The 13th Day
THE AYAT AND THE HADITH OF THE DAY |
TURNING TOWARDS ALLAH
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HARUN YAHYA
"If My servants ask you about Me, I am near.
I answer the call of the caller when he calls on Me. They should therefore
respond to Me and believe in Me, so that hopefully they will be rightly
guided." (Surat al-Baqara, 186)
Allah surrounds everything. He is nearer to man than his
jugular vein. He is the All-Hearing and All-Knowing. Allah knows everything
that happens to a human being; not a single thought can remain hidden
from Him. A believer knows this and acknowledges that he only needs to
think in order to ask Allah for something. Even if this thought is hidden
in one's breast, Allah hears it and indupitably answers one's prayer,
because Allah is the friend, protector and helper of believers.
According to the Qur'an, prayer is man's turning towards
Allah in all sincerity, taking refuge in His infinite and unbounded might,
and asking help from Him. It is the acknowledgement of one's weakness
before the infinite might of Allah. Prayer is one's personal relation
with Allah. All thoughts and wishes of a man remain concealed between
the man and Allah. Therefore, there is not the slightest possibility of
showing off in this form of worship. It is worship founded entirely on
sincerity.
Those who deeply feel that Allah is nearer to them than anybody
and anything, that He hears all prayers and answers them all and who live
by these truths, are the people of perfected faith. They are again those
who turn towards Allah with a sincere heart and know their weaknesses
as human beings before His omnipotence. They further know that it is Allah
alone Who answers all prayers and saves man from all difficulties and
trouble.
Not only in times of trouble or affliction, but at any time
and in any situation the people of faith turn to Allah, because, they
know that there is not a single moment in a man's life when he is not
in need of Allah. They do not wait for an affliction to befall them before
they pray to Allah. They know that this is a form of worship, a servant's
duty to his Creator, and an important way to draw nearer to Allah. This
is, in actuality, one of the most important attributes that distinguishes
them from other people. The morality displayed by those who pray to Allah
when they are in trouble, but immediately turn their backs soon after
they are freed from trouble is described in the following verse:
When harm touches man, he calls on Us, lying on
his side or sitting down or standing up. Then when We relieve his affliction,
he carries on as if he had never called on Us when first afflicted. Thus
their foul deeds seem fair to the transgressors. (Surah Yunus, 12)
Believers, on the other hand, are the ones who turn towards
our Lord whether they are at ease or in trouble, because, they comprehend
the insight provided by the verse "
What has My Lord to
do with you if you do not call on Him?
" (Surat al-Furqan,
77)
They pray as described in the Qur'an. In one verse Allah
commands the following:
Remember your Lord in deep in your soul humbly
and fearfully, without loudness of voice, morning and evening. Do not
be among the heedless. (Surat al-A'raf, 205)
Call on your Lord humbly and secretly. He does
not love those who overstep the limits. (Surat al-A'raf, 55)
Our Lord, whom we implore, knows and hears what we utter
as well as our innermost thoughts. Aware of this and, following their
instincts, people of faith sometimes pray secretly and sometimes aloud,
but never make their prayers a matter of ostentation, because, in the
Qur'an, Allah draws attention to the importance of "calling on Allah,
making religion sincerely His":
He is the Living-there is no god but Him-so call
on Him, making your religion sincerely His. Praise be to Allah, the Lord
of all the worlds. (Surat al-Mu'min, 65)
Believers "feel Allah's existence" while they pray.
While praying, they not only make their requests of Allah but also deeply
feel the unity of Allah, His existence, His greatness and His infinite
might. In the Qur'an, Allah commands as follows:
Remember the Name of your Lord, and devote yourself
to Him completely. (Surat al-Muzzammil, 8)
Believers are also steadfast in their prayers. As the verse
says, they "seek help in steadfastness and prayer" (Surat
al-Baqara, 45) from Allah. Their submission to Allah and the trust they
put in Him accounts for such steadfastness and commitment. A believer
feels assured that Allah will certainly answer his prayers. He never despairs
and keeps on imploring Him: "
Do not despair of solace from
Allah. No one despairs of solace from Allah except for those who disbelieve."
