Chapter 3 Molecules That Produce Colour: Pigments
Chapter 3
Molecules That Produce Colour: Pigments
 The reason for colour diversity in the leaves of flowers is the reaction to light of pigment molecules present in their structure. |
In previous chapters, we mentioned that because of the
different atomic
properties of the pigmentary molecules, objects reflect light
rays differently;
hence, different shades of colour are produced. Have another
look around
you. The different colours in your range of vision indicate the
existence
of a similar number of pigments, because the colour of
everything we see
in our surroundings depends on the pigments present in the
composition
of that matter. The green colour of plants, the colour of skin,
the colours
of animals, in short all colours stem from the structural
characteristics
of the pigments contained in those objects or living things.
What Is PIgment?
Pigments, existing both in our eyes and in the outer surface of objects, are special molecules that bring about colour. A certain energy is needed for pigment molecules to be activated. Certainly, just as in all other stages in the formation of colour, there is again perfect harmony between pigments and light. "The invisible light" reaching the earth has been specially designed for the "pigment" molecules, which are known as colour molecules, in living things.
Moreover, human eyes also have a structure compatible to this purpose. The reason why the cone cells that lie in the retina of our eye perceive three main colours - red, green, and blue - is because of the special pigment molecules they contain. The most crucial task these pigments perform so that we see a coloured world is convert the energy of "colour" in light into nerve impulses. This means that everything we know as colour is an end-result of these pigments transmitting the wavelength of light reaching to them to the brain as nerve impulses.11
The energy levels of visible light correspond to some of the energy levels needed for activating pigment molecules that are found in the skins of living beings, or in the scales, feathers, or furs covering their skins, and thus their colours are formed.
As seen, pigments, which are present both in the vision centres and in the bodies of living beings, are in perfect harmony with other bodily systems. Absence of a particular kind of pigment molecule or its presence in an amount less than required in the vision centre of a living being causes it to be unable to distinguish colours in its environment.
The question is: how do these special molecules develop in the
skins
of living beings? We can give an answer to this question by
asking some
further questions. Have living beings come to possess these
colours by
acknowledging the properties of a special light spectrum
reaching the
earth and choosing special pigment molecules accordingly?
Certainly the
possibility of the occurrence of such a coincidence is zero.
These specific
molecules have been placed in the skin of living beings by
conscious design.
It is obvious that neither could living beings carry out such a
process,
nor could random coincidence bring about such a formation. The
harmony
in question is one, which could only come about because of One
Who Wills
creating it, One Who keeps everything under control. Allah has
created
each living being with very sophisticated characteristics
peculiar to
it. Everything, animate or inanimate, has pigments suitable to
it. Pigments
absorb light selectively according to their molecular structure.
Every
pigment does not react to light in the same way. For this
reason, it cannot
set off the same chemical reaction and form the same colour.
We can give chlorophyll, the pigment
molecule
that causes plants to look green, as an example. These pigments
absorb
certain wavelengths coming from the sun and reflect light having
the wavelength
that corresponds to green colour. Chlorophylls, the pigment
molecules
in plants, reflect the photons that look green due to their
wavelengths.
At the same time, the energy they receive from sunlight enables
the plants
to produce carbohydrates, one of the prime food sources of all
living
beings.12
Different pigment molecules reflect particular
colours at certain wavelengths according to their own molecular
properties
and hence cause different chemical reactions.
There are many kinds of pigments in nature. A few examples are sufficient to show that pigment molecules have been specially designed for life.
Examples of PIgment Types ProtectIve Colour Source: MelanIn
 The pigment chlorophyll existing in plants is dominant over other pigments. Therefore, plants look green. |
The eyes of living beings are quite sensitive to light and
are easily
affected adversely. Still, we can safely look towards the sun
and see
our surroundings, thanks to the support systems Allah specially
created.
One of these support systems is a group of pigment molecules
present in
the eye.
As is well known, the colours of living
beings'
eyes vary. What give an eye its colours are, again, pigments.
Melanin
is one of these pigmentary substances present in the eye that
gives the
eye its colour. The same pigment also gives your skin and hair
their colours.
However, melanin provides more than colour. Researchers believe
that melanin,
which exists in the eye, offers both protection against the
deleterious
effects of sunrays, and vision enhancement. The substance
melanin, nature's
solution to the problem of hazardous light rays, absorbs higher
energy
light more strongly than lower energy light. So, it absorbs
ultraviolet
more strongly than blue, and blue more strongly than green.13In
this way, melanin provides protection to the lens of the eye
against ultraviolet.
It provides near optimum protection to the retina by filtering
different
colours in proportion to their ability to damage the tissue of
the retina
- thereby reducing the risks of macular degeneration. People
with more
eye-melanin have less occurrence of macular degeneration; people
with
less eye-melanin have greater occurrence of macular
degeneration. About
15% of our original supply of melanin is lost from the eye by
the age
of forty and about 25% is lost by the age of fifty. The role
melanin plays
in eye protection is critical: ophthalmologists report that
melanin in
the eye reduces the risk of age-related macular degeneration.14
As understood, each one of the functions of the substance
melanin
demonstrates to us the special design of this substance.
The answer to the question of how such a perfect substance has
come about
is that it is impossible for such a multifunctional substance
with such
a perfect structure to have come into being by coincidence.
Allah has
created the substance melanin, like all other things in the
universe,
in a special way as to serve a beneficial purpose for people.
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| Blood contains colourful pigments carrying oxygen in the body. These colours vary among living beings. For instance, while the colour of the blood of cuttlefish is light blue or colourless, the blood pigments of other animals and human beings are red. The redness of the hen's crest and the redness of most shrimps are caused by blood pigments. | The light rays coming from the sun activate the pigments in the objects and therefore colours form. We may compare pigment molecules to sieves whose selectivity depends on the size of their pores. Just as in a sieve, the wavelengths which pigments select according to their structures - that means colours - vary. |
 The big red eyes of the frog send warning signals to its predators. The reptile's eyes seen on the right have a colour that does not offset the camouflaging of the reptile. The eye of the owl seen above has a colour exclusive to its kind. |
The Source of LIvely Colours
 |
| The sources of the lively colours present in the beaks of toucans are also pigmentary molecules. |
Carotenoids (and lipochromes) are pigmentary molecules, which are synthesised by plants and which reflect the colours yellow, red and orange. Animals can obtain these pigments only by feeding on plants.
Poisonous sponges, crinoidea, toxic
sea-cucumbers
and some molluscs are either partly or completely yellow, red or
orange
in colour as a result of carotenoids, which are also present in
the yellow
parts of butterflies' wings and in the beaks of birds. In
certain insects,
these are emitted by special glands, which are yellow or red in
colour.
Curiously, these compounds are usually pale green or even
colourless and
only take on a bright yellow colour in the blood of poisonous
insects.
The carotenoids are not only useful as warning coloration; in
some insects
they are themselves transformed into poisonous compounds, in
which case
they serve a twofold purpose of being both a weapon and a
signal.15
By means of this very special system that Allah has created,
many living
beings continue to thrive.
Thus far, we have briefly examined only a few types of pigment existing in nature. The conclusion we have reached in light of this review is the presence of the perfect design that reveals itself in pigments, in the atoms forming these pigments and in all the resulting colours. Allah, the ultimate Owner of this exceptional design, Lord of the worlds, introduces Himself to us by the unique artistry in the colours He creates in nature.
Have they not travelled about the earth
and do
they not have hearts to understand with or ears to hear with? It
is not
their eyes which are blind but the hearts in their breasts which
are blind.
(Surat al-Hajj: 46)
11.Franklyn Branley, Color,
From Rainbows to Lasers, Thomas Y. Crowell Comp., New York,
p.23-28 
12. Temel Britannica Ansiklopedisi,
Vol 7,
p. 16
13.
http://www.netxpress.com/~ppt/story.htm
14.
http://www.netxpress.com/~ppt/story.htm
15. Marco Ferrari, Colors for
Survival, Barnes
and Noble Books, New York, 1992, p.110
LIght StrIkIng Matter
3. LIght StrIkIng Matter
Light coming from the sun reaches the earth at a speed of 300,000 km per second. Owing to the speed of light, we always see a world full of colour. How, then, is this uninterrupted image made?
Passing through the atmosphere at enormous speed, light reaches the earth and strikes objects. When light strikes an object at this speed, it interacts with the atoms of the object and reflects at different wavelengths corresponding to different colours. In this way, the book you are now holding, its lines, pictures, the view you see when you look outside, trees, buildings, cars, the sky, birds, cats, in short everything your eyes see, reflect their colours.
The molecules enabling these colours to be reflected are pigment molecules. That is, the colour reflected by an object depends on the pigment molecules present in that object. Every pigment molecule has different atomic structures. The atomic numbers as well as the types and the sequences of atoms in these molecules are different. Light hitting such diverse pigments is reflected in different shades of colour. However, this is not enough for the formation of colour. For reflected light possessing a certain colour quality to be perceived and seen, it has to reach a visual apparatus capable of perceiving it.
 The rays coming from the sun consist of particles called "photons", which move in waves. When photons hit the electrons of the atoms making up physical objects on earth, the electrons emit light rays of particular wavelengths, which "correspond to certain colours". When sunlight falls on a leaf, for example, this means that the photons of light have hit the atoms of the pigment molecules existing on the surface of the leaf. On impact, the electrons of the leaf's atoms are activated. As a reaction, the atoms of the leaf emit photons. Thus, the photons representing "the colour" of the leaf begin to travel towards our eyes. |
4. LIght ComIng to the Eye
For rays reflected by objects to be perceived as colour, it is necessary for them to reach the eye. The existence of the eye alone is not sufficient. After reaching the eye, the rays ought to be converted into nerve signals that reach a brain working in harmony with the eyes.
Let us think about our own eyes and brains as the closest example. The human eye is a very complex structure that consists of many different organelles and parts. As a result of the simultaneous and harmonious operation of all these parts, we see and perceive colours. The eye, with its tissues and organelles such as lachrymal glands, cornea, conjunctiva, iris and pupil, lens, retina, choroid, eye muscles and lids, is a matchless system. In addition, with its extraordinary nerve web that establishes its connection to the brain, and extremely complex vision area, the eye, as a whole, has a very special structure, the existence of which cannot be attributed to coincidence.
After a short introduction to the eye, let us also look at how the event of seeing takes place. Light rays coming to the eye first pass through the cornea, then the pupil and lens, and finally reach the retina.
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The perception of colour begins at the cone cells in the retina.
There
are three main cone cell groups that strongly react to certain
colours
of light. These are classified as blue, green and red cone
cells. The
colours red, blue and green, to which cone cells react, are the
three
primary colours existing in nature. With the stimulation of cone
cells,
which are sensitive to these three colours, at different
degrees, millions
of different colours appear.
The cone cells convert this information
pertaining
to colour into nerve impulses through the pigments they contain.
Next,
nerve cells connected to these cone cells transmit these nerve
impulses
to a specific area in the brain. The place where the
multi-coloured world
that we view throughout our lives is formed is this area in the
brain
measuring a few centimetre squares.8
| Everything we see in the outside world is perceived in the brain. Colourful flowers, birds, the sky, mountains, the people around us, in short, every single detail in the world is projected to us inside our brain. In fact, the brain is an entirely dark place. He Who enables us, in this dark place, to see, to feel, to touch, to hear, that is, to perceive all the details of the outside world, in short, makes us watch everything, is Allah, Who has created the whole universe. Allah has power over all things. |  |
5. A Colourful World In Our Dark BraIn
The final stage in the formation of colour takes place in the brain. As mentioned in the previous chapter, nerve cells in the eye convey the images converted into nerve impulses to the brain and everything we see in the outer world is perceived in the vision centre of the brain. At this point, we are confronted with an amazing fact: the brain is a piece of meat that is completely dark inside. Nerve impulses coming from images created on the retina by objects are deciphered in the brain, which is completely dark inside. Images of the objects, with their colours and all other properties, are formed as perceptions in this visual centre. How does this process of perception take place in such a piece of soft meat?
A lot of question marks remain as to how colours are perceived. Chromatists are still unable to answer those questions such as how nerve impulses are transmitted to the brain via optic nerves and what kind of physiological effects this creates in the brain.9 All they know is that the perception of colours as realities takes place within us, that is, in the centre of vision in our brain.10
In fact, most of the processes carried out by the brain have not yet been elucidated. The explanations of the subject are largely based on theories. However, the brain has been fulfilling all its functions perfectly since the moment man came into existence, just as it does today. People's experiencing a three dimensional world, along with all its colours, designs, sounds, smells and tastes, in a piece of meat weighing nearly one kilogram is made possible only by the perfect creation of Allah. Everyone finds this matchless miracle of creation ready at birth. Man has no control whatsoever, neither in the formation of its functions, nor in their continuity, nor at any other stage.
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8. Bilim ve Teknik Dergisi (Journal of Science and
Technics), No: 366, p.81
9. Bilim ve Teknik Dergisi (Journal of
Science and
Technics), October 1986, p.6
10. Bilim Teknik Dergisi (Journal of
Science and
Technics), October 1986, s.6-9
Chapter 2 Design In Colours
Chapter 2
Design In Colours
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Colour is a concept that helps us to identify the properties of
objects
and define them more precisely. Thinking about the colours of
the objects
around us, we simply come to notice what a variety of detailed
colours
we are surrounded by. Everything, animate or inanimate, has a
colour.
Living creatures of the same species have the same particular
colours
everywhere in the world. No matter where you go, the colour of
the flesh
of the water-melon is always red, kiwis are always green, seas
are always
shades of blue and green, snow is white, lemons are yellow, the
colour
of elephants is the same in any part of the world as also the
colours
of trees. They never change. This goes for artificially produced
colours
as well. Wherever you go on the earth, if you mix red with
yellow, you
will get orange or if you mix black and white you will get grey.
The result
is always the same.
At this point, it may be useful to think somewhat differently. First, let us think by asking the question of how the colours of objects are made. We can explain this by an example. Imagine that you walk into a store and see fabric of different designs and models, the colours of which are extremely harmonious with each other. Surely, those fabrics did not come there by chance; conscious people drafted their designs, determined their colours, subjected them to a number of dying processes, and after putting them through many other intermediate stages, they displayed them in that store. In short, the existence of these fabrics depends on the people who designed and manufactured them. When you see them, you do not say that they came there by chance, or that their designs were formed by coincidence as a result of paints spilt over the fabrics. In fact, no man of reason would make such a claim. Indeed, there is a conscious Will that presents us the views we see in nature all the time, the butterflies, flowers, multi-coloured places under the sea, trees, and clouds etc., just in the way these fabrics are presented to us. The diversity in the universe is the consequence of a special design. This design is manifested in every stage from the formation of light to its becoming a colourful image in our brain. This is one of the greatest evidences of the existence of an Owner, that is, a Designer of the design in colours. Surely, Allah, Who possesses an infinitely superior wisdom and power of creation, creates all the colours and designs in the universe that man admires.
The stages of colour formation were briefly listed earlier. In this chapter, the superior design evident in colour will be examined under separate headings in accordance with the progression from light to eye and brain.
