When I visited Thailand years ago, I had the pleasure of tasting about 20 different types of exotic, tropical fruits like pineapple and mango, some of which were first in my life. Each had a unique color, shape, smell, and taste. It occurred to me then that there were plants and fruits in places that we would never visit in our lifetimes and we would never have the chance to taste or smell them, but our tongue was still capable of tasting, smelling, and getting pleasure out of every one of them.

Take the orange for instance. Since it is more easily available and not as exotic as other fruits, we may incline to underestimate it; but in fact it is one of the countless bounties we are blessed with. There are currently over 600 known different types of oranges and they serve as a rich source of vitamin C that helps enhance our body’s resistance against illnesses such as the common cold. Therefore, our need for this vitamin increases particularly in the winter. With a beautiful color and smell, oranges contain a plethora of beneficial minerals such as thiamine, and vitamins such as vitamin A [1]. Vitamin C, another vitamin richly found in oranges, is an excellent antioxidant substance that fights carcinogenic free radicals. It is also essential for the protection of skin health. Oranges are also good sources of fibers and potassium that are crucial for heart health. Potassium lowers the risk of high blood pressure. Fibrous content of oranges helps to prevent diabetes development [2].

This fruit is only one of so many blessings that we are unable to count. For us to be able to appreciate these blessings we need to see, taste, feel, smell, and digest them, each of which is another reason to be grateful.

Seeing

We have to see and like the appearance of a food first before deciding to eat it, don’t we? We do not want to eat it if we feel disgusted from the way it looks. Our eyes are windows unto life so that we can see and observe the great book of the universe which is filled with miraculous works of art and get to know the divine names and attributes that manifest on them.

“Indeed, the Compassionate Provider, in order to give to them provision in more generous measure has created each of man’s subtle capacities – eye and ear, heart, imagination, and intellect – in the form of a key to His treasury of mercy. For example, the eye is a key to the treasury containing such precious jewels as the fairness and beauty to be seen on the face of the universe, and the same holds true of all the others mentioned; they all benefit through faith.” [3]

Everything – from fruits and vegetables to the eggs served by the chicken and the honey put together by bees – is created subtly and packaged in a way to appeal to our eyes in unique and protective enclosures.

Appetite

We have to have appetite so that we develop a desire to eat food. This desire is a capacity encoded into our being so we can enjoy good food and feel aversion for certain things.

“Appetite and desire for sustenance are a sort of innate or instinctive thanks.” [4]

Consuming sustenance with appetite is a way of expressing our thankfulness to the One who provides them for us, for we have appetite for the things we are appreciative of. If we do not have any appetite then we would have no desire to eat even the most delicious food. This is sometimes the case when we are ill and refuse to eat even our most favorite dishes. But think of our commonplace orange again. Like other fruits and vegetables, the orange is created with a shape or allure that will whet our appetite. God has placed sustenance at the very center of His workings in the world of living beings and guides us to this sustenance through the urges of appetite. His servants, on the other hand, are supposed to respond to these blessings with remembrance, reflection, and thankfulness.

Touching

For us to be able to taste and eat an orange, we first have to hold it in our hands. For an action as apparently simple as touching or holding anything, what “we” have to do is only to exhibit willingness to do so. Most of the processes in our bodies occur beyond our control. The joints in our fingers, the size of our hands, and the design of our arms meet our needs in the best way.

It may be an ordinary act for us to move our hands and finger joints with the help of the muscles wrapped around our bonds and triggered into action with electric signals coming through nerve cells. However, when we contemplate on all of these processes we come to the conclusion that they are not casual at all:

“Yes, we see for instance that the members and bodily systems of a fly or human being, and even the cells of the body and red and white corpuscles in the blood, are placed with so sensitive a balance and fine a measure, and they are so fitting and suitable for each other, and their mutual proportion with the other members of the body is so orderly, and they are in such harmony with them, that it is in no way possible that one lacking infinite knowledge could have given them those situations.” [5]

Smelling

The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) likens believers who read the divine revelation to an orange “whose fragrance is sweet and whose taste is sweet” and those believers who don’t recite are like a date fruit, which tastes sweet, but with no fragrance [6].

