Part 19

By weeks eight, nine and ten the reproductive organs of male and female are very clearly distinguished

The embryo is now about 6

After week ten the embryo only grows, because its formation is complete.

In this connection, it is appropriate to refer to the following verse from the Qur’an:

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“Allah knows that which every female bears and that which the wombs absorb and that which they grow. And everything with Him is measured.” (13: 8)

The Almighty says in the Qur’an: Qae K Comey eee gteye Zeer Avg < Saas; OULAST fae aT este e

“Are ye the harder to create, or is the heaven that He built? He raised the height thereof and perfected it.”

Heaven and the genesis of planets The Almighty says in the Qur’an:

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“Then turned He to the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth: Come both of you, willingly or loth. They said: we come, obedient.”

* Astronomers say that the bodies of the sky, the stars and the planets, were originally a hazy matter, called a nebula. Even now, stars consist of this matter, and the nebula consists of light gases in which are suspended tiny particles of solid matter, making up a dark mass. This tallies with the Qur’anic word, ‘smoke’, mentioned in the above verse.

Moving planets Ibn Al-Qayyem says:

Consider then the handiwork of Allah in creating the heavens, their loftiness, roundness, and vastness; the excellence of their structure; the wonders of the sun, the moon, and planets; their dimensions and shapes; the variety of their risings and settings. No atom separates from a mass without there being wisdom in it. The heavens are more splendid in their structure and in the subtlety of their building than man’s body; all the wonders of the earth are little compared to those of the heavens. Let us read about that in the Noble Qur’an:

“Are ye the harder to create, or is the heaven that He built? He raised the height thereof and ordered it.” (79: 2728)

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“Lo! in the creation of the heaven and the earth, and the difference of night and day, and the ships which run upon the sea with that which is of use to men, and the water which Allah sends down from the sky, thereby reviving the earth after its death, and dispersing all kinds of beasts therein, and in the ordinance of the winds, and the clouds obedient between heaven and earth, are signs of Allah’s sovereignty for people who have sense.” (2: 164)

In the above verse He gives priority to the heavens. This occurs again in another verse:

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“Lo! In the creation of the heavens and the earth and in the difference of the night and day are tokens of His sovereignty for men of understanding.” (3: 190)

Verses like the above abound in the Qur’an. The entire volume of the earth, the oceans, the atmosphere and all beneath the heavens is, when compared to the heavens themselves, like a drop of water compared to the volume of the sea. Hence, mention of the heavens throughout the Qur’an occurs again and again, their vastness and enormity; swearing by them, calling men to contemplate them, or guiding them to find in the heavens evidence of the majesty of their Builder and Raiser; or referring to their creation to prove the Qur’an’s description of the hereafter and resurrection; the Lord may mention His controlling of the heavens to confirm His Oneness, that He is Allah, beside Whom there is no god, or may refer to their splendour, compactness, and the integration of their parts, without any rifts, to assert the perfection of His wisdom and ability. The Qur’an also often mentions the planets, the sun, the moon, and all the wonders of their creation, of which men can but discern a small part. Time and again, the Qur’an would swear by these bodies, such as in the following verses:

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“By the heaven, holding mansions of the stars;”(85: 1)

EY: SyUati] gibt Tay > “By the heaven and the morning star!” (86: 1) (0: pantsl] USL LEL > “And [by] the heaven and Him Who built it;” (91: 5)

[Ys antl 425 ip “By the sun and his brightness;” (91: 1)

CV: waell] essai) Sots > “By the star when it sets;” (53#1) (0: 9 Sat] € SEA Sts > “O, but I swear by the planets;” (81: 15).

The last-mentioned are the planets which are partly hidden at rising, racing along their orbits at their zenith, and then moving towards their setting; so the Qur’an swears by them in all three phases. No other creation of the Lord’s is more used to swear by than the heaven, the stars, the sun and the moon. When the Almighty swears by any of His creations, he does that on account of the significance and wonder that object represents, pointing to the Lord’s power. The more remarkable and compelling as a sign, the more a particular creation is used as an object of oath in comparison with other creations. The wording of the oath will also be emphatic in this case, as we can see in the following verses:

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“Nay, I swear by the places of the stars — And lo! that verily is a tremendous oath, if ye knew —” (56: 75)

The word planets, ‘nujoom’, in the above verses means most likely the stars in the sky, rather than the

verses of the Qur’an, as some claim, because this is the sense that naturally comes to mind when the word is mentioned, and because the word ‘nujoom’ is never in the Qur’anic style used in reference to the verses of the Qur’an, not even once. So, there is good reason to take the word to refer to the ‘location of stars’, especially as the word ‘nujoom’ has _ been used to refer to planets throughout the Qur’an; and identical oaths are used, when the Qur’an swears by the setting of the star, in the following verse:

[Y= pmell] Cessatty a > “By the star when it sets,” (53: 1).

The exegesis we have chosen is in fact that accepted by the majority of exegesists. Besides, the Lord swears by the Qur’an itself, not by the way it is conveyed to Allah’s servants, as may be seen in the following verses, among

others: [\: 42] Sil yids “Sad. By the renowned Quran,” (38: 1);

[YY oe) 44ST Od “Ya Sin. By the wise Qur’an,” (36: 1-2);

“Qaf. By the glorious Qur’an,” (50: 1) [Ye 63] da ciety On=>

“Ha Mim! By the Scripture which makes plain,” (43: 1-2);

To conclude, the Almighty uses certain creations of His as signs that speak of His Lordship and Oneness.

I swear by the positions of stars

A primitive observer will think that stars are close to us, that if he climbed a mountain he might be able to touch some of them. This was the attitude of Pharaoh of Egypt when he declared, as recounted by the Qur’an:

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“O Haman! Build for me a tower that haply I may reach the roads, — The roads of the heavens, and may look upon the God of Moses,...” (40: 36-27).

The scientific progress, however, has revealed the distances of stars, which were unknown to humans over the ages. The sun, for instance, is 93 million miles from us (150 .million km), a distance that light travelling at a speed of 300 km/sec covers in eight minutes. Light covers the distance between the nearest star to earth in four and a quarter years. Some stars are one hundred light years away from us (i.e. light takes a hundred years to cover the distance from that star to the earth), some are one thousand light years away, some are a million years away, some are 340 million years away, and some are many more million years away! Does not this reveal to us new meanings, unknown to previous generations, of the following verses:

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“Nay, I swear by the places of the stars —- And lo! that verily is a tremendous oath, if you but knew -”

Our Solar System consists of orbiting planets, their moons, the comets and the meteors, all rotating along elliptical (oval) orbits, all in one direction round the sun, and revolving around their axes in the same direction, from east to west. All planets are dark in themselves, but they reflect the sun’s light. The planets, in the order of their closeness to the sun are: Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars; then there are some small planetlets; then there are the gaseous planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Lastly, there is the planet Pluto.

The virtue of contemplating the heavens and the earth

The Lord compliments in His Book those who contemplate the creation of the heavens and the earth, while He reviles those who fail to do that. This may be seen, for instance, in the following verse:

“And We have made the sky a roof withheld from them. Yet they turn away from its portents.” (21; 32)

Reflect then on the greatest of roofs, the heaven, and its solidity, strength and cohesiveness, despite its being mere smoke, or water vapour. The heavens are described in the Qur’an in the following verses:

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“And We have built above you seven strong

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“And We have made the sky a roof withheld from

Look, then, at that sublime structure, strong and overarching, raised by the Lord to such a lofty place, and adorned by the most spectacular adornment, and abounding with so many wonders and signs. All this was first begun from water vapour which rose like smoke. This was well expressed in a couplet:

Glory be to Him who is not duly appreciated by His creation, Who, established upon the throne, is Single and One.

He did lay down for His creatures various landmarks, and erected for them compelling signs, and made clear for them the most evident of pointers, so that those who are destined to perish should perish by clear proof of His sovereignty, and those who survive should survive by clear evidence; for Allah is the Hearer, the Knower. Look, then, afresh at the sky. See its planets in their orbiting, rising and setting; its sun and moon, and diverse rising points and setting points, their tireless unceasing progress, without slowing down their movement or deflecting from their orbits. They run along their predestined orbits exactly as was designed for them, until the day their Maker wills to call them back. Notice the great number of stars and planets, their dimensions and their colours; some reddish, some whitish, and some greyish.