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.

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Everything Happens for a Reason

This is a wonderful writing (unfortunately I don’t know who’s the author L). Thanks for my pal who’s shared me this (but in video version). Actually I was used to this writing, but no longer read it until he reminded me again. I massive thanks J. And now is my turn to share it to you all.

Please kindly read, enjoy, absorb, and apply!

Everything Happens for a Reason

Sometimes people come into your life

and you know right away that they were meant to be there...

to serve some sort of purpose,

teach you a lesson

or help figure out who you are or who you want to become.

You never know who these people may be

but you lock eyes with them,

you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you at the time that may seem horrible,

painful and unfair,

but in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles

you would never realize your potential, strength, will power or heart.

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Did I Marry the Right Person?

This is an awesome article. Those who are still single may learn something from here...

Those who are already married or in a commitment may take it as a guideline to improve your marriage & relationship ... (Great thanks for the writer who's sharing this!)

Did I Marry the Right Person?

During one of our seminars, a woman asked a common question. She said, "How do I know if I married the right person?"

I noticed that there was a large man sitting next to her so I said, "It depends. Is that your husband?"

In all seriousness, she answered "How do you know?"

Let me answer this question because the chances are good that it's weighing on your mind.

Here's the answer.

EVERY relationship has a cycle. In the beginning, you fell in love with your spouse/partner. You anticipated their call, wanted their touch, and liked their idiosyncrasies (unconventional behavior/habit) .

Falling in love with your spouse wasn't hard. In fact, it was a completely natural and spontaneous experience.

You didn't have to DO anything. That's why it's called "falling" in love... Because it's happening TO YOU.

People in love sometimes say, "I was swept of my feet." Think about the imagery of that __expression. It implies that you were just standing there; doing nothing, and then something came along and happened TO YOU.

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The Clever Survivors from the Pole of Earth

Emperor Penguins

Emperor penguins are able to dive to depths of 500 meters (1,640 feet) for up to 20 minutes with no adverse effects to their respiration or blood pressure. They also possess the ability to adapt to these conditions in different ways. While diving, they are able to lower their heartbeats from 200 a minute to only 60, thus allowing them to store extra myoglobin.

How Can Penguins Hold Their Breath for So Long?

Myoglobin is a protein present at high levels in these birds’ muscles. These myoglobin proteins bind to themselves high numbers of oxygen molecules. In other words, the penguin conserves the oxygen it will need not in the air held in its lungs, but directly inside its muscles.  This lets penguins swim underwater for long periods and to dive as deep as they wish, without relying on the breathed-in air held in their lungs..

Why Do They Not Suffer from the Bends?

Penguins are able to continue swimming even when the oxygen in their blood drops to the lowest levels. Human beings suffer from the bends under such conditions. The level in question is 20 mm Hg for penguins and 25 mm Hg for humans. However, scientists have been unable to explain how penguins can to overcome this in the water without being affected by low levels of oxygen in the blood.

How Can They Go Without Food for 65 Days?

Male penguins have a secret that lets them survive without eating anything for 65 days, until the females arrive to take of the young in order to protect their eggs: they possess a structure capable of blocking their digestive systems..

Their Magnificent Diving Costumes

Adult penguins on the ice eat nothing for months until after they shedd their coats in the summer. All their old feathers are shed, and new ones emerge from underneath. The result is a windproof, insulated and waterproof diving suit that prevents  cold—whether from icy wind or frigid water— reaching their skin. The most striking feature of  their new plumage is that it appears just when the penguins need it most— when the time to migrate has arrived.

Brief Facts from the Pole

In the middle of winter, daylight at the North Pole last for only three hours. In order to protect themselves from the freezing cold during the other 21 hours, penguins huddle up against one another in the dark.

By huddling up to one another, the male penguins are able to raise their body temperatures to up to 20° C (68° F).

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The World of Miracles

Have a look around you from where you are sitting. You will see that everything in the room has been “made.” All the countless details, such as the walls, the furnishings, the lamp, the chair you are sitting in, the glass on the table, the carpet… None of them came into being by itself, and neither did the universe that we live in.

Everything, every tiny detail, from the atomic, the smallest component of matter, to the galaxies containing billions of stars, from the Moon, the inseparable companion of the Earth, to the Solar System they inhabit, works together in a breathtaking harmony. Paul Davies, one of the best known contemporary astrobiologists, describes this harmony in the words:

Everywhere we look in the Universe, from the far-flung galaxies to the deepest recesses of the atom, we encounter order. . . Central to the idea of a very special, orderly Universe is the concept of information. A highly structured system, displaying a great deal of organised activity, needs a lot of information to describe it. Alternatively, we may say that it contains much information. (Paul Davies, "Chance or Choice: Is the Universe an Accident?", New Scientist, vol. 80, 1978, p. 506)

This reveals a very obvious truth. The universe was created and is regulated and preserved through a sublime knowledge and power. And that sublime knowledge and power are those of Almighty Allah.