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi draws attention to the manner of benefiting from the bounties of God as follows:

“Know, O Friend, that the gifts God has ordained that humanity attain or make use of come with conditions. Some of these conditions are established by God, while others pertain to human beings themselves. For example, light, air, food, and speech are God’s gifts, and how much we benefit from them depends upon our respective organs’ soundness and health. All senses and organs have been created by God Almighty; our role is to keep them sound and healthy.” [7]

The role of our willpower is limited to the functioning of these organs which are required for obtaining and consuming the sustenance needed for our survival.

When we look at an orange closely its shiny skin with thousands of tiny holes catches our attention. After the fruit is picked from a tree it remains fresh for a long time thanks to air coming through the holes in its peel.

It sends out a fragrant smell as it is sliced down. The inner parts of the peel are covered with a white, thick, and soft layer as if it is plastered. There are round, tiny buds with voids between them immediately beneath the outer peel. Like cushions, they add flexibility and strength to the peel. Inside we find segments that look like each other and are placed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The segments are covered with a strong membrane and protected with white, fibrous walls. The segments contain hundreds of shiny and swollen tiny sacs, each of which are arranged regularly like miniaturized grapes and are also covered with membranes. These juice sacs are protected in this manner because the juice in these sacs contains vitamin C which quickly degrades upon contact with air.

“Let us imagine an army which consists of four hundred thousand nations, and each nation requires different provisions, uses different weapons, wears different uniforms, undergoes different drill, and is discharged from its duties differently. If this army and camp has a miracle-working commander who on his own provides all those different nations with all their different provisions, weapons, uniforms, and equipment without forgetting or confusing any of them, then surely the army and camp point to the commander and make him loved appreciatively.” [8]

Digesting

“Especially the members, faculties, and senses of a single of the innumerable members of those species; they are related to each other with so fine a balance and equilibrium that their balance and mutual proportion point to an All-Wise and Just Maker so clearly as to be self-evident.” [9]

The arrangement of teeth, the shape of the tongue, and the structure of the mouth function in perfect harmony with the alimentary canal, the stomach, and other digestive organs. Teeth are responsible for biting and grinding food, but if the structure and arrangement order of our teeth had differed, i.e., if our grinders had been replaced with incisors, the acts of biting and chewing would be much harder.

If our tongue did not assist us in the acts of turning and grinding food in our mouth, or if it had been larger or smaller, this would have complicated food consumption for us. This also applies to many other wise purposes related to the mobility of our chin or functions of saliva.

Oranges, or whichever blessing you may take as an example, are a sign for us to contemplate and be grateful to the One who generously provides them for us.

“He it is Who sends down water from the sky, and therewith We bring forth vegetation of every kind (from their seeds under the soil), and then from it We bring forth a lively shoot, from which We bring forth close-packed and compounded ears of grain, and from the palm-tree – from the spathe of it – dates thick-clustered hanging (ready to the hand), and gardens of vines, and the olive tree, and the pomegranate: alike (in the fundamentals of life and growth) and diverse (in structure, look, taste, and smell). Look at their fruit, when they begin to fruit and as they ripen. Surely in that there are signs for people who will believe and who will deepen in faith (as they see new signs)” (An-An’am, 6/99).

References

1. “What to know about oranges”, www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/272782.
2. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Şualar (Rays), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 162.
3. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Mektubat (Letters), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 412.
4. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Şualar (Rays), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 635.
5. Bukhari, At’imah, 30.
6. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Mesnevî-i Nȗriye (Epitomes of Light: Mathnawi al-Nuriya), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 84.
7. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Asâ-yı Musa (Staff of Moses), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 20.
8. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Şualar (Flashes), Istanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, p. 384.

Most living things, including the human body, are made up of only 11 elements. We know the major elements, like hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, but what about the lesser known trace elements? They, too, have vital tasks.

Everything living and inanimate in the universe is built of atoms – that is, the elements. The endless variety of substances in the universe consist of various compounds and mixtures, but they’re all built of only 92 natural elements. This number is much smaller if we deal with living things: only eleven elements (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulphur, chlorine, potassium and calcium) constitute about 99.9% of all living organisms.