(Surah Yusuf, 87)
A man of faith fears Allah and prays to Him with profound
respect and patience. He prays to his Lord at any moment; at an unanticipated
time of the day or an unexpected place, a believer takes the time to pray
to his Lord in earnest. Even in his busiest moments, he takes refuge in
Him, implore Him and asks for His guidance. He does all this because he
knows that this is the easiest way to draw nearer to Allah, to attain
His approval and paradise. There is no obstacle that would hinder such
a one from drawing near to his Creator. Allah only wants His servants
to turn towards Him with a sincere heart. Allah commands as follows in
the Qur'an:
Those who shun the worship of false gods and turn
towards Allah will have good news. So give good news to My servants. (Surat
az-Zumar, 17)
(For further reading see, "Perfected
Faith " by Harun Yahya.)
WONDERS OF
CREATION FOR THE 13th DAY |
DESIGN IN DOLPHINS
HARUN YAHYA
For dolphins, breathing is not a reflex,
as it is for humans and other land mammals, but rather a voluntary movement.
In other words, dolphins decide to breathe like we decide to walk. There
is also a precaution taken in order to prevent the animal's being drowned
while sleeping in water. While sleeping, the dolphin uses the right and
left hemisphere of his brain in turn, at approximately 15-minute intervals.
While one cerebral hemisphere sleeps, the dolphin uses the other to come
to the surface for air.
Dolphins breathe using their lungs just like other mammals,
which means they cannot breathe in the water like fish. For this reason,
they routinely come up to the water's surface to breathe. On the top of
their heads is a hole enabling them to do just that. The bodies of dolphins
have such a perfect design that, when it dives into the water, this hole
is automatically closed by a cap, thus preventing water from leaking into
the dolphin's body. When the animal comes up to the water's surface, the
cap then reopens.
The snout of the dolphin's beak is another design facilitating
the movements of the animal through water. By means of this structure,
the animal uses less energy in cutting through the water and swimming
at higher speeds. Modern ships, too, make use of a bow like the dolphin's
snout, hydrodynamically designed to increase the speed of ships just like
dolphins.
In addition, dolphins can swim at such great speeds that
they dazzle scientists. There is a smooth flow of water around the bodies
of dolphins. Research carried out on the skin of dolphins has discovered
the reason for this flow.
The skin of a dolphin consists of three layers. The outer
layer is thin and very elastic. The middle layer is mostly composed of
connective tissue and it has appendages looking like a plastic brush which
anchor the outer layer to the middle layer. The third, inner, layer consists
of bundles of elastic fibers. Therefore, when turbulence begins to form
in the water around the speedily swimming dolphin, the outer skin transmits
the extreme pressure caused by this turbulence to the inner layers and
they absorb it. Thus, the turbulence that was beginning to develop disappears
before it was able to grow.
All of these structures, ones exclusive only to dolphins
among all other animals, are clear evience of an intelligent design. Allah
has created dolphins, like all other creatures, with their body structures
in conformity with their surroundings.
You can also watch the movie >> Technology
in Nature
You can also read the book >> The
Design in Nature
COLLAPSE OF
THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION DAY BY DAY |
WHY IS THE CLAIM THAT DINOSAURS EVOLVED INTO BIRDS AN UNSCIENTIFIC MYTH?
(1)
HARUN YAHYA
The
theory of evolution is a fairy tale built on the hope of the impossible
coming true. Birds have a special place in this story. Above all things,
birds possess that magnificent organ, the wing. Beyond the structural
wonders of wings, their function also inspires amazement. So much so that
flight was man's obsession for thousands of years, and thousands of scientists
and researchers put considerable effort into duplicating it. Apart from
a few very primitive attempts, man only managed to build machines capable
of flying in the twentieth century. Birds have been doing something which
man tried to do with the accumulated technology of hundreds of years right
through the millions of years that they have existed. Moreover, a young
bird can acquire this skill after only a few attempts. Many of their characteristics
are so perfect that not even the products of the latest modern technology
can compare with them.
The idea that "dinosaurs grew wings while
trying to catch flies" is not a joke, but rather a theory which
evolutionists claim is very scientific. This example is sufficient
by itself to show how seriously we should take evolutionists.