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1. LIght, LIfe and Colour
The sun is only one of the billions of medium size stars in the universe. What makes the sun the most important star of the universe for us is its size, its relationship to the planets moving around it and the particular rays it emits. If just one of these characteristics of the sun were different from current values, there would be no life on earth. Indeed, the sun has the ideal values for life to originate and be maintained on earth.1This is why scientists describe the sun as the "source of life" on earth.3
Sunlight is the only source of heat, heating the earth in the most appropriate way, and light, helping plants with their photosynthesis. It is well known that heat and photosynthesis are essential for life. In addition, the existence of daylight and a colourful world depend on the rays emitted from the sun. In this case, the question of how these rays, the ultimate energy source for the earth, come into existence comes to mind. Surely, that these rays, which are the key to life on earth, serve such important purposes and, at the same time, have all the necessary characteristics for this, cannot be attributed to coincidence. The reason for this will be better understood when the structure of light is examined.
|
All the conditions essential for the
existence
of life on earth, directly or indirectly, depend on light
coming from
the sun. In the structure of sunrays, on the other hand,
there is
a design dependent on very delicate balances. |
The energy emitted by the stars moves in waves through the void
of space.
Similarly, both light and heat are emitted by the sun, which is a
star,
as energy in the form of waves. The movement of this energy the
stars
emit can be compared to that of the waves caused by a stone
thrown into
a lake. Just as the waves in the lake have different lengths, so
do heat
and light have different wavelengths as they diffuse.
At this point, it would be useful to give some information about the different wavelengths of light in the universe. The stars and other light sources in the universe do not emit the same kinds of light. These different rays are classified according to their wavelengths and frequencies. These different wavelengths are spread over vast areas. For example, the shortest wavelength is 1025 times smaller than the longest wavelength (1025 is a very big number consisting of number 1 followed by 25 zeros)4
In the whole spectrum, the total rays emitted by the sun are squeezed into a very short interval. 70% of the different wavelengths the sun emits lie within a narrow interval ranging from 0.3 micron to 1.50 micron. (A micron is 10-6 m) Examining why sunrays are restricted to such a narrow interval, we come to an interesting conclusion: the rays that make life, and colour, possible on earth are only those present in this interval.
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| The arrangement within light astonishes scientists. Although too many rays come from space, sunrays, as seen in the schema above, are restricted to a very narrow interval. This is precisely the interval that is needed for life. |
British physicist Ian Campbell, who defines this superior design as "incredibly astonishing" in his book "The Energy and the Atmosphere", draws attention to this point:
That the radiation from the sun (and from many sequence stars) should be concentrated into a minuscule band of the electromagnetic spectrum, which provides precisely the radiation required to maintain life on earth, is very coincidence.5
The greater part of this small range of radiation emitted by the sun from the electromagnetic spectrum, a spectrum having a width where the longest wavelength is 1025 times large than the shortest, is named "visible light". The rays that lie below and above this interval, on the other hand, reach the earth as infrared and ultraviolet rays. Let us now briefly examine the properties of these two kinds of rays.
Infrared rays reach the earth in the form of heat waves. Ultraviolet rays that contain higher energy, on the other hand, may have a damaging effect on living beings. Infrared rays pass through the atmosphere, and provide heat, which makes the earth a place suitable for life. Ultraviolet rays, on the other hand, can reach the earth only at a certain rate. If this rate were a little higher than its current level, it would harm the tissues of living beings and cause mass deaths, while if it were a little lower, then the energy needed for living beings would not be provided.
These points are details crucial for life. As understood from the functions and uses of the rays emitted by the sun, there is order and control in every existing system in the world. Surely, it is impossible for such a system, the delicate balances of which we briefly dwelled upon, to have been formed by coincidence.
Examining another element of this flawless system, we once again see the impossibility of its coming into existence as a consequence of coincidence.
 The atmosphere lets only necessary rays reach the earth while reflecting other harmful rays back into space. |
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2. The shIeld protectIng the earth: The Atmosphere
In previous pages, we mentioned that some of the sunrays are harmful for life on earth. In order to avert this harmful effect, a solution is needed.
Let us put our heads together and find a solution to this problem by developing an efficient system to filter sunrays. We should also take cognisance of the fact that this system should be a multifunctional one, which will protect the world from the harmful effects of the sun, ensuring that this is maintained permanently, not requiring maintenance, and also capable of preventing some other possible threats to the earth. Certainly, in such a situation, several alternative solutions will surface. Yet, nothing put forward will be as efficient and versatile as the present filter that now covers the earth: the atmosphere. The atmosphere of the earth is one hundred percent successful at filtering harmful rays and Allah specially designed it in order to protect the world.
By means of specific layers of the atmosphere, sunrays reach earth only in required amounts because the atmosphere processes the sunrays specifically according to their wavelengths. Our atmosphere is like a giant refining plant designed for filtering these rays. This gigantic refining system that has no equal on the earth has been carrying out these processes because of its special design. Allah draws attention to the creation of the skies as follows, (the Arabic word for 'heaven - sama' is also the word for 'sky'):
The creation of the heavens and earth is far greater than the creation of mankind. But most of mankind do not know it. (Surah Ghafir: 57)
The rays coming from the sun are quite specific. It is necessary for them to possess properties enabling them to pass through the atmosphere and reach the earth. Similarly, the atmosphere, too, has to have a special structure to allow these rays to pass through. Otherwise, neither the existence of the atmosphere nor the structural appropriateness of the rays will be of any use. Because of the ray-permeable nature of the atmosphere, the rays coming from the sun easily reach the earth. There is another important point that needs mention. Whilst letting only visible light and the near infrared rays required for life pass through, the atmosphere prevents all other destructive rays from reaching earth. The atmosphere of the earth serves as a very important "filter" for the destructive rays coming from the sun or from non-sun sources, that is, from other zones in space.6
Michael Denton, a renowned astronomer, states this as follows:
Even the atmospheric gases themselves absorb electromagnetic radiation very strongly in those regions of the spectrum immediately on either side of the visible and near infrared. Note that the only region of the spectrum allowed to pass through the atmosphere over the entire range of electromagnetic radiation from radio to gamma rays is the exceedingly narrow band including the visible and near infrared. Virtually no gamma, X, ultraviolet, far-infrared, and microwave radiation reaches the surface of the earth.7
 The material densities, that is, the densities of atoms in space and of the atmosphere are different from each other. For this reason, when light enters the atmosphere, it spreads out more and becomes diffuse because it hits more atoms. The eyes of living beings can see a colourful world only by perceiving these rays that come after being diffused, or in other words, weakened by the atmosphere. In outer space environment where there is no atmosphere, light is so strong as would harm the eyes. Apart from this, near infrared rays also spread out in the atmosphere and warm the earth. |
It is apparent that there is a highly developed design in the structure of the atmosphere. Out of a spectrum whose width is hinted at by this figure of 1025, the sun emits only those rays that are useful to us and necessary for a colourful world, and the atmosphere mainly allows harmless and indeed useful rays to reach the earth. In addition, due to the properties of the gases present in the atmosphere, the eyes of living beings, which are directly exposed to sunlight, are protected against any harmful effects. All these are evidence that Allah has created everything in due proportion.
He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs. He does not have a son and He has no partner in the Kingdom. He created everything and determined it most exactly. (Surat al-Furqan: 2)
3.F.Press, R. Siever, Earth, New York:W.H.Freeman,
1986, p.4
4. Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny, The
Free Press, 1998,
p.51
5. Ian M.Campbell, Energy and Atmosphere,
London: Wiley, 1977,
p.1-2
6. Enyclopedia Britannica, 1994, 15th ed.
Vol.18, p.203
7. Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny, The Free
Press, 1998, p.55
Chapter 1 What Is Colour? How Is It Made?
What Is Colour? How Is It Made?
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Some details have an important place in the minds of humans and they never change. Let us begin with trees, which are very familiar to us. The colour of trees is most often either green or shades of green. It is well known that during autumn, leaves change colour. Similarly, the colour of sky is either blue, shades of grey when cloudy or yellows and reds at sunrise and sunset. The colours of fruit never alter; the rich and varied colours of the apricot and of the cherry are set, and are always familiar to us. Every living being and every object held under light has a colour. Have a careful look at the things around you. What do you see? The table, the chairs, the trees you see through your window, the sky, the walls of your house, the faces of the people around you, the fruit you eat, the book you are reading at this minute… Each one of them have distinct colours. Have you ever thought how it is that all these colours have been formed and arranged?
Let us examine in general what is required for the formation of colours that play significant roles for life. (These points will be discussed later on in detail). For the formation of a single colour, for example, red or green, each of the following processes has to take place and, importantly, in the following sequence.
 The importance of colours in man's life is indisputable as every object acquires a meaning with its colours. Imagine that none of the colours you see in this photograph at the top (including black and white) exist at all. Certainly, you would not be able see any of the objects in the photograph. For the formation of even a single one of these numerous colours present on these objects, quite a few factors must be fulfilled, all at the same time. Allah has made the formation of colours dependent on the existence of a very detailed system. |
1. The first condition required for the formation of colour is the existence of light. In this respect, it will be useful to start with examining the properties of the light coming from the sun. For the formation of colours, the light coming from the sun to the earth must have a certain wavelength to produce colours. The proportions of this light, called "visible light", to all other light rays emitted by the sun is one in 1025. This hardly believable, tiny proportion of the light rays that are necessary for the formation of colour reach the earth from the sun.
2. In fact, most of the sunrays diffused by the sun across space bear some characteristics harmful to the eye. For this reason, the light arriving on earth must take such a form that it can be easily perceived by the eye and not harm it. For this, the rays must pass through a filter. This giant filter is the "atmosphere" which surrounds the earth.
3. The light passing through the atmosphere is spread over the earth, and on hitting the objects it encounters, it is reflected. The objects on which light falls must not be of a type that do not absorb light but reflect it. In other words, the structural quality of the objects must also be in harmony with the light reaching the earth so that colour can form. This condition is also fulfilled and a new light wave is reflected from the objects on which the light coming from the sun strikes.
4. Another essential step in the process of colour formation is the need for a perceiver to perceive the light waves, which is the eye. It is essential that the light waves be in harmony also with the organs of sight.
5. The rays coming from the sun must pass through the lens and the layers of the eye and be converted into nerve impulses in the retina. Then these signals must be conveyed to the vision centre of the brain, which is responsible for making sense of sight.
6. There is a last step that has to be fulfilled for us to "see" any colour. The last stage in the formation of colours is the interpretation of the electric signals, which arrive at the vision centre of brain, as "colour" by very special nerve cells located there.
As seen, for the formation of a single colour, a very detailed and interdependent sequence of processes is required.
All the information we have about colour indicates that every process that takes place during the formation of colour is set on very delicate balances. Without these balances, we would inevitably be left in a fuzzy dark world instead of a clear colourful one, and would even lose our ability to see. Let us suppose that of the above-mentioned items, only one - the nerve cells that perceive the electric signals generated by the retina - does not exist. Neither the sunlight being within the visible spectrum, nor the other parts of the eye being completely functional, nor the existence of the atmosphere would be adequate and compensate for this lack.
The Role of RetIna In SeeIng
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Let us examine the retina closer and in more detail. Let us suppose that the pigmentary substance called "rhodopsin", operating in the retina, is absent. Rhodopsin is a substance that ceases functioning under heavy light but is regenerated in darkness. The eye cannot see clearly in dim light unless sufficient rhodopsin is produced in the eye. The function of rhodopsin is to increase the efficiency with which the eye generates a nerve impulse from dim light. This substance is produced as much as required exactly when it is needed. When the rhodopsin balance is maintained, images become clear. What would happen if rhodopsin, which is very significant for the process of sight, did not exist? In that case, man would be capable of seeing only in bright light.2 It is therefore evident that there is a perfect system within the eye, which has been designed down to the smallest detail. Then, whose work of art is this system, which saves us from darkness and presents us a world full of colour?
Every stage mentioned thus far includes a series of processes, which require the existence of wisdom, will and power in their being brought into being. It is plain that there is no chance of such a chain of processes existing in such harmony having been formed by chance. It is also impossible for such a system to have been formed over time. The result would not change at all even if millions and even billions of years were allowed to pass. The systems to comprising a colourful world would never emerge by coincidence. Such perfect systems can come into being only as a result of special design, which is to mean that they are created. Allah possesses eternal power and wisdom that cover the whole universe. Examples of Allah's matchless artistry in creation stretch across the entire order of the universe. The unique design evident in the formation of colour is also an outcome of the peerless creation of Allah. Allah has power over all things.
(He is) the Originator of the heavens and earth. When He decides on something, He just says to it, 'Be!' and it is. (Surat al-Baqara: 117)
2..Jillyn
Smith, Sense and Sensebilities, Willey Science Edition, s.60-61
Introduction A Colourful World
Introduction
A Colourful World
Have
you ever thought what it would be like to live in a world
without colour?
Free yourself for a moment from your experience, forget all that
you've
learned and start using your imagination. Try to visualise your
body,
the people around you, the seas, the sky, trees, flowers, in
short everything
in black. Imagine that there is no colour around you. Try to
think how
you would feel if people, cats, dogs, birds, butterflies, and
fruits had
no colour at all. You would never want to live in such a world,
would
you?
Most people may never have thought about what a colourful world they are living in or wondered how such a diversity of colour has come to exist on earth. They may never have given a thought to how a world without colour would be. This is because everyone who sees was born into a world full of colour. However, a model of a black and white, colourless world is not impossible. On the contrary, the really amazing thing is our living in a bright, colourful world. (In the following chapters, we will discuss in detail why the existence of a colourful world is so amazing)
A colourless world would normally be thought of as having only black, white and shades of grey. However, black, white and shades of grey are also colours. In this respect, it is difficult to imagine colourlessness. To describe colourlessness, one always feels the need to mention a colour. With statements such as "it was colourless, completely dark", "there was no colour in her face; it was completely white" people try to describe colourlessness. In fact, these are not the descriptions of colourlessness, but of a world of black and white.
Try, just for a second, to imagine that all of a sudden, everything loses its colour. In such a situation, everything would mix with everything else and it would become impossible to distinguish one object from another. It would become impossible to see, for example, an orange, red strawberries or colourful flowers on a brown wooden table, for neither would the colour of the orange be orange, nor that of the table brown, nor that of the strawberries red. For a person, it would be quite annoying to live, even for a short time, in such a colourless world, which is even difficult to describe.
Colour has a crucial role in man's communication with the outside world, in the proper functioning of his memory, and in his brain's fulfilment of its learning functions. This is because humans can develop appropriate connections between events and places, people and objects only through their external appearances and colours. Neither hearing nor touch alone suffice to define objects. For humans, the external world only means something when it is seen as a whole with its colours.
We always
see a
world full of color |
|
  When the pictures above and on the right are compared, it will be better understood how nice it is to see a world full color. Colors are one of the greatest blessings that Allah has bestowed upon people in the world. |
 |
 |
|
Identifying objects and our surroundings are not the only benefits from the diversity of colours. The perfect harmony of colour in nature gives the human soul great pleasure. In order to see this harmony and derive pleasure from every detail of it, man has been equipped with a pair of eyes, which have a very special design. In the world of animate beings, human eyes are the most functional and can perceive colours in their smallest details, so much so that the human eye is sensitive to millions of colours.1 Evidently, the visual apparatus in humans that works so perfectly has been specially designed to see a world full of colour.
The only being on earth that can understand the existence of such an order in the universe is man because he has the power to reflect and reason. Hence, in the light of all the foregoing, we conclude the following:
Every detail, pattern and colour in the heavens and the earth have been created for humans to acknowledge and so to appreciate this order and reflect on it. The colours in nature have been arranged in such a manner as to appeal to the human soul. Perfect symmetry and harmony prevail within colour, both in the worlds of animate and inanimate beings. This situation will certainly evoke some questions in the mind of someone who reflects, such as:
What makes the earth colourful? How do the colours, which make our world so extraordinarily beautiful, come into being? To whom belong the design of the diverse colours and the harmony between them?
