AMIR
AND THE CHAMELEON
On
a school trip one day, Amir left his friends and began to
wander about amongst the trees. As he was leaning against
a tree and resting, a voice came from a log on the ground.
"Hello Amir," said the voice, "Are you tired out?"
Amir couldn't believe his ears. When he looked carefully
at the log, he noticed a creature that was so close to it
in color that he had difficulty in telling which was which.
"Who are you?" he asked. "I had real trouble spotting you-your
color and the color of the log you're sitting on are exactly
the same!"
"I'm a chameleon," said the creature, which rather resembled
a lizard. "I change my color according to my surroundings
to protect myself from danger."
"How do you manage such a wonderful thing?" asked Amir, intrigued.

"Let me explain," said his new friend. "I have special coloring
substance called 'chromatophore' in my skin. This allows me
to change my color to match my surroundings. This color change
comes about through the distribution and collection of various
substances and pigments in my nervous system. So even though
I move very slowly, I can live unnoticed and safely wherever
I may be. Of course, this ability was given to me by our Almighty
Lord, Who provides us with everything we need."
Amir was not sure he quite understood, "Could you please
tell me a bit more about how you change color?"
The chameleon took a deep breath and nodded: "When I'm sitting
on a leafy branch in daylight I turn green with black and
brown markings, like the shadows on the branches around me.
When it's dark I'm completely black. I can carry out all these
color changes within 15 minutes. When I'm angry though, I
develop dark orange spots and dark red markings as a warning
to other animals."
"That
is really unbelievable!" cried Amir. "I wonder what else is
special about you?"
His friend smiled happily. "My eyes move independently of
one another. I can look backwards and downwards. Of course,
I wouldn't have had any of these characteristics if Allah
had not wanted me to. Allah created me and gave me everything
I need to survive."
Amir looked a bit closer. "It's quite hard to make your eyes
out."
"So that my eyes don't attract the attention of enemies,
Allah covered them completely with scales so they look like
the rest of my head. As you can see, when Allah created me,
He designed me in the best possible way to deal with whatever
might happen to me."
"From
now on," said Amir, "I'll look more carefully at things around
me. I won't forget to pray to our great and powerful Lord
when I see the clear proofs of His existence in nature. Thank
you."
"Bye bye, Amir!" said the chameleon as it disappeared back
into its surroundings once more.
That is Allah, your Lord. There is no god but Him, the Creator
of everything. So worship Him. He is responsible for everything.
Eyesight cannot perceive Him but He perceives eyesight. He
is the All-Penetrating, the All-Aware. (Surat al-An'am: 102-103)
Mankind! You are the poor in need of Allah
whereas Allah is the Rich Beyond Need, the Praiseworthy. (Surah
Fatir: 15)
TARIQ
AND THE DOG
Tariq had gone to play at the house of his classmate, Kashif.
When Kashif's mother called him downstairs for something,
Tariq was left alone in the bedroom. At that moment Kashif's
dog came into the room. It was such a lovable dog, and it
was as though it was asking, "Don't you want to play with
me?"
"Hey, come on then, let's have a game," said Tariq, jumping
to his feet.
"Great, I'm very pleased!" said the dog, wagging its tail
enthusiastically.
Tariq
froze in astonishment. The dog was talking! This was an opportunity
not to be missed. He began asking about the things he had
always wondered about dogs.
"I've always wanted to know," he began, "How do you chew
those hard bones we give you to eat?"
The dog smiled, revealing a row of sharp, white teeth. "Allah,
Who has given all living things their own individual characteristics,
has given us dogs different physical abilities from other
animals. For example, we have more teeth than you do, 42 of
them in fact, so we can chew our food, especially bones, very
easily."
Tariq
nodded: "You like running, jumping and playing as much as
I do, don't you? How come you don't sweat?" he wondered.
Kashif's dog nodded in agreement: "We don't sweat like humans
do to control our body heat because we have no pores in our
skin. We have a respiratory system that controls our temperature
instead. Our fur prevents heat from outside from reaching
our skin. Of course, when the temperature rises our body heat
rises too, and when we become too hot we get rid of the extra
heat by hanging our tongues out and panting, so even on hot
days we don't sweat, in spite of our thick fur."
"Allah has given us such a wonderful system that while humans
break out in a sweat after half an hour's exercise, we can
run non-stop for hours without sweating at all. From now on
you'll understand that when you see dogs with their tongues
hanging out in hot weather there's no need to feel sorry for
them. Of course we dogs did not make this system for ourselves.
This is one of the proofs of the supreme creative power of
Allah, Who created everything in a totally original form."
"I believe your sense of smell is also very well developed,"
said Tariq as he stroked the dog's nose.
"You're
right," the dog agreed. "We have a very strong sense of smell.
The smell centers in our brains are 40 times more developed
than human beings'."
"So when police dogs smell something just once they can go
and find the owner!" exclaimed Tariq.
"Right again. You can see that the dogs you are used to seeing
every day are proofs of Allah's creation, just like all other
living things. Keep that in mind, and don't forget to remember
Allah with thanks."
"Thanks a lot," said Tariq. "I won't forget. And I'll tell
all my friends what you have told me about what Allah has
given you, and ask them to thank Him too."
Just then Kashif came back into the room, and they all began
to romp and play together.
