The Body’s Transport Network:
The Circulatory System - 3/3

The Body's Engine: The Heart 2

Preparation for Fight or Flight

The human body has been prepared for situations where it needs to be stronger and more resistant. External stimuli reaching the brain membrane and the lower region produce stress when they exceed a particular level (1). This activates the anterior pituitary (2), the thyroid gland (3), and the adrenal glands (4). Nerves from the brain to the eyes, facial muscles, interior and exterior veins in the skull and the pharynx (5,6,7); nerves leading to the throat, heart and intestines (8); nerves that regulate the functioning of the heart, the veins, the secretion of adrenalin and intestinal movements (9,10,11,12,13); and those leading to the intestines and bladder (14) cause this to affect the entire body.

At certain times, the human body needs to be stronger and more resistant, and exhibiting higher performance than normal. When danger is encountered, for instance, an individual must immediately fight or flee.

Under such exceptional circumstances, it’s of course essential that the heart beat faster and pump more blood for the necessary adjustments to be made within the body.

The requisite measures have indeed been taken for such circumstances. In extraordinary situations, the adrenal glands secrete a hormone called adrenalin. This hormone molecule makes a very long journey, in comparison to the length of its own molecule, to reach the heart cells, commanding them to contract faster. (See the Chapter 4 on the hormonal system.) The glands located atop the kidneys which produce this hormone are acquainted with the heart cells and know what chemical language they will understand. At the same time, they possess the knowledge that the body must become more resistant and that therefore, the heart needs to beat faster. The heart cells obey this command and begin beating more quickly, providing the extra oxygen the body requires in urgent situations.

Indispensable Elements in the Functioning of the Heart

The heart and the technology it possesses astonish scientists. It is Allah, the praiseworthy, Who creates our hearts, with their extraordinary features that cannot be explained in terms of any evolutionary mechanism.

This electronic system located in the heart also needs electrical signals if it is to function properly. In order for electrical signals to be produced, the sodium, potassium and calcium ions need to be present in specific quantities in the blood. Since the blood levels of these substances are regulated by such organs as the kidney, intestines, stomach and lungs, it becomes even more apparent the impossibility of this system having come into being through such a fictitious mechanism as evolution.

Now, bearing in mind the features of the heart examined so far, imagine that someone has succeeded in developing a device resembling the heart—a flawless pump capable of working for 70 years without stopping for even a second, one that creates its own electricity, needs no maintenance or parts replaced, and that automatically adjusts its working speed and power thanks to a built-in electrical system. Such success could be achieved, of course, only as the result of technology, technical experience and long study. Nobody can imagine that such a device could come into being by chance. That would be totally irrational.

Nonetheless, to imagine that the heart came about by chance is even more illogical and irrational than thinking that any other product of technology—a television, for example—could come into existence by chance.

First of all, in the heart there is technology a far superior to any man-made device. Most important of all, however, the chance development of the heart is by itself of no significance. In addition to the heart, thousands of kilometers of blood vessels—as well as the blood inside them, the kidneys that filter that blood, the lungs that provide the blood with oxygen and remove the carbon dioxide it carries, the digestive system that provides nutrients for the blood, the liver that refines these nutrients, the nervous system that regulates the functioning of the heart, the brain that manages the body as a whole, the bone system that keeps the body together, the hormonal system that assists the functioning of the heart, and thousands of similar elements—would have to have come into being in a single moment, and again by a single random event. Yet each of these possesses a special creation that leaves absolutely no room for chance. It’s therefore as impossible for the heart to come into being by chance as for any product of technology to do so.

We are looking at a most evident truth here. The heart was created by Allah, together with all the systems and elements that function along with it.

The Blood Vessels

	1. Veins 2. Artery 3. Capillary between small artery and blood vessel 4. True blood vessels
	Connections have been established with every point in the body by the veins and arteries entering and leaving the heart.

The body is interpenetrated by millions of tubes, both large and small. If this venous network in a single human were spread out in a straight line, it would stretch more than 60,000 miles. 24 The venous system is so perfected that the required connections have been established to everywhere in the body. The tubes never become knotted, never open onto any unnecessary places, possess no dead ends. They extend all over the body and return to their starting point.

For a piping system to be installed in any building, a plan is necessary beforehand. The circulatory system in the human body is of a far greater perfection that any man-made plan.