Is it possible to say that whatever exists might have come into existence by purposeless changes brought about by a chain of coincidence?
Certainly, no one would claim such an absurdity. Uncontrolled coincidences cannot create anything, let alone billions of colours. Just observe the wings of a butterfly or colourful flowers of any kind, each of which looks like a wonder of art. It is surely impossible for sound reason to attribute all these to unconscious processes.
We can have a better understanding of this fact if we take an example. When one sees a painting depicting trees and flowers in nature, one would not claim nor even think that the harmony of colour, the organised patterns and the conscious design in this painting could have come into existence by coincidence. If someone came along and said, "the paint boxes were overturned by the wind, mixed, and with the effect of rain etc., and after a long period of time this beautiful painting was formed", it is certain that nobody would take him seriously. There is a very interesting situation here. Although nobody would attempt to put forward such an unreasonable claim, some people can nevertheless claim that the perfect colouring and symmetry of nature came about by such an unconscious process. Nevertheless, evolutionists produce theses that it is the workings of coincidence to explain this subject and they produce various researches. They do not hesitate to put forward baseless claims on the issue.
This is obvious blindness, with which it is difficult to come to terms. Still, someone who escapes from this blindness through exercising his faculty of thought will understand that he actually lives in an extremely miraculous environment on the earth. He would also fully acknowledge that such an environment furnished with the most appropriate conditions for the survival of humankind could not have come into existence by chance.
Just as a man who reflects, acknowledges the moment he looks at a painting that it has a painter, so will he understand that the multi-coloured, harmonious and extremely picturesque environment around him also has a Creator.
This Creator is Allah, Who has no partner in creation, Who creates everything in full harmony, and Who placed us in this world overflowing with numerous beautiful things embellished with millions of colours. All the things Allah creates are in perfect harmony with each other. Allah describes the uniqueness of His artistry in creation in the Qur'an as follows:
He Who created the seven heavens in layers. You will not find any flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful. Look again-do you see any gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will return to you dazzled and exhausted! (Surat al-Mulk: 3-4)
1.
Bilim ve Teknik Dergisi (Journal of Science and Technics), March 1985,
p.23
Conclusion
Conclusion
Unquestionably, nothing can be more important than the creation of man and his knowing his Creator. What we have done throughout the book is to try to comprehend a subject that is an issue of the utmost importance for every person.
We think it necessary to remind the reader at this point that one does not need reams of information to grasp that the universe and everything in it, including oneself, have been created. It is as much within the scope of the conscience and reason of a small child as it is within that of an adult to grasp that he was created. The prophet Ibrahim's words in the Qur'an are a very good example of what we mean.
The Prophet Ibrahim once lived in a community that did not believe in Allah and worshipped totem poles instead. Although he had never received any teaching about the existence of Allah, he had grasped with his reason and conscience that he had been created–moreover, that he had been created by Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth. In the Qur'an it is related like this:
When the night covered him over, he saw a star. He said: "This is my Lord." But when it set, he said: "I love not those that set." When he saw the moon rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord." But when the moon set, he said: "Unless my Lord guides me, I shall surely be among those who go astray." When he saw the sun rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord; this is the greatest (of all)." But when the sun set, he said: "O my people! I am indeed free from your (guilt) of giving partners to Allah. For me, I have set my face, firmly and truly, towards Him Who created the heavens and the earth, and never shall I ascribe partners to Allah." (Surat al-Anaam, 76-79)
No doubt the state of those who reject the existence of Allah, despite all the manifest signs displayed for all to see, is quite astonishing to those who have reason and conscience. In the Qur'an, the following is stated about those who do not believe in Allah's power of creation:
If you marvel (at their want of faith), strange is their saying: "When we are (actually) dust, shall we indeed then be in a creation renewed?" They are those who deny their Lord! They are those round whose necks will be yokes (of servitude): they will be companions of the fire, to dwell therein (for aye)! (Surat al-Rad, 5)
Think about what He has granted you: you live in a world subtly-planned down to its slightest detail and created specially for you. You had no part in this process. You opened your eyes one day and found yourself amidst countless blessings. You can see, you can hear, you can feel…
And it is so because He willed such a creation. In a verse it is said:
It is He Who brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers when you knew nothing; and He gave you hearing and sight and intelligence and affections: that you may give thanks (to Allah). (Surat an-Nahl, 78)
Be assured: He does exist and He is very close to you…
He sees and knows everything that you do, and hears every word you utter…
And be assured that everyone, including you, will soon give account to Him…
Glory to You, of knowledge we have none, save what You have taught us: In truth it is You Who are perfect in knowledge and wisdom. (Surat al-Baqara, 32)
Chapter 10 Relativity of Time and the Reality of Fate
Chapter 10
Relativity of Time and the Reality of Fate
Everything related so far demonstrates that "three-dimensional space" does not exist in reality, that it is a prejudice completely founded on perceptions and that one leads one's whole life in "spacelessness". To assert the contrary would be to hold a superstitious belief far removed from reason and scientific truth, for there is no valid proof of the existence of a three-dimensional material world.
This refutes the primary assumption of the materialist philosophy that underlies evolutionary theory, the assumption that matter is absolute and eternal. The second assumption upon which materialistic philosophy rests is the supposition that time is absolute and eternal. This is as superstitious as the first.
The Perception of Time
What we perceive as time is, in fact, a method by which one moment is compared to another. We can explain this with an example. For instance, when a person taps an object, he hears a particular sound. When he taps the same object five minutes later, he hears another sound. The person perceives that there is an interval between the first sound and the second and he calls this interval "time". Yet at the time he hears the second sound, the first sound he heard is no more than an imagination in his mind. It is merely a bit of information in his memory. The person formulates the concept of "time" by comparing the moment in which he lives with what he has in his memory. If this comparison is not made, there can be no concept of time.
Similarly, a person makes a comparison when he sees someone entering a room through a door and sitting in an armchair in the middle of the room. By the time this person sits in the armchair, the images related to the moments he opens the door, walks into the room, and makes his way to the armchair are compiled as bits of information in the brain. The perception of time occurs when one compares the man sitting in the armchair with those bits of information.
In brief, time comes to exist as a result of the comparison made between some illusions stored in the brain. If man did not have memory, then his brain would not make such interpretations and therefore would never have formed the concept of time. The only reason why someone determines himself to be thirty years old is because he has accumulated information pertaining to those thirty years in his mind. If his memory did not exist, then he would not think of the existence of such a preceding period and he would only experience the single "moment" in which he lives.
The Scientific Explanation of Timelessness
Let us try to clarify the subject by quoting various scientists' and scholars' explanations of the subject. Regarding the subject of time flowing backwards, the famous intellectual and Nobel laureate professor of genetics, François Jacob, states the following in his book Le Jeu des Possibles (The Possible and the Actual):
The relativity of time is a fact also verified by one of the most important physicists of the 20th century, Albert Einstein. Lincoln Barnett, writes in his book The Universe and Dr. Einstein:
Einstein himself pointed out, as quoted in Barnett's book: "space and time are forms of intuition, which can no more be divorced from consciousness than can our concepts of colour, shape, or size." According to the Theory of General Relativity: "time has no independent existence apart from the order of events by which we measure it."44
The speed at which time flows differs according to the references we use to measure it because there is no natural clock in the human body to indicate precisely how fast time passes. As Lincoln Barnett wrote: "Just as there is no such thing as color without an eye to discern it, so an instant or an hour or a day is nothing without an event to mark it."45
The relativity of time is plainly experienced in dreams. Although what we see in our dreams seems to last for hours, in fact, it only lasts for a few minutes, and even a few seconds.
Let us think about an example to clarify the subject further. Let us assume that we were put in a room with a single window that was specifically designed and we were kept there for a certain period. Let there be a clock in the room from which we can see the amount of time that has passed. At the same time, let it be that we see from the window of the room the sun rising and setting at certain intervals. A few days later, the answer we would give to the question about the amount of time we spent in the room would be based both on the information we had collected by looking at the clock from time to time and on the computation we had made by referring to how many times the sun rose and set. For example, we estimate that we spent three days in the room. However, if the person who put us in that room said that we spent only two days in the room and that the sun we had seen from the window was produced artificially by a simulation machine and that the clock in the room was regulated specially to work faster, then the calculation we had done would have no meaning.
This example confirms that the information we have about the rate of passage of time is based on relative references. The relativity of time is a scientific fact also proven by scientific methodology. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity maintains that the speed of time changes depending on the speed of the object and its position in the gravitational field. As speed increases, time is shortened and compressed: it slows down as if coming to the point of "stopping".
Let us explain this with an example given by Einstein. Imagine two twins, one of whom stays on earth while the other goes travelling in space at a speed close to that of light. When he comes back, the traveller will see that his brother has grown much older than he has. The reason is that time flows much slower for the person who travels at speeds near the speed of light. Let us consider a space-travelling father and his earth-bound son. If the father were twenty-seven years old when he set out and his son three; when the father came back to earth thirty years later (earth time), the son would be thirty-three years old while his father would only be thirty.46 This relativity of time is not caused by the deceleration or acceleration of clocks, or the deceleration of a mechanical spring. It is rather the result of the differentiated operation periods of the entire system of material existence, which goes as deep as sub-atomic particles. In other words, for the person experiencing it, the shortening of time is not experienced as if acting in a slow-motion picture. In such a setting where time shortens, one's heartbeats, cell replications, and brain functions, etc, all operate slower than those of the slower-moving person on earth. Nevertheless, the person goes on with his daily life and does not notice the shortening of time at all. Indeed the shortening does not even become apparent until comparison is made.
Relativity in the Qur'an
The conclusion to which we are led by the findings of modern science is that time is not an absolute fact as supposed by materialists, but only a relative perception. What is most interesting is that this fact, undiscovered until the 20th century by science, was revealed to mankind in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. There are various references in the Qur'an to the relativity of time.
It is possible to see in many verses of the Qur'an the scientifically-proven fact that time is a psychological perception dependent on events, the setting, and conditions. For instance, a person's entire life is a very short time as we are informed in the Qur'an:
On the Day when He will call you, and you will answer (His Call) with (words of) His Praise and Obedience, and you will think that you have stayed (in this world) but a little while! (Surat al-Isra: 52)
And on the Day when He shall gather them together, (it will seem to them) as if they had not tarried (on earth) longer than an hour of a day: they will recognise each other. (Surah Yunus: 45)
Some verses indicate that people perceive time differently and that sometimes people can perceive a very short period as a very lengthy one. The following conversation of people held during their judgement in the hereafter is a good example of this:
He will say: "What number of years did you stay on earth?" They will say: "We stayed a day or part of a day, but ask those who keep account." He will say: "You stayed not but a little, if you had only known!" (Surat al-Muminun: 112-114)
In some other verses Allah states that time may flow at different paces in different settings:
Yet, they ask you to hasten on the punishment! But Allah will not fail in His promise. Verily a day in the sight of your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning. (Surat al-Hajj: 47)
The angels and the spirit ascend unto Him in a day the measure whereof is (as) fifty thousand years. (Surat al-Ma'arij: 4)
He rules (all) affairs from the heavens to the earth: in the end will (all affairs) ascend to Him in a day the measure of which is a thousand years of what you count. (Surat al-Sajda, 5)
Many other verses of the Qur'an reveal that time is a perception. This is particularly evident in the stories. For instance, Allah has kept the Companions of the Cave, a group of believing people mentioned in the Qur'an, in a deep sleep for more than three centuries. When they awoke, these people thought that they had stayed in that state but a little while, and could not reckon how long they had slept:
Then We drew (a veil) over their ears, for a number of years, in the Cave, (so that they heard not). Then We raised them up that We might know which of the two parties would best calculate the time that they had tarried. (Surat al-Kahf: 11-12)
Such (being their state), We raised them up (from sleep), that they might question each other. Said one of them, "How long have you stayed (here)?" They said, "We have stayed (perhaps) a day, or part of a day." (At length) they (all) said, "Allah (alone) knows best how long you have stayed here…" (Surat al-Kahf: 19)
The situation told in the verse below is also evidence that time is in truth a psychological perception.
Or (take) the similitude of one who passed by a hamlet, all in ruins to its roofs. He said, "How shall Allah bring it (ever) to life, after (this) its death?" but Allah caused him to die for a hundred years, then raised him up (again). He said: "How long did you tarry (thus)?" He said: (Perhaps) a day or part of a day." He said: "Nay, you have tarried thus a hundred years; but look at your food and your drink; they show no signs of age; and look at your donkey. And that We may make of you a sign unto the people, look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe them with flesh." When this was shown clearly to him, he said: "I know that Allah has power over all things." (Surat al-Baqara: 259)
The above verse clearly emphasises that Allah, Who created time, is unbound by it. Man, on the other hand, is bound by time, which is ordained by Allah. As in the verse, man is even incapable of knowing how long he slept. In such a state, to assert that time is absolute (just as materialists, in their distorted thinking, do) is very unreasonable.
Destiny
This relativity of time clears up a very important matter. Relativity is so variable that a period appearing billions of years' duration to us may last only a second in another perspective. Moreover, an enormous period of time extending from the world's beginning to its end may not even last a second but just an instant in another dimension.
This is the very essence of the concept of destiny – a concept that is not well understood by most people, especially materialists who deny it completely. Destiny is Allah's perfect knowledge of all events past or future. A majority of people question how Allah can already know events that have not yet been experienced and this leads them to fail in understanding the authenticity of destiny. However, "events not yet experienced" are only so for us. Allah is not bound by time or space for He Himself has created them. For this reason, past, future, and present are all the same to Allah; for Him everything has already taken place and finished.
In The Universe and Dr. Einstein, Lincoln Barnett explains how the Theory of General Relativity leads to this conclusion. According to Barnett, the universe can be "encompassed in its entire majesty only by a cosmic intellect".47 The will that Barnett calls "the cosmic intellect" is the wisdom and knowledge of Allah, Who prevails over the entire universe. Just as we can easily see a ruler's beginning, middle, and end, and all the units in between as a whole, Allah knows the time we are subject to as if it were a single moment right from its beginning to its end. People, however, experience incidents only when their time comes and they witness the destiny Allah has created for them.
It is also important to draw attention to the shallowness of the distorted understanding of destiny prevalent in our society. This distorted belief of fate is a superstition that Allah has determined a "destiny" for every man but that these destinies can sometimes be changed by people. For instance, people make superficial statements about a patient who returns from death's door such as "he defeated his destiny". No-one is able to change his destiny. The person who returned from death's door, didn't die precisely because he was destined not to die at that time. It is, ironically, the destiny of those people who deceive themselves by saying "I defeated my destiny" that they should say so and maintain such a mindset.
