Part 15

There are aspects of wisdom in God’s creation that are unfathomable, and they are in great abundance. No sane person can deny this.

Let it be known to you now that under the roots of this hair, there is such warmth and humidity as is required for its growth by nature. Do you not see that grass grows in a quagmire after the water has dried up because of the moisture it has absorbed? The spots that have been chosen for the growth of hair are of the most humid areas on the body. Nature has secreted the waste matter and humidity through the skin, and that was in the form of hair. If they were trapped inside the body they would harm it and injure its interior. Therefore, disposing of them is absolutely in the interest of the organism. When waste matter and humidity are held inside, that is a sign of defectiveness and failure. The situation is similar to the discharge of the menstrual blood, which is definitely for the good of the woman, and a sign of her good health. Do you not see how those in whom the hair on the head and beard fails to grow after it is due to grow suffer some abnormality and are frail? If you can comprehend the above about hair and some of the wisdom of its being as it is, why do not you admit to what you do not know?

* Who caused the saliva to trickle inside the mouth all the time, without interruption, to moisten the palate and uvula, to facilitate speech and to moisten the food? Apocrates has said: The moisture in the mouth is the vehicle of food. Consider your condition when your saliva partially dries up, when this invaluable spring slows down!

(blood vessels not shown here) wy

Secondary Bronchus Tertiary Bronchus

Cross - section of ribs

Every day a human being breathes 25,000 times, in which he inhales 180 square meters of air, from which 6.5 meters are extracted to be used by the blood.

Respiratory bronchiole Tertiary bronchi

From pulmonary artery Alveolus

Alveoli, the air sacs of the lungs

* The trachea branches into two primary bronchi, and these in turn divide progressively into smaller bronchioles and so on to the level of alveoli, which are about 750 million sacs in the two lungs. ach alveolar sac has a thin wall that connects toa capillary network. Here an exchange of carbon dioxide with oxygen takes place, in which the former is expelled and the latter, a vital substance for the body, is admitted.

* The network of alveoli spreads in an area in excess of 200 square metres to purify the blood. In normal conditions, not more than one tenth of the alveoli are in use at any time, but in crises morc alveolar sacs operate.

Consider now the frequent crying of infants, and the great benefit of that. Indeed, physicians and naturalists have confirmed the benefit and advantage of that crying. They say: There is, in infants’ brains, a moisture that, if left there, would cause great mischief. Crying causes the flowing of that harmful moisture, which descends then from the brain, and this enhances the brain’s strength and ensures its healthy growth. Besides, crying and weeping expands the breathing channels, expands and strengthens blood vessels, and enhances nerves. Many a benefit and much good are realized by the crying that emanates from the infant. If crying, which results from a feeling of undue pain, embodies aspects of wisdom that are unfathomable to you, and may not even occur to you, think then in the same way of the pain that children endure: its causes and beneficial consequences embody such wisdom as would be unperceived by the majority of humans, who are so confused concerning its purpose to the point of clashing among themselves. They are sharply divided concerning that issue.

One group says that the pain of children can only be accounted for by the sheer will of the Lord; that no wisdom or purpose may be identified concerning it. By this attitude, this group has categorically denied itself access to fathoming the issue. Whenever this group is asked about anything related to creation its answer is the same:

“He (i.e. the Lord) is not to be questioned as to what He does” (21: 23). This answer is impeccable, and the purport of it is not to deny the deep judgement that is involved in the Lord’s actions, nor to dispute the good that is always served by His actions. The purpose in the above verse is to stress that the Lord has no associate

in His Lordship and Divinity, to assert that there is no limit to His wisdom, no one to contradict His decree, that He may not be questioned, since nothing He creates is done in vain, nor did He create anything from a whim. One would ask about the point of a person’s behaviour if he seems to behave senselessly, if his deeds do not reveal purpose or benefit. Do you not see in the following Qur’anic verses:

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“Have they chosen gods from the earth who raise the dead? If there were therein gods beside Allah, then verily both the heaven and earth would have been in disorder. Glorified be Allah, the Lord of the Throne, from all that they ascribe unto Him. He will not be questioned as to that which He does, but they will be questioned.” (21: 21-23)

