Part 12

Similarly, a person who is deprived of hearing misses the skill of communication and talking, and misses consequently the exchange of ideas and the pleasant experience of melodious sounds. People will be reluctant to communicate with him and will express annoyance at his presence. He will be cut off from people’s news and conversation; he is present but not really present, alive but it is like death-in-life, close by but really far.

There has been much dispute concerning who is less deprived and more normal, a blind person or a deaf-mute. There have been many supporters of both views, and both parties have cited several points. This debate, however, refers to a more basic one: Which of the two senses is more valuable, hearing or seeing? I have mentioned above details of this debate’, and I have listed there the arguments of the different parties and their proofs, and discussed the truth about the matter. Here we may add that the loss of the sense that is more basic to integrity will be graver. We can briefly say here that for an unsighted person the loss is more serious, but his loss is less in religious matters, and his outcome will be better. For the deaf person, on the other hand, the loss is less grave in worldly matters, but he misses more in a religious sense, and his outcome is worse. His deafness will deprive him of all the preaching and admonition, and his way is blocked to useful sciences, while the way is open to tempting desires that are visible, while he does not have enough knowledge to deter him from getting involved. Therefore, his religious disadvantage is greater, while the blind man’s disadvantage in worldly matters is greater. It may be observed in this connection that there was not among the Prophet’s Companions a deaf-mute, while there were a number of unsighted companions. It is rare that Allah should test his devotees with dumbness, while he may test many with blindness. This is then the decisive statement concerning this issue: that the deaf-mute’s loss is religious, and the blind person’s loss is worldly. It is a real blessing if one is spared both handicaps, and enjoys the use of both hearing and sight, and has them intact to the end of one’s life.

' This refers to an earlier part of his book, ‘Miftah Dar-al Sa’adah’, not icluded here.

The blessings of verbal expression and the will

As for he who is deprived of both sanity and verbal expression, he is no better than animals; they may indeed be better off than him, because animals are equipped with the abilities that are suitable for the position they occupy, while this human is ignorant of many things that beasts know, and exposes himself to situations that beasts would avoid. To lack verbal expression is less grave than to lack intelligence, but even the one who is deprived of the human distinguishing merit, verbal expression, faces a great deal of hardship and causes a great deal of hardship to others. He himself will have endless trauma and will feel great frustration when he fails to give an apt retort or an admirable reply. His situation is akin to that of the paralytic who has what he needs in view, but cannot reach out to it, neither by hand nor by foot. Let us remember then how great is Allah’s blessing that He endows his servants with limbs, organs, powers, and the abilities that are thereby made possible. It is unfortunate that man very often takes no notice of Allah’s boons, does not show gratitude for them, although if he were to miss any of them, he would have wished to sacrifice all that he possesses in the world to get that one faculty. Indeed, he enjoys to the full the well-being of his organs, limbs and powers, without feeling grateful for them. If the whole world were to be granted to him in place of one of his faculties he would readily have refused the exchange, realizing that such an exchange would not at all be a bargain. That is why we feel the truth of such Qur’anic verses as this:

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“Lo! man is verily a wrong-doer, and ingrate.” (14: 34)

The plurality of organs

Consider now the deep judgement of the Lord embodied in the organs which he willed to be single, in a pair, three or four, and what great wisdom such an arrangement implies. The head, the tongue, the nose and the penis are single, as there is no point in there being more of them. Do you not see that if there were two heads it would be a cumbersome burden without any benefit gained: all the senses that a human being needs are found in one head. If the head were two heads, a human would be split into two; he would speak, hear, see, smell, and taste with one, while the other would be idle and useless; and if he were to speak, see, hear with both simultaneously, then the second head would be a useless redundancy. If, on the other hand, their perceptions were different, that would cause a human distractions and a discrepancy in his conceptions. In the same way, if he had two tongues in the same mouth, and if he were to speak the same words with both tongues, then one of them would be useless; and if what he said with each tongue were different from the other, that would confuse the hearer, who would be at a loss which of the two statements to accept. If a human had two mouths, then one of the two would be useless and redundant, apart from the ugliness of appearance.