Destiny is the eternal knowledge of Allah and for Allah, Who knows time like a single moment and Who prevails over the whole of time and space; everything is determined and finished in destiny. We also understand from what He relates in the Qur'an that time is one for Allah: some incidents that appear to us to happen in the future are related in the Qur'an in such a way as if they had already taken place long before. For instance, the verses that describe the accounts that people must give to Allah in the hereafter are related as events which occurred long ago:
And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth swoon away, save him whom Allah wills. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the earth shone with the light of her Lord, and the Book is set up, and the prophets and the witnesses are brought, and it is judged between them with truth, and they are not wronged… And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops…: And those who feared their Lord are driven unto Paradise in troops" (Surat az-Zumar: 68-73)
Some other verses on this subject are:
And every soul came, along with it a driver and a witness. (Surat al-Qaf: 21)
And the heaven is cloven asunder, so that on that day it is frail. (Surat al-Haqqah: 16)
And because they were patient and constant, He rewarded them with a garden and (garments of) silk. Reclining in the (garden) on raised thrones, they saw there neither the sun's (excessive heat) nor excessive cold. (Surat al-Insan: 12-13)
And Hell is placed in full view for (all) to see. (Surat an-Nazi'at: 36)
But on this day the believers laugh at the unbelievers (Surat al-Mutaffifin: 34)
And the sinful saw the fire and apprehended that they have to fall therein: no means did they find to turn away therefrom. (Surat al-Kahf: 53)
As may be seen, occurrences that are going to take place after our death (from our point of view) are related in the Qur'an as past events already experienced. Allah is not bound by the relative time frame in which we are confined. Allah has willed these things in timelessness: people have already performed them and all these events have been lived through and are ended. He imparts in the verse below that every event, big or small, is within the knowledge of Allah and recorded in a book:
In whatever business you may be, and whatever portion you may be reciting from the Qur'an, and whatever deed you (mankind) may be doing, We are witnesses thereof when you are deeply engrossed therein. Nor is hidden from your Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the least and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record. (Surah Yunus: 61)
The Worry of the Materialists
The issues discussed in this chapter, namely the truth underlying matter, timelessness, and spacelessness, are indeed extremely clear. As expressed before, these are definitely not any sort of philosophy or way of thought, but scientific outcomes that are impossible to deny. In addition to its being a technical reality, the evidence also admits of no other rational and logical alternatives on this issue: the universe is an illusory entity with all the matter composing it and all the creatures living in it. It is a collection of perceptions.
Materialists have a hard time understanding this issue. For instance, if we return to Politzer's bus example: although Politzer technically knew that he could not step out of his perceptions he could only admit it in certain cases. That is, for Politzer, events take place in the brain until the bus crash, but as soon as the bus crash takes place, things go out of the brain and gain a physical reality. The logical defect of this point is very clear. Politzer has made the same mistake as the materialist Johnson who said, "I hit the stone, my foot hurts, therefore it exists". Politzer could not understand that the shock felt after the impact of the bus was merely a perception as well.
The subliminal reason why materialists cannot comprehend this subject is their fear of what they will face when they comprehend it. Lincoln Barnett tells us that some scientists "discerned" this subject:
Any reference made to the fact that matter and time are perceptions arouses great fear in the materialist, because these are the only notions he relies on as absolute beings. He, in a sense, takes them as idols to worship; because he thinks that matter and time (through evolution) created him.
When he feels that the universe in which he thinks he is living, the world, his own body, other people, other materialist philosophers by whose ideas he is influenced, and, in short, everything is a perception, he feels overwhelmed by a horror at it all. Everything he depends on, believes in, and has recourse to suddenly vanishes. He feels a taste of the desperation which he will really experience on the day of judgement, as described in the verse "That day shall they (openly) show (their) submission to Allah; and all their inventions left them in the lurch." (Surat an-Nahl: 87)
From then on, this materialist tries to convince himself of the reality of matter, and makes up "evidence" for this end. He hits his fist on the wall, kicks stones, shouts, yells, but can never escape from the reality.
Just as they want to dismiss this reality from their minds, they also want other people to discard it. They are also aware that if people in general know the true nature of matter, the primitive nature of their own philosophy and the ignorance of their worldview will be bared for all to see, and there will be no ground left on which they can found their views. These fears are the reasons why they are so disturbed at the facts related here.
Allah states that the fears of the unbelievers will be intensified in the hereafter. On the day of judgement, they will be addressed thus:
One day shall We gather them all together. We shall say to those who ascribed partners (to Us): "Where are the partners whom you (invented and) talked about?" (Surat al-An'am: 22)
After that, unbelievers will witness their possessions, children and their intimates, whom they had assumed to be real and had ascribed as partners to Allah, leaving them and vanishing. Allah informs us of this in the verse "Behold! How they lie against their own selves! But the (lie) which they invented left them in the lurch." (Surat al-An'am: 24)
The Gain of Believers
While the fact that matter and time are perceptions alarms materialists, the opposite holds true for believers. People of faith become very glad when they perceive the secret behind matter, because this reality is the key to all questions. With this key, all secrets are unlocked. One comes easily to understand many issues that one previously had difficulty in understanding.
As said before, the questions of death, paradise, hell, the hereafter, changing dimensions, and questions such as "Where is Allah?" "What was before Allah?" "Who created Allah?" "How long will life in the grave last?" "Where are heaven and hell?" and "Where do heaven and hell currently exist?" are easily answered. It will be understood with what kind of order Allah created the entire universe from out of nothing, so much so that, with this secret, the questions of "when?" and "where?" become meaningless because there are no time and no space left. When spacelessness is grasped, it will be understood that hell, heaven and earth are all actually the same place. If timelessness is grasped, it will be understood that everything takes place at a single moment: nothing is waited for and time does not go by, because everything has already happened and finished.
With this secret delved, the world becomes like heaven for a believer. All distressful material worries, anxieties, and fears vanish. The person grasps that the entire universe has a single sovereign, that He changes the entire physical world as He pleases and that all one has to do is to turn to Him. He then submits himself entirely to Allah "to be devoted to His service". (Surat Ali 'Imran: 35)
To comprehend this secret is the greatest gain in the world.
With this secret, another very important reality mentioned in the Qur'an is unveiled: that "Allah is nearer to man than his jugular vein" (Surah Qaf: 16). As everybody knows, the jugular vein is inside the body. What could be nearer to a person than his inside? This situation can easily be explained by the reality of spacelessness. This verse also can be much better comprehended by understanding this secret.
This is the plain truth. It should be well established that there is no helper and provider for man other than Allah. There is nothing but Allah; He is the only absolute being with Whom one can seek refuge, to Whom one can appeal for help and count on for reward.
Wherever we turn, there is the presence of Allah.
43 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, pp. 52-53
44 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p.17
45 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p.58.
46 Paul Strathern, The Big Idea: Einstein and Relativity, Arrow Books, 1997, p. 57
47 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p.84
48 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, pp.17-18
Chapter 9 A Very Different Approach To Matter
The chapter you are about to read reveals a crucial secret of your life. You should read it very attentively and thoroughly for it concerns a subject that is liable to make fundamental changes in your outlook on the external world. The subject of this chapter is not just a point of view, a different approach, or a traditional or philosophical thought: it is a fact which everyone, believing or unbelieving, must admit and which is also proven by science today.
Chapter 9
A Very Different Approach To Matter
People who conscientiously and wisely contemplate their surroundings realise that everything in the universe – both animate and inanimate – must have been created. The question is "Who is the Creator of all these things?"
It is evident that "the fact of creation", which reveals itself in every aspect of the universe, cannot be an outcome of the universe itself. For example, a bug cannot have created itself. The solar system cannot have created or organised itself. Neither plants, humans, bacteria, erythrocytes (red-blood corpuscles), nor butterflies can have created themselves. Also the possibility that all these could have originated "by chance" is not even imaginable.
We therefore arrive at the following conclusion: Everything that we see has been created, but nothing we see can themselves be "creators". The Creator is different from and superior to all that we see with our eyes, a superior power that is invisible but whose existence and attributes are revealed in everything that exists.
This is the point at which those who deny the existence of Allah demur. These people are conditioned not to believe in His existence unless they see Him with their eyes. These people, who disregard the fact of "creation", are forced to ignore the actuality of "creation" manifest throughout the universe and try to prove that the universe and the living things in it have not been created. Evolutionary theory is an essential example of their vain endeavours to this end.
The basic mistake of those who deny Allah is shared by many people who do not really deny the existence of Allah but have a wrong perception of Him. They do not deny creation but have superstitious beliefs about "where" Allah is. Most of them think that Allah is up in the "sky". They tacitly imagine that Allah is behind a very distant planet and interferes with "worldly affairs" once in a while, or perhaps does not intervene at all. They imagine that He created the universe and then left it to itself, leaving people to determine their fates for themselves.
Still others have heard that it is written in the Qur'an that Allah is "everywhere" but they cannot conceive what exactly this means. They think that Allah surrounds everything like radio waves or like an invisible, intangible gas.
However, this and other beliefs that are unable to make clear "where" Allah is (and maybe because of that deny Him) are all based on a common mistake. They are prejudiced without any grounds for it and so are then moved to wrong opinions of Allah. What is this prejudice?
This prejudice is about the nature and characteristics of matter. We are so conditioned in our suppositions about the existence of matter that we never think whether it does exist or not or whether it is only a shadow. Modern science demolishes this prejudice and discloses a very important and revealing reality. In the following pages, we will try to clarify this great reality to which the Qur'an points.
The World of Electrical Signals
All the information that we have about the world in which we live is conveyed to us by our five senses. The world we know of consists of what our eyes see, our hands feel, our noses smell, our tongues taste, and our ears hear. We never think that the "external" world could be anything other than that which our senses present to us, as we have been dependent on only those senses since birth.
Modern
research in many different fields of science points to a very
different
understanding and creates serious doubt about our senses and the
world
that we perceive with them.
The starting-point of this approach is that the notion of an "external world" shaped in our brain is only a response created in our brain by electrical signals. The redness of apples, the hardness of wood and, moreover, your mother, father, family, and everything that you own, your house, job, and the lines of this book, are comprised only of electrical signals.
Frederick Vester explains the point that science has reached on this subject:
Statements of some scientists posing that "man is an image, everything experienced is temporary and deceptive, and this universe is a shadow", seems to be proven by science in our day.25
The famous philosopher, George Berkeley commented on the subject as follows:
We believe in the existence of objects just because we see and touch them, and they are reflected to us by our perceptions. However, our perceptions are only ideas in our mind. Thus, objects we captivate by perceptions are nothing but ideas, and these ideas are essentially in nowhere but our mind… Since all these exist only in the mind, then it means that we are beguiled by deceptions when we imagine the universe and things to have an existence outside the mind. So, none of the surrounding things have an existence out of our mind.26
In order to clarify the subject, let us consider our sense of sight, which provides us with the most extensive information about the external world.
How Do We See, Hear, and Taste?
The act of seeing is realised progressively. Light clusters (photons) travel from the object to the eye and pass through the lens at the front of the eye where they are refracted and fall upside-down on the retina at the back of the eye. Here, impinging light is turned into electrical signals that are transmitted by neurons to a tiny spot called the centre of vision in the back of the brain. This electrical signal is perceived as an image in this centre in the brain after a series of processes. The act of seeing actually takes place in this tiny spot in the posterior part of the brain, which is pitch-dark and completely insulated from light.
Now, let us reconsider this seemingly ordinary and unremarkable process. When we say, "we see", we are in fact seeing the effects of impulses reaching our eyes and induced in our brain, after they are transformed into electrical signals. That is, when we say, "we see", we are actually observing electrical signals in our mind.
All the images we view in our lives are formed in our centre of vision, which only comprises a few cubic centimetres of the volume of the brain. Both the book you are now reading and the boundless landscape you see when you gaze at the horizon fit into this tiny space. Another point that has to be kept in mind is that, as we have noted before, the brain is insulated from light; its inside is absolutely dark. The brain has no contact with light itself.
We can explain this interesting situation with an example. Let us suppose that in front of us there is a burning candle. We can sit opposite this candle and watch it at length. However, during this period, our brain never has any direct contact with the original light of the candle. Even as we see the light of the candle, the inside of our brain is completely dark. We watch a colourful and bright world inside our dark brain.
R. L. Gregory gives the following explanation about the miraculous aspects of seeing, something that we take so much for granted:
We are so familiar with seeing, that it takes a leap of imagination to realise that there are problems to be solved. But consider it. We are given tiny distorted upside-down images in the eyes, and we see separate solid objects in surrounding space. From the patterns of simulation on the retinas we perceive the world of objects, and this is nothing short of a miracle.27
The same situation applies to all our other senses. Sound, touch, taste and smell are all transmitted to the brain as electrical signals and are perceived in the relevant centres in the brain.
The sense of hearing works in a similar manner to that of sight. The outer ear picks up sounds by the auricle and directs them to the middle ear. The middle ear transmits the sound vibrations to the inner ear and intensifies them. The inner ear translates the vibrations into electrical signals, which it sends into the brain. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing finally takes place in the centre of hearing in the brain. The brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. Therefore, no matter how noisy it is outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent.
Nevertheless, even the subtlest sounds are perceived in the brain. This is so precise that the ear of a healthy person hears everything without any atmospheric noise or interference. In your brain, which is insulated from sound, you listen to the symphonies of an orchestra, hear all the noises of a crowded place, and perceive all the sounds within a wide frequency range, from the rustling of a leaf to the roar of a jet plane. However, if the sound level in your brain were to be measured by a sensitive device at that moment, it would be seen that a complete silence is prevailing there.
Our perception of odour is formed in a similar way. Volatile molecules emitted by things such as vanilla or a rose reach the receptors in the delicate hairs in the epithelium region of the nose and become involved in an interaction. This interaction is transmitted to the brain as electrical signals and perceived as smell. Everything that we smell, be it pleasant or unpleasant, is nothing but the brain's perception of the interactions of volatile molecules after they have been transformed into electrical signals. You perceive the scent of a perfume, a flower, a food that you like, the sea, or other odours you like or dislike, in your brain. The molecules themselves never reach the brain. Just as with sound and vision, what reach your brain simply electrical signals. In other words, all the odours that you have assumed – since you were born – to belong to external objects are just electrical signals that you feel through your sense organs.
Similarly, there are four different types of chemical receptors in the front part of a human's tongue. These pertain to the four tastes: salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. Our taste receptors transform these perceptions into electrical signals through a chain of chemical processes and transmit them to the brain. These signals are perceived as taste by the brain. The taste you experience when you eat a chocolate bar or a fruit that you like is the interpretation of electrical signals by the brain. You can never reach the object in the external world; you can never see, smell or taste the chocolate itself. For instance, if the taste nerves that travel to the brain are cut, the taste of things you eat will not reach your brain; you will completely lose your sense of taste.
At this point, we come across another fact: We can never be sure that what we experience when we taste a food and what another person experiences when he tastes the same food, or what we perceive when we hear a voice and what another person perceives when he hears the same voice are the same. Lincoln Barnett says that no one can know whether another person perceives the colour red or hears the C note the in same way as does he himself.28
Our sense of touch is no different from the others. When we touch an object, all information that will help us recognise the external world and objects are transmitted to the brain by the sense nerves on the skin. The feeling of touch is formed in our brain. Contrary to general belief, the place where we perceive the sense of touch is not at our finger-tips or on our skins but at the centre of touch perception in our brains. Because of the brain's interpretation of electrical stimuli coming to it from objects, we experience those objects differently such as that they are hard or soft, hot or cold. We derive all the details that help us recognise an object from these stimuli. Concerning this, the thoughts of two famous philosophers, B. Russell and L. Wittgenstein, are as follows:
It is impossible for us to reach the physical world. All objects around us are a collection of perceptions such as seeing, hearing, and touching. By processing the data in the centre of vision and in other sensory centres, our brains, throughout our lives, do not confront the "original" of the matter existing outside us but rather the copy formed inside our brain. It is at this point that we are misled by assuming these copies are instances of real matter outside us.
"The External World" Inside Our Brain
From the physical facts described so far, we may conclude the
following.
Everything we see, touch, hear, and perceive as "matter", "the
world"
or "the universe" is only electrical signals occurring in our
brain.