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The theory of evolution maintains that the ancestors of birds
were dinosaurs, members of the reptile family. Such a claim raises two
questions that need to be answered. The first is, "How did dinosaurs
come to grow wings?" The second is, "Why is there no sign of
such a development in the fossil record?"
On the subject of how dinosaurs turned into birds, evolutionists
debated the matter for a long time and came up with two theories. The
first of these is the "cursorial" theory. This maintains that
dinosaurs turned into birds by taking to the air from the ground. Supporters
of the second theory object to the cursorial theory, and say that it is
not possible for dinosaurs to have turned into birds in this way. They
offer another solution to the question. They claim that dinosaurs that
lived in the branches of trees turned into birds by trying to jump from
one branch to another. This is known as the "arboreal" theory.
The answer to the question of how dinosaurs could have taken to the air
is also ready: "While trying to catch flies."
However, we must first of all put the following question
to those people who claim that a flight system, together with wings, emerged
from the body of such an animal as a dinosaur: How did flies' flight system,
that is much more efficient than that of a helicopter, which is in turn
modelled on them, come about? You will see that evolutionists have no
answer. It is certainly most unreasonable for a theory which cannot explain
the flight system of such a tiny creature as the fly to claim that dinosaurs
turned into birds.
As a result, all reasonable, logical scientists are agreed
that the only scientific things about these theories is their Latin names.
The essence of the matter is that flight by reptiles is simply the product
of fantasy.
Evolutionists who claim that dinosaurs turned into birds
need to be able to find evidence for it in the fossil record. If dinosaurs
did turn into birds, then half-dinosaur, half-bird creatures must have
lived in the past and left some trace behind them in the fossil record.
For long years evolutionists claimed that a bird called "Archaeopteryx "
represented such a transition. However, those claims were nothing but
a great deception.
Archaeopteryx , the so-called ancestor of modern birds
according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago.
The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or
Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly.
Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form
that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the
first time.
However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate
that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely
not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant
differences from modern birds.
The thesis that Archaeopteryx was a "half-bird"
that could not fly perfectly was popular among evolutionist circles until
not long ago. The absence of a sternum (breastbone) in this creature was
held up as the most important evidence that this bird could not fly properly.
(The sternum is a bone found under the thorax to which the muscles required
for flight are attached. In our day, this breastbone is observed in all
flying and non-flying birds, and even in bats, a flying mammal which belongs
to a very different family.)
However, the seventh Archaeopteryx fossil, which was
found in 1992, disproved this argument. The reason was that in this recently
discovered fossil, the breastbone that was long assumed by evolutionists
to be missing was discovered to have existed after all.
Morevoer, the structure of the bird's feathers became one
of the most important pieces of evidence confirming that Archaeopteryx
was a flying bird in the true sense. The asymmetric feather structure
of Archaeopteryx is indistinguishable from that of modern birds,
and indicates that it could fly perfectly well.
Studies of Archaeopteryx's anatomy revealed
that it possessed complete powers of flight, just like a modern
bird has. The efforts to liken it to a reptile are totally unfounded.
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Another fact that was revealed by the structure of Archaeopteryx 's
feathers was its warm-blooded metabolism. Reptiles and-although there
is some evolutionist wishful thinking on the opposite direction-dinosaurs
are cold-blooded animals whose body heat fluctuates with the temperature
of their environment, rather than being homeostatically regulated. A very
important function of the feathers on birds is the maintenance of a constant
body temperature.
The fact that Archaeopteryx had feathers shows that it was
a real, warm-blooded bird that needed to retain its body heat, in contrast
to dinosaurs.
Two important points evolutionary biologists rely on when
claiming Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, are the claws on its wings
and its teeth.
It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and
teeth in its mouth, but these traits do not imply that the creature bore
any kind of relationship to reptiles. Besides, two bird species living today,
the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches.
These creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics. That
is why it is completely groundless to assert that Archaeopteryx is a transitional
form just because of the claws on its wings. Archaeopteryx was not a transitional
link but only a bird that fell into a category that can be called "toothed
birds."
(For further reading, see "The
collapse of the theory of evolution in 20 questions" by
Harun Yahya)
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