Ramadan 2014, The 23th Day

“Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds.” (Surat al-An'am, 162)

"My Lord! The Lord of the Seven Heavens and The Lord of the great Throne, our Lord and The Lord of all, The Creator of plants and trees: I seek refuge in You from the evil of all creatures; You are the First; Nothing is before You. You are the Last; Nothing is after You." (Muslim)

In brief, nobody should go along with idiots who try to portray Islam and horrible and filthy. That is out of the question. Being a Muslim is the lifestyle of the best quality people in the world. Just think, how can a person be most perfect? Living by Islam. How can he be the best and highest quality? Living by Islam. The pleasantest, the most intelligent, the cleanest, the most accurate in his actions, the finest thinking, the most modest, the most affectionate, the most humane… I could go on for ever. Muslim is what you call someone who integrates all these qualities. Who knows Allah and is fully submitted to Him. Of course, knowing Allah is very important. (A9 TV, May 9, 2012)

Two Ways, Two Aims

Human beings are created to serve Allah and will be held responsible for all of the deeds they have done. Allah created human beings with an intrinsic nature that brings contentment and tranquility if they live their life according to Qur’anic moral values. Otherwise, it is impossible for a person to find peace. In the following verse Allah informed us of this:

So set your face firmly towards the religion, as a pure natural believer, Allah’s natural pattern on which He made mankind. There is no changing Allah’s creation. That is the true religion – but most people do not know it. (Surat ar-Rum, 30)

 Satan works with all his power to deflect people from the way of Allah.  The satan’s oath to Allah is revealed to us in the following verses:

 He [satan] said, ‘By Your misguidance of me, I will lie in ambush for them on your straight path. (Surat al-A'raf, 16)

Every human being will be tested as to which of these two ways they will adopt. People who seek the pleasure of Allah by obeying their conscience will attain paradise, with the permission of Allah; and people who obey the provocations of satan and their lower selves will experience a painful punishment. 

Muslims should dedicate all of their existence, property, lives and death, indeed everything they possess, to make Allah pleased and content with them.

“Say: "Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Lord of the Worlds:” (Surat al-An'am, 162)

 A Muslim is set free from all creation, as he only seeks the satisfaction of Allah, he only begs from Him and he only wants or requests from Him. He never needs to make anyone satisfied except Allah and he never hopes for help from anyone except Allah. True freedom for man is only realized by heading towards Allah, by comprehending this fact.

“Remember when he said to his father, ‘Father, why do you worship what can neither hear nor see and is not of any use to you at all? (Surah Maryam, 42)

 Allah inspires all the people to obey their conscience. When people listen to what is inspired to them, they perform deeds which they hope Allah will approve of. Allah’s provision for this is as below:

Not so! All who submit themselves completely to Allah and are good-doers will find their reward with their Lord. They will feel no fear and will know no sorrow.” (Surat al-Baqara, 112)

 A Muslim makes “serious efforts” to gain the consent of Allah and the hereafter. He dedicates his goods and his life to attain the consent of Allah.

Our glorious Lord Allah informs us in the following verse: “The Evil One is but a traitor to man” (Surat al-Furqan, 29) People who live their lives according to Satan’s teachings will also be frustrated in the hereafter, because – as satan will himself admit on the judgement day - he deceived his deluded supporters with empty promises.

 When the affair is decided satan will say, ‘Allah made you a promise, a promise of truth, and I made you a promise but broke my promise. I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you responded to me. Do not, therefore, blame me but blame yourselves. I cannot come to your aid nor you to mine. I reject the way you associated me with Allah before.’ The wrongdoers will have a painful punishment. (Surah  Ibrahim, 22)

 Arrogance is the most important features of Satan. He is accursed and banished from the presence of Allah because of his arrogance and disobedience. This important disease of Satan is extremely dangerous for the people, because Satan attempts to infect his potential recruits with this destructive sickness. When a person falls ill with this disease, his thinking is clouded, and his consciousness is turned off.

Satan strives with all his power to drag all the people to hell. We are informed of this in the Holy Qur’an:

 Then I will come at them, from in front of them and behind them, from their right and from their left. You will not find most of them thankful.’ (Surat al-A'raf, 17)

In conclusion, like all other beings, Satan has been charged with a role by Allah. That role is to be a means by which the believers, whom Allah has created for His Paradise, and others, created for Hell, may be distinguished from each another. Therefore, this means serves as a purging. Those with diseased or corrupt hearts are kept from or separated from the believers, by means of Satan.