Someone eating a fruit does not confront the actual fruit but its perception in the brain. The object considered by the person a "fruit" actually consists of electrical impressions of the shape, taste, smell, and texture of the fruit in the brain. If the sight nerves travelling to the brain were to be severed suddenly, the image of the fruit would suddenly disappear. A disconnection in the nerve travelling from the sensors in the nose to the brain would completely interrupt the sense of smell. Put simply, the fruit is nothing but the brain's interpretation of electrical signals.
Another point to be considered is the sense of distance. Distance, for example the distance between you and this book, is only a feeling of space formed in your brain. Objects that seem to be distant in one person's view also exist in the brain. For instance, someone who watches the stars in the sky assumes that they are millions of light-years away from him. Yet, what he "sees" are really the stars inside himself, in his centre of vision. While you read these lines, you are, in truth, not inside the room you assume yourself to be in; on the contrary, the room is inside you. Your seeing your body makes you think that you are inside it. However, you must remember that your body, too, is an image formed inside your brain.
The same applies to all your other perceptions. For instance, when you think that you hear the sound of the television in the next room, you are actually experiencing the sound inside your brain. You can prove neither that a room exists next to yours, nor that a sound comes from the television in that room. Both the sound you think to be coming from metres away and the conversation of a person right next to you are perceived in a centre of hearing a few centimetres square in your brain. Apart from in this centre of perception, no concept such as right, left, front or behind exists. That is, sound does not come to you from the right, from the left or from the air; there is no direction from which sound comes.
The smells that you perceive are like that too; none of them reaches you from a great distance. You suppose that the end-effects formed in your centre of smell are the smell of the objects in the external world. However, just as the image of a rose is in your centre of vision, so the smell of the rose is in your centre of smell; there is neither a rose nor an odour pertaining to it in the external world.
The "external world" presented to us by our perceptions is merely a collection of electrical signals reaching our brains. Throughout our lives, our brains process these signals and we live without recognising that we are mistaken in assuming that these are the original versions of things existing in the "external world". We are misled because we can never reach the matters themselves by means of our senses.
Moreover, again our brains interpret and attribute meaning to signals that we assume to be the "external world". For example, let us consider the sense of hearing. Our brains transform the sound waves in the "external world" into a symphony. That is to say, music is also a perception created by our brains. In the same manner, when we see colours, what reach our eyes are merely electrical signals of different wavelengths. Again our brains transform these signals into colours. There are no colours in the "external world". Neither is the apple red, nor is the sky blue, nor the trees green. They are as they are just because we perceive them to be so. The "external world" depends entirely on the perceiver.
Even the slightest defect in the retina of the eye causes colour blindness. Some people perceive blue as green, some red as blue, and some perceive all colours as different tones of grey. At this point, it does not matter whether the object externally is coloured or not.
The prominent thinker Berkeley also addressed this fact:
So what remains of the "external world"?
Is the Existence of the "External World" Indispensable?
So far, we have been speaking repeatedly of an "external world" and a world of perceptions formed in our brains, the latter of which is what we see. However, since we can never actually reach the "external world", how can we be sure that such a world really exists?
Actually we cannot. Since each object is only a collection of perceptions and those perceptions exist only in the mind, it is more accurate to say that the only world that really exists is the world of perceptions. The only world we know of is the world that exists in our mind: the one that is designed, recorded, and made vivid there; the one, in short, that is created within our mind. This is the only world of which we can be sure.
We can never prove that the perceptions we observe in our brain have material correlates. Those perceptions could conceivably be coming from an "artificial" source.
It is possible to observe this. False stimuli can produce an entirely imaginary "material world" in our brain. For example, let us imagine a very developed recording instrument in which all kinds of electrical signals could be recorded. First, let us transmit all the data related to a setting (including body image) to this instrument by transforming them into electrical signals. Second, let us imagine that the brain could survive apart from the body. Finally, let us connect the recording instrument to the brain with electrodes that will function as nerves and send the pre-recorded data to the brain. In this state, you would experience yourself living in this artificially created setting. For instance, you could easily believe that you are driving fast on a highway. It might never become possible to understand that you consist of nothing but your brain. This is because what is needed to form a world within your brain is not the existence of a real world but rather the stimuli. It is perfectly possible that these stimuli could be coming from an artificial source, such as a tape-recorder.
In that connection, distinguished philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote:
It is indeed very easy for us to be deceived into believing perceptions, without any material correlates, to be real. We often experience this feeling in our dreams, in which we experience events, see people, objects and settings that seem completely real. However, they are all nothing but mere perceptions. There is no basic difference between the dream and the "real world"; both of them are experienced in the brain.
Who Is the Perceiver?
As we have related so far, there is no doubt that the world we think we inhabit and that we call the "external world" is perceived inside our brain. However, here arises the question of primary importance. If all physical events that we know are intrinsically perceptions, what about our brain? Since our brains are a part of the physical world just like our arms, legs, or any other objects, it also must be a perception just like all other objects.
An example about dreams will illuminate the subject further. Let us think that we see the dream within our brain in accordance with what has been said so far. In the dream, we will have an imaginary body, an imaginary arm, an imaginary eye, and an imaginary brain. If during our dream, we were asked, "where do you see?" we would answer "I see in my brain". Yet, actually there is not any brain to talk about, but an imaginary head and an imaginary brain. The seer of the images is not the imaginary brain in the dream, but a "being" that is far "superior" to it.
We know that there is no physical distinction between the setting of a dream and the setting we call real life. So when we are asked in the setting we call real life the above question "where do you see", it would be just as meaningless to answer "in my brain" as in the example above. In both conditions, the entity that sees and perceives is not the brain, which is after all only a hunk of meat.
When we analyse the brain, we see that there is nothing in it but lipid and protein molecules, which also exist in other living organisms. This means that within the piece of meat we call our "brain", there is nothing to observe the images, to constitute consciousness, or to create the being we call "myself".
R. L. Gregory refers to a mistake people make in relation to the perception of images in the brain:
There is a temptation, which must be avoided, to say that the eyes produce pictures in the brain. A picture in the brain suggests the need of some kind of internal eye to see it – but this would need a further eye to see its picture… and so on, in an endless regress of eyes and pictures. This is absurd.32
This is the very point that puts materialists, who do not hold anything but matter to be true, in a quandary: to whom belongs "the eye inside" that sees, that perceives what it sees and reacts?
Karl Pribram also focused on this important question, about who the perceiver is, in the world of science and philosophy:
When we ponder these questions, we see that there is no sense in looking for will in atoms. It is clear that the being that sees, hears, and feels is a supra-material being. This being is "alive" and it is neither matter nor an image of matter. This being associates with the perceptions in front of it by using the image of our body.
This being is the "soul".
The aggregate of perceptions we call the "material world" is a dream observed by this soul. Just as the bodies we possess and the material world we see in our dreams have no reality, the universe we occupy and the bodies we possess also have no material reality.
The real being is the soul. Matter consists merely of perceptions viewed by the soul. The intelligent beings that write and read these lines are not each a heap of atoms and molecules and the chemical reactions between them, but a "soul".
The Real Absolute Being
All these facts bring us face to face with a very significant question. If the thing we acknowledge to be the material world is merely comprised of perceptions seen by our soul, then what is the source of these perceptions?
In answering this question, we must consider the following: matter does not have a self-governing existence by itself. Since matter is a perception, it is something "artificial". That is, this perception must have been caused by another power, which means that it must have been created. Moreover, this creation must be continuous. If there were not a continuous and consistent creation, then what we call matter would disappear and be lost. This may be likened to a television on which a picture is displayed as long as the signal continues to be broadcast. So, who makes our soul see the stars, the earth, plants, people, our bodies and all else that we see?
It is very evident that there is a Creator, Who has created the entire material universe, that is, the sum of perceptions, and continues His creation ceaselessly. Since this Creator displays such a magnificent creation, He surely has eternal power and might.
This Creator introduces Himself to us. He has revealed a Book and through this Book has described Himself, the universe and the reason of our existence to us.
This Creator is Allah and the name of His book is the Qur'an.
The facts that the heavens and the earth, that is, the universe is not stable, that their presence is only made possible by Allah's creating them and that they will disappear when He ends this creation, are all explained in a verse as follows:
It is Allah Who sustains the heavens and the earth, lest they cease (to function): and if they should fail, there is none - not one - can sustain them thereafter: Verily He is Most Forbearing, Oft-Forgiving. (Surat al-Fatir: 41)
However, as we have considered so far, matter is composed only of sensations. And the only real absolute being is Allah. That means that only Allah is; all things except Him are shadow beings. Consequently, it is impossible to conceive of Allah as separate and outside of this whole mass of matter. Allah is surely "everywhere" and encompasses all. This reality is explained in the Qur'an as follows;
Allah! There is no god but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permits? He knows what (appears to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He wills. His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth, and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory). (Surat al-Baqarah: 255)
That Allah is not bound by space and that He encompasses everything roundabout is stated in another verse as follows:
To Allah belong the east and the west: Whithersoever you turn, there is the face of Allah. For Allah is all-pervading, all-knowing. (Surat al-Baqarah: 115)
Since material beings are each a perception, they cannot see Allah; but Allah sees the matter He created in all its forms. In the Qur'an, this is stated thus: "No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision." (Surat al-An'am: 103)
That is, we cannot grasp Allah's being with our eyes, but Allah has thoroughly encompassed our inside, outside, looks and thoughts. We cannot utter any word but with His knowledge, nor can we even take a breath.
While we watch these sensory perceptions in the course of our lives, the closest being to us is not any one of these sensations, but Allah Himself. The secret of the following verse in the Qur'an is concealed in this reality: "It is We Who created man, and We know what dark suggestions his soul makes to him: for We are nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." (Surah Qaf: 16)
When a person thinks that his body is only made up of "matter", he cannot comprehend this important fact. If he takes his brain to be "himself", then the place that he accepts to be the outside is 20-30 cm away from him. However, when he understands that there is nothing such as matter, and that everything is imagination, notions such as outside, inside, far or near lose meaning. Allah has encompassed him and He is "infinitely close" to him.
Allah informs men that He is "infinitely close" to them with the verse "When My servants ask you concerning Me, I am indeed close (to them)." (Surat al-Baqarah: 186) Another verse relates the same fact: "We told you that your Lord encompasses mankind round about." (Surat al-Isra, 60)
Man is misled in thinking that the being closest to him is himself. Allah, in truth, is even closer to us than ourselves. He has called our attention to this point in the verse "Why is it not then that when it (soul) comes up to the throat, and you at that time look on, We are nearer to him than you, but you see not." (Surat al-Waqi'ah: 83-85). As we are told in the verse, people live unaware of this phenomenal fact because they do not see it with their eyes.
On the other hand, it is impossible for man, who is nothing but a shadow being, to have power and will independent of Allah. The verse "But Allah has created you and what you do!" (Surat as-Saffat: 96) shows that everything we experience takes place under Allah's control. In the Qur'an, this reality is stated in the verse "You did not throw, when you threw, it was Allah who threw" (Surat al-Anfal, 17) whereby it is emphasised that no act is independent of Allah. Since the human being is a shadow being, he himself does not perform the act of throwing. However, Allah gives this shadow being the feeling of self. In reality, Allah performs all acts. If someone takes the acts he does as his own, he evidently means to deceive himself.
This is the reality. A person may not want to concede this and may think of himself as a being independent of Allah; but this does not change a thing. Of course his unwise denial is again within Allah's will and wish.
Everything That You Possess Is Intrinsically Illusory
As may be seen clearly, it is a logical scientific fact that the "external world" has no material reality and that it is a collection of images perpetually presented to our soul by Allah. Nevertheless, people usually do not include, or rather do not want to include, everything in the concept of the "external world".
Think about this issue sincerely and boldly. You will realise that your house, furniture, car – which is perhaps recently bought, office, jewellery, bank account, wardrobe, spouse, children, colleagues, and everything else that you possess are in fact included in this imaginary external world projected to you. Everything you see, hear, or smell – in short – perceive with your five senses around you is a part of this "imaginary world": the voice of your favourite singer, the hardness of the chair you sit on, a perfume whose smell you like, the sun that keeps you warm, a flower with beautiful colours, a bird flying in front of your window, a speedboat moving swiftly on the water, your fertile garden, the computer you use at your job, or your hi-fi that has the most advanced technology in the world…
This is the reality, because the world is only a collection of images created to test man. People are tested all through their limited lives with perceptions having no reality. These perceptions are intentionally presented as appealing and attractive. This fact is mentioned in the Qur'an:
Fair in the eyes of people is the love of things they covet: Women and sons; heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses branded (for blood and excellence); and (wealth of) cattle and well-tilled land. Such are the possessions of this world's life; but in nearness to Allah is the best of the goals (to return to). (Surat Ali 'Imran: 14)
The fact we describe in this chapter, namely that everything is an image, is very important for its implications that render all lusts and boundaries meaningless. The verification of this fact makes it clear that everything people possess or toil to possess – wealth acquired with greed, children of whom they boast, spouses whom they consider closest to them, friends, their dearest bodies, the social status which they believe to be a superiority, the schools they have attended, the holidays on which they have been – is nothing but mere illusion. Therefore, all the effort, the time spent, and the greed, prove unavailing.
This is why some people unwittingly make fools of themselves when they boast of their wealth and properties or of their "yachts, helicopters, factories, holdings, manors and lands" as if they really exist. Those well-to-do people who ostentatiously sail in their yachts, show off their cars, keep talking about their wealth, suppose that their posts rank them higher than everyone else and keep thinking that they are successful because of all this, should actually think what kind of a state they will find themselves in once they realise that success is nothing but an illusion.
These scenes are seen many times in dreams as well. In their dreams, they also have houses, fast cars, extremely precious jewels, rolls of dollars, and loads of gold and silver. In their dreams, they are also positioned in high ranks, own factories with thousands of workers, possess power to rule over many people, and dress in clothes that make everyone admire them. Just as someone who, on waking, boasted about his possessions in his dreams would be ridiculed, he is sure to be equally ridiculed for boasting of images he sees in this world. Both what he sees in his dreams and in this world are mere images in his mind.
Similarly, the way people react to events they experience in the world will make them feel ashamed when they realise the reality. Those who fiercely fight with each other, rave furiously, swindle, take bribes, commit forgery, lie, covetously withhold their money, do wrong to people, beat and curse others, rage aggressively, are full of passion for office and rank, are envious, and show off, will be disgraced when they realise that they have done all of this in a dream.
Since Allah creates all these images, the Ultimate Owner of everything is Allah alone. This fact is stressed in the Qur'an:
But to Allah belong all things in the heavens and on earth: And He it is that encompasses all things. (Surat an-Nisa: 126)
At this stage, one point should be understood. It is not said here that "the possessions, wealth, children, spouses, friends, rank you have with which you are being stingy, will vanish sooner or later, and therefore they do not have any meaning", but that "all the possessions you seem to have do not exist, but they are merely dreams composed of images which Allah shows you to test you". As you see, there is a big difference between the two statements.
