Friday Sermon: God As Manifest in Creation

By Babatunde Jose 

And it is He Who spreads out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and (flowing) rivers: And fruit of every kind He made in pairs, two and two: He draweth the Night as a veil Over the Day. Behold, verily in these things there are Signs for those who consider! (Quran 13:3)

Not only does the existence of matter, of motion, and of life, testify that there is God, but the magnitude and magnificence of creation announce the same grand truth: the work reveals the Workman.

Unless man appreciates the awesomeness of God as manifest in His creation, man is prone to misbehaviour and monumental mistakes. He arrogates importance to himself and revels in his temporal powers forgetting that whatever position he occupies is not by his might but by the grace of Allah.

He said: “Our Lord is He Who gave to each (created) thing its form and nature, and further, gave (it) guidance. (Quran 20:50)

Blind chance never built that cathedral in Rome, nor did they build the Kaaba in Mecca. Yet some would have us believe that the vaster Dome of Heaven with its millions of starry lamps, surmounting a grander Temple of Creation, had neither Architect to plan nor Builder to construct!

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews indulged in no mere poetic rhapsody when he wrote, “Every house is builded by someone: but He who built all things is God.” Hebrews 3:4

Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that ye can see; . . . . (Quran 13:2)

“The Being who guides all the changes of this universe must Himself be immutable; So also the universal harmony by which the whole mechanism is regulated, indicates a character of infinite perfection in harmony with itself.  . . . ‘There is a God’” (The Gordian Knot) James Harvey.

Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the Night and the Day; . . . .  In the change of the winds, and the clouds which they trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (here) indeed are Signs for a people that are wise. (Quran 2:164)

On this Earth too, we are confronted with phenomena, for which no explanation is adequate save that of an all-mighty, benevolent, and infinitely wise Creator. There are incalculable hosts of creatures, varying in size from gnats to elephants, each requiring its regular food, the total amount of which for a single day defies human computation if not the imagination. Those creatures are not set down in a dwelling-place where the table is bare, but where there is abundance for them all; nor are they furnished merely with a few necessities, but, instead, with a great variety of luxuries and dainties. From whence proceed such ample and unfailing supplies.

Only one answer satisfactorily meets the case: from the living God! “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of men: the earth is full of Thy riches. These all wait upon Thee, that Thou mayest give them meat in season. Thou openest Thy hand, they are filled with good” (Psalm 104:14).

The continuous fertility of the earth after thousands of years of incessant productiveness can only be satisfactorily explained by attributing the same to its Maker.

The world is as full of creatures today as though none had ever died, for as soon as one generation passes from it, it is at once replaced by another, coming to a larder already well filled for it. Arthur Pink.

The “firmament” refers to the atmosphere surrounding the earth—the air in which the clouds are seen. The atmospheric pressure upon a person of ordinary stature is equal to the weight of 14 tons, and it scarcely needs to be pointed out that the falling upon him of a very much lighter object would break every bone in his body and drive all breath out of his lungs. 

Why then is it that we suffer no inconvenience from it? And by what means are we preserved from that which is such a deadly menace? The Creator’s having so devised that the air permeates the whole of our body, and by its peculiar nature pressing equally in all directions, all harm and discomfort is prevented—”the heads of the thigh and arm bones are kept in their sockets by atmospheric pressure” (International Encyclopaedia).

The air performs many functions for the good of mankind. While it covers us without any conscious weight, the air reflects, and thereby increases the life-giving heat of the sun. The air does this for us much as our garments supply additional heat to our bodies.

The air co-operates with our lungs, thereby ventilating the blood and refining the fluids of the body, stimulating the animal secretions, and regulating our natural warmth. We could live for months without the light of the sun or the glimmering of a star, but if deprived of air for a very few minutes we quickly faint and die. 

Let us then inquire, what is it that has endowed the atmosphere with such varied and beneficent adaptations. Must we not rather ask “Whom?” and answer, “This also cometh from the Lord!