• The Shark’s cloak of invisibility
•  What is a cloak of invisibility?
• How does invisibility come about?
•  What physical laws does the shark use to cloak itself in invisibility?

Thanks to recent technological research, optical invisibility, which we encounter in various science fiction books and films, is moving away from being just a fantastic concept and has begun becoming a reality. This property, which used to be thought of as a dream, is now coming true under the laws of physics. As we know, an object being visible depends on that object reflecting the light falling on itbecause “seeing” or “perception” is a process that takes place when electromagnetic waves emitted from, or striking an object, return to the receptors in the eye. On the basis of that fundamental reality, scientists began collecting the necessary data for invisibility. The physical law to be applied in order to realize invisibility is to prevent an object from giving off electromagnetic waves, waves colliding or colliding waves being given off haphazardly. Objects can be made invisible thanks to a special material that covers it. Indeed, scientists have established a cloak that can bestow invisibility by means of a newly developed meta-material technology.

The Cloak of Invisibility Acts in Line with Physical Laws

The cloak of invisibility emerges when a metal cylinder is placed between donor and receptor and prevents the receptor seeing electromagnetic waves, thus resulting in invisibility. In order to produce this property, the object desired to be hidden is covered with specially developed meta-materials, and this makes it invisible within specific electromagnetic waves. One would normally expect waves striking a metal surface to be radiated around it, and even to leave a shadow behind it. Yet thanks to the cloak woven by using meta-materials around the metal cylinder, the electromagnetic waves continue on their way uninterrupted. Thanks to such a system, it becomes impossible to perceive electromagnetic waves from outside and thus detect the metal cylinder. Yet under the inspiration of our Lord Allah, one species of shark has been using the cloak of invisibility described here, which currently exists only under controlled laboratory conditions and is displayed in scientific exhibitions, since the day it was first created. Like many scientific discoveries, the property of invisibility that inspires the scientific world is just one of the proofs of our Lord’s creation. Allah, Lord of the Worlds, reveals in a verse that He is the creator of the entire universe and that everything comes into existence by His telling it to “Be!”

"Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything between them,the Almighty, the Endlessly Forgiving.” (Surah Sad, 66)

The Cloak of Invisibility of the Lantern Shark, a Source of Inspiration to the Scientific World

The “dense scale lantern shark,” a quite small member of the shark family at an average of just 30 to50 centimeters in length, possesses a cloak of invisibility that has for a long time been the subject of research by scientists. The shark lives in the waters to the south of Japan, and by reflecting heat through its scales it loses brightness in the depths of the ocean and literally becomes “invisible.” Scientists believe that the shark’s property of invisibility is the result of a light-emitting organ they refer to as the photophore, and that this organ is controlled by way of nerves and hormones. This light absorbing organ converts chemical energy into light energy, thus making it blend in with the light around it, and therefore invisible. It has also been established that a region in the shark’s abdominal cavity also contributes to its invisibility and makes the shark invisible from below. The shark did not, of course, come by this property by chance or by using its own intelligence. It is of course impossible for any living thing with no intelligence or consciousness to discover the cloak of invisibility that scientists have discovered through lengthy experiments and research, and that is still at the experimental stage. Almighty Allah has created these living things with the characteristics they require. Invisibility is an essential property in order for these animals that live at the sea bottom to survive. Our Lord reveals His love for and mercy on living things in this verse:

“Allah is the Creator of everything and He is Guardian over everything.” (Surat az-Zumar, 62)

The Superior Characteristics That Invisibility Bestows on the Shark

Through the physical properties bestowed on them by Almighty Allah, all living things in nature live in the greatest harmony with their surroundings. The lantern shark’s invisibility bestows on it the superior features the animal needs:

Thanks to its invisibility, it enjoys perfect camouflage, and it is therefore undetectable by its prey. And that means it can catch its prey very easily. 

And again because of that property of invisibility it is not easily caught by larger predators.

It has been established that the shark can emit light from nine separate regions of its body. The other regions are its pectoral fins, the sides of the body and the tail, the brightest part of the fish, especially during the reproductive period.

