought that this described one’s spiritual ascent or a process of change. Later Qur’anic interpreters thought that it could not be taken literally. But given the context, this really means travelling to the moon, whether literally or figuratively.

Do they not see how We gradually shrink the land from its outlying borders? Is it then they who will be victors? (21:44)

The reference to shrinking could reflect Earth’s being compressed at the poles, rather than to such earlier theories as the erosion of mountains by wind and rain, of the sea-shores by the sea, or of the desert’s encroach-ment of cultivated lands. The Qur’an’s depiction of Earth as egg-shaped (79:30-32) is also borne out by science.

We have made the night and the day as two signs; the sign of the night We have obscured, while the sign of the day We have made to enlighten you… (17:12)

According to Ibn Abbas, the sign of the night refers to the moon, and the sign of the day to the sun. Therefore, from the words the sign of the night We have obscured, we understand that God removed the moon’s ability to emit light, thereby causing it to darken or become obscured. While the verse thus accurately re-counts the moon’s past, it points to the future destiny of other heavenly bodies.

The Qur’an, although it contains many more such allusions, must not be considered a science textbook. Its only purpose is to guide us to right belief and right action. We must ensure that it, and not our arrogance, insolence, and vainglory, directs our pursuit of knowledge.

When modern science agrees with the Qur’an

Science is the language that most people speak and understand today. Thus Muslims should be well-versed in it to refute the claims of materialists and atheists. The Qur’an encourages us to pursue such knowledge, provided that we seek only to earn God’s good pleasure and ensure understanding among the people.

Moreover, how can the eternal and unchanging Qur’an be proven by science, which is subject to change? Science only serves to awaken sleeping or confused minds. It cannot establish the truths of faith in our conscience, for faith comes only by Divine guidance. Our faith, not our knowledge, makes us believers. Objective and subjective evidence must eventually be dropped, so that we can make spiritual progress by following our heart and conscience within the Qur’an’s light and guidance.

I would like to focus briefly on the twentieth century in terms of technological innovations and their impact on the human soul. The Industrial Revolution radically changed our traditional lifestyle. Modern technology engendered many improvements in such areas as production and transportation. These changes were reflected in the literature and art of the period as well.

Views of Technology

In 1909, for instance, the Italian writer Marinetti published The Manifesto of Futurism, a great example of how intellectuals were affected by technology. He states that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by this new beauty, the beauty of speed: We stand on the last promontory of the centuries! Why should we look back? What we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the impossible. Time and space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.(1)

This approach is very understandable, because its adherents assumed that modern technology would provide opportunities they had never experienced. The prospects of technology amazed them. But looking back, we see that technology shaped a new type of people who are dependent on machines. Producing tools and making money became cornerstones of modern life. These views threaten cultural values and traditional relationships among people who feel alone in these technologically separated environments. We ask: How much do machines dominate humanity, and why do people feel so deeply abandoned?

We can look at two perspectives from that period. The first is technology as a magical and wonderful creation, promoted by Marinetti and other futurists. The other is characterized by people like Charlie Chaplain who, in one of his movies, shows a worker who screws bolts every day as eventually starting to see everything as a bolt. This is the worst effect of twentieth-century technology: People have begun to feel like machines or parts of machines.

Do people need and deserve more than this? Of course, they do.

The latest version of modern technology is cyberspace, a place where people can find all sorts of information. Locating information and sharing experiences is easier than ever before. The Internet, for example, has become the information superhighway on which people can find almost everything. The Internet and other technological tools have helped create the expression being digital, which refers to people who use a lot of technology. Is this the illusion of technological globalization(2) or electronic democracy will be the end of participatory democracy?(3) Even though this digital medium provides a new source of information, we have not figured out how best to use it or what information to trust on it.

