Anyone who carefully considers this world and the things that enable him to live for even a few minutes will be completely astonished. Our planet, which was specially created for life in one of the giant galaxies in the endless void of space, constantly revolves within that boundless void. The Sun, just one of the universe’s billions of stars, sends its rays to Earth within that same void. As a result, our planet is warmed; the various food, water, and nitrogen cycles occur, and human beings, animals, plants, and micro-organisms are able to survive due to the countless conditions that make their continued life possible. Countless details have been combined and presented to human beings in the most beautiful and flawless manner to meet the requirements of human life and/or to bestow beauty and blessings. Each detail, which has its own artistry, is a distinct marvel of creation. Sometimes, these details are so crucial that life would cease without them and Earth would become a dead planet. Scientists cannot come anywhere close to creating or imitating most of them, let alone create them out of nothing.
Allah bestows blessings on human beings at all times. For example, people survive thanks to their DNA (which is copied every moment), their continual and uninterrupted process of breathing, their always-beating hearts, the ever-revolving Earth, the atoms’ non-stop motion, and countless other details. Various kinds of foods, the solar rays that give color to Earth, the plants that engage in photosynthesis, rain, the micro-organisms that feed plants, the oceans, and countless other blessings are all means whereby life survives. Earth’s location, the existence of the Sun and Moon, their distance from Earth, and their location within the Milky Way; their sizes, angles, and orbits; and the gasses, molecules, and atoms they contain have all been created in the most ideal form for humanity’s existence. People must reflect on how they have been created so flawlessly along with all of the blessings that ensure their continued survival, and how these things are all reminders of a most important truth:
It is Almighty Allah Who created all people out of nothing, Who created all of the beauty that surrounds them and all of the blessings of which they are aware or unaware. He constantly renews each of these blessings and creates the astonishing details in each one. This is Allah’s art of detail.
With His unbounded knowledge, Allah created systems that human beings cannot comprehend because they have not yet discovered their details. Inside each detail are even more delicate beauties that reveal His Greatness and Might.
This is a very simple matter for Almighty Allah, Who creates from nothing, sets a value on all things according to His will, and Who has the power to create them when He wills to do so. If He willed, he could dispose of them all while still creating. Our duty is to thank Him for these unconditional blessings, know that we need Him, and turn only to Him.
A Muslim should always occupy his mind with the remembrance of Allah and see how “Everything in the heavens and Earth glorifies Him.” (Surat al-Hadid, 1) This glorification manifests itself in the amazing features of living beings. Take honeybees as an example. When it comes to making contiguous hexagons with an exact angle of 109 degrees and 28 minutes, one would need compasses and set squares to produce the various angular measurements and regularity necessary for devising the angles that determine these shapes. In the absence of such tools, there is both a considerable likelihood of error as well as the need to make various adjustments and redraw some of the hexagons. All of this would probably take a considerable amount of time. While this is a difficult matter for human beings, who possess reason and consciousness the same task is carried out by honeybees, who possess no reason or consciousness, in a perfect and continuous manner without any compasses or set squares. All honeybees build their combs using this flawless angle. Although there are hundreds of bees around the hive, there is no deviation from the angles of 109 degrees and 28 minutes and 70 degrees and 32 minutes when building their honeycombs. The combs are built by bringing in their edges by 13 degrees, which prevents the honey from pouring out.
If you stand close to a honeycomb, all you will see is honeybees flying around it. Yet every one of them is also an expert mathematician that knows where to stick the wax it is carrying and at what angle. How is this possible? Given that they possess no mathematical knowledge, did they learn to build these perfect combs by chance? Could each one of them, over the course of millions of years, have been born with this ability by chance, an ability that human beings never managed to acquire by chance? It is certainly impossible for a bee to possess an ability that human beings do not as the result of chance. It is Almighty Allah, the infinitely powerful, Who creates these creatures together with their superior abilities and Who inspires His own knowledge within them.
Your Lord revealed to the honeybees: “Build dwellings in the mountains and the trees, and also in the structures which men erect. Then eat from every kind of fruit and travel the paths of your Lord, which have been made easy for you to follow.” From inside them comes a drink of varying colors, containing healing for humanity. There is certainly a Sign in that for people who reflect. (Surat al-Nahl, 68-69)