Although one does not want to acknowledge this right away and would rather deceive oneself by assuming everything one has truly exists, one is finally to die and in the hereafter everything will be clear when we are recreated. On that day "sharp is one's sight" (Surah Qaf: 22) and we will see everything much more clearly. However, if we have spent our lives chasing after imaginary aims, we are going to wish we had never lived this life and say "Ah! Would that (Death) had made an end of me! Of no profit to me has been my wealth! My power has perished from me!" (Surat al-Haqqah: 27-29)
What a wise man should do, on the other hand, is to try to understand the greatest reality of the universe here in this world, while he still has time. Otherwise, he will spend all his life running after dreams and face a grievous penalty at the end. In the Qur'an, the final state of those people who run after illusions (or mirages) in this world and forget their Creator, is stated as follows:
But the unbelievers, their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing: But he finds Allah (ever) with him, and Allah will pay him his account: and Allah is swift in taking account. (Surat an-Nur: 39)
Logical Defects of the Materialists
From the beginning of this chapter, it is clearly stated that matter does not have absolute being, as materialists claim, but is rather a collection of sense impressions created by Allah. Materialists resist this evident reality, which destroys their philosophy, in an extremely dogmatic manner and bring forward baseless anti-theses.
For example, one of the biggest advocates of materialist philosophy in the 20th century, an ardent Marxist, George Politzer, gave the "bus example" as the "greatest evidence" for the existence of matter. According to Politzer, philosophers who think that matter is only a perception also run away when they see a bus about to run them over and this is the proof of the physical existence of matter.34
When another famous materialist, Johnson, was told that matter is a collection of perceptions, he tried to "prove" the physical existence of stones by giving them a kick.35
A similar example is given by Friedrich Engels, the mentor of Politzer and founder, along with Marx, of dialectical materialism. He wrote, "if the cakes we eat were mere perceptions, they would not stop our hunger".36
There are similar examples and some outrageous sentences such as "you understand the existence of matter when you are slapped in the face" in the books of famous materialists such as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others.
The disorder in comprehension that gives way to these examples of the materialists is their interpreting the explanation of "matter is a perception" as "matter is a trick of light". They think that perception is limited to sight and that other faculties like touch have physical correlates. A bus knocking down a man makes them say "look, it crashed, therefore it is not a perception". They do not understand that all perceptions experienced during a bus crash, such as hardness, collision, and pain, are also formed in the brain.
The Example of Dreams
The best example to explain this reality is the dream. A person can experience very realistic events in dream. He can roll down the stairs and break his leg, have a serious car accident, become stuck under a bus, or eat a cake and be satiated. Similar events to those experienced in our daily lives are also experienced in dreams with the same persuasive sense of their reality, and arousing the same feelings in us.
A person who dreams that he is knocked down by a bus can open his eyes in a hospital again in his dream and understand that he is disabled, but it is all a dream. He can also dream that he dies in a car crash, angels of death take his soul, and his life in the hereafter begins. (This latter event is experienced in the same manner in this life, which, just like the dream, is a perception.)
This person perceives very sharply the images, sounds, feelings of solidity, light, colours, and all other feelings pertaining to the event he experiences in his dream. The perceptions he perceives in his dream are as natural as the ones in "real" life. The cake he eats in his dream satiates him although it is a mere dream-sense perception, because being satiated is also a dream-sense perception. However, in reality, this person is lying in his bed at that moment. There are no stairs, traffic, or buses to consider. The dreaming person experiences and sees perceptions and feelings that do not exist in the external world. The fact that in our dreams, we experience, see, and feel events with no physical correlates in the "external world" very clearly reveals that the "external world" of our waking lives also consists absolutely of mere perceptions.
Those who believe in materialist philosophy, particularly Marxists, are enraged when they are told about this reality, the essence of matter. They quote examples from the superficial reasoning of Marx, Engels, or Lenin and make emotional declarations.
However, these persons must think that they can also make these declarations in their dreams. In their dreams, they can also read Das Kapital, participate in meetings, fight with the police, be hit on the head, and feel the pain of their wounds. When asked in their dreams, they will think that what they experience in their dreams also consists of "absolute matter", just as they assume the things they see when they are awake are "absolute matter". However, whether it is in their dreams or in their daily lives, all that they see, experience, or feel consists only of perceptions.
The Example of Connecting the Nerves in Parallel
Let us consider the car crash example given by Politzer in which he talked of someone crushed by a car. If the crushed person's nerves travelling from his five senses to his brain, were connected to another person's, take Politzer's brain, with a parallel connection, at the moment the bus hit that person, it would also hit Politzer sitting at home at the same time. All the feelings experienced by that person having the accident would be experienced by Politzer, just like the same song listened to from two different loudspeakers connected to the same tape recorder. Politzer would feel, see, and experience the braking of the bus, the touch of the bus on his body, the images of a broken arm and blood, fractures, images of his entering the operation room, the hardness of the plaster cast, and the feebleness of his arm.
Every other person connected to the man's nerves in parallel would experience the accident from beginning to end just like Politzer. If the man in the accident fell into a coma, they would all fall into a coma. Moreover, if all the perceptions pertaining to the car accident were recorded in a device and if all these perceptions were transmitted to a person repeatedly, the bus would knock this person down many times.
So, which one of the buses hitting those people is real? The materialist philosophy has no consistent answer to this question. The right answer is that they all experience the car accident in all its details in their own minds.
The same principle applies to the cake and stone examples. If the nerves of the sense organs of Engels, who felt the satiety and fullness of the cake in his stomach after eating a cake, were connected to a second person's brain in parallel, that person would also feel full when Engels ate the cake and was satiated. If the nerves of Johnson, who felt pain in his foot when he delivered a sound kick to a stone, were connected to a second person in parallel, that person would feel the same pain.
So, which cake or which stone is the real one? The materialist philosophy again falls short of giving a consistent answer to this question. The correct and consistent answer is this: both Engels and the second person have eaten the cake in their minds and are satiated; both Johnson and the second person have fully experienced the moment of striking the stone in their minds.
Let us make a change in the example we gave about Politzer: let us connect the nerves of the man hit by the bus to Politzer's brain, and the nerves of Politzer sitting in his house to the brain of the man who is hit by the bus. In this case, Politzer will think that a bus has hit him although he is sitting in his house. The man actually hit by the bus will never feel the impact of the accident and think that he is sitting in Politzer's house. The very same logic may be applied to the cake and the stone examples.
As we see, it is not possible for man to transcend his senses and break free of them. In this respect, a man's soul can be exposed to all kinds of representations of physical events although it has no physical body and no material existence and lacks material weight. It is not possible for a person to realise this because he assumes these three-dimensional images to be real and is certain of their existence because, like everybody, he depends on perceptions experienced by his sensory organs.
The famous British philosopher David Hume expresses his thoughts on this fact:
The Formation of Perceptions in the Brain is Not Philosophy But Scientific Fact
Materialists claim that what we have been saying here is a philosophical view. However, to hold that the "external world", as we call it, is a collection of perceptions is not a matter of philosophy but a plain scientific fact. How the image and feelings form in the brain is taught in medical schools in detail. These facts, proven by 20th-century science particularly physics, clearly show that matter does not have an absolute reality and that, in a sense, everyone is watching the "monitor in his brain".
Everyone who believes in science, be he an atheist, Buddhist, or someone who holds any other view, has to accept this fact. A materialist might deny the existence of a Creator yet he cannot deny this scientific reality.
The inability of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Georges Politzer and others to comprehend such a simple and evident fact is still startling, although the level of scientific understanding of their times was perhaps insufficient. In our time, science and technology are highly advanced and recent discoveries make it easier to comprehend this fact. Materialists, on the other hand, are flooded with the fear of both comprehending this fact, even partially, and realising how definitely it demolishes their philosophy.
The Great Fear of the Materialists
For a while, no substantial response came from materialist Turkish circles on the subject brought up in this book, that is, the fact that matter is a mere perception. This gave us the impression that our point had not been made so clear and that it needed further explanation. Yet, before long, it was revealed that materialists felt quite uneasy about the popularity of this subject, and felt a great fear of it.
For some time, materialists have been loudly proclaiming their fear and panic in their publications, conferences and panels. Their agitated and hopeless discourses imply that they are suffering a severe intellectual crisis. The scientific collapse of the theory of evolution, the so-called basis of their philosophy, had already come as a great shock to them. Now, they come to realise that they start to lose matter itself, which is a greater mainstay for them than Darwinism, and they are experiencing an even greater shock. They declare that this issue is the "biggest threat" to them and that it totally "demolishes their cultural fabric".
One of those who expressed most outspokenly the anxiety and panic felt by materialist circles was Renan Pekunlu, an academician as well as writer of the Bilim ve Utopya (Science and Utopia) periodical which has assumed the task of defending materialism. Both in his articles in Bilim ve Utopya and in the panels he attended, Pekunlu presented the book Evolution Deceit by Harun Yahya as the number one "threat" to materialism. What disturbed Pekunlu even more than the chapters that invalidated Darwinism was the part you are currently reading. To his readers and audience, the latter of whom were only a handful, Pekunlu delivered the message, "do not let yourselves be carried away by the indoctrination of idealism and keep your faith in materialism". He quoted Vladimir I. Lenin, the leader of the bloody communist revolution in Russia, as reference. Advising everyone to read Lenin's century-old book titled Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Pekunlu repeated the counsels of Lenin, "do not think over this issue, or you will lose track of materialism and be carried away by religion". In an article he wrote in the aforementioned periodical, he quoted the following lines from Lenin:
Nevertheless, the general picture is that a great number of materialist scientists still take a very superficial stand against the fact that "matter is nothing but an illusion". The subject explained in this chapter is one of the most important and most exciting subjects that one can ever come across in one’s life. There is no chance of them having faced such a crucial subject before. Still, the reactions of these scientists or the manner they employ in their speeches and articles hint at how shallow and superficial their comprehension is.
The reactions of some materialists to the subject discussed here show that their blind adherence to materialism has caused some kind of harm to their logic. For this reason, they are far removed from comprehending the subject. For instance, Alaattin Senel, also an academician and writer for Bilim ve Utopya , expressed similar sentiments as Rennan Pekunlu saying, "Forget the collapse of Darwinism, the really threatening subject is this one". Sensing that his own philosophy has no basis, he made demands such as "prove what you say!" More interestingly, this writer has himself written lines revealing that he cannot grasp this fact, which he considers a menace.
For instance, in an article in which he discussed this subject exclusively, Senel accepts that the external world is perceived in the brain as an image. However, he then goes on to claim that images are divided into two: those having physical correlates and those that do not, and that images pertaining to the external world have physical correlates. In order to support his assertion, he gives "the example of the telephone". In summary, he wrote: "I do not know whether the images in my brain have correlates in the external world or not, but the same thing applies when I speak on the phone. When I speak on the telephone, I cannot see the person I am speaking to but I can have this conversation confirmed when I later see him face to face."39
By saying so, this writer actually means the following: "If we doubt our perceptions, we can look at the matter itself and check its reality." However, this is an evident misconception, because it is impossible for us to reach the matter itself. We can never get out of our mind and know what is "outside". Whether the voice on the telephone has a correlate or not can be confirmed by the person on the other end. However, this confirmation is also imagery, which is experienced in the mind.
These people also experience the same events in their dreams. For instance, Senel may also see in his dream that he speaks on the telephone and then have this conversation confirmed by the person to whom he spoke. Pekunlu may in his dream feel himself facing "a serious threat" and advising people to read century-old books of Lenin. However, no matter what they do, these materialists can never deny that the events they have experienced and the people they have talked to in their dreams are nothing but perceptions.
Who, then, will confirm whether the images in the brain have correlates or not? The shadow beings in the brain? Without doubt, it is impossible for materialists to find a source of information that can yield data concerning the outside of the brain and confirm it.
Conceding that all perceptions are formed in the brain, but assuming that one can step "out" of this and have the perceptions confirmed by the real external world, reveals that the intellectual capacity of the person is limited and that his reasoning is distorted.
However, any person with a normal level of understanding and reasoning can easily grasp these facts. Every unbiased person knows, in relation to all that we have said, that it is not possible for him to test the existence of the external world with his senses. Yet, it appears that blind adherence to materialism distorts the reasoning capacity of people. For this reason, contemporary materialists display severe logical flaws in their reasoning just like their mentors who tried to "prove" the existence of matter by kicking stones or eating cakes.
It also has to be said that this is not an astonishing situation, because inability to understand is a common trait of all unbelievers. In the Qur'an, Allah particularly states that they are "a people without understanding" (Surat al-Ma'idah: 58)
Materialists Have Fallen into the Biggest Trap in History
The atmosphere of panic sweeping through materialist circles in Turkey, of which we have here mentioned only a few examples, shows that materialists face utter defeat, which they have never met before in history. That matter is simply a perception has been proven by modern science and it is put forward in a very clear, straightforward and forceful way. It only remains for materialists to see and acknowledge the collapse of the entire material world in which they blindly believe and on which they rely.
Materialist thought has always existed throughout the history of humanity. Being very assured of themselves and the philosophy they believe in, materialists revolted against Allah who created them. The scenario they formulated maintained that matter has no beginning or end, and that all these could not possibly have a Creator. Because of their arrogance, they denied Allah and took refuge in matter, which they held to have real existence. They were so confident in this philosophy that they thought that it would never be possible to put forth an explanation proving the contrary.
That is why the facts told in this book regarding the real nature of matter surprised these people so much. What has been told here destroyed the very basis of their philosophy and left no ground for further discussion. Matter, upon which they based all their thoughts, lives, their arrogance and denial, vanished all of a sudden. How can materialism exist when matter does not?
One of the attributes of Allah is His plotting against the unbelievers. This is stated in the verse "They plot and plan, and Allah too plans; but Allah is the best of planners." (Surat al- Anfal: 30)
Allah entrapped materialists by making them assume that matter exists and, so doing, humiliated them in an unseen way. Materialists deemed their possessions, status, rank, the society to which they belong, the whole world and everything else to really exist and grew arrogant against Allah by relying on these. They revolted against Allah by being boastful and added to their unbelief. While so doing, they totally relied on matter. Yet, they are so lacking in understanding that they fail to think that Allah encompasses them round about. Allah announces the state to which the unbelievers are led as a result of their thick-headedness:
Or do they intend a plot (against you)? But those who defy Allah are themselves involved in a plot! (Surat at-Tur: 42)
This is most probably their biggest defeat in history. While growing arrogant, materialists have been tricked and suffered a serious defeat in the war they waged against Allah by bringing up something monstrous against Him. The verse "Thus have We placed leaders in every town, its wicked men, to plot therein: but they only plot against their own souls, and they perceive it not" announces how unconscious these people who revolt against their Creator are, and how they will end up (Surat al- An'am: 123)
In another verse the same fact is related as:
Fain would they deceive Allah and those who believe, but they only deceive themselves, and realise (it) not! (Surat al-Baqarah: 9)
While the unbelievers try to plot, they do not realise a very important fact which is stressed by the words "they only deceive themselves, and realise (it) not!" in the verse. This is the fact that everything they experience is an imagination designed to be perceived by them, and all plots they devise are simply images formed in their brain just like every other act they perform. Their folly has made them forget that they are all alone with Allah and, hence, they are entrapped in their own devious plans.
