Part 2

tence. Indeed, sometimes we might deny its existence in spite of

the fact that Allah Almighty has given us plenty of evidence that

our lack of perception of the existence of something does not nec­

essarily mean that it does not exist.

If we reflect on ordinary human life we find in it a thousand

proofs that there can be a difference between the actual existence

of a thing and knowledge of its existence. Indeed, all of human

knowledge and the advances of human civilisation have arisen

from our perceiving and making use of things whose existence

Perhaps the easiest example to begin with is that of germs,

organisms which are incredibly small and which enter a man's

body and cause him to become ill. His entire body goes out of bal­

ance and his temperature rises. Specific symptoms appear such as

spots, or the colour of his skin changes, and he feels pain. These

changes happen because of a minuscule creature which has only

recently been found to exist. The question which must be

answered is whether these microbes and germs were only created

recently or have existed since the creation of the universe. Of

course they existed; it was just that their existence was not known

At a certain point Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalt­

ed! - revealed to us some of His knowledge and we were able to

find out about these microbes. We discovered that Allah had creat­

ed a life-cycle for them and that they multiply and reproduce and

that it is possible to eliminate them by using certain medicines.

Medical science began to fill books with information about these

microbes and their life-cycles. But those germs and microbes

certainly did not depend on our perception of them for their exis­

tence. They had always existed and carried 'out their role in cre­

ation, and our not perceiving them did not in any way stop them

Every drop of blood contains red cells and white cells and

dozens of others forms of which we knew nothing until very

recently. If you take a drop of water and place it under a micro­

scope you will see in myriad forms of life which we did not per­

ceive nor know anything about before. The same applies to many

many other things in existence.

There are Signs in The Universe

What is true in the microscopic world is also true of outer

space. New stars are discovered every day. Did these stars exist

before their existence was discovered or did they come into exis­

tence the moment that happened?

The same might be said of the resources inside the earth such

as petroleum, iron, and other minerals. Did they come into exis­

tence the moment we discovered them? Or die! we in fact discover

their existence later than we should have done? We did not pay

attention to what Allah Almighty told us in the Noble Qur 'an - that

there are treasures inside the earth. He says:

"To Him belongs everything in the heavens and every­

thing in the earth and everything in between them and

everything under the ground." (20:5)

We should have looked, at His words, "everything under the

ground," and searched for the treasures hidden inside the earth

In order to make this matter clearer we say that all the possibili­

ties of existence have existed from the beginning of creation, but

Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - only revealed

them to us when He wanted us to fmd them and use them for our

Man did not manufacture the atmosphere nor add anything to it,

but Allah Almighty placed in it the possibility of transmitting

sound from one distant part of the earth to another over huge dis­

tances. It became possible for someone to speak and for the whole

world to hear him instantaneously. These possibilities were

exploited by man when Allah willed him to discover how to do so.

Even more than that, it became possible to use the special proper­

ties of the atmosphere to transmit pictures so that when a man

landed on the moon, we were able to see him at the very moment

he landed while we were sitting in our homes.

All these possibilities already existed and no one can claim to

have added anything to the special properties of the atmosphere.

However, we were ignorant of these things and did not know of

their existence even though they were there.

The same applies to every new thing which science discovers

for us. Science does not create new things. It simply reveals to us

some of the special properties already innate in the universe which

we did not know about before. Every discovery has its time. When

its time comes, it is unveiled. Allah Almighty shows it to His cre­

ation and they recognise it. If that discovery coincides with a

researcher investigating the matter concerned, Allah will disclose

it to him. If that is not the case, then the discovery will occur by

what is sometimes called the law -of coincidence. But there is in

reality no such thing as coincidence. Everything comes to fruition

by the decree of Allah and according to His will. So the secrets of

existence and the events that happen in it, great or small, are all by

the permission and with the knowledge of Allah. Read the words

"He possesses the keys of the Unseen. No one knows

them except Him. He knows everything in the land and the

sea. No leaffalls but that He knows it. There is no seed in

the darkness of the earth, and no wet thing and no dry

thing, but that it is in a Clear Book." (6:59)

If we want to understand the picture better, we should recall the

words of Allah Almighty in Surat at-Takwir:

"But you shall not will except if Allah wills, the Lord of

Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - used the

words "you shall not will" ill a general sense. He did not specify

by that phrase one event rather than another. It refers to all that'

occurs in existence whatever form it takes. It is all by the will of .

Allah Almighty. When the will of Allah and man's will come

together, then the thing happens. If they do not come together, it

does not happen. So everything in existence is absolutely subject

to the will of Allah Almighty. Nothing exists which can be called

coincidence because all the events of existence exist are in order

and were recorded by Allah Almighty before He created the uni­

verse. Indeed, all the events right up until the Day of Rising and

beyond it are embraced by the knowledge of the Magnificent

The Forces of Existence are Many

From all of this it is quite clear that things which are hidden

from us and which we cannot see actually do exist and carry out

their appointed purposes in existence. When Allah - glory be to

Him and may He be exalted! - tells us about things that are hidden

from us, such as the angels for instance, then we must be certain of

their existence even though we cannot see them. We cannot make

visual perception of things our sole criterion for their existence

when Allah Almighty has given us thousands of proofs, even with­

in the physical realm, of the existence of much that is hidden from

The angels, then, are among the forces of good which we can­

not see in our daily lives but which carry out their duties in the

most complete manner. As the Almighty says:

"They do not disobey Allah no matter what command

He gives them; and they do all that they are commanded."

Similarly, there are other 'powers .in existence which desire evil

for man. We do not see them nor recognise their existence but

Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - has informed us

about them as a mercy to us. He told us to seek refuge with Him

from them. The shaytans are among those forces. The shaytans are

rebellious jinn who reject the Revelations of Allah. There are righ­

teous jinn and also disbelieving and rebellious jinn among the

progeny of Iblis, as Allah says in Surat al-Jinn:

"Among us are there are righteous beings and among us

are other than that. We/ollow many different paths."

The shay tans .are the enemies of man and desire evil and not

good for him. That is why they try to push him into doing what

will harm him and not benefit him. But Allah - glory be to Him

and may He be exalted! - created the shaytans from fire and He

created man from earth. Earth, as we know, is dark and heavy and

the shaytans take from the fire of their creation something which

.gives them greater strength and power than man. For instance,

they can see us but we cannot see them, as Allah Almighty

"He and his tribe see you from. where you do not see

The shaytans have constant vision of us even though we cannot

see them. We would not know of their existence if Allah Almighty

had not informed us of it. How would we be protected from their

evil if Allah had not Almighty taught us how to seek refuge from

them? Allah - glory be to Him and may He be exalted! - desires to

remove our fear that harm will befall us from these forces that we

do not see but which see us, and He .has assured us that He will

protect us and guard us, He does not sleep nor does He overlook

anything. He sustains existence, that is to say He supports it every

"Allah. There is no god but Him, the Living, the All­

Sustaining. Drowsiness does not overcome Him nor does

Allah Almighty further desires to increase our peace of mind

and tells us that He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth and

that therefore there is no creature in existence able to escape His

will. Every creature is completely and utterly subject to the laws

which the Creator made for it. It cannot rebel against them. That is

so that we do not fear that any of Allah's creatures will rebel and

do anything for which their Creator has not given permission. He

"To Him belongs everything in the heavens and the

In this way He increases our peace of mind. We might think

that someone might possess such power of intercession with Allah