Part 31

Regard now the ant, this fragile creature, and the amount of shrewdness or planning it was provided with in the matter of collecting food, storing it and preserving it from contamination. By observing it, you can learn many lessons and signs. You can see how when the ant tribe seeks food, they leave their holes in search of it. Once they have come upon it, they go in files from their holes to it,

*The ants have some habits in common with man. They build cities and roads, dig tunnels, store food, and plant gardens and crops. They have armies ready for war and defence. They take prisoners-of-war, they have trials, and so forth.

There is a subspecies of ants called the ‘milkers’, which subdues kinds of worms and maggots and raises them in special places and farms, feeding them and taking care of them; it extracts from them a sweet stuff called the ‘honey dew’.

and start to transfer it. You see them in two files, one loaded with food and heading home, and the other going from home, not mixing with the other file, the two files constantly distinct and separate. They resemble two groups of people, one going to a place and the other returning from it. If the load is too heavy, a group of ants take part in carrying it, in the same way that a group of men take part in carrying a stone or a trunk of wood. If it is a single ant that has found the heavy thing, its companions assist it in carrying it to its habitation, and then leave it to its owner. On the other hand, if a group have come upon something together, they work together to transfer it, then share it at home.

An experienced person told the following remarkable account:

I once saw an ant that found a half locust; she tried to move it, but she failed to carry it from the ground. So she moved a little distance and called a group of ants. The narrator adds: I took away that half locust from the ground, so that when the ant and its companions came she went around and they went around, but could not find it, so they went back. Then I replaced the half locust, and when the ant came, she saw it, she tried to carry it but failed. So she walked a little distance, bringing her group. They came and went round the place, and when the group did not find anything, they made a circle round the ant, attacked it and cut it limb from limb. I sat there observing all this.

An amazing aspect of the shrewdness of ants is that when they transfer a grain to their habitation they break it into pieces so that it does not sprout. If it is a two-lobe grain, each lobe capable of sprouting, they break it into four pieces. If it is damped with dew, and they worry that it might rot, they bring it out into the sun, and later bring

it back into their habitation. That is the reason you often see outside their habitation a lot of broken grains, then if you come a short time later you find nothing left at all. Another token of their wit is that they do not dig their habitation except on an elevated piece of land, lest the flood should drown it. You never see the ants’ village in the bottom of a valley, but raised to a part where the flood does not flow. It is enough to illustrate the ants’ shrewdness to cite what the Almighty related in His Book concerning the group of ants when one of them addressed its companions at the approach of Sulaiman (Solomon), peace be on him, and his troops. These are the words of the ant as reported in the Qur’an:

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“O ants! Enter your dwellings lest Solomon and his armies crush you unperceiving.” (27: 18)

In this exhortation, it has used ten styles of speech: calling, alarming, naming, commanding, attributing, warning, specifying, expounding, generalizing, and apologizing. Despite its brevity, its exhortation employs all these ten styles. That is why Sulaiman admired its statement, smiled delightedly at hearing it, then asked Allah to inspire him with thanking His favour at hearing its words. Such shrewdness is not to be wondered at ina species that glorifies the Lord in gratitude. It is as described in an authentic tradition of the Prophet 3%: id 26 Sle sab ths dais ifat CSS OS Ge 5 OF

“A prophet was resting under a tree when an ant stung him, so he ordered that his belongings should be removed from there, and that the ants’ village should be burned. Then Allah revealed to him: You burn a whole group of a species that glorify the Lord. Why not a single ant?”