There in the firmament we behold an endless succession of clouds fed by evaporation from the ocean, drawn thither by the action of the sun. The clouds are themselves a miniature ocean, suspended in the air with a skill which as far transcends that of the wisest man. But what most fills us with wonderment is that these celestial reservoirs, so incalculably greater than any of human construction, should be suspended in the air. 

The ocean and its inhabitants present to our consideration as many, as varied, and as unmistakable, evidence of the handiwork of God as do the stellar and atmospheric heavens.

If we give serious thought to the subject, it must fill us with astonishment that it is possible for any creatures to live in such a suffocating element as the sea, and that in waters so salty they should be preserved in their freshness; and still more so that they should find themselves provided with abundant food and be able to propagate their species from one generation to another.

If we were immersed in that element for a few minutes only, we would inevitably perish. Yet by the wisdom and power of God not only are myriads of fishes sustained there, but the greatest of all living creatures—the whale—is found there.

As it is with us in the surrounding air, so it is with the fish in their liquid element: the principle of the equal transmission of pressure enables their frail structures to bear a much greater pressure and weight than their own without being crushed—the air and the fluids within them pressing outward with a force as great as the surrounding water presses inward!

Still more remarkable is that wonderful apparatus or contrivance, the air-bladder, with which they are furnished, for it enables them to increase or diminish their specific gravity, to sink like lead or float like a cork, to rise to whatever height or sink to whatever depths they please. 

As these creatures probably have no occasion for the sense of hearing, to have provided them with ears would have been an encumbrance rather than a benefit. Is it merely an accident that fishes, that need them not, are devoid of ears which are found in all the animals and birds?(James Hervey).

A spiritually minded naturalist has pointed out that almost all flat fish, such as soles and flounders, are white on their underside but tinctured with darkish brown on the upper, so that to their enemies they resemble the colour of mud and are therefore more easily concealed.

What is still more remarkable, Providence, which has given to other fishes an eye on either side of the head, has placed both eyes on the same side in their species, which is exactly suited to the peculiarity of their condition. Swimming as they do but little, and always with their white side downward, an eye on the lower part of their bodies would be of little benefit, whereas on the higher they have need of the quickest sight for their preservation.

“One circumstance relating to the natives of the deep is very peculiar, and no less astonishing. As they neither sow nor reap, have neither the produce of the hedges nor the gleanings of the field, they are obliged to plunder and devour one another for necessary subsistence. They are a kind of licensed bandit that makes violence and murder their professed trade. By this means prodigious devastation ensues, and without proper, without very extraordinary recruits, the whole race would continually dwindle and at length become totally extinct.

Therefore, to supply millions of assassins with their prey and millions of tables with their food, yet not to depopulate the watery realms, the issue produced by every breeder is almost incredible. They spawn not by scores or hundreds, but by thousands and tens of thousands.

In the Holy Qur’an, Allah, the Exalted, calls our attention to his creations like the sun, moon, star, rain, ocean, heaven, earth, animals and human beings. He appeals to us to study them closely in order that we may know that He is the Most Powerful, Most High, so that we can reference and worship Him. See (Quran 7:174; 40:81)

Those who study medicine will appreciate the complexity and wonders of human systems. Allah praises Himself on these wonders: Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (fetus) lump; then We made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then We developed out of it another creature. So, blessed be Allah, the Best to create! (Quran 23:14)

Allah did not stop at these wonderful creatures but He gave mankind the intellect to explore them so as to get benefits from them.

It is Allah Who has subjected the sea to you, that ships may sail through it by His command, that ye may seek of His Bounty, and that ye may be grateful.  And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: Behold, in that are Signs indeed for those who reflect.  (Quran 45:12-3) 

Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend.

Last Line: Prophet (bpuh) said: “Allah has not sent down a sickness except that He has also sent down for it a cure. He knows it who knows it, and he is ignorant of it who is ignorant of it (so even if the most famous doctor is ignorant of it, it still exists).”