OUR VERY DEAR FRIENDS
It is He Who created everything on the
earth for you... (Surat al-Baqara: 29)

DOGS, THE EXPERT SNIFFERS
Dogs have an extraordinary sensitivity to smells. When roaming
in the street they find the smells left by other dogs, and
those which are peculiar to people, and they learn things
about them. They can detect the slightest scent in the air
without any difficulty at all. Bloodhounds, a breed of dog
which has a particularly strong sense of smell, can track
people from places where they have left no visible trace,
follow a trail that is four days old and find the scent of
people more than 80 kilometers away.
FARHAN AND THE HORSE
Farhan's
sister wanted to learn horse riding. At the weekend the whole
family went to a riding school. While his sister, his mother
and his father were talking to the riding teacher, Farhan
went to look at a horse which was eating grass.  
"Hello!" said Farhan: "That grass you are eating looks very
dirty and dusty. Doesn't it hurt your teeth?"
The horse looked up and whinnied happily. "No, my little
friend. Our teeth help to break it down. Allah created very
long teeth for us. These teeth have deep roots going right
down into our jawbones. The root part of our teeth is much
deeper than yours. When our teeth wear down the part inside
the bone comes out. Every tooth can lose 1 to 2 inches (2.5
to 5 cm) without us losing the ability to eat."
Farhan considered a moment, "So thanks to that characteristic
given to you by Allah, you're saved from losing your teeth
in a short time and going hungry."
"You're
dead right," agreed the horse. "Allah created every living
thing according to the surroundings in which it lives. This
is one of the proofs of His supreme creation. Every living
thing on the face of the earth is in need of Him."
Farhan thought of the films he had seen about horses, "If
I get on your back, you can carry me for miles, can't you?"
"Yes. No other animal has been as much help to human beings
as we have. Nowadays, of course, there are streets and roads
and moving vehicles on them. The truth is though that it is
only in the past century that cars and other forms of transport
have begun to serve people. When your great great grandfather
was born, people didn't know there would be any such thing
as a car. In those days, carrying people was the job of animals,
especially we horses."
Farhan
had a closer look at his new friend: "With those long legs,
I'm not surprised you can travel long distances. Can you run
fast as well?"
The horse gently raised a front leg: "Allah created my legs
not just so that I could carry heavy loads but also so that
I could run fast at the same time. We don't have collarbones
like other animals. This means we can take longer strides."
Farhan thought it over, "So, Allah created you to carry heavy
loads easily and to be able to run fast."
"Yes, Farhan," agreed his new friend. "Allah created us with
these characteristics so we could be of use to people."
Farhan grinned back, "I'm sure what I have learned from you
will be much more interesting for my sister than learning
to ride, when I tell her about it!"
"Bye bye, little friend," said the horse through a mouthful
of delicious hay.
It is He Who created all the species and
gave you ships and livestock for you to ride. (Surat az-Zukhruf:12)
THE SPECIAL CARE TAKEN BY MOTHER PANDAS
Mother
pandas look after their babies very well. Baby pandas need
special protection because when they are born they cannot
fend for themselves. If an enemy attacks a baby panda its
mother will bite it with her powerful jaws and try to protect
the baby that way. However, when mother pandas hold their
babies in their mouths they can be extremely gentle. It is
Allah Who teaches pandas how they need to behave, Who created
them and Who knows best what they need.
ANTAR AND THE KANGAROO
When Antar learned from a storybook he was reading that kangaroos
bring up their babies
in special pouches on their stomachs, he asked himself in
surprise, "Do any animals really have pouches?" The kangaroo
in the book then suddenly started hopping around on the page,
and answered: "You're right to be surprised, Antar. But, yes,
we kangaroos really have a pouch on our tummies, and this
is where we feed, protect and rear our babies."
Antar had a close look and saw a lovable baby kangaroo poking
its head from its mother's pouch in the picture.
"How did your baby get into the pouch, I wonder?" he asked
the mother, who replied:
"When a baby kangaroo is born it is only one centimeter long.
That tiny baby, which is still undeveloped, reaches the pouch
after a 3-minute journey."
"That's
very interesting," mused Antar. "How do you feed it in there?"
The mother explained patiently: "There are four different
milk teats in my pouch. In one of these teats there is a warm
milk ready to feed the baby. In the other three teats is milk
which is designed not to feed the newborn baby but babies
which are a bit older. After a few weeks the baby will leave
the teat it feeds from at the beginning and start feeding
from one more suitable for its age. When it gets a little
bigger it will move on to the next one."
"Unbelievable!" cried an excited Antar. "How does a baby
kangaroo that is only one centimeter long know how which teat
to choose from? And how do you, the mother kangaroo, manage
to put such different kinds of milk into those four teats?"
The mother kangaroo went on to explain: "The milk that feeds
a newborn baby is warmer
than the other kinds. The nourishment it contains is different,
too. How do you think we mother kangaroos heat the milk in
our teats? Don't forget, dear Antar, that it really isn't
the mother kangaroos who do all this. We don't even know about
the differences in the milk in our teats. It isn't possible
for us to calculate the temperature of the milk. Neither do
we know that each type of milk has different characteristics,
nor what food it contains. We just live the way Allah inspires
us to. Allah, Who created us, thought out the needs of our
babies. Our Lord, with His infinite compassion and mercy,
gave our babies milk of the most suitable kind and placed
them in the best place for them, in the pouches of their mothers."
Say:"If all the sea was ink to write down the Words of my
Lord, it would run out long before the Words of my Lord ran
out," even if We were to bring the same amount of ink again.
(Surat al-Kahf: 109)
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