In addition, the length of the blood vessels in the human body is around 100,000 kilometers (or 60,000 miles), whereas that in an average-size building will be only a few kilometers long. This plumbing, made of special metallic or vinyl compounds, give rise to problems within a few decades. Joints leak, some pipes gradually corrode, and others give rise to leaks inside the walls. All these problems arise even though the building is an immobile structure, and the plumbing never moves.

On the other hand, the capillary network inside a healthy body fulfils its function for an entire lifetime, never requiring maintenance or spare parts. But in addition, the human body is not immobile, but moves, walks, runs, sits and stands. The veins constantly stretch and compress under these actions, but so perfectly created are the veins that no problem ever arises, unless individuals make movements that damage their own health.

The Incomparable Creation in the Human Body

1. Brain	2. Lung	3. Heart
Thanks to the heart, the blood flows through the entire body, as far as the lungs.

Now consider a human body with no veins, and ask an engineer to draw up plans for placing veins inside that body. That plan must provide all the necessary connections for every cell, from the depths of the liver to the bone marrow, from the eyelids to the kidneys. In addition, depending on the function of every organ, the thickness and properties of every vein must be planned out. Clearly, one engineer could never draft such a blueprint. Even if everyone in the world were to work on it together, the result would still be the same. Neither their life spans nor their intellects would be sufficient to produce the circulatory network. It’s impossible to maintain that a blueprint that billions of people together could not manage to draw up emerged as the result of blind chance. This system leaves no room for chance in even a single stage, clearly revealing that human beings were created by Allah.

The Journey Begins. . .

The chief purpose of the heart-vein system is to transport necessary substances that allow the body’s cells to function, and to carry away waste materials. An adult’s heart pumps 9,000 liters (or 2,380 gallons) of blood a day through a network that is 100,000 kilometers (60,000 miles) in length.25

Now, imagine that you are the size of a cell and set out on a journey through the circulatory system.

Your starting point is the heart’s upper left pump—in other words the left atrium. The area you are in is full of clean, oxygen-rich blood. Around you are millions of oxygen- bearing red blood cells (erythrocytes). Immediately beneath you is a valve leading to the heart’s right atrium. It can open in only one direction—down.

With the sudden contraction of the atrium, the valve cover opens. The blood with you in it begins filling the heart’s lower left ventricle. You are now in the left ventricle, a very powerful pump. The valve now closes behind you to prevent your returning to the atrium where you came from.

The left ventricle is a powerful pump, capable of sending blood to the furthest point in the body. At the exit of this pump is another one-way valve leading to the aortic artery, and its function is similar: to prevent the blood you are in from returning to the heart.

The left ventricle now contracts strongly. This valve opens outwards. The blood carrying you is sent quickly toward the aorta, the largest artery.

As you approach the aortic artery wall, you encounter a most interesting structure. As if the artery’s inner wall has been polished, and its smooth and oiled surface reduces friction and allows the blood to flow more easily.

Take a short break in your journey to examine the aorta and the arteries in greater detail.

The Strongest Vein

Above, the stages in the embryonic cells forming the veins. Dispersed embryo cells in the mother’s stomach (1). The cells begin to combine and arrange themselves side by side (2,3). The cells constitute veins by adhering tightly to one another, like a wall (4). This wall made up by the cells is strong that no blood can leak out of it. Almighty Allah gives the cells constituting the embryo the command to join together and He inspires their behavior in them.

As you’ve seen, the vessels that carry the blood from the heart are called arteries, and those that carry blood from the tissues to the heart are known as veins. Arteries are generally buried deep within the tissues. In some places, however—for example, in your wrists, temples, neck and ankles—they run much closer to the surface. In these regions, you can feel the passage of arterial blood with every beat of your heart putting pressure on the artery walls.

The artery’s internal surface resembles large numbers of different-shaped paving stones laid out to form a regular surface. However, the “stones” here are cells.

Let us now concentrate. Cells are living things. One group of living cells have been laid out next to one another, exactly as paving slabs are, to create a smooth, regular surface. This surface, curving a full 360 degrees, forms a pipe. The venous system is formed by millions of similar pipes joining together in order.

How did this come about?

First of all the cells, must be flat and of such shapes as to fit tightly against one another. What force, then, created so many billions of cells in this interlocking form?

While the body was still in its mother’s womb, these cells must have been laid out just like paving stones, side by side. Who set out these billions of cells, so smoothly and regularly?

If just one cell is missing from the arterial wall, then blood will leak out from that spot. Who is it, then, who builds this wall so accurately?

“Chance” cannot be the answer to these questions.

