Asma Allah

24 HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A MUSLIM

Waking up in the morning

One of the basic differences between Muslims who live their lives according to the teachings of the Qur'an and those people who reject Allah is this: the wisdom Allah gives to those who use their conscience and stand in awe of the glory of Allah. (For a detailed discussion see Harun Yahya's True Wisdom Described in The Qur'an) Because of their wisdom, believers are immediately aware of the reason behind events that godless people and those unable to grasp the truth regard as meaningless happenstance.
From the moment a believer wakes up in the morning, he knows that there is (as Allah calls them in the Qur'an), a "sign" in every experience he has in the course of a day. The word "sign" is given to those events in existence that are clear proofs of the existence, unity and the attributes of Allah—and it is also the name for a verse of the Qur'an. Another idea similar in meaning is "the facts that lead to faith." This may be defined as those facts that bring a person to faith, and at the same time cause faith to grow, develop and become strong. But only those who sincerely turn to Allah can recognise these "signs" and facts that lead to faith. The 190th verse of Surah Al 'Imran is an example of this:

In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are Signs for people with intelligence. (Surah Al 'Imran: 190)

For those who have faith and live by the teachings of the Qur'an, every new day is full of proofs of Allah's existence and facts leading to faith. For example, to open one's eyes and start the day is one of Allah's blessings to humanity and one of the facts leading to faith that needs to be pondered. This is because a person is unconscious throughout the night and all he can remember from those long hours of sleep are some indistinct dreams that last 3-5 seconds. During this time, a person is asleep with no connection to this world. His body and his spirit part company, and this time, during which he thinks he is sleeping, is actually a kind of death. Allah reveals in the Qur'an that human selves are taken while they are asleep.

Allah takes back people's selves when their death arrives and those who have not yet died, while they are asleep. He keeps hold of those whose death has been decreed and sends the others back for a specified term… (Surat az-Zumar: 42)

It is He Who takes you back to Himself at night, while knowing the things you perpetrate by day, and then wakes you up again, so that a specified term may be fulfilled. (Surat al-An'am: 60)

In these verses, Allah says that human selves are taken during sleep, but are given back again until the determined hour of death comes. While asleep, a person partly loses consciousness of the outside world. To awake from the "death" of sleep to consciousness and the same condition as the day before, and to be able to see, hear and feel perfectly well is a miracle that we should consider. A person who goes to bed at night cannot be certain that these incomparable blessings will be given to him again in the morning. And we can never be sure if we will meet with some kind of disaster or wake up in a healthy state.
A believer starting a new day thinks about these facts and thanks Allah for covering him with His great mercy and protection. He looks at the new day as an opportunity given him by Allah to win His pleasure and gain Paradise. The moment he opens his eyes in the morning of the early dawn, he directs his thoughts to Allah and begins the day with a sincere prayer, the dawn prayer of Islam.
During the day, he acts with the knowledge that Allah is always watching him, and is careful to win His approval by obeying His commands and counsel. He established a close bond with Allah and began the day with the dawn prayer. In this way, the likelihood that he will forget Allah's good pleasure during the day or ignore His limits is small; he will behave throughout the day with the knowledge that Allah is testing him in this world.
Someone who sincerely directs his thoughts to Allah will be helped to see that he must think carefully about the blessings he has been given and that no one other than Allah has the power to give them to him. In the Qur'an, our Lord says that people must ponder this matter:

Say: "What do you think? If Allah took away your hearing and your sight and sealed up your hearts, what god is there, other than Allah, who could give them back to you?" (Surat al-An'am: 46)

Certainly it is the Almighty and All-Knowing Allah Who makes sleep a time of rest for human beings and restores His blessings to them in the morning. Those who know this feel Allah's proximity from the moment they begin their day and are pleased with the incomparable blessings they enjoy.
Those who reject religion and refuse to consider this reality can never be fully aware of the blessings they have or know the joy that believers experience. Generally, early in the morning, they find it difficult to get out of a warm bed and are stressed by the anxiety of having to get into step with the new day. Some are anxious and depressed because of the things they have to do every morning. They don't want to get out of bed; there is a struggle in their minds between getting up and having one more minute of sleep. An often encountered moral failing in these kinds of people is that they are irritable, stressed and glum when they wake up.
Godless people cannot enjoy the pleasure of Allah's blessings; from the moment they wake up in the morning they return to the monotony of doing the same things every day. There is another kind of person who is unaware that the new day may be the last opportunity Allah has given him: he prepares himself quickly to start his day avid to make more money, to show off to others with his possessions or appearance, to attract the attention of others and be liked.
Those who ignore the facts that Allah has revealed in the Qur'an may start their day in their own ways, but there is a common lack of wisdom in the way they behave: they do not consider that Allah created them, that they are responsible for serving Him and winning His approval and that the new day before them may be the last opportunity they have to fulfil their duty towards Him. Allah reveals their condition in these words:

Mankind's Reckoning has drawn very close to them, yet they heedlessly turn away. (Surat al-Anbiya': 1)

It is clear that those who live immersed in this great error have made a huge mistake. One must not forget that every morning may be the beginning of the last day allotted to one's earthly life. Death may come at any moment, because of a traffic accident, an unexpected disease or any one of countless other causes. In that case, as we said above, we must think about what we have to do to spend the day before us so as to win Allah's approval.