Allah Is He Who Possesses Infinite Knowledge and Wisdom

Scientists are working in order to be able to apply invisibility on a wide basis because such research will present enormous advantages in the field of medicine in particular, in the military sphere, in civil engineering, in communications and for many other scientific and technical purposes. However, in order for designers to be able to produce materials with invisibility  they are investigating the shark’s property of invisibility, as well as conducting scientific experiments, and trying to obtain clues regarding the animal’s superior features. They are astounded by its light emitting property, an example of a sublime creation, and are trying to manufacture meta-materials to bestow invisibility, and are engaged in complex engineering calculations and designs. But all their research to date has remained limited, and they have been unable to fully replicate the natural properties possessed by these life forms because they also possess the feature of sometimes emitting light and being invisible, while acquiring bright light at other times, and this is dependent entirely upon their requirements at that particular moment.

It is impossible for a living thing with no mind or consciousness to think about and know all these physical laws. It is obvious that this property possessed by lantern sharks is just one instance of His Omniscience that Allah manifests in these animals. Our Lord reveals this about His creative artistry in another verse:

“Allah created every animal from water. Some of them go on their bellies, some of them on two legs, and some on four. Allah creates whatever He wills. Allah has power over all things.” (Surat an-Nur, 45)

The Environment of Peace and Ease in the Time of Hazrat Mahdi (As)

Like the cup fills with water, SO WILL EARTH FILL WITH PEACE. THERE WILL BE NO ENMITY LEFT BETWEEN ANY PEOPLE. ALL HOSTILITY, FIGHTING, AND ENVY WILL DISAPPEAR. ...(Sahih Muslim, 1/136)

... In the same way that Almighty Allah began Islam with us, so He will bring it to an end with him [Hazrat Mahdi (as)]. In the same way that they were freed from polytheism and enmity and THEIR HEARTS WERE FILLED WITH FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE THROUGH ME, SO IT WILL BE AGAIN WITH THE COMING OF HAZRAT MAHDI (AS). (Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir az-Zaman, p. 20)

... In his [Hazrat Mahdi’s (as)] time, THE GOODNESS OF GOOD MEN WILL GROW, AND EVEN THE BAD WILL BE TREATED WELL.(Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir az-Zaman, p. 17)

The world filled with oppression and tyranny WILL OVERFLOW WITH JUSTICE AFTER HE [HAZRAT MAHDI (AS)] COMES. (Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, Al-Qawl al-Mukhtasar, p. 20)

[In Hazrat Mahdi’s (as) time] ALL ENMITIES, GRUDGE DISAPPEAR, the poison of each poisonous animal is drawn. Furthermore, a child puts his hand in the mouth of a snake but that snake does not give harm to it. A wolf becomes like a shepherd dog among a sheep herd. THE EARTH IS FILLED WITH PEACE AND SECURITY as if a bowl is filled with water. A single word (the word of tawhid) remains and people worship only Allah.WARRIORS LEAVE THEIR LOAD (THAT IS THEIR ARMS, WEAPONS ETC.)(Al-Sharani, Mukhtasar Tazkirah al-Qurtubi, pp. 496-497)

[In the age of Hazrat Mahdi (as)] THE SHEEP WILL GRAZE WITH THE WOLF AND CHILDREN WILL PLAY WITH SNAKES AND SCORPIONS BUT WILL COME TO NO HARM....(Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, Al-Qawl al-Mukhtasar fi `Alamat al-Mahdi al-Muntadhar, p. 43)

Hazrat Mahdi (as) is one of my people, and HE WILL FILL THE EARTH WITH TRUTH AND JUSTICE, just as it is now filled with cruelty and torture.  (Sunan Abu Dawud, 5/93)

This (Amr) [Hazrat Mahdi (as)] WILL FILL THE EARTH WITH JUSTICE, just as people previously filled it with cruelty. (Sunan Ibn Majah, 10/348)

Hear the glad tidings of Hazrat Mahdi (as). He is one from Quraysh and from my Ahl al-Bayt. He will appear at a time when people are in disputes and social upheaval. HE [HAZRAT MAHDI (AS)] WILL FILL THE EARTH WITH JUSTICE AND COMPASSION, WHEN BEFORE HIM IT WAS FILLED WITH CRUELTY AND OPPRESSION. (Al-Muttaqi al-Hindi, Al-Burhan fi Alamat al-Mahdi Akhir az-Zaman, p. 13)