Furthermore, it’s not a metal tube from a factory template, that we’re considering here, but rather a living vessel formed by the coming-together of living cells. Why do these tiny living units spend their lives lining a tube? Who set them out in this way and gave them such a responsibility?

Again, the answer to these questions cannot be “Chance”! But evolutionists never think about details of this sort. Rather, they ignore these facts, and are unwilling even to consider them. Evolutionists make speeches and write books about circulatory tissues that include large quantities of Latin terms. Yet they never answer the question of how these cells came together in such supreme order—because the only answer they can supply is “Chance.”

Since they know how demeaning such an invalid response will be, they gloss over the issue with illogical statements like, “These cells came together and formed the veins during the evolutionary process.”

If a scientist offers such an explanation, then people with no great knowledge of scientific literature may think that he must have some scientific facts behind it—though since the scientist has rather glossed over the subject, people won’t be able to understand it.

Nevertheless, evolutionists give no answer as to how the arteries and veins came into existence. There are many thousands of other questions to which they also give no answer. They avoid entering into such discussions and gloss over the subject with unspecific words.

In short, no evolutionist can account for the presence of the circulatory network in the human body, as you can very easily prove for yourself. Tell any evolutionist about the perfection of the veins and arteries, and how the cells are all set out in precise order. Then ask how this structure first came about. The only reply you will receive is, “By chance.”

In fact, however, there is only one true answer to this question; it is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who created the veins, the blood in the veins, the heart that pumps this blood, and all the other countless of systems within the human body.

Flexibility in the Veins

The special creation in the structure of the arteries is not seen only in the flawless sequence of the cells. Immediately outside the layer formed by these cells is another layer of muscular cells that are exceedingly flexible. This is another example of creation. Elastic fibers increase the veins’ resistance to the blood pressure that rises when the heart beats. In addition, the elasticity imparted to the veins allows extra blood to travel through them.

If the heart pumped blood at high pressure through a venous system that was inelastic, then an extra great burden would be placed on the heart, and blood pressure inside the arteries would be very high. All these details are another indication of the incomparable nature of Allah’s creation.

The Journey Continues

As we keep on with our journey, the aortic artery bifurcates and heads in two different directions. The blood flowing upward meets the needs of the brain and arms, and that blood heading downwards fulfills the needs of the rest of the body. Imagine that your journey is proceeding toward the lower part of the body.

On this route, there are a large number of detours leading to the liver, stomach, upper and lower intestines, the kidneys and the legs. As you proceed, you see that the artery enclosing you splits into many separate branches that become increasingly narrow. These countless bifurcations carry blood to the furthest reaches of the body. As you enter one of them, you see the vessel you are in becomes ever narrower. You are now no longer in an artery, but in a capillary vessel, with a diameter of 0.0002 inch.

	1. Heart 2. Capillary Vessel	3. Artery 4. Vein
One can obtain a better idea of the volume taken up by the blood vessels in the body, shown magnified in the above picture, by means of a comparison. If all the vessels were laid out flat, that area would cover 6,000 square meters (7,176 square yards). The diagram at left shows the interconnections between and structures of the heart, arteries, veins and blood vessels.

Soon the vessel becomes so narrow that there is room for only a single erythrocyte to pass through—with difficulty. In this portion of your journey, you realize that there is a rapid exchange in the cells around you. The erythrocyte cells begin delivering the valuable cargoes of oxygen molecules they have carried on their long journeys, releasing them to cells in need of oxygen and taking up the carbon dioxide these cells have produced. In the same way, nutrient molecules carried in the blood are taken up by cells that need them.

The time has now come to head back.

When the erythrocytes give up their oxygen, their bright red color changes to a dark red. As your journey goes on, the veins become increasingly wide again. Other erythrocytes loaded with carbon dioxide from other blood vessels join in, and the blood volume increases. You shall now leave the capillary vessels and proceed on our way in the veins.

Another Marvel of Creation in the Body: The Veins

1. Fibrocollagenous tissue 2. Middle layer (tunica media) 3. Outer layer (tunica adventitia)	5. Endothelium 4. Valve 6. inner layer (tunica intima)
The cross-section to the side shows the very detailed creation in the arteries. It is evident that such a detailed creation could never come into existence by chance.

Blood flows in the arteries thanks to the heart’s pumping pressure. The effect of this pressure decreases in the blood vessels, however, and by the time it reaches the veins, the distant heart’s pumping power has declined considerably.

So how will the blood complete its return journey?