Issues

At this point, we must learn how to use modern technology and regulate information, because we cannot ignore them. These scientific and technological advances will play important roles in future developments. Science and technology in and of themselves are not the problem, nor have they ever been. The real problem is that science and technology are developed, deployed, and controlled by the predatory system of pancapitalism. The mainstream development of knowledge and technology is guided by increased efficiency in militarized production of violence and/or by potential corporate profits in civilian markets.(4)

There is another significant point here: Modern technology has been trying to create a cyberbody. In the future, scientists will be able to produce digital flesh to enhance our abilities. So here is the problem we have to solve: People who have these enhancements installed may begin to wonder if they are humans or robots. We already have seen that people can adjust their bodies in many ways: laser surgery to correct their vision, or synthetic material to replace their teeth.

Cyberfeminism focusing on women’s role in cyberculture is another interesting example of changing the human body. This already has caused some problems. The challenge here is rather how to combine the recognition of postmodern embodiment with resistance to relativism and a free fall into cynicism.(5)

Technology has limited privacy. When we are born, we get a birth certificate that quickly goes online. Educational files, social security files, insurance files, criminal files, consumption files, and so on are all in cyberspace. The Internet has become an on-line marketplace and is continuing to grow.

On the other hand, even though we are so connected, our social relationships with others have fallen apart. Every relationship between teachers and students, buyers and sellers, parents and children, for example, will be changed radically in the next few decades.

The most important question is how can we find a good balance that gives happiness and hope for both our bodies and our souls? We are not just bodies that need to eat, sleep, and rest, among other things; our souls must be nourished. In this technological age, this has led to a conflict”the crisis of modernity”between religious and metaphysical ideas. Nietzsche said that God was dead. Of course he was wrong, because he, like other philosophers, could not have realized that spiritual needs would become so important in modern times.

Today, we still are seeking for something to feed modern society’s spiritual hunger. We will have to find or build a way of thinking that will include metaphysical ideas, scientific innovations, and religious thought. After that, we will be able to put ourselves in a place where people can regulate their spiritual and physical needs. Otherwise, we will never feel that we are free

Footnotes

1. F. T. Marinetti, The Manifesto of Futurism, Le Figaro (February 20, 1909).
2. Steve Gibson, www.kk.kau.se/mct/MCTO199/steve/ right.html.
3. An Interview with Paul Virilio, www.nettime.org/ nettime.w3archive/199904/msgn00456.html.
4. Critical Arts Ensemble Staff, Critical Art Ensemble, The Flesh Machine: Cyborgs, Designer Babies, and New Eugenic Consciousness (Autonomedia: 1998), 7-8.
5. Rosi Braidotti, Cyberfeminism with a Difference, www.let.ruu.nl/womens_studies/library.html.

One argument for the antiquity of the doctrines of reincarnation is the ‘evidence’ in ancient literature, in the tales of metamorphosis-for example, Ovid’s colorful extravagances of that name, in which ‘gods’ take on human and animal forms, humans take on a diversity of different shapes, etc. But these tales do not constitute a doctrine; the doctrine proper is not to do with, simply, colourful change of form, but with a belief that an individual soul must pass through every ‘level’ of creation, every species of life- form, animate or inanimate, sentient or insentient. If we reflect upon this, we soon realize that the doctrine is really a strange elaboration on the immortality of the soul. In other words, the kernel of it is the intuition that the soul is immortal. That kernel is true; the rest is not. The doctrine may also have arisen from the observation of the likeness in physical and other traits between parents and offspring:

in other words, the biological phenomena of heredity, perfectly intelligibly explained by the laws of genetics, are given a less intelligible, indeed downright irrational, explanation by the doctrine of reincarnation.

The doctrine is said to have emerged in the Nile basin, spreading thence to other regions and peoples, to India, for example, and back west from thence, to Greece. There, the eloquence of the philosophers rationalized it (incredibly, it seems to us) into a source of consolation and hope for people who, as do all people, longed for eternity. Among the major religions, the doctrine was, initially, infiltrated into Judaism by the Kabbalists, and by the contrivance of Jewish thinkers into Christianity, and finally into the ideas of some Sufis-despite the hard labours of Muslim theologians to refute such a distortion.