SIGNS OF GOD DESIGN IN NATURE

Let us for a moment think of an aspirin; you will immediately recall the mark in the middle. This mark is designed to help those who take a half dose. Every product that we see around us, even if not as simple as the aspirin, is of a certain design, from the vehicles we use to go to work, to TV remote controls.

Design, in brief, means a harmonious assembling of various parts in an orderly form designed for a common goal. Going by this definition, one has no difficulty in guessing that a car is a design. This is because there is a certain goal, which is to transport people and cargo. In realisation of this goal, various parts such as the engine, tires and body are planned and assembled in a factory.

However, what about living creatures? Can a bird and the mechanics of its flight be a design as well? Before giving an answer, let us repeat the evaluation we did in the example of the car. The goal, in this case, is to fly. For this purpose, hollow, light-weight bones and the strong breast muscles that move these bones are utilised together with feathers capable of suspension in the air. Wings are formed aerodynamically, and the metabolism is in tune with the bird's need for high levels of energy. It is obvious that the bird is a product of a certain design.

If we leave aside the bird and examine other forms of life, we encounter the same truth. In every creature, there are examples of extremely well-conceived design. If we continue further on this quest, we discover that we ourselves are also a part of this design. Your hands that hold these pages are functional as no robot hands could ever be. Your eyes that read these lines are making vision possible with such focus that the best camera on earth simply cannot achieve.

Hence one arrives at this important conclusion; all creatures in nature, including us, are of a design. This, in turn, shows the existence of a Creator, Who designs all creatures at will, sustains the entire creation and holds absolute power and wisdom.

However, this truth is rejected by the theory of evolution that was formed in the middle of the 19th century. The theory set forth in Charles Darwin's book On the Origin of Species asserts that all creatures evolved by chains of coincidences and mutated from one another.

According to the fundamental premise of this theory, all life forms go through minute random changes. If these random changes improve a life form, then it gains an advantage over the others, which in turn is carried onto following generations.

This scenario has been passed around for 140 years as if it is very scientific and convincing. When scrutinised under a larger microscope and when compared against the examples of the design in creatures, Darwin's theory paints a very different picture, i.e. Darwinism's explanation of life is nothing more than a self-contradictory vicious circle.

Let us first focus on the random changes. Darwin could not provide a comprehensive definition of this concept due to lack of knowledge of genetics in his time. The evolutionists who followed him suggested the concept of "mutation". Mutation is arbitrary disconnections, dislocations or shifts of genes in living things. Most importantly, there is not one single mutation in history that has been shown to improve the condition of a creature's genetic information. Nearly all the known cases of mutations disable or harm these creatures and the rest are neutral in effect. Therefore, to think that a creature can improve through mutation is the same as shooting at a crowd of people hoping that the injuries will result in healthier improved individuals. This is clearly nonsense.

As importantly, and contrary to all the scientific data, even if one assumes that a certain mutation could actually improve a being's condition, Darwinism still cannot be delivered from inevitable collapse. The reason for this is a concept called "irreducible complexity." The implication of this concept is that the majority of systems and organs in living things function as a result of various independent parts working together, the elimination or disabling of even one of which would be enough to disable the entire system or organ.

For example, an ear perceives sounds only through a sequence of smaller organs. Take out or deform one of these, e.g. one of the bones of the middle ear, and there would be no hearing whatsoever. In order for an ear to perceive, a variety of components – such as external auditory canal, tympanic membrane, bones in the middle ear, that is, the hammer, anvil and stirrup, fluid-filled cochlea, hearing receptors or hair cells, the cilia which help these cells to sense the vibrations, the net of nerves that connect to the brain and hearing centre in the brain – have to work together without exception. The system could not have developed in segments because none of the segments could possibly function alone.

Hence, the concept of irreducible complexity demolishes the theory of evolution at its foundations. Interestingly, Darwin also worried about these very prospects. He wrote in On The Origin of Species:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.1

Darwin could not, or might not have wanted to, find such an organ at the premature levels of 19th century science. However the science of the 20th century did study nature in minute details and proved that the majority of living structures embody irreducible complexity. Therefore, Darwin's theory has "absolutely" collapsed just as he feared.

In this book, we are going to explore various examples of systems in living beings that demolish Darwin's theory. These mechanisms will be found anywhere from in the wings of a bird to inside a bat's skull. As we examine these examples we will not only see the immense error Darwinism makes but also witness the greatness of the wisdom with which these systems were created.

Hence, we will see the indisputable evidence of God's flawless creation.