The fact that the same element, although in different forms, has functions both in the living body and in inanimate matter is interesting. For example, an average 70 kg adult body contains 14 kg of carbon (C), which is the main component of both coal and oil. A human body, on average, contains 44 kg of oxygen (O2), the chief instigator of the respiratory system. Hydrogen (H), which is approximately 7 kg of a body, is used today as car fuel.

In a way, then, the human body is a pastiche of elements: it contains 2.1 kg of nitrogen (N2), 1 kg of calcium (Ca), 700 g of phosphorus (P), 170g of potassium (K), 140g of sulphur (S), 70g of chlorine (Cl), 70g of sodium (Na), and 30g of magnesium (Mg). More than 60 other elements are detected in the body in trace quantities, including gold, silver, and even uranium. (Trace quantities means as little as 100 mg – or, as big as four grains of rice.) These are usually ingested accidentally, often in food.

But our bodies need these trace elements. For example, a selenium (Se) deficiency may cause muscle weakness, a chrome deficiency may cause fatigue, and a lithium deficiency may lead to bipolar disorder.

The total percentage of these elements is about eight out of a thousand. The main trace elements in our body are chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co), copper (Cu), iodine (I), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn).

Trace elements are found in very small amounts in the human body. While the function of some trace elements in the body has not yet been fully understood, many of them have vital tasks.

Copper (Cu)

100-150 mg of copper are found in the average adult human body. 65 mg are found in the muscles, 23 mg in the bones, and 18 mg in the liver. Copper moves through the blood after its absorption into the body and takes its place in the structure of some amino acids. Our daily copper need is 0.05 mg / kg in children and 3.5 mg / kg in adults. The main sources of copper are meat, shellfish, nuts, grains, and pulses. The main problems caused by a copper deficiency are excessive weight loss, bone disorders, anaemia, hair whitening, and irregularities in the heart muscles.

Iron (Fe)

Iron is an indispensable element for the circulation of oxygen in the body. Smaller quantities of iron are found in the blood plasma, whereas larger amounts are found in the structure of haemoglobin. The amount of iron in adults is about 4 g, which is enough to make a small nail.

Iron is mostly stored in the liver, spleen, and bone marrow. How much iron a body needs varies according to age and person. Adult men and women need around 10 mg per day, while in women it increases to 15 mg during certain time periods.

Iron is found in food such as liver, other meat, beans, oats, and cocoa. The most important indications of iron deficiency are fatigue, shortness of breath, jaundice, headache, sleeping disorder, excessive tiredness, collapsed nails, and hair loss.

Zinc (Zn)

The average human body has 1.8 mg of zinc, which is found especially in the structures of the skin, prostate, bones, and teeth – though it can also be found in the kidneys, spleen, heart, brain, pancreas, and lungs in small amounts. Major zinc sources include unground cereal, pulses, spinach, lettuce, liver, eggs, milk, and dairy products. Zinc, which is found in the structures of some enzymes, plays an important role in the passage of vitamin A into the blood; it is also responsible for insulin secretion, and plays an active role in the growth and development of the body. A zinc deficiency results in forgetfulness, impaired genital development, weakening of the immune system, tissue problems in the skin, reduced mobility, and an impaired sense of smell and taste. The daily zinc requirement is about 12-15 mg.

Iodine (I)

The human body needs about 150 micrograms of iodine every day. Found in the body in the range of 20-50 mg, iodine is especially prevalent in the thyroid glands, the skin, and the skeletal system. The basic function of iodine in the body is assisting in the production of thyroid hormones. It is also used in the nervous system. Our main iodine sources are fish, other seafood, spinach, and rice. An iodine deficiency causes “goitre” disease. It also causes discomforts such as weakening heart rate and a slowing metabolism.

Cobalt (Co)

Cobalt element, the source of which is animal food, is found in the structure of the vitamin B12 and is stored in the liver. B12 is one of the most important vitamins for our body’s metabolism: it helps form red blood cells and thus makes us more energetic. It also is integral in the healthy functioning of the central nervous system.

One of the most critical tasks of trace elements is being part of the structures of enzymes. Enzymes are catalysts that speed up intracellular and extracellular biochemical reactions. These enzymes are involved in dozens of vital reactions. If the same reactions took place without enzymes, they would take a very long time and need very high temperatures.

Just as a deficiency of any of these elements can cause problems for the body, so can an excess of them. For instance, excess copper can cause cirrhosis, liver failure, or brain damage. Excess iron can lead to liver or other organ failure. Many of the trace elements, if consumed in excess, can lead to different kinds of cancers. If you suspect any of these problems, a doctor should be consulted, and all the trace elements should be consumed in moderation.

According to what our body needs, the amount of material that should be absorbed is encoded in our digestive system. The absorption process usually happens in the small intestine. Foods are first reduced in size by enzymes and bile salts from the stomach, pancreas, and liver. Later, during the journey through the intestines, the disintegrated molecules are absorbed into the blood. Of course, in this process, it is very important for specific molecules to absorb the right enzyme. Also important are the amount of specific enzymes to be secreted and how much of the element should be absorbed. All of this continuously happens in our bowels without our knowledge.

It’s quite remarkable: the elements we need are created in food, and the body has been specifically designed to break down these foods and extract exactly the elements our body needs. At the atomic level, we neither intervene nor know about the operations being performed with extraordinary precision. One can’t help but ask: how could all of this be so perfectly calibrated?                                                                                           

Reference

• MN Chatterjea, Rana Shinde, Textbook of Medical Biochemistry, JAYPEE, 2012

The conservation of soil is also important. But as its value has not been properly appreciated until recently, soil has become seriously polluted with chemical substances which can hurt the living species in it. These poisonous chemical substances include cadmium, arsenic, chrome, and mercury at excessive levels, lead, nickel, molybdenum and fluorine at medium levels and boron, copper, manganese and zinc at low levels.

There are a number of sources of these substances which accumulate in subsoil. Tones of such substances are dispersed into the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, the casting of minerals and other industrial activities. Atmospheric processes cause these substances to disperse and mix with the soil first and penetrate into plants later; polluted water and soil consequently cause disastrous problems for construction, the environment, and health.

The level of borax which is available in soil, for instance, is becoming overwhelming due to the extensive use of detergents and fertilizers. Super phosphate, which is a kind of fertilizer, and limestone, which is found in soil, are generally composed of small quantities of cadmium, copper, manganese, nickel and zinc. Cadmium and chrome are utilized in producing metal coatings; cadmium is also used in battery production; and arsenic is utilized in cotton, tobacco and fruit plantations as an insect and weed killer. As products in which these substances are found have been increasingly used in recent years, these substances have been consumed by human beings in higher proportions in their daily air, water and food intakes.

Although presently a partial solution, a method of improving soil by the use of plants has recently been developed and introduced as a clean and permanent solution. Research conducted has proved that plants have important functions in cleaning chemically polluted soil, and significant scientific findings have been obtained about how plants survive in an environment replete with poisonous chemicals.

Plants: The volunteer soil cleaners

The use of plants to eliminate substances which are unfriendly to the environment or to diminish their negative effects on the environment is called “phytoremediation.” Cleaning polluted soil with techniques that necessitate engineering processes is a rather costly operation. On the other hand, certain plant species have been granted the ability to concentrate heavy metals such as zinc, cadmium and nickel, which they take up from the soil, in their stems, shoots and leaves. The parts of these plants containing the concentrations of heavy metals are collected, reduced in volume and are stored for future use.

Plants which are capable of storing metals in themselves are used for soil-cleaning purposes in the mining industry. Bio-mining is defined as obtaining minerals by way of growing plants in polluted or mineralized soils and then harvesting them as soon as they have concentrated a sufficient amount of minerals in their tissues. Plants are burned after being baled and their residual ashes are being sold as mineral ores. Zinc has been produced at a rate of 30–40 % from ashes of the plant thlaspi caerulescens which was grown in a plantation rich in zinc in Pennsylvania.