To support it, every apologist for the doctrine, put forward some ‘evidence’. For instance, the Kabbalists mention the transformation of Niobe (mentioned in the Old Testament) into a marble sculpture, and of the wife of the Prophet Lot, into a statue made of dust; and others have referred to a literal transformation of Jews into monkeys and pigs.

Another argument explains instinct and intelligence in animals, and the splendours of the plant kingdom, as once human intelligence and vitality which had entered into them. The idea debases humanity and shames its proponents: it is really difficult to accept that such an assertion, even if made on the spur of the moment, could be made by people of any understanding. Certainly, it is beyond doubt that there is a programme and a predetermined destiny for plants and inanimate creation. But it is rather far-fetched to trace the harmony and order we see in the plant or mineral kingdoms to souls which formerly lived as or in human beings. Actually, plants and trees have a certain life, a plant-life, a direction of growth towards light and moisture, but this does not mean that this is the activity of the soul of a human soul cast down, or a soul on its way up the levels of creation.

Despite efforts to corroborate this, no one has ever received any message from a plant-form confirming that it contains a soul that once belonged to a human being, nor have we heard any account from a human being that he or she was once the soul of a plant or animal. True, there have been claims, spread about by tabloids and other such media, of people recollecting ‘past lives’, even recounting incidents from them. Where these claims are not totally absurd and ridiculous ravings, their substance can easily be explained as recollections of what the individual has seen or read and then, knowingly or otherwise, elaborated and transformed as in any ordinary human fiction.

The fact that Niobe and the wife of the Prophet Lot were transformed into sculptures of marble or dust respectively, even if accepted literally, are neither an instance nor evidence of reincarnation. What we have in this case is a transformation of a physical kind; it has nothing to do with transmigration of the soul. As for petrified bodies, that is not an arcane phenomenon: just such corpses have been found, in considerable numbers, preserved by the absolute dryness of volcanic ashes. Pompeii was destroyed by a sudden volcanic eruption and remained buried under the ashes of Vesuvius for hundreds of years. The excavations performed there revealed numerous Niobe-like petrified bodies. In these ruins, and in the petrified faces and bodies, so busy in their self-indulgent vices, so secure in their arrogance, we can, if we wish, read the signs of Divine wrath and punishment. Perhaps these figures had their way of life solidified in ash and so preserved, so that future generations might witness and take heed. To interpret them as evidence of reincarnation is simply untenable.

Belief in reincarnation in Egypt, India and Greece, developed as a result of distortion of once sound beliefs in the Hereafter, and from a longing for the immortality of the soul. Neither in Ahen-Aten’s Egypt nor in Pythagoras’ Greece did anyone know of the reincarnation which these distorted beliefs brought about. To Ahen-Aten, when man’s life ends in this world, a different one starts in heaven. As soon as one dies, one’s soul sets off on its journey to reach ‘the Greatest Court’ in heaven, It goes so high that it reaches to the presence of Osiris, and hopes to give an account of itself in words like these: ‘I have come to Your presence as I was free from sins, and throughout my life, I did do everything I could that would make devout men pleased. I did not shed blood nor did I steal. Neither did I make mischief nor did I mean any. I did not commit any adultery nor fornication whatever’. Those who can speak so join Orisis’ congregation, those who cannot, whose evil deeds outweigh their good, are hurled into hell and tortured by demons.

Such sound belief is witnessed also in epitaphs relating to Ahen-Aten’s religion as follows: ‘What You have done is too much and our eyes cannot perceive most of them. 0 One, Only God No one possesses such might as You have. It is You who has created this universe’ as You wish and You alone. It is You who decree the world suitable for human beings, for all animals, whether big or small, whether they walk on the earth on their legs or they fly up in the sky on their wings. And it is You alone who sustain and nourish them. Thanks to You, all beauties come into existence. All eyes see You by means of those. Verily, my heart belongs to You (You are in my heart).’ The ideas quoted verbatim above were the things which were believed as truth in Egypt some four thousand years ago.

