A Battery of Queries

Mr. Rachid Laanani

Let’s raise a battery of queries whose answer is so easy to elicit for people who show a little intellect and a pure natural disposition. Why not hammer our heads with questions we hardly pay attention to? We need to reflect on things nearby and feed not only the body but the soul as well.

Who sugared the pomegranates? Who salted the seas? Who created the heavens and earth? Who made identical twins? Who made honey so sweet and pepper so bitter? Who taught the baby how to suck his mum’s nipples? Who made in her breasts milk lukewarm in winter and cold in summer, quite ready and sterilised? Who created Adam (PBUH) without a father and mother? Who created Jesus Christ (PBUH) without a father? Who created Muhammad (PBUH) circumcised (1*)? Who feeds ants in their burrows? Who kept birds in the sky so high? Who made kings and farmers, men and women, plants and animals mortal? Who ordered the eyebrows to continually wink and heart muscle to remittingly beat and the kidneys to filter blood on and on? Who made day and night, planets and stars, wild animals and pets, and health as well as sickness?

Let’s always stimulate the grey matter and collect the gems amongst the pebbles.  Another array of questions needs to be posed. Who made the day so clear and the night so obscure? Who caused the eye to see, the nose to smell, the ear to hear and the tongue to taste? Who ordered hair to grow only in specific areas of the body? Who split the nose into two nostrils? Who created two adjacent openings, one to allow food to pass and one for air to move into and out? Who told the eye to wink, the cat to mew, the ass to bray, the dog to bark, the snake to hiss and the lion to roar?

Everything on earth and heavens is made with subtle excellence. The electrons turn round the nucleus from left to right and so does the earth round the sun! The spermatozoons turn around the ovum from left to right and so do the planets around the sun. The pilgrims go around the kaa’ba in Mecca from left to right and so does the whole universe! What a marvellous, wonderful design unclear only for those whose hearts beat, but don’t feel anything, who look, but don’t see and who listen, but can’t hear!

Why not go back to a host of queries again. Is all the above a mere coincidence void of sense and proposition? Do all the aforementioned happen quite haphazardly and randomly?! I’m afraid not. It’s Allah the Omnipotent, the All-Powerful, the All-knowing, Most Gracious, Most Merciful who made all the above-mentioned things. He said subhanah ‘Be and it is’. To deny this is similar to saying that coal is white, blood is green and snow is black! We need to pause and ponder on ourselves and all creation to understand things as they should be.

If urine were blocked for half an hour how would we be? If a morsel of food went into the opening made for air to pass what painful fix would we be in? It’s far better to acknowledge we are so weakling and that Divine Providence has been taking care of us since we were infants until we pass away one specific day.

Allah is no doubt the Creator and everything other than Him is created. He is one; nothing is akin to Him. Any picture that comes to mind about Him is mortal and He is not similar to it.  He neither had a son nor had a father or mother. He neither sleeps nor gets tired. He created angels, Prophets, death and life to see whether we would do good or bad. He is the Creator of Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad the seal of Prophets Peace be upon them all.

Any activity whatever be it learning, agriculture or navigation not performed in the name of Allah, the Maker is fruitless and useless, isn’t it? His door is always wide open welcoming any single sincere attempt of repentance, not caring a fig for the mountains of sins humans might have committed. All that we need is to do the first step, to say goodbye to laziness, regret the unpleasant past and act as soon as may be.

(1*) Circumcision of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a controversial issue among scholars. The renowned scholar Ibn alqayyim thinks this is not right as being born circumcised is for him a negative trait and not a good quality.