Imagine that you are in one of these veins, with a long journey back to the heart lying before you. You have to pass the regions of the legs, stomach and chest and climb upward for a long distance, overcoming the force of gravity all the same while. There is a need for a system such that every day, thousands of liters of fluid are able to travel back up from the toes to the heart.

The veins have been located with special planning, and surrounded by skeletal muscles. Every time you take a step, for example, the leg muscles that contract force blood upward at the same time. Thanks to this planning, the veins have their very own pumping system.

Toward the end of the 1.5-meter (4.92-foot) journey between the feet and the heart, another problem is encountered. When the main veins reach the body’s central region, they are no longer surrounded by skeletal muscles. Here, the respiratory muscles support the veins. The main vein immediately beneath the lung contracts every time you take a breath. The negative pressure that forms in the expanding chest therefore, helps blood to return to the heart.

One feature in the veins represents one of the finest examples of the flawless features in the body. Within the veins are located a number of valves that open solely in the direction of the heart. In this way, blood never flows back under the effect of gravity, but keeps on toward the heart.

1. Direction of blood flow in the vein 4. Valvelet (open)	3. Skeletal muscle 2. Valvelet (closed)
The arteries have their own unique pumping systems. As the skeletal muscles contract and put pressure on the arteries, valves in the contracting region are forced open, and the blood heads directly to the heart.

A great many valves have been located within the veins, each of them possessing a very special creation. Each one has hinges, again composed of tissue, so created as to permit the valve to open in one direction only. We are looking at an engineering miracle here when we consider how this perfect system came about. The workers on the world’s longest pipeline have assumed three major duties, serving as engineers, as workers, and also the actual construction material.

The blueprints and projects for this construction are found in the data banks in the cell nuclei. Each cell “reads” and interprets the plans for the project just like an engineer—by itself without doubt a great miracle. People feel great admiration and respect for a professor who devotes many years to academic studies, but are unaware that their own cells are able to read, understand and put into operation projects far more complex—or else they simply ignore this fact.

Depending on the plan they interpret, cells know where they have to serve in the pipeline’s construction. They also know which of the millions of cells working on this construction project they must combine with. When they find the place where they belong, they start working like laborers to construct their individual part of the pipeline. Yet for construction material, they use themselves. Every cell working on this project devotes itself to being a tiny part of the pipeline for the rest of its life.

In the walls of the veins so constructed, no protrusions or cavities are to be found. Their inner surfaces are just as smooth as if they had been polished by a marble craftsman—with one small difference, however; these surfaces consist of living cells.

Movement of the skeletal muscles as the blood moves through the arteries 1) At rest. 2) The muscles contract, compress the arteries and force the blood towards the heart. The valve beneath prevents any back-flow. 3) The muscles relax and the arteries widen and fill with the blood below. The valve above prevents any back-flow.

As the construction work proceeds, some cells make a different decision according to the plan they have read and decide to form a valve inside the vein. Thousands of cells combine and cling to the inner wall. Other cells constitute the hinges of these valves—again, by identifying just where they need to be according to the project’s requirements. The way that the hinge opens only in one direction is, again, the result of cells being able to interpret the overall plan and of their construction ability. These cells act in the knowledge that a liquid will flow through the vessel they are in, in which direction it needs to flow, and what measures they need to take to ensure that the flow is constant.

A few millimeters on from this valve, the same miracle takes place. Here, other cells with a similar consciousness form another valve. As if in agreement with the cells that constructed the former valve, theirs too opens in the same direction. If the cells which constructed a few of these valves were to make them in such a way as to open in the opposite direction, then blood could not flow through the veins, and life would immediately come to an end. The thousansds of valves that exist right throughout the venous system are all constructed to work in harmony with one another.

This system is indisputably the work of a most superior Creator, and the cells can exhibit such consciousness, reason, and self-sacrifice thanks only to the Superior Force that creates them. It is Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who locates the projects for the world’s longest pipeline and thousands of other systems in the human body within the cell nuclei, and Who gives the cells the ability to read, interpret and act upon these instructions.

The Return to the Heart

Now let’s return to our journey through the human veins. Thanks to the small one-way valves in the arteries which we have just examined in some detail, we can now head directly towards the heart—returning there some 40 seconds after we set out.

The first part of our journey began in the heart’s upper left chamber, and ends in the upper right chamber. As that journey began, we set out in bright red blood, and the first part of the sojourn ends in blood that is darker red. It is now time to set out on another journey, for the blood needs to be cleansed of its carbon dioxide and replenished with carbon dioxide.