How rebuked are those who choose for His equals gods who are actually very unlike him. The verse: ‘He will not be questioned as to that which He does’ is a confirmation of His divinity, an emphasis of His Lordship and Godship; the phrase: ‘but they [i.e. the false gods] will be questioned’ denies the legitimacy of attributing godship to those other gods, on the ground that they are accountable before Him, controlled by Him; so how can they be held as His equals, despite the great disparity? This, in fact, is the point of focus of this verse, while the fatalists take it to be a refuge, an excuse to deny His wisdom or not to study His deeds with a view to discovering their objectives and good consequences. But it is Allah who guides to the right road.

Another group has said:

The wisdom of exposing children to hardship is so that they may be compensated in the Hereafter with undiminished recompense. When it is objected to this group that it is possible to extend reward to these people without this pain, they answer: pain mediates in their case in the same way as duties mediate in the case of accountable adults. When it is further objected that the above justification is untenable as pain may be inflicted on the children of unbelievers, they reply: we do not subscribe to the view held by some, namely that those children will enter hell, as no one will enter hell without sins, and these children have no sins counted against them. The same debate is held concerning children and the arguments and counterarguments are put forward, but this is not the right

place to recount all that. There have been arguments marshalled against these people to which they have not replied convincingly: the pain inflicted on the children of unbelievers, even if they reached puberty and lived as unbelievers until they died, is definitely no compensation, nor is it a punishment for their disbelief, since punishment may not be inflicted beforehand and ahead of time. They blunder a lot on this point, and their references have conflicting statements; what they say in this respect in not rationally acceptable.

A third group has said:

If you consider this problem you will see that it is pointless, that to try to settle it amounts to taking unnecessary trouble, as those sufferings, their outcome and causes are all a natural accompaniment of human development, that is an inevitable part of human existence, equal in that to heat, cold, hunger, thirst, fatigue, toil, depression, worries, weakness, and infirmity. To ask about the point of suffering is the same as to ask about the need for food when there is hunger, for drink when there is thirst, for rest and sleep when there is fatigue. Those pains are natural accompaniments of human development, unavoidable in the existence of humans and even animals; to dispense with them is to dispense with one’s humanity and to be an angel ora different creature. Children’s pains do not exceed adults’, but since the latter get familiarized with them they may take them lightly. There is a vast difference between a youngster’s suffering and an adult’s. But both are a part of human nature and a natural result of creation; if a human did not encounter those pains, he would be other than a human. If one observes that a child who is hungry, thirsty, cold or tired suffers in a way that an adult is spared, it should be retorted that the latter has other ailments and diseases that are more or less than the

former's suffering of hunger, thirst, cold and heat. It is just that humans, and also animals, have been created like this.

The causes of ordeals

To the objection that someone may raise: why did He create that? Should He not rather have created his servants not subject to pain? The last-mentioned group answers: this objection is unacceptable, since the Almighty created man of a weak build in a world of test and ordeals, and so he is bound to encounter hardships, and is by nature subject to suffering. The human body has been endowed with the four humours [blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy], which are essential for human life, and man’s very being is based on them. These humours are bound to cause interactions, mixings, and minglings, in a way that some of them will be in excess of the others, in quantity at times, and in quality at others. All this will inevitably lead to sufferings; it is pointless to admit the cause and object to the result. Besides, the Lord created in the human being capacities, desires, and the will that cause incessant movement and a pursuit of what is beneficial and a warding off what is harmful, individually at times, and with the assistance of others at other times. Hence, people are in need of each other, and there will be many encounters; and some will oppress others. There is bound to be in consequence suffering and ill-treatment such as that which results from the mixture of the humours and the dominance of some over others. Suffering will never be absent from this world of test and ordeal, in contrast to the world of recompence and eternal bliss. A person who fancies that the qualities adapted to that world should be applied in this is clinging to illusions. Absolute wisdom dictates that in this world blessing should be mixed with crisis, and relaxation with toil, pleasure with suffering, health with disease, happiness with unhappiness. It is the world of test where crises can only be staved off with other crises. This concept has been well and rightly expressed by a poet in the following couplet: