A Bouquet of God’s Beauties

A piece from Harun Yahya.

Please kindly read, enjoy, and absorb!

A Bouquet of God’s Beauties

All the living things on Earth have been created with innumerable, exceptional and superior features, from reproduction to defense, and from the way they feed to their systems of movement. Some build nests like architects, some ponder like chemists and come up with the ideal form of heating, and others still are true masters of camouflage. When one examines the lives of these creatures they will see that both the physical attributes and behavior are in complete harmony with one another and with their environment.

You can see a few of the extraordinary features possessed by living things.

Whale

The whale, the largest mammal in the sea, is at the same time the largest creature on Earth. Even some dinosaurs, which lived and became extinct millions of years ago, are dwarfed by whales. The blue whale in particular is considered to be even larger than all the dinosaurs known to date. Blue whales have a tongue the size of an average sized elephant and a heart weighing 900 kilos.

A heart, the size of a small car, pumps 10 tons of blood a second. Yet the food that such a giant creature consumes is quite astonishing. Blue whales feed solely on prawns, just a few centimeters long. The whale has to consume around two tons of prawns a day to completely fill its stomach.

Blue whales are not solely noteworthy for their size, however. They also possess complex bodily systems. The surface of the water is warm, but the deeper regions of the seas are cold. This means that there is a large temperature difference between the surface and the sea bed. Yet whales are unaffected by this since their fins function like air conditioning units. As the whales, created by God with such a superior feature, dive to the bottom they cool their bodies with their fins, and warm them again while rising.

Ostrich

Ostriches are the largest species of bird on Earth. They average 2.5 meters in height and 120 kilos in weight. These birds live in colonies in Central Africa, and can run at up to 70 kilometers an hour. In other words, no human being can ever hope to outrun an ostrich. The ostrich has only two toes on its feet. In addition, one of these toes is much larger than the other. An ostrich runs on these large toes alone.

The eggs of these birds are also the largest eggs in the world. The parent birds dig a large hole in the sand and settle all their gigantic eggs there. When they lay between 10 and 12 eggs, however, they have to adjust the size of the hole accordingly. The chicks that hatch from the eggs are quite defenseless, and may fall prey to a predator at any moment. However, when danger approaches the chicks lie on the ground and pretend to be dead for protection. The predator thus assumes they are dead and refrains from attacking them. All chicks play possum in exactly the same way. It is impossible for a living thing that has just hatched out of the egg to think up or learn such a tactic. So how is it that a bird has the ability to play such a role as soon as it is born? The answer is clear. As “Rab” or the educator, it is God Who has taught the otherwise defenseless chicks such an effective means of self defense.

Puma

The puma is a species of wild cat that lives on the continent of America. It is the continent’s largest cat, being between 1 and 2 meters in length and weighing between 35 and 85 kilos. Its ears are small, and their tips are covered in darkish fur. The puma, the most powerful member of the cat family, has very sensitive powers of hearing. With its black nose it is constantly seeking out scents. Its feet are wide and make full contact with the ground. This in turn makes it very hard to sense their approach. Pumas live for an average of 10 to 15 years, and can survive in all weather conditions.

Lion

Lions are the most social members of the cat family. They can live for 30 years, longer than other wild cats. They also sleep more than any other felines. The lion’s roar can be heard from 8 kilometers away. During a chase in pursuit of prey that begins from 20 meters away it reaches an average speed of 58 kilometers an hour in 200 to 300 meters.

Males can eat 35 kilos of meat at a single sitting, and females 22 kilos. The hunting is generally done by the females.  The males are responsible for protecting their territory. Lions live in wide spaces ranging from 50 to 400 square kilometers. The cubs have blue eyes when they are first born, and are weaned at the age of six months. They taste their first meat at three months of age, and remain with their mothers until they are two years old.

Cheetah

Thanks to its perfectly created physical structure, the cheetah can run faster than any other animal. Its spine, which can be tensed like a bow, its long legs and muscular structure allow it to sprint at 125 kilometers per hour. The claws on its feet, which grip the ground like the tread on a tyre, give it wonderful mobility. Its tail, which serves as an instrument of balance, makes it possible for the cheetah to maneuver quickly when chasing its prey.

God has created these animals in complete harmony with their environment. God is the Almighty, He Who best knows His creations.

“Does He Who created not then know? He is the All-Pervading, the All-Aware.”

(Qur’an, 67:14)

Dragonfly

The dragonfly possesses the most acrobatic flight of all the more than 800,000 species of insect. The wings of the dragonfly cannot be folded back on its body. In addition, the way in which the muscles for flight are used in the motion of the wings differs from the rest of insects.

The dragonfly has two pairs of wings, one in a forward position with respect to the other.

When flying straight ahead the dragonfly’s front wings pull the insect along, while the rear wings push it. When flying in the opposite direction, backwards, the rear wings pull the insect along while the front wings push it. In other words, it is capable of reversing the functioning of its muscles. In this way the dragonfly is capable of suddenly stopping and changing direction in mid-air. This superior creation of God is a source of inspiration for scientists. 

The wings operate asynchronously. That is, while the two frontal wings ascend, the back pair of wings descend. Two opposing muscle groups move the wings. The muscles are tied to levers inside the body. While one group of muscles pulls up a pair of wings by contracting, the other muscle group opens the other pair by refluxing. Helicopters ascend and descend by a similar technique. That is why dragonflies are called the helicopters of the insect world.

South Africa

Unproductive soil that stretches for kilometers.

Antelope

An antelope eating leaves. Antelopes only consume certain parts of plants. At times of drought, when they are unable to find sufficient food, they are also capable of eating grass, tree leaves, flowers, fruit or seeds. Antelopes are the most flawless runners among all hoofed animals. Thanks to their muscle structure they can jump 10 meters in a single bound.

A herd of antelopes... Moving as a herd makes it easier to protect themselves from predators. As soon as they spot a danger they begin running and warn one another. As the cheetah approaches at rapid speed, they begin galloping en masse. A cloud of dust rises up. That dust cloud makes it harder for the cheetah to discern its prey. And the cheetah fails.

Elephant

There are two types of elephant, the largest land dwellers on Earth: the African and the Indian elephant. These two species can easily be distinguished by the size of their ears. African elephants have large ears. This elephant is overheating in the hot African sun, but is able to cool itself down by flapping its ears. This allows it to lower its body temperature by up to 10 degrees Celsius. This air conditioning system works just like a car radiator.

The elephant’s body heat is carried to its ears by means of the circulatory system. Thanks to the paper thin tissue in the ear, the veins there come into close contact with the air and are thus able to give off that heat. This constant circulation means that constant cooling takes place in the elephant. It takes a mere 20 minutes for all the elephant’s 450 liters of blood to pass through this radiator system and be cooled.

The thinness of the ear structure, have you noticed:

·         the way the veins on the ears of elephants can be opened and closed in a controlled manner,

·         the way the ears can be waved like a fan to cool the body down,

·         the blood vessels, heart and many other factors comprise the key elements of this system.

All these have been brought together in harmony to keep the elephant cool. In the same way that the car radiator was designed by an engineer, so the attributes of the elephant are also created. This superior Creator is Almighty God.

Sparrow

Few of the best known species of bird possess the same flying ability as the sparrow.  When a sparrow flies it appears to make very easy movements. It can fly straight towards a tree, branches, a bush, or the ground. All it does at that time is to focus on its destination and give the command to its feathers. It is able to do this thanks to its wing feathers. If caught by a mild breeze in flight it can turn, raise or lower them. There may even be a slight difference between two feathers.

Compared with steel of the same weight, these feathers are one of the strongest of materials. The theory of evolution, which maintains that birds evolved from reptiles, is unable to account for the enormous differences between these two classes. Feathers, which are totally unique to birds, are just one of the features that represent an unbridgeable gap between birds and reptiles. The matchless design in bird feathers gave Charles Darwin considerable pause for thought. Moreover, the perfect aesthetics of the peacock's feathers had made him "sick" (his own words).

... And now trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick! (Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Boston: Gambit, 1971, p. 101)

Not only feathers but also other bodily features of birds are far too complex to be explained in terms of any evolutionary process. For example, birds’ bones are hollow. This means that birds are very light and can fly with ease. Their fast-working digestive system enables the bird to immediately dispose of what it has eaten. Thus digested food does not constitute added weight during flight. All the features you have seen here show that the sparrow was created, with all its attributes, to fly.

Peacock

The male peacock’s most distinguishing feature is its highly decorated tail. The females have no such adornment. It is only possible to see the tail feathers of this bird, with its blue head and neck, in the mating season, when the male opens up its tail to attract the female. And produces an astounding fan.

The male peacock has some 200 tail feathers, which are replaced every year. Some 170 of these are in the shape of eyes, and are known as “eye feathers.” The remaining 30 give the fan its exquisite outline and are known as “t feathers.”

The eyes are distributed in a very regular manner over the fan. At the microscopic level, both t and eye feathers possess very complex designs. Each one of the eyes is visible, because there are short feathers in the front of the fan and long feathers behind.

The tiny hairs on an eye feather are close together at the top, and more widely spaced at the bottom. Thanks to this wide spacing at the bottom the part containing the eye is brought out by the creation of a contrast.

The colors in a peacock’s feathers are principally attractive because they are bright and striking. These striking colors change according to the angle from which one looks at them. This happens not because of color pigments, but due to an optical effect known as the thin film which takes place in feather barbules. It is of course impossible for the peacock to perform such detailed calculations and install such a design in its own body. It is also impossible for it to know that these magnificent designs will impress female peacocks. The Creator Who planned this extraordinarily beautiful tail in all its detail is Almighty God, Lord of the Earth and sky, and all that lies between.

Some Mammals

Most living things in nature treat their own ailments. Animals such as the hippopotamus, water buffalo, elephant and rhinoceros bathe in mud to get rid of parasites on their skin. No microbe or parasite can survive in mud. Clay mud in particular helps wounds to form a crust and heal. Elephants carefully rub pieces of clay soil with its antiseptic properties over their wounds, or throw dust over wounds with their trunks to seal them up.    

The noteworthy aspect of the methods animals use to treat themselves is that they all know very well what they are doing, and determine what will work well for which illness. It is of course impossible for a rhinoceros, or an elephant, or any other living thing to know that mud has an antiseptic property. All the living things in nature behave in line with God’s inspiration. Omniscient God is He Who watches, and protects His creations.

Cold light ...

Firefly

Scientists have still not discovered how this light comes into being. Fireflies, one of the creatures that produce light, do so with 100% efficiency. A normal lightbulb, on the other hand, can only transform 4% of electrical energy into light, the rest being given off as heat. Cold light is very bright. So much so that South American native peoples use the insects that emit cold light as torches to light their way by putting them in baskets.

In producing light the firefly combines a special chemical in its body known as “luciferin” with an enzyme called “luciferase.” This enzyme consists of nearly 1,000 amino acids. Despite our present-day advanced technology, scientists are still unable to reproduce this enzyme. Yet this tiny insect is capable of producing this enzyme while lacking any knowledge about it at all. So why does this creature produce such a light? What can the purpose of that light be? 

These insects use light as a means of communication. Insects landing on the leaves of a tree send a signal to another group further off by all emitting light at the same time. The reason why they do this is not yet fully understood. All the details in the production of cold light are proofs that these creatures are the work of a superior intellect and infinite knowledge.

God has created all the living species on Earth with their own different features, thus revealing to us His infinite might. It is revealed in one verse of the Qur’an that people must think deeply on this truth: 

“Among His signs is the creation of the heavens and Earth and all the creatures He has spread about in them. And He has the power to gather them together whenever He wills.”

(Qur’an, 42:29)

None of the living things we have been watching possess any consciousness of intellect. Some even have no brain at all. Indeed, to ascribe the features these living things possess to them, to say, for example, that a dragonfly engages in superior acrobatics by using its own intellect, is incompatible with reason and logic.

To claim that the complex systems possessed by these creatures, their perfect harmony with nature, came about as the result of chance is no less irrational and illogical. Clear evidence can be seen, however, that there is a superior intellect and great knowledge in every one of these living things. The Lord of that intellect and Creator of that perfect harmony displayed in nature is God, Creator of everything in the universe.

The flawless creation of Almighty God is revealed in another verse from the Qur’an: 

“He is God–the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Form. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names. Everything in the heavens and Earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.”

(Qur’an, 59:24)

PS: The content of this article based on the works of Harun YAHYA (but for the pics, taken from National Geographic and other animal photography sites). For more information please visit: http://www.harunyahya.com.