No less than those unbelievers who lived in the past, those living today face a reality that will shatter their devious plans at their foundations. With the verse "…feeble indeed is the cunning of Satan" (Surat al-An'am: 76), Allah says that these plots were doomed to end in failure the day they were hatched. He gives good tidings to believers with the verse "…not the least harm will their cunning do you." (Surat Ali 'Imran: 120)
In another verse Allah says: "But the unbelievers, their deeds are like a mirage in sandy deserts, which the man parched with thirst mistakes for water; until when he comes up to it, he finds it to be nothing." (Surat an-Nur: 39). Materialism, too, becomes a "mirage" for the rebellious just as it is stated in this verse; when they have recourse to it, they find it to be nothing but an illusion. Allah has deceived them with such a mirage, and beguiled them into perceiving this whole collection of images as real. All those "eminent" people, professors, astronomers, biologists, physicists, and all others regardless of their rank and post are simply deceived like children, and are humiliated because they took matter as their god. Assuming a collection of images to be absolute, they based their philosophy and ideology on it, became involved in serious discussions, and adopted so-called "intellectual" discourse. They deemed themselves wise enough to offer an argument about the truth of the universe and, more importantly, to dispute about Allah with their limited intelligence. Allah explains their situation in the following verse:
And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah. (Surat Ali 'Imran: 54)
It may be possible to escape from some plots; however, this plan of Allah against the unbelievers is so firm that there is no way of escape from it. No matter what they do or to whom they appeal, they can never find a helper other than Allah. As Allah informs in the Qur'an, "they shall not find for them other than Allah a patron or a helper." (Surat an-Nisa: 173)
Materialists never expected to fall into such a trap. Having all the means of the 20th century at their disposal, they thought they could grow obstinate in their denial and drag people to disbelief. Allah describes this everlasting mentality of unbelievers and their end as follows in the Qur'an:
They plotted and planned, but We too planned, even while they perceived it not. Then see what was the end of their plot! This, that We destroyed them and their people, all (of them). (Surat an-Naml: 50-51)
No doubt, realising this truth is the worst possible situation for materialists. The fact that everything they possess is only an illusion is tantamount, in their own words, to "death before dying" in this world.
This fact leaves them alone with Allah. With the verse, "Leave Me alone, (to deal) with the (creature) whom I created (bare and) alone", Allah calls us to attend to the fact that each human being is, in truth, all alone in His presence. (Surat al- Muddaththir: 11). This remarkable fact is repeated in many other verses:
And behold! You come to us bare and alone as We created you for the first time: you have left behind you all (the favours) which We bestowed on you… (Surat al-An'am: 94)
And each one of them will come to Him on the Day of Resurrection, alone. (Surah Maryam: 95)
This, on another level, is what the verses indicate: those who take matter as their god have come from Allah and returned to Him. They have submitted their wills to Allah whether they want or not. Now they wait for the day of judgement when everyone of them will be called to account, however unwilling they may be to understand it.
CONCLUSION
The subject we have explained so far is one of the greatest truths that you will ever be told in your lifetime. Proving that the whole material world is in reality a "shadow being", this subject is the key to comprehending the being of Allah and His creation and of understanding that He is the only absolute being.
The person who understands this subject realises that the world is not the sort of place it is thought by most people to be. The world is not an absolute place with a true existence as supposed by those who wander aimlessly about the streets, get into fights in pubs, show off in luxurious cafes, brag about their property, or who dedicate their lives to hollow aims. The world is only a collection of perceptions, an illusion. All of the people we have cited above are only shadow beings who watch these perceptions in their minds; yet, they are not aware of this.
This concept is very important for it undermines the materialist philosophy that denies the existence of Allah and causes it to collapse. This is the reason why materialists like Marx, Engels, and Lenin felt panic, became enraged, and warned their followers "not to think about" this concept when they were told about it. These people are so mentally deficient that they cannot even comprehend that perceptions are formed inside the brain. They assume that the world they watch in their brain is the "external world" and cannot comprehend obvious evidence to the contrary.
This unawareness is the outcome of the little wisdom Allah has given the disbelievers. As Allah says in the Qur'an, the unbelievers "have hearts wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith they hear not. They are like cattle – nay more misguided, for they are heedless (of warning)." (Surat al-A'raf: 179)
You can explore beyond this point by using the power of your personal reflection. For this, you have to concentrate, devote your attention, and ponder on the way you see the objects around you and the way you feel their touch. If you think heedfully, you can feel that the intelligent being that sees, hears, touches, thinks, and reads this book at this moment is only a soul and watches the perceptions called "matter" on a screen. The person who comprehends this is considered to have moved away from the domain of the material world that deceives a major part of humanity, and to have entered the domain of true existence.
This reality has been understood by a number of theists or philosophers throughout history. Islamic intellectuals such as Imam Rabbani, Muhyiddin Ibn al-'Arabi and Mawlana Jami realised this from the signs of the Qur'an and by using their reason. Some Western philosophers like George Berkeley have grasped the same reality through reason. Imam Rabbani wrote in his Maktubat (Letters) that the whole material universe is an "illusion and supposition (perception)" and that the only absolute being is Allah:
Mawlana Jami stated the same fact, which he discovered by following the signs of the Qur'an and by using his wit: "Whatever there is in the universe are senses and illusions. They are either like reflections in mirrors or shadows".
However, the number of those who have understood this fact throughout history has always been limited. Great scholars such as Imam Rabbani have written that it might not be wise to tell this fact to the masses because most people are not able to grasp it.
In the age in which we live, this has been made an empirical fact by the body of evidence put forward by science. The fact that the universe is a shadow being is described in such a concrete, clear, and explicit way for the first time in history.
For this reason, the 21st century will be a historical turning-point when people will generally comprehend the divine realities and be led in crowds to Allah, the only Absolute Being. The materialistic creeds of the 19th century will be relegated to the trash-heaps of history, Allah's being and creating will be grasped, spacelessness and timelessness will be understood, humanity will break free of the centuries-old veils, deceits and superstitions confusing them.
It is not possible for this unavoidable course to be impeded by any shadow being.
26 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1954, pp.38-39-44
27 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 1990, p.9
28 Lincoln Barnett, The Universe and Dr.Einstein, William Sloane Associate, New York, 1948, p.20
29 Orhan Hançerlioglu, Düsünce Tarihi (The History of Thought), Istanbul: Remzi Bookstore, 6.ed., September, 1995, p.447
30 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge", 1710, Works of George Berkeley, vol. I, ed. A. Fraser, Oxford, 1871
31 Bertrand Russell, ABC of Relativity, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1964, pp.161-162
32 R.L.Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford University Press Inc. New York, 1990, p.9
33 Ken Wilber, The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, p.20
34 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris 1954, p.53
35 Orhan Hançerlioglu, Düsünce Tarihi (The History of Thought), Istanbul: Remzi Bookstore, 6.ed., September, 1995, p.261
36 George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris 1954, p.65
37 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV: Of Personal Identity
38 Rennan Pekünlü, "Aldatmacanin Evrimsizligi", (Non-Evolution of Deceit) Bilim ve Ütopya, December, 1998, (V.I.Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970, pp.334-335)
39 Alaettin Senel, "Evrim Aldatmacasi mi?, Devrin Aldatmacasi mi?", (Evolution Deceit or Deceit of the Epoch?) Bilim ve Ütopya, December 1998
40 Imam Rabbani Hz. Mektuplari (Letters of Rabbani), Vol.II, 357. Letter, p.163
41 Imam Rabbani Hz. Mektuplari (Letters of Rabbani), Vol.II, 470. Letter, p.1432
Chapter 8 The True Promised Home: The Hereafter
Chapter 8
The True Promised Home: The Hereafter
It should be evident to anyone with wisdom and conscience that none of the objects that exist, none of the events that transpire, and none of the laws that abide in this universe are either vain or purposeless. The structure and endurance of the universe, as we have shown in previous chapters, are based on very delicate balances. Those balances demonstrate as a matter of unquestionable fact that the universe was CREATED. That being so, can it be said that this universe was created in vain?
Certainly not.
A purpose is sought in even the smallest act committed by someone dwelling on this earth, which does not even occupy as much room as a dust particle among billions of galaxies. So, how reasonable can it be to claim that the entire universe was created in vain?
Allah informs people that they have not been created in vain:
Did you then think that We had created you in jest, and that you would not be brought back to Us (for account)? (Surat al-Mumenoon, 115)
The existence of life on earth is made possible by a train of countless miraculous phenomena extending from the Big Bang to atoms, from atoms to galaxies, and from galaxies to our own planet. Life on earth is such that its every need is subtly planned for and created in the most suitable way: the sun in the sky providing all the needed energy, provisions stored under the ground, and a world furnished everywhere with millions of species of plant and animal varieties. Despite all the extraordinary events we have described, people still can reject the existence of their Creator. Considering it reasonable to be shaped into a man from a sperm, these people do not believe that they will be resurrected after death as informed in the Qur'an, and make irrelevant remarks. Allah has pointed in the Qur'an to the twisted reasoning of the unbelievers and has given them the answer:
And he makes comparisons for Us, and forgets his own (origin and) Creation: He says, "Who can give life to (dry) bones and decomposed ones (at that)?" Say, "He will give them life Who created them for the first time! for He is well-versed in every kind of creation!" (Surah Ya-Seen, 78-79)
Allah–“He Who created Death and Life“–has created everything in the universe for a specific purpose and thus explained the purpose of man's creation: "that He may try which of you is best in deed: and He is the Exalted in Might, Oft-Forgiving." (Surat al-Mulk, 2) As explained in the verse, this world is a place of trial and, as such, it is temporary. There is an end for all people as well as for the world, the time of which is predestined by Allah. People are responsible for living the short-lived lives given to them according to the terms set by Allah and described to them in the Qur'an. In the hereafter they shall have their reward for what they have done here.
THE EVERLASTING PENALTY
We have described in the course of this book the manifest signs of Allah's existence, the advocates of the system that relies on rejecting Allah, and the kind of social context they seek to establish. Everything that has been discussed so far is concerned with "the life of this world". However, what follows death, that is, the "hereafter" also deserves serious consideration.
Those who labour to advance the systems that rely heavily on disbelief in Allah offer a distressful life to their followers in the world. These people will also cause their adherents to suffer a grievous penalty in the hereafter. There, they will by no means show the close attention they used to show to those foolish people who followed them in the world. On the contrary, there, they will only mind saving themselves as stated in the following verse:
Every soul that has sinned, if it possessed all that is on earth, would fain give it in ransom... (Surah Yunus, 54)
Every time a new people enters, it curses its sister-people (that went before), until they follow each other, all into the Fire. Says the last about the first: "Our Lord! it is these that misled us: so give them a double penalty in the Fire." He will say: "Doubled for all": but this you do not understand. Then the first will say to the last: "See then! No advantage have you over us; so taste you of the penalty for all that you did! "(Surat al-Araf, 38-39)
As is evident, it does not really make much difference whether one is a member of those who are foremost in disbelief or of those who lag behind. As a result, both groups suffer a great loss and deserve an everlasting penalty for the sins they have committed in the world. In the Qur'an, Allah has described in detail the spirits and the circumstances that these people will have and the penalty they will suffer on the day of resurrection, the day of account, and in hell.
THE DAY OF RESURRECTION
When Allah mentions the day of resurrection in the Qur'an, He calls it "the day that the caller will call (them) unto something not known…" (Surat al-Qamar, 6) The terror of this day is something that human beings cannot know because they have never encountered anything like it.
Only Allah knows the arrival time of that day. People's learning about this day is limited to what is related in the Qur'an. The day of resurrection will come all of a sudden when nobody expects it.
This day may seize people when they work in their office, sleep at their home, talk on the phone, read a book, laugh, cry or drop their children off at school. Furthermore, this seizure will be so horrifying that no one will have seen anything like it in his lifetime.
The day of resurrection starts with the sounding of the trumpet (Surat al-Muddaththir, 8-10). When this sound is heard all over the world, those who have not used the time given to them by Allah for gaining His good pleasure will be seized by a great fear. Allah describes in the Qur'an the horrifying events that will happen on that day:
Nay, the hour (of judgement) is the time promised them (for their full recompense): And that hour will be most grievous and most bitter. (Surat al-Qamar, 46)
As the verses relate, the sounding of the trumpet is followed by a great tremor and a roaring so violent as to deafen the ears. In the intensity of this din, the mountains start to shake and slide with the earth beneath them (Surat al-Zalzala, 1-8).
Mountains are crumbled to atoms and become a scattered dust (Surat al-Waqia, 5). At that moment, people very well understand how trivial are the things that they have hitherto cherished. All the material values they have pursued throughout their lives suddenly vanish:
Therefore, when there comes the great, overwhelming (event),- the day when man shall remember (all) that he strove for, and hell-fire shall be placed in full view for (all) to see. (Surat an-Naziat, 34-36)
On that day, even the mountains made up of stones, earth and rocks are dispersed like carded wool (Surat al-Qaria, 5) Man now becomes aware that this power is not the power of nature. For on that day, nature also is laid low. A tremendous fear and horror rule over all that happens that day. People, animals, and nature are all overwhelmed by this horror. People see that the oceans burst forth (Surat al-Infitar, 3) and that they are set on fire (Surat at-Takwir, 6)
The heavens start shaking just like the earth and they start to be torn away, in a way hitherto unwitnessed. The usual blue colour of the sky that people are accustomed to is transformed and resembles molten brass (Surat al-Maarij, 8). On this day, everything in the sky that used to give light is suddenly darkened; the sun is folded up (Surat at-Takwir, 1), the moon is cleft asunder (Surat al-Qamar, 1), and the sun and the moon are joined together. (Surat al-Qiyama, 9)
Pregnant women lose their children because of the horrifying fear of that day. The fear makes children hoary-headed (Surat al-Muzammil, 17). Children run away from their mothers, women from their husbands, and families from one another. Allah tells the reason in the Qur'an:
At length, when there comes the deafening noise, that day shall a man flee from his own brother, and from his mother and his father, and from his wife and his children. Each one of them, that day, will have enough concern (of his own) to make him indifferent to the others. (Surah Abasa, 33-37)
THE DAY OF ACCOUNT
After all the events have taken place on the day of resurrection as described above, the "trumpet" is sounded for the second time. This sound is the outset of the day on which everyone will be resurrected. That day the earth becomes thick with people who are raised up from their graves where they were perhaps buried hundreds and thousands of years ago. The resurrection of people on that day and the state of perplexity they will be in are revealed by the Qur'an:
The trumpet is sounded, when behold! from the sepulchres (men) rush forth to their Lord! They say: "Ah! Woe unto us! Who has raised us up from our beds of repose?"... (A voice will say:) "This is what (Allah) Most Gracious had promised. And true was the word of the messengers!" It is no more than a single blast, when they are all brought up before Us! Then, on that day, not a soul is wronged in the least, and you are but repaid the meets of your past deeds. (Surah Ya-Seen, 51-54)
The moment these people, with the stamp of ignomity on their faces, and heads fallen, emerge from their graves and assemble, the earth shines with light and the book of each one is brought by and by to be given to him.