In the Qur’an, Allah reveals that the Earth and sky will be preserved while they are under His might:

“Allah keeps a firm hold on the heavens and Earth, preventing them from vanishing away. And if they vanished no one could then keep hold of them. Certainly He is Most Forbearing, Ever-Forgiving.”

(Surah Fatir: 41)

In this documentary we will be going on a journey to the Milky Way, some 10 million light years from the Earth, and from there to deep inside the atom, and will witness the magnificent order with which the universe was created. This is the universe we inhabit with all its glory…

10²³ meters, 10 million light years.

The starting point of our journey…

We are 10 million light years from the Milky Way…

Thought of in terms of the vastness of space in general, the Milky Way is a very “small” place. It occupies barely a dot within it. Because there are other galaxies in space, some 300 billion according to the recent estimates! The Milky Way, visible from so far away, contains the Solar System, the planets, and the Earth we live on.

You, your home, the city you live in and even the planet you inhabit, the Sun that heats the planet and millions of stars like it, are all inside this dot you are looking at…

“He is the Originator of the heavens and earth. When He decides on something, He just says to it, ‘Be!’ and it is.” (Surat al-Baqara, 117)

10²² meters, 1 million light years.

We are 1 million light years from the Milky May that contains 250 billion stars like our Sun. There are billions of systems linked to the stars in this galaxy that resembles a swirl of white smoke. Yet we are so far away that the whole body looks like a simple, white cloud.

10²¹ meters, 100,000 light years.

If you look at the sky on a clear, cloudless night, you will see a belt of stars extending from one edge to the other. This mass of stars, which extends into deepest vastness of the sky and that revolves around its own axis at an amazing speed, is known as the Milky Way. Astrophysicists calculating this speed were unable to conceal their astonishment. Our galaxy, which completes a full circuit of its orbit every 250 million years, moves through the universe at an extraordinary speed.

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Knowing Our Lord (part 4)

GOD GIVES BLESSINGS TO HUMAN BEINGS

“Truly God, He is the Provider, the Possessor of Strength, the Sure.”

(Surat adh-Dhariyat, 58)

God has infinite mercy. We can survive, thanks to the blessings that He gives. God makes the plants, which are for us, sprout from the earth. He brings green plants and spikes of grain from the earth without even cultivating it. Yellow, red, green, and orange fruits and vegetables come from the earth.

God covers a 4500-Celsius-degree mass of fire beneath our feet with earth. He brings down tons of pure water from the sky. He fills the blue seas with thousands of different kinds of creatures.

Every moment, God creates the oxygen that fills our lungs.  We can’t count the number of blessings God has created for us. This fact is related in the Qur’an thus:

“He has given you everything you have asked Him for. If you tried to number God’s blessings, you could never count them.…”

(Surah Ibrahim, 34)

We must never forget that God has given us these blessings. We must remember and thank Him at all times.

 

 

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Knowing Our Lord (part 3)

GOD IS THE MAGNIFICENT

“Everything in the heavens and everything in the Earth    belongs to Him. He is the Most High, the Magnificent.”

(Surat ash-Shura, 4)

God’s magnificence is beyond our comprehension. But, when we look at what He has created, we can grasp His greatness. We can see how powerful He is.

The sky that holds up tons of clouds,

the mountains that rise thousands of feet into the sky,

the seas containing millions of kinds of different creatures,

the forests where many animals live….

These things and many more than we can count are among the clear signs of God’s greatness.

 

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Knowing Our Lord (part 2)

GOD FORGIVES THE MISTAKES WE MAKE

“Whether you reveal a good act or keep it hidden, or pardon an evil act, God is Ever-Pardoning, All-Powerful.

(Surat an-Nisa’, 149)

We all make mistakes from time to time. We may fail to consider all aspects about something and make wrong decisions. We may behave incorrectly. But, God created us; He knows our weaknesses and forgives our mistakes. We have to recognize our mistake and repent so that we don’t do the same thing again. That is, we have to pray God for forgiveness.

If we are sincere in this behavior, God forgives our sins and pardons us. He tells us in the Qu’ran about the importance of sincerity:

“God only accepts the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and then quickly repent after doing it. God turns towards such people. God is All-Knowing, All-Wise.”

(Surat an-Nisa’, 17)

 

 

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Knowing Our Lord (part 1)

Who created you?

Who gave you your hair and your eyes their color?

Who said how tall you would be and what color your skin would be?

And, Who created your mother, your father and your friends?

Who created mountains, trees, the sea, the Sun, and the Moon?