It is another story with the organs which were created in pairs, the eyes, lips, hands, feet, legs, thighs, hips and breasts. In all these, the wisdom that they embody is manifest, the benefit is clear, the beauty and agreeableness is obvious. If a human had a single eye, he would be disfigured. The same may be said of the brows. As for the two hands, two feet, two legs, and two thighs, the benefits of their duality are essential for the human, as he would be in a bad shape without them. Do you not see how a person whose hand or foot has been amputated is crippled and disabled? If the carpenter, the tailor, the

blacksmith, the baker, the mason and other workers whose jobs cannot be performed without two hands have a paralysed hand, this will prevent them from pursuing their craft. From this it will be clear that wisdom dictates that there should be a pair of each of such organs and limbs. In the same way, a human has been given two lips, as this is essential for him: they provide a number of benefits, such as speech, taste, covering the mouth, good looks, adornment, kissing, and other benefits. As for parts of the body which have been created in threes, an example is the sides of the nose, and we have discussed this above, There are also parts in fours, such as the ankles of both feet, which are the converging points and holders of the feet. They are the point of power and movement of the feet, and they are the means of realizing the leg’s benefits. The eye lashes provide a number of benefits and advantages, since they cover the eyes and protect them, beautify them and adorn them, besides other aspects of wisdom.

Tt must be clear by now that it is deep wisdom that all the organs are best in their actual number, shape and size, that if they were more or less, it would be to the loss of the creature. That is why some humans have more of this or less of that to be a manifestation of Allah’s wisdom, for us to realize that if He so willed, He could have made all his creatures like this, so that a human who is not disabled should be aware of the Lord’s blessing in creating him without handicaps, that there is nothing redundant in his body, and nothing missing, since the specimens are in front of him. That should be more of an incentive to express gratitude to the Lord and to praise Him, to realize that it is not the making of nature, but the creation of Allah, who_ perfected everything that He created, and creates what He wills to create.

Similarity of animals and _ dissimilarity of humans

How could nature devise such a wide variation and differences in the appearances of human beings? It is extremely rare that two persons are identical in every way. This is very unlikely to occur, while it is not so in the case of all species of animals, domestic, wild, birds, and so on. You see a herd of antelope, a flock of sheep, a herd of camels or cows, so resembling each other that you have to contemplate them for a _ long time to discover a distinguishing mark between one and the other. Humans, in contrast, vary widely in shape and physical build, in such a way that rarely do any two seem identical in even one feature, not even in tone of voice, not in one utterance. The wisdom of this should be clear, since people need to get acquainted with each other, distinguishing each for what he isin appearance and apparel, so that they can deal with each other. If such differences were not there, immense chaos and disturbance would arise; there would be no chance of distinguishing the plaintiff from the defendant, the creditor from the debtor; a man would not be able to distinguish between his wife and other women. Who is it, then, that made the differences in features, shapes, and voices, differences that no words can describe, and no eloquence can express? Ask the atheist then: “Is that the work of nature? Is there in nature anything that leads to the variation and distinction in the same species? How can that be compatible with the naturalists’ claim that nature’s works are unchanging since it is itself the same, not acting from will or volition, and so there can be no diversity in its actions?” How would the denier reconcile these two propositions? Indeed, real blindness is not in the eyes, but in the mind. It does happen that we see great resemblance between two humans, to such a degree that it is hard to distinguish one from the other.

When such a situation arises, it presents great hardship for everybody in dealing with the two persons. People feel badly in need of some distinguishing marks between the two, to know for instance the convicted from the innocent, to know who to blame for misdeeds. If identical names pose such difficult cases for the judge and the witness, how vastly more difficult it would be when individuals are identical in physical appearance and shape? In contrast, since resemblance does not harm lower animals, birds and beasts, there is no apparent wisdom in their having distinctive appearances. We glorify, then, the Lord, the Best of Creators, Whose Wisdom has encompassed all creation.