Likewise, in Ancient Greece, the belief in resurrection and the immortality of the soul was quite sound. The great philosopher Pythagoras, for example, believed that the soul on leaving the body has a life peculiar to itself; in fact any soul has this same kind of life even before it quits the earth. It is commissioned with some responsibilities on earth; if it commits any evil, it will be punished, thrown into hell and tormented by demons. On the other hand, in return for the good that it does, it will be given high rank and blessed with a happy life. Allowing for the changes that might have been made in the views of Pythagoras over time, we can certainly still see that there are fundamental similarities with the Islamic creed of resurrection. Plato’s account is not so different either. In his famous treatise The Republic, he says that the soul on leaving the body forgets the material life totally; it ascends into an appropriate realm, a spiritual one, saturated with wisdom and immortality; the soul is free from all scarcity, deficiency, error, fear, and from the passion and love which afflicted it while it lived on earth; and then, being free from all the evil consequences of human nature, it is blessed with eternal bliss.

In essence, the doctrine of reincarnation is, in its different forms within different creeds, if we look carefully, a distorted version of a sound belief. Every creed, with the exception of Islam, has suffered such distortions. Christianity, for example, once a divinely revealed religion, has been distorted and Prophet Jesus deified. Had it not been for the luminous and clarifying verses of the Qur’an, and the influence of Islam, Christianity’s formal position on this matter may not have been different. If Christianity teaches the unity of the soul and body, it owes this to the Andalusian Muslim savants. One of the most famous Christian philosophers is St Thomas Aquinas. The great part of his new ideas and synthesis were adapted from Islamic teachings. He says in his distinguished book Summa Theologica (Part I, Question 90, Art. 4) that the key concept of man is that the soul and body are united in an apt composite. He adds that animal souls develop with animal bodies, but that human souls are especially created at some time during early development (Art. 3), and he therefore rejects the abstract speculations of the Neo-Platonist school.

In a comparable way, no doubt also through unscrupulous translation away from the original language and subsequent further distinctions, the Ancient Egyptian, Indian and Greek religions became unrecognizable. The doctrine of reincarnation may well be one such alteration from an originally sound conception of the immortality of the soul and its return to the Divine Judgement.

After reincarnation was inscribed into the beliefs of the Ancient Egyptians, it became one of the central themes of songs and legends throughout the vicinity of the Nile region. Elaborated further with the eloquent expressions of Greek philosophers, it became, with the expansion of Greek influence, a widespread phenomenon.

Reincarnation and Hinduism

The Hindus consider matter as the lowest manifestation of Brahma, and deem that the convergence of body and soul is a demeaning of the soul, a decline into evil. However, death is believed to be salvation, a separation from human defects, a possible chance to achieve an ecstatic union with the truth. The Hindus are polytheistic in practice. Their greatest god is ‘Krishna’, who is believed to have come in a human figure in order to eradicate evil.

Their second greatest god is ‘Vishnu’, which means that which can penetrate the human body. According to Hinduism, Vishnu has descended into this world nine times in different shapes (human, animal, or flower). He is also expected to descend for the tenth time. Since they believe that Vishnu will next come to this world in the shape of an animal, killing any animal is absolutely prohibited. Killing animals is only allowed during war; and the zealots of that religion do not normally eat meat. According to the Vedanta, the most important religious book of the Hindus, the soul is a part, a fragment, of Brahma; it will never be able to get rid of suffering and distress until it returns to its origin. Soul achieves gnosis by isolating itself from the ego and all wickedness pertaining to the ego, and by running towards Brahma, just as a river flows down into a sea. When the soul reaches and unites with Brahma, it acquires absolute peace, tranquillity and stillness, another version of which is Nirvana in Buddhism:there is an abatement of active seeking, a passivity of soul in the latter, whereas the soul is dynamic in Hinduism.