How plants are employed in soil cleaning

Lately, a number of research projects have initiated on the plant thlaspi caerulescens, which is seen as useful in terms of soil cleaning. Thlaspi is a member of the broccoli and cabbage family and it grows in soils containing high rates of zinc and cadmium. These plants develop wide root formations in soils containing heavy metals; they transfer these heavy metals via their hair-like roots first to their stems and later to other parts, and store those heavy metals in their leaves. Storers like thlaspi are a good model of the mechanism of metal-storing and even shed light onto the biological system which plays a role in this process. The biological composition of these plants has been enriched with genes so that they assume a role in increasing the solubility of heavy metals in soil, in the transfer of metals to their roots, and in producing proteins to play the intermediary in such transfers.

While a typical plant is equipped with a storage capacity of 100ppm (gr per ton) zinc and 1ppm cadmium, thlaspi is created with a storage capacity of up to 30,000 ppm of zinc and up to 1,500ppm of cadmium, without any signs of being poisoned, whereas an ordinary plant may be poisoned with a zinc level of only 1,000ppm or cadmium between 20 and 50ppm. What would it have meant for living beings which are nourished by plants, if all plants had been created with as high a storage capability for heavy metals as that of thlaspi?

It has been noted, while researching the zinc-storage mechanism of thlaspi, that certain parts of the plant have been stimulated for the purpose of transferring zinc. While in ordinary plants gene-decoding of proteins which are charged with zinc transfer is regulated according to their zinc contents, in thlaspi synthesizing of the carrier proteins continues until the zinc contents of its tissues reaches very high levels.

How radioactive cesium is cleaned

It has been found, as a result of research into soils polluted with radioactive cesium-134 and cesium-137, that the area polluted by cesium-137 is under the threat of radioactive pollution, even if the effects of pollution that it caused over the soil surface would be lessened. One of the most important reasons for this is that cesium-137 is a long-lasting radioactive isotope with a half-life of 32.2 years.

Phytoremediation is preferable to alternative cleaning methods, which cost much more due to high energy inputs. However, cesium, in the form it is found in soil, is not absorbed by most plants, and ammonium ions cause the dissolution of cesium-137 in soil.

However, amaranthus retroflexus, which is a member of the goose-foot plant family, has been found to be forty times more efficient than other plants tested in cleaning the soil of radioactive cesium. Thus, polluted lands are expected to be cleaned within fifteen years if this plant is grown and harvested two or three times annually.

A plant fed by arsenic

Arsenic is utilized in the production of agro-chemicals that are used to kill weeds and insects in the sub-soil. The fern named pteris vittata has been found to be created with the capacity to store arsenic. When this plant fern was discovered to contain two hundred times more arsenic than the surrounding soil, it was understood that it is fed by arsenic. This discovery is expected to open new horizons in cleaning the agricultural land, especially in industrial and mining areas.

How damage caused by aluminum can be decreased

Aluminum, which is one of the most abundantly available elements (among oxygen, silicon, iron, magnesium, sodium, potassium, aluminum and calcium) in the earth, is among the main components of clay in sub-soil. It does not pose a threat to plants when it has a basic or neuter pH value. However, Al+3 which is a kind of aluminum dissolvable in acidic soils, is poisonous to the extent that it threatens plant roots.

How some plant species, among which are wheat, corn and barley, can be cultivated in acidic soils in spite of high metal rates is being researched. Studies in this context are being conducted on arabidopsis thaliana (the mustard family) whose gene map is prepared and which constitutes a model. A mutated arabidopsis, for instance, has been discovered to have been equipped with the capacity to render aluminum harmless. If the genes which play their role in this process can be determined, then gene transplantation will be possible to increase the resistance of plants which are sensitive to aluminum, such as barley, and barley production will accordingly be increased.

All these facts clearly indicate that the earth is like a great and continuously working factory or a guest house continuously becoming full and empty. The pollution which is an inevitable result of the activities of living creatures is kept under control by micro organisms, plants and animals which are the mirror-bearers of Almighty God’s attribute, al-Quddus, “the All-Pure.” The relations between these living creatures and the universe have been so perfectly programmed that all of them beautifully perform their duties.

References

• Brady, N.C. The Nature and Properties of Soils, 1990, 10th Edition.
• http://www.agclassroom.org/teen/ars_pdf/9earth/2000/06phytoremedation.pdf
• Altunay, Bedirhan. “Biotechnology of the Environment,” 2006, Sizinti, No: 335, p.526–528.