| THE AYAT AND THE HADITH OF THE DAY |
TURNING TOWARDS ALLAH
HARUN YAHYA
"If My servants ask you about Me, I am near. I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me. They should therefore respond to Me and believe in Me, so that hopefully they will be rightly guided." (Surat al-Baqara, 186)
Allah surrounds everything. He is nearer to man than his jugular vein. He is the All-Hearing and All-Knowing. Allah knows everything that happens to a human being; not a single thought can remain hidden from Him. A believer knows this and acknowledges that he only needs to think in order to ask Allah for something. Even if this thought is hidden in one's breast, Allah hears it and indupitably answers one's prayer, because Allah is the friend, protector and helper of believers.
According to the Qur'an, prayer is man's turning towards Allah in all sincerity, taking refuge in His infinite and unbounded might, and asking help from Him. It is the acknowledgement of one's weakness before the infinite might of Allah. Prayer is one's personal relation with Allah. All thoughts and wishes of a man remain concealed between the man and Allah. Therefore, there is not the slightest possibility of showing off in this form of worship. It is worship founded entirely on sincerity.
Those who deeply feel that Allah is nearer to them than anybody and anything, that He hears all prayers and answers them all and who live by these truths, are the people of perfected faith. They are again those who turn towards Allah with a sincere heart and know their weaknesses as human beings before His omnipotence. They further know that it is Allah alone Who answers all prayers and saves man from all difficulties and trouble.
Not only in times of trouble or affliction, but at any time and in any situation the people of faith turn to Allah, because, they know that there is not a single moment in a man's life when he is not in need of Allah. They do not wait for an affliction to befall them before they pray to Allah. They know that this is a form of worship, a servant's duty to his Creator, and an important way to draw nearer to Allah. This is, in actuality, one of the most important attributes that distinguishes them from other people. The morality displayed by those who pray to Allah when they are in trouble, but immediately turn their backs soon after they are freed from trouble is described in the following verse:
When harm touches man, he calls on Us, lying on his side or sitting down or standing up. Then when We relieve his affliction, he carries on as if he had never called on Us when first afflicted. Thus their foul deeds seem fair to the transgressors. (Surah Yunus, 12)
Believers, on the other hand, are the ones who turn towards our Lord whether they are at ease or in trouble, because, they comprehend the insight provided by the verse "… What has My Lord to do with you if you do not call on Him? …" (Surat al-Furqan, 77)
They pray as described in the Qur'an. In one verse Allah commands the following:
Remember your Lord in deep in your soul humbly and fearfully, without loudness of voice, morning and evening. Do not be among the heedless. (Surat al-A'raf, 205)
Call on your Lord humbly and secretly. He does not love those who overstep the limits. (Surat al-A'raf, 55)
Our Lord, whom we implore, knows and hears what we utter as well as our innermost thoughts. Aware of this and, following their instincts, people of faith sometimes pray secretly and sometimes aloud, but never make their prayers a matter of ostentation, because, in the Qur'an, Allah draws attention to the importance of "calling on Allah, making religion sincerely His":
He is the Living-there is no god but Him-so call on Him, making your religion sincerely His. Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. (Surat al-Mu'min, 65)
Believers "feel Allah's existence" while they pray. While praying, they not only make their requests of Allah but also deeply feel the unity of Allah, His existence, His greatness and His infinite might. In the Qur'an, Allah commands as follows:
Remember the Name of your Lord, and devote yourself to Him completely. (Surat al-Muzzammil, 8)
Believers are also steadfast in their prayers. As the verse says, they "seek help in steadfastness and prayer" (Surat al-Baqara, 45) from Allah. Their submission to Allah and the trust they put in Him accounts for such steadfastness and commitment. A believer feels assured that Allah will certainly answer his prayers. He never despairs and keeps on imploring Him: "… Do not despair of solace from Allah. No one despairs of solace from Allah except for those who disbelieve." (Surah Yusuf, 87)
A man of faith fears Allah and prays to Him with profound respect and patience. He prays to his Lord at any moment; at an unanticipated time of the day or an unexpected place, a believer takes the time to pray to his Lord in earnest. Even in his busiest moments, he takes refuge in Him, implore Him and asks for His guidance. He does all this because he knows that this is the easiest way to draw nearer to Allah, to attain His approval and paradise. There is no obstacle that would hinder such a one from drawing near to his Creator. Allah only wants His servants to turn towards Him with a sincere heart. Allah commands as follows in the Qur'an:
Those who shun the worship of false gods and turn towards Allah will have good news. So give good news to My servants. (Surat az-Zumar, 17)
| WONDERS OF CREATION FOR THE 13th DAY |
DESIGN IN DOLPHINS
HARUN YAHYA
For dolphins, breathing is not a reflex, as it is for humans and other land mammals, but rather a voluntary movement. In other words, dolphins decide to breathe like we decide to walk. There is also a precaution taken in order to prevent the animal's being drowned while sleeping in water. While sleeping, the dolphin uses the right and left hemisphere of his brain in turn, at approximately 15-minute intervals. While one cerebral hemisphere sleeps, the dolphin uses the other to come to the surface for air.
Dolphins breathe using their lungs just like other mammals, which means they cannot breathe in the water like fish. For this reason, they routinely come up to the water's surface to breathe. On the top of their heads is a hole enabling them to do just that. The bodies of dolphins have such a perfect design that, when it dives into the water, this hole is automatically closed by a cap, thus preventing water from leaking into the dolphin's body. When the animal comes up to the water's surface, the cap then reopens.
The snout of the dolphin's beak is another design facilitating the movements of the animal through water. By means of this structure, the animal uses less energy in cutting through the water and swimming at higher speeds. Modern ships, too, make use of a bow like the dolphin's snout, hydrodynamically designed to increase the speed of ships just like dolphins.