Reincarnation in monotheistic religions

Some Jewish sects adopted reincarnation and appropriated it. After refusing belief in Resurrection and Judgement, the Jews, who can be inordinately covetous of life yet remain fascinated by the immortality of the soul as well, could do little else than accept reincarnation. Later, the Kabbalists contrived to transfer it to the Church of Alexandria through certain monastic orders in that region. The doctrine has had negligible effect on the manifestation of Islam, nevertheless it was, unfortunately, introduced among Muslims by the Ghulat-i Shi’a (an extremist Shi’a faction).

All ancient, new and contemporary acceptance of the doctrine of reincarnation has one characteristic, one root, in common, that is the belief in incarnation. There is a shared failure of intellect to both grasp and accept the Absolute Transcendence of God: corrupted by this failure, people have been persuaded to believe that the Divine mixes with the corporal and that the corporal or the human will mix or can mix with the Divine. This failure is, except for Islam which, by God, has retained its strict purity of belief, all but universal. The central figure in each of these distorted religions is an incarnation or reincarnation-Aten in Atenism, Brahma in Hinduism. Ezra (Uzair) in Judaism, Jesus in Christianity, and Ali in the Ghulat-i Shi’a faction who are considered to be outside the fold of Islam. Allegations that some of the writings and utterances of some Muslim Sufis support the doctrine of reincarnation are either plainly malicious or the result of absurdly literal understanding of the Sufis’ highly symbolic and esoteric discourse. The scholars of Islam, certainly among the ninety percent of Sunnis, have all, unanimously and unequivocally, rejected reincarnation as totally contrary to the spirit of Islam. This is true of scholars in every field-jurisprudence, theology, Qur’anic commentary (tafsir) or commentary on Hadith. The reason for this stand is simple: the absolute centrality in Islam of the belief that every individual lives and dies according to his or her individual destiny, carries his or her individual load, will be individually resurrected and individually called to answer for his or her intentions and actions and their consequences, and each individually will receive Divine judgement (which is perfect justice) according to the same criteria.

Islam’s rejection of reincarnation

We set below, in the form of a list of points, the cardinal reasons why Islam altogether rejects the doctrine of reincarnation. Belief in Islam requires belief in the Resurrection and Judgement when justice is meted out to each individual soul according to that individual’s record in life.

1. If the individual soul passes into different lives, in which form or personality will it be resurrected, commanded to give account, and rewarded or punished?

2. This world is created for the purpose of test and trial, to benefit the soul thereby. One focus of the test is belief in the ghayb (the Unseen). Under the doctrine of resurrection, those who live a bad life pass into a lower form of life (animal, tree, etc.) after death. But in that case, they will know the consequences of their former life and life as test loses its meaning.

To get around this, believers in this doctrine also have to have a doctrine of forgetfulness-the soul ‘forgets’ its past existence. In that case, for all practical purposes, having had (or not having had) a past existence is of no consequence to any living creature. Plainly, the doctrine contradicts itself and has no bearing on life as it is lived except to make the individual accept his condition whatever it may be without actively striving for salvation.

3. If each individual is supposed to go through a painful cycle of transmigrations in order to acquire eternal bliss, then God’s promise to punish the wicked and the sinful, and to reward the good and the righteous, has no meaning for the individual life. This is unacceptable for Providence and God is far from being vain or futile in his actions.

4. The Qur’an and other Divine Books state that sins will be forgiven (if truly repented). This proves how unnecessary and cumbersome a device it is, this doctrine that the soul must endure innumerable cycles to realize forgiveness. How much better do the concepts of mercy and forgiveness befit God, the Beneficent Merciful Creator.

In Islam, there is no sin which God cannot forgive as He wills. God, the All-Mighty, reveals and promises in the Qur’an that He will forgive those who repent what they have done wrong and sincerely intend not to do it again. In this respect, God does not see how great or little your sins are, nor how late your penitence is. This may mean that a sinner who disobeys and rebels against God throughout his life can also he forgiven by a single act of true repentance, done with absolute sincerity and a profound understanding of servanthood and dependence on God. (But no individual knows his or her future, none knows if that late hour will come-how unwise then to postpone it!)