You shall be remaining in the right ventricle, but for only a very short time. As the right ventricle contracts, another valve opens and blood is expelled toward the lungs. The valve behind you is the last safety precaution preventing deoxygenated blood from returning back to the heart. You now speed rapidly towards the lungs inside blood loaded with carbon dioxide.

The journey from the heart to the lungs is another brief one, for which reason it is known as the “small circulation.” On arriving in the lung, the red blood cells around you release the carbon dioxide they carry—whose transportation comes about through a great many complex chemical processes—and begin to take up oxygen. This exchange occurs at a breathtaking speed.

Every minute 56,000,000,000,000,000,000,000—that is, 56 x 10²¹ (56 septillion) oxygen atoms reach the cells in the lung.26 A great many micro-systems work together to enable just one oxygen atom to pass to the erythrocytes. Each unit works in total harmony with the one before it, allowing the oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange to take place without halting for even an instant.

At the end of this breathtakingly rapid exchange, the erythrocytes around you become loaded with oxygen. Now, together with these cells, inside the veins of the lung, you set out for the heart. Eventually your journey ends back where it started from. The oxygen-rich clean blood is ready for another circuit around the body.

The Computer that Controls the Flow

There is another very interesting and significant feature of the circulatory system. It does not simply forward the blood like an ordinary pipeline system, but also regulates how much blood needs to go to which organ when necessary.

This is most astonishing, for a piping system to determine how much of the liquid it carries needs to go to which organ, and by itself to make the requisite adjustments. Arteries are able to alter the flow of blood by contracting and expanding.

Take the brain’s needs as an example. The brain is an organ that requires a steady, dependable supply of abundant blood, since it controls all the functions inside the body. Blood flow to the brain must continue at any cost. Even if blood flow to all other organs is cut off as the result of hemorrhage, a great many nerves act together so that blood can be keep being sent to the brain, and the diameters of the arteries are adjusted accordingly. Some veins leading to other organs are temporarily short-circuited, and the flow of blood is directed to the veins leading to the brain.

In her book The Incredible Machine, the evolutionist Susan Schiefbein compares the venous system to a computer:

The heart and blood vessels do more than speed or slow our blood flow to meet the body’s needs. They carry the scarlet stream to different tissues under differing pressures to fuel different actions. Blood rushes to the stomach when we eat, to the lungs and muscles when we swim, to the brain when we read. To satisfy these changing metabolic needs, the cardiovascular system integrates information as well as any computer, then responds as no computer can.27

This system, comparable to computer circuitry, without doubt came into being as the result of Allah’s creation, rather than by chance, as evolutionists would have us believe.

Inter-Related Miracles

Allah has created humans with such great artistry that every system in your body is connected to others. Any flaw in the functioning of one system causes a fault in the working of another. To understand this more clearly, examine the relationship between the circulatory and other systems.

Nutrients assimilated through digestion are carried to the cells of the body by the circulatory system. Therefore, the digestive and circulatory systems must have been created at the same time.

Chemical signals produced by the hormonal glands are carried to the relevant organs by the circulatory system. Therefore, the circulatory and hormonal systems must have been created at the same time.

Carbon dioxide in the blood is eliminated by the respiratory system. Therefore, the circulatory and respiratory systems must have been created at the same time.

Blood must constantly be cleansed in the kidneys, so the circulatory and excretory systems must have been created at the same time.

Blood cannot move through the veins unless the skeletal muscles contract, and so the circulatory and skeletal systems must have been created at the same time.

Blood cells are created in the bone marrow, so the circulatory and skeletal systems must have been created at the same time.

These examples refer only to the effects of other systems on circulation. A great number of similar examples could be cited. And another point not to be forgotten is that the circulatory system nourishes the organs in all the other systems. The tongue, saliva glands, esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver and other organs, which are all part of the digestive system—all are nourished by blood vessels. To give some further examples:

The hormone glands in the endocrine system.

Organs of the excretory system, the kidneys for example.

Components of the respiratory system, such as the lungs.

The muscles that constitute the smooth and voluntary muscular systems, and the bones constituting the skeletal system.

None of the organs in the body could survive in the absence of the circulatory system. All these connections and inter-connected systems, taken together, are some of the strongest proofs invalidating the theory of evolution. There is flawless harmony and cooperation among the systems within the human body. In order for them to serve any purpose at all, they all must have been present at the exact same time.

This leads us back to the same truth. All the features of the human body were created by Allah in a single moment.