In addition, dolphins can swim at such great speeds that they dazzle scientists. There is a smooth flow of water around the bodies of dolphins. Research carried out on the skin of dolphins has discovered the reason for this flow.
The skin of a dolphin consists of three layers. The outer layer is thin and very elastic. The middle layer is mostly composed of connective tissue and it has appendages looking like a plastic brush which anchor the outer layer to the middle layer. The third, inner, layer consists of bundles of elastic fibers. Therefore, when turbulence begins to form in the water around the speedily swimming dolphin, the outer skin transmits the extreme pressure caused by this turbulence to the inner layers and they absorb it. Thus, the turbulence that was beginning to develop disappears before it was able to grow.
All of these structures, ones exclusive only to dolphins among all other animals, are clear evience of an intelligent design. Allah has created dolphins, like all other creatures, with their body structures in conformity with their surroundings.
| COLLAPSE OF THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION DAY BY DAY |
WHY IS THE CLAIM THAT DINOSAURS EVOLVED INTO BIRDS AN UNSCIENTIFIC MYTH? (1)
HARUN YAHYA
The theory of evolution is a fairy tale built on the hope of the impossible coming true. Birds have a special place in this story. Above all things, birds possess that magnificent organ, the wing. Beyond the structural wonders of wings, their function also inspires amazement. So much so that flight was man's obsession for thousands of years, and thousands of scientists and researchers put considerable effort into duplicating it. Apart from a few very primitive attempts, man only managed to build machines capable of flying in the twentieth century. Birds have been doing something which man tried to do with the accumulated technology of hundreds of years right through the millions of years that they have existed. Moreover, a young bird can acquire this skill after only a few attempts. Many of their characteristics are so perfect that not even the products of the latest modern technology can compare with them.
The idea that "dinosaurs grew wings while trying to catch flies" is not a joke, but rather a theory which evolutionists claim is very scientific. This example is sufficient by itself to show how seriously we should take evolutionists. |
The theory of evolution maintains that the ancestors of birds were dinosaurs, members of the reptile family. Such a claim raises two questions that need to be answered. The first is, "How did dinosaurs come to grow wings?" The second is, "Why is there no sign of such a development in the fossil record?"
On the subject of how dinosaurs turned into birds, evolutionists debated the matter for a long time and came up with two theories. The first of these is the "cursorial" theory. This maintains that dinosaurs turned into birds by taking to the air from the ground. Supporters of the second theory object to the cursorial theory, and say that it is not possible for dinosaurs to have turned into birds in this way. They offer another solution to the question. They claim that dinosaurs that lived in the branches of trees turned into birds by trying to jump from one branch to another. This is known as the "arboreal" theory. The answer to the question of how dinosaurs could have taken to the air is also ready: "While trying to catch flies."
However, we must first of all put the following question to those people who claim that a flight system, together with wings, emerged from the body of such an animal as a dinosaur: How did flies' flight system, that is much more efficient than that of a helicopter, which is in turn modelled on them, come about? You will see that evolutionists have no answer. It is certainly most unreasonable for a theory which cannot explain the flight system of such a tiny creature as the fly to claim that dinosaurs turned into birds.
As a result, all reasonable, logical scientists are agreed that the only scientific things about these theories is their Latin names. The essence of the matter is that flight by reptiles is simply the product of fantasy.
Evolutionists who claim that dinosaurs turned into birds need to be able to find evidence for it in the fossil record. If dinosaurs did turn into birds, then half-dinosaur, half-bird creatures must have lived in the past and left some trace behind them in the fossil record. For long years evolutionists claimed that a bird called "Archaeopteryx " represented such a transition. However, those claims were nothing but a great deception.
Archaeopteryx , the so-called ancestor of modern birds according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago. The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly. Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the first time.
However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant differences from modern birds.
The thesis that Archaeopteryx was a "half-bird" that could not fly perfectly was popular among evolutionist circles until not long ago. The absence of a sternum (breastbone) in this creature was held up as the most important evidence that this bird could not fly properly. (The sternum is a bone found under the thorax to which the muscles required for flight are attached. In our day, this breastbone is observed in all flying and non-flying birds, and even in bats, a flying mammal which belongs to a very different family.)
However, the seventh Archaeopteryx fossil, which was found in 1992, disproved this argument. The reason was that in this recently discovered fossil, the breastbone that was long assumed by evolutionists to be missing was discovered to have existed after all.
Morevoer, the structure of the bird's feathers became one of the most important pieces of evidence confirming that Archaeopteryx was a flying bird in the true sense. The asymmetric feather structure of Archaeopteryx is indistinguishable from that of modern birds, and indicates that it could fly perfectly well.
Studies of Archaeopteryx's anatomy revealed that it possessed complete powers of flight, just like a modern bird has. The efforts to liken it to a reptile are totally unfounded. |
Another fact that was revealed by the structure of Archaeopteryx 's feathers was its warm-blooded metabolism. Reptiles and-although there is some evolutionist wishful thinking on the opposite direction-dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals whose body heat fluctuates with the temperature of their environment, rather than being homeostatically regulated. A very important function of the feathers on birds is the maintenance of a constant body temperature.
The fact that Archaeopteryx had feathers shows that it was a real, warm-blooded bird that needed to retain its body heat, in contrast to dinosaurs.
Two important points evolutionary biologists rely on when claiming Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, are the claws on its wings and its teeth.
It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its mouth, but these traits do not imply that the creature bore any kind of relationship to reptiles. Besides, two bird species living today, the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches. These creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics. That is why it is completely groundless to assert that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form just because of the claws on its wings. Archaeopteryx was not a transitional link but only a bird that fell into a category that can be called "toothed birds."