5. Long, and tiresome cycles of rebirth are contrary to the mercy, favour, grace and forgiveness of God, the All- Compassionate. If He wills, He takes ordinary, worthless, inferior things and turns them into what is purest, and best and beyond price. Infinite indeed are His blessings and munificence.

6. Among the followers of the prophets, there have been many who led wicked lives but who afterwards reformed and did so within an incredibly short time, then being the revered models of virtue for later generations. After meeting the Prophets, and embracing the Divine Message, some of them even surpassed previous followers and came to be more revered than them. This indicates that by the favour of God one can easily and quickly rise to the summit, even if, previously, one had been of those apparently destined for the pit. It also shows, again, how unnecessary is the doctrine of souls ‘graduating’ into higher levels of being:indeed the doctrine may have the effect of lessening incentives to moral effort.

7. To believe that God, the All-Mighty, has created for each individual an individual soul is a part of belief in His Omnipotence. To believe, instead, that a limited number of souls migrate from body to body, argues the illogical proposition that the Omnipotent is not Omnipotent. The sheer abundance of life, its infinite variety, its refusal of mere repetition of form, is everywhere evident:God is indeed All-Mighty. There are approximately 5 or 5.5 billion people in the world. In recent times we have learnt how to prove that each individual is absolutely unique-an idea urged by many verses of the Qur’an-by looking at fingerprints or gene codes. No individual’s gene code or fingerprint is like any other’s-a fact so reliable as to be used in forensic science to identify criminals. Another example is the observation by a German professor, over thirty years, of millions of pictures of snow-flakes not one of which is ever exactly like any other in shape or pattern. It is scarcely imaginable how many snowflakes fall in one season on one mountainside, let alone all that have ever fallen. How foolish to imply then that the Omnipotent could not create an infinite number of individual souls and supply them with an infinite number of bodies.

8. As there are about 5.5 billion people altogether on the earth, could not a few of them at least have had some marks, or signs on them, or evidence, or something convincing to tell, of their memories, adventures and experiences in different forms and bodies? Must not there have be an accumulation of knowledge, experience and culture in some of those who have come to this world a few times or even completed their cycles? If this happend in only one out of a million should we not expect there to be a great number of people now living of extraordinary virtue and competence? Should we not have met a few of them even in our own countries? If so, where are they?

9. When a body reaches an age (let’s say three or four years) and a measure of physical maturity, should we not expect the soul to emerge with, as it were, all the acquisition and achievement of previous lives? Should we not expect prodigies? There have been quite a few prodigies in recorded history, but their special gifts need not be the result of lives lived many times before. It can equally well be explained as a special combination of genetic characteristics occurring in a particular time and place which is attributable to Divine Grace and Favour, together with supreme effort on the part of the individual to understand his or her own gift in the tradition and context in which it is given.

10. No faculty special only to human beings has ever been found in any other entities, animate or inanimate. But we should expect such a discovery if there were any truth in reincarnation. If a lower form of life is, so to speak, the consequence (punishment) for particular evil deeds in the previous life, then, presumably, the good in that life (outweighed by the evil) must also be carried forward. In other words, some part of the individual’s previous life should be retained in the next life. In this case we would expect the boundaries of particular forms to be frequently burst open-with, for example, plants never known to do so, suddenly showing properties associated with animal life. But, by the Mercy of God, zoology and botany have not, for all their many welcome advances in recent years, discovered any such monsters.

11. If being a man or animal is the consequence of one’s deeds in a former life, which first existed, man or animal, the higher or the lower? Advocates of the doctrine cannot decide or agree on any form for the first creature, for every generation implies a preceding generation in order that the succeeding generation may be considered as the consequence of the former. And if generation is an evil, as some who believe in reincarnation also believe, why did the whole thing start? Why did life begin at all? Plainly, the doctrine leads again and again to absurdity.