On this day of meeting, when enormous throngs of people hitherto unseen come together, the conditions of the believers and of the unbelievers are certainly different. In the Qur'an, this is related as follows:
Then he that will be given his record in his right hand will say: "Ah here! read you my record! I did really understand that my account would (one day) reach me!" And he will be in a life of bliss. (Surat al-Haaqqa, 19-21)
And he that will be given his record in his left hand, will say: "Ah! Would that my record had not been given to me! And that I had never realised how my account (stood)! Ah! Would that (death) had made an end of me! Of no profit to me has been my wealth! My power has perished from me!" (Surat al-Haaqqa, 25-29)
The following verses clearly reveal what awaits, on the Day of Account, those who insisted on denying Allah throughout their lives and who followed the callers of futile intentions at the Day of Accounting:
And the trumpet is blown, and all who are in the heavens and all who are in the earth swoon away, save him whom Allah wills. Then it is blown a second time, and behold them standing waiting! And the earth shines with the light of her Lord, and the book is set up, and the prophets and the witnesses are brought, and it is judged between them with truth, and they are not wronged... And every soul is paid back fully what it has done, and He knows best what they have done. And those who disbelieve are driven unto hell in troops: until, when they arrive, there, its gates will be opened. And its keepers say, "Did not messengers come to you from among yourselves, rehearsing to you the signs of your Lord, and warning you of the meeting of this day of yours?" The answer is: "True". But the decree of punishment has been proved true against the unbelievers!. (To them) is said: "Enter you the gates of hell, to dwell therein: and evil is (this) abode of the arrogant!". (Surat az-Zumar, 68-72)
HELL
The greatest sin one can commit is to rebel against Allah, the Creator and Giver of Life. Created to be a servant to Allah, man, if he conflicts with the purpose of his creation, naturally deserves a punishment befitting his wrongdoing. Hell is the place where this punishment is administered. Most people spend their whole lives in a kind of intoxication without thinking about this at all. One of the most important reasons for this intoxication is their inability to make a correct assessment of Allah. Many people esteem Allah for his affectionate, merciful and forgiving attributes; they do not feel a deep and heartfelt fear of Allah as they are supposed to. This causes these people to be insensitive to the commands and counsels of Allah. Allah particularly forewarns people in the Qur'an about this danger:
O mankind! Guard against (the punishment of) your Lord, and fear (the coming of) a day when no father can avail aught for his son, nor a son avail aught for his father. Verily, the promise of Allah is true: let not then this present life deceive you, nor let the chief deceiver deceive you about Allah. (Surah Luqman, 33)
People, for some reason, have superstitious beliefs on this subject. They assume that after they die, they will go to hell to pay for the sins they committed in the world, but will then go on to paradise after their punishment is over and abide there for ever. Allah, however, informs us in the Qur'an that life both in hell and paradise will last eternally and that no one will be released from either unless Allah so wills.
And they say: "The fire shall not touch us but for a few numbered days:" Say: "Have you taken a promise from Allah, for He never breaks His promise? Or is it that you say of Allah what you do not know?" Nay, those who seek gain in evil, and are girt round by their sins, they are companions of the fire: Therein shall they abide for ever. But those who have faith and work righteousness, they are companions of the garden: therein shall they abide for ever. (Surat al-Baqara, 80-82)
That said, there is the following hadith of our Prophet
(saas) as a blessing from Allah:
The Prophet (saas) said: "He with the slightest speck of faith will be
saved from the fire." Abu Said says: "Whoever doubts (that he really
said this) should read the following verse: "Allah does not wrong
anyone by so much as the smallest speck..." (Surat an-Nisa, 40)
(Tirmidhi, Sifatu Cehennem 10, (2601))
People will there encounter such torments as fire, heat, darkness, smoke, narrowness, blindness, constriction, hunger, thirst, festering water, boiling water, and the poisonous tree of zaqqum. In addition to physically injurious penalties, they will also suffer a great spiritual torment that mounts right to the hearts. (Surat al-Humaza, 5-9). The dreadful torments that people who disregard Allah's existence will undergo in hell are described in detail in the Qur'an. The verses reveal how important this subject is for man. The wrath of hell is so great that it cannot be compared to any distress in this world. Allah describes in the Qur'an this terrible finale that awaits the unbelievers:
By no means! He will be sure to be thrown into that which breaks to pieces, and what will explain to you that which breaks to pieces? (It is) the fire of (the wrath of) Allah kindled (to a blaze), which mounts (right) to the hearts: It shall be made into a vault over them, in columns outstretched. (Surat al-Humaza, 4-9)
Some faces, that day, will be humiliated, labouring (hard), weary. entering into the blazing fire, made to drink, of a boiling hot spring. No food will there be for them but a bitter dhari' which will neither nourish nor satisfy hunger. (Surat al-Ghashiya, 2-7)
For the rejectors we have prepared chains, yokes, and a blazing fire. (Surat al-Insan, 4)
This is the hell which the sinners deny: In its midst and in the midst of boiling hot water will they wander round! (Surat ar-Rahman, 43-44)
But those who reject (Allah)––for them will be the fire of hell: No term shall be determined for them, so they should die, nor shall its penalty be lightened for them. Thus do We punish every ungrateful one! Therein will they cry aloud (for assistance): "Our Lord! Bring us out: we shall work righteousness, not the (deeds) we used to do!"–"Did We not give you long enough life so that he that would should receive admonition? and (moreover) the warner came to you. So taste (the fruits of your deeds): for the wrong-doers there is no helper." (Surah Fatir, 36-37)
Those who will be gathered to hell (prone) on their faces, they will be in an evil plight, and, as to path, most astray. (Surat al-Furqan, 34)
When it (the blazing fire) sees them from a place far off, they will hear its fury and its raging sigh. And when they are cast, bound together into a constricted place therein, they will plead for destruction there and then! "This day plead not for a single destruction: plead for destruction oft-repeated!" (Surat al-Furqan, 12-14)
THE TRUE HOME PROMISED TO THE BELIEVERS: PARADISE
Now no person knows what delights of the eye are kept hidden (in reserve) for them–as a reward for their (good) deeds. (Surat as-Sajda: 17)
Paradise is a place where the "Merciful" (the mercy of Whom is exclusively for the believers, the Most Merciful, Who awards those who properly use His blessings with more superior and eternal blessings) attribute of Allah is revealed. Paradise, therefore, is a home of delight that harbours every thing that a person's soul may desire and even more as described in the verses.
In some people's minds, the word "paradise" conjures up rather limited notions, for they suppose paradise to be a place of merely natural beauty, such as a delightful meadow. There is, however, a great difference between this limited notion and the paradise described in the Qur'an.
In the Qur'an, paradise is described as a place containing everything a person may desire:
There will be there all that the souls could desire, all that their eyes could delight in: and you shall abide therein. (Surat az-Zukhruf, 71)
In another verse we are told that in paradise there is even more than what man could want:
There will be for them therein all that they wish, and more besides in Our presence. (Surah Qaf, 35)
The paradise that is promised to the believers is described in various verses:
But give glad tidings to those who believe and work righteousness, that their portion is gardens, beneath which rivers flow. Every time they are fed with fruits therefrom, they say: "Why, this is what we were fed with before," for they are given things in similitude; and they have therein companions pure (and holy); and they abide therein (for ever). (Surat al-Baqara, 25)
The righteous (will be) amid gardens and fountains (of clear-flowing water). (Their greeting will be): "Enter you here in peace and security." And We shall remove from their hearts any lurking sense of injury: (they will be) brothers (joyfully) facing each other on thrones. There no sense of fatigue shall touch them, nor shall they (ever) be asked to leave. (Surat al-Hijr, 45-48)
For them will be gardens of eternity; beneath them rivers will flow; they will be adorned therein with bracelets of gold, and they will wear green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade: They will recline therein on raised thrones. How good the recompense! How beautiful a couch to recline on! (Surat al-Kahf, 31)
Verily the companions of paradise shall that day have joy in all that they do; They and their associates will be in groves of (cool) shade, reclining on thrones; (Every) fruit (enjoyment) will be there for them; they shall have whatever they call for; "Peace!"–a word (of salutation) from a Lord Most Merciful. (Surah Ya-Seen, 55-58)
As to the righteous (they will be) in a position of security, among gardens and springs; dressed in fine silk and in rich brocade, they will face each other; so; and We shall join them to fair women with beautiful, big, and lustrous eyes. There can they call for every kind of fruit in peace and security; nor will they there taste death, except the first death; and He will preserve them from the penalty of the blazing fire, as a bounty from your Lord! that will be the supreme achievement! (Surah ad-Dukhan, 51-57)
But those who believe and work deeds of righteousness–to them shall We give a home in heaven, lofty mansions beneath which flow rivers, to dwell therein for aye; an excellent reward for those who do (good)! (Surat al-Ankaboot, 58)
A WARNING TO THOSE WHO WOULD BE SAVED FROM ENDLESS TORMENT
Surely, everyone is free to live as he wishes in this world and to choose the path he wants. Nobody has the right to exercise compulsion over another. Yet, as those who believe in the existence and eternal justice of Allah, it is our solemn duty to warn those people who would reject Allah and who are unaware of their current state and course. Allah has informed us of the seriousness of the state of these people:
Which then is best? –he that lays his foundation on piety to Allah and His good pleasure?– or he that lays his foundation on an undermined sand-cliff ready to crumble to pieces? and it crumbles to pieces with him, into the fire of hell. And Allah does not guide people that do wrong. (Surat at-Tawba, 109)
People who deliberately turn their back on the words of Allah, or who unconsciously reject their own Creator, will have no means of salvation in the hereafter. If they do not repent and be guided to Allah, Who created them, they will suffer the greatest penalties possible. The eternal penalty awaiting them is stated thus in the Qur'an:
But those who reject Our signs, they are the (unhappy) companions of the left hand. On them will be fire vaulted over (all round). (Surat al-Balad, 19-20)
To spend one's life seeking His good pleasure.
Chapter 7 The Harms Of A Society Model With No Belief In Allah
Chapter 7
The Harms Of A Society Model With No Belief In Allah
Allah declares in the Qur'an that He has created mankind according to a certain disposition in the verse: "So set you your face steadily and truly to the Faith: (establish) Allah's handiwork according to the pattern on which He has made mankind." (Surat al-Room, 30). The disposition of mankind relies on being a servant to Allah and having faith in Him. Since man is unable to meet his unlimited wishes and needs by himself, he naturally needs to humble himself before Allah and turn to Him.
If the individual lives in accordance with this disposition, he attains true confidence, peace, happiness and salvation. If he denies this disposition and turns away from Allah, he spends his life in distress, fear, anxiety and grief.
This rule, which is true for man, also holds true for societies. If a society is comprised of people who believe in Allah, it becomes a just, peaceful, happy and wise society. Unquestionably, the opposite also holds true. If a society is unaware of Allah, then the order of such a community is basically ruined, corrupt and primitive.
When societies that have turned away from Allah are examined, this fact is readily seen. One of the most important results of irreligious thought is the abolishment of the concept of morality and the development of completely corrupt societies. Transgressing religious and moral bounds, and catering exclusively to the satisfaction of human wishes, this culture is a system of oppression in the fullest sense of the word. In such a system, all sorts of degeneracies from sexual perversion to drug addiction are encouraged. Eventually, societies that are devoid of human love and are egoistic, ignorant, shallow and nonsensical have grown up.
In a society where people live only for the satisfaction of their own desires, it surely is not possible to maintain peace, love and amity. In such a society, human relations depend on mutual interests. An extreme feeling of distrust prevails. When there is no reason for one to be sincere, honest, reliable or well-behaved, nothing stands in the way of dissimulation, falsehood, or betrayal. The members of such societies have "cast Allah away behind their backs (with contempt)" (Surah Hud, 92) and thus never acknowledged the fear of Allah. Since they cannot "make a just estimate of Allah", they are unmindful of the day of judgement and the day of account. For them, hell is nothing more than an idea appearing in religious books. None of them think that they shall have to give an account of themselves in the presence of Allah after their death for all the sins they have committed during their lives in this world, or that they may ultimately be doomed to an eternal life of torment in hell. Even if they do think about it, they suppose that they will enter paradise after they "pay for their sins", as it is expressed in this verse:
This because they say ‘The Fire shall not touch us but for a few numbered days': For their forgeries deceive them as to their own religion. (Surat Al-e-Imran, 24)
This situation naturally brings on the ethical degeneration and moral collapse that we see in many societies today. In their own reasoning they suppose "we have come into this world but once and will live for only 50-60 years and then die, so let us get the best of things here". The thought system based on this erroneous reasoning may bring with it all kinds of injustice, prostitution, theft, crime and immorality. One subscribing to it may become involved in all kinds of crime, homicide, or fraud. When every individual thinks of nothing but the satisfaction of his own needs and desires, everyone else––including his family and friends––have secondary importance. Other individuals in society have no importance whatsoever.
In a social structure that rests on interest relations to a large degree, the mutual distrust of people hinders the formation of peace both at the social and individual level and it causes people to live permanently in a state of doubt, unease and irresolution. Not knowing by whom, when or how misdeeds will be committed in such a society, people live spiritually in a condition of great fear and distress. General distrust and suspicion cause them to lead very unhappy lives. In a society where all kinds of moral values are disregarded, the outlook of people on notions such as family, honesty and chastity is quite alarming, for they have no fear of Allah.
In such societies, the lives of people do not rely on mutual love and respect. Its members feel no need to show respect to each other. They do not display a caring attitude to each other without a good cause. Actually, they are quite right, in terms of their ignorant reasoning, in behaving this way. They are taught throughout their lives that they have evolved from animals and that their souls will be lost forever upon their death. They therefore deem it meaningless to respect a body of ape origin that will rot under the earth and that they will never see again. In their corrupt logic, "all the others as well as themselves are to die and be buried under the earth, their bodies will decay and their souls will vanish. So why would they bother to do good to other people, and be self-sacrificing?" Indeed, these thoughts permeate the subconscious of everyone who has no belief in Allah or, therefore, in the hereafter. In societies with no belief in Allah, there is no basis for peace, happiness, or confidence.
The purpose of all we have said is not to suggest that "degeneration occurs in societies where there is no belief in Allah, therefore there must be belief in Allah." Allah must be believed in because Allah exists and whoever denies Him commits a great sin before Him. Our intention in noting that societies where belief in Allah does not exist become corrupt is to emphasise that the fundamental viewpoints of these societies are wrong. Wrong viewpoints lead to ill consequences. A society that commits the biggest sin of denying Allah, is sure to suffer the worst outcomes. These outcomes are worthy of attention because they show how mistaken this society is.
The common characteristic of such societies is their being deceived as a whole. As stated in the verse,"Were you to follow the common run of those on earth, they will lead you away from the way of Allah." (Surat al-Anaam, 116), that most of society share a common character creates a "mass" psychology that reinforces the already-existing disbelief. Allah describes such societies that are unmindful of Him and the hereafter as "ignorant" in the Qur'an. Even though the members of this society may study physics, history, biology or similar sciences, they do not have the sense and conscience to acknowledge the power and might of Allah. And they are ignorant in that sense.
Because the members of an ignorant society are not devoted to Allah, they go astray from His path in different ways. They follow people who are incompetent servants of Allah just like themselves, taking them as examples and adhering to their ideas as absolute truths. Ultimately an ignorant society ends up a closed society that increasingly blinds itself, becoming further and further divorced from reason and conscience. As we have stated at the beginning, the most notable aspect of this system is that members of such a society act in consonance with anti-religious indoctrination.
Allah describes in the Qur'an with a striking parable how such a life, resting upon a vain and corrupt basis, is destined to be ruined:
Which then is best? He that lays his foundation on piety to Allah and His good pleasure? Or he that lays his foundation on an undermined sand-cliff ready to crumble to pieces? And it does crumble to pieces with him, into the fire of hell. And Allah does not guide people that do wrong. (Surat at-Tawba, 109)
There is yet another point to be remembered: every society and every person has the opportunity to be rid of the indoctrination, way of life and philosophy of ignorance. Allah sends them messengers who warn them and inform them of the existence of Allah and the hereafter and who tell them the real meaning of life. And along with His messengers He sends righteous books that answer all the questions that are derived from the very conscience of people. This is the law of Allah that has existed since eternity. In our day, the guide of all people is the Qur'an, which shows the right way and leads people from darkness to light. People will be judged according to their own preferences. The messenger who brought the book to people thus called out to them:
Say: "O you men! Now Truth has reached you from your Lord! Those who receive guidance, do so for the good of their own souls; those who stray, do so to their own loss: and I am not (set) over you to arrange your affairs. (Surah Yunus, 108)