Turn your attention now to the lives of bees, and the lessons and signs they involve! Think of them in their painstaking effort to produce honey and build their hexagonal dwelling, one of the most well-shaped figures and the most rounded and carefully crafted! As they join one to another they leave no gaps or looseness between them, and all this is achieved without devices or compasses or measurements. It is all by the inspiration of Allah and His guidance and teaching, as is explained in the Qur’an:

F nf JOR KES AWM E oA IAD 5b) “And your Lord inspired the bee, saying: Choose

thou habitations in the hills and in the trees and in that which they thatch;

“Then eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of thy Lord, made smooth for thee. There comes forth from their bellies a drink diverse of hue, wherein is healing for mankind. Lo! herein is indeed a portent for people to

Observe their complete compliance and observance of the direction of their Lord: they build their habitation in

those three places, in the hills and mountains, in the trees and in people’s houses. You never see the bees building their habitation except in those three places. Observe how most of their habitations are in mountains and hills, in trees and in people’s dwellings, never anywhere else; the place mentioned first in the verse is the place most frequently used, trees are next in frequency, and people’s dwelling come last. These last are the smallest in size, while in mountains and trees their hives are enormous; and huge amounts of honey are collected from them. Regard how the bees, in their perfect compliance, first settle in a habitation, and only after they have settled they leave it, to suck and eat from the fruits, and then return to their habitation. This is in compliance with their Lord’s directive to find a habitation first, and to feed themselves after that. And once they have eaten, they follow the way the Lord made smooth for them to suck and return.

An amazing fact about bees is that they have a queen, without whom they do not fly about, do not work, and do not suck. They obey her, give heed to her, and work upon her commands. The queen has the right of directing them, ordering them and forbidding them. They are her subjects, obedient to her, and abiding by her pleasure. She directs them in the way a king directs his subjects. As they enter their home, the queen stands at the door, not letting any bee shove another or precede it in passing in. They pass in one by one, without crowding, colliding or clustering; it organizes their entering in the same way as a leader does when his troops arrive at a narrow passage where there is no room for more than one at a time. While observing the bees’ management of their affairs, good policy, guidance, unity of intent, organization, handling of their rule, and the assigning of each individual’s work, one would have no end of wonder! It will be plain to the observer that it is not on their own that bees can accomplish those acts, or achieve control and management

most perfectly. If you observe the worker bee, you will see that it is among the weakest of Allah’s creatures, utterly ignorant about its own affairs, and the least capable of going about its interests, to say nothing about the amazing achievements it performs. One puzzling fact about bees is that they never have two queens at one habitation, commanding the same group. If two groups are formed commanded by two leaders, one of the two is killed and cut into pieces, and they agree on giving their loyalty to one queen, without showing hostility among themselves, or trying to cause injury to one another. They unite as one group having one army.

The production and benefits of honey

A bewildering thing about the bee, something that most people do not realize or notice, is the way the bee reproduces, whether it is by way of delivery or by transformation. Very few people imagine how it happens or get to know it! Indeed it reproduces by neither of the above two methods, but by the most mind-boggling method! As a bee goes to the meadows it picks nectar, the purest stuff on leaves, petals, flowers, grass, etc.; it sucks it, and this forms the essence of honey. Then it presses the condensed bits of that stuff on the face of a leaf, and sticks it on its leg, forming it in the shape of a lentil; then it fills with it the empty hexagons made of honey. Later on, the queen makes a round beginning with its habitation, breathes in it, and goes on to the other habitations and breathes in all of them. From this, life emerges in them by the will of Allah the Almighty, and so they come out as flying creatures by the will of Allah. This is a curious miracle and a sign that few get to know; it takes place by Divine inspiration, which guided the bees and taught them management, travelling, living, constructing and production.

You may well ask the denier: Who inspired the bee to do what it does and implanted that in it as a natural habit? Who made its way smooth so that it could obtain what it sought without obstruction or hardship and without losing its way despite the remoteness of its destination? Who guided it to perform what it was made for? Who created that nectar which, after being consumed, would turn into pure multi-coloured honey, perfectly sweet, tasty and beneficial? A variety of honey is so white that you see the reflection of your face in it better than you see it in the mirror, as described by a person who brought some of it to me: he described it as the choicest honey that is known to mankind, the purest and most delicious. Its taste was indeed the most deliciously sweet. Other varieties are red, green, pink, black, tan and many other hues in between, with flavours that vary with the variety of the sucking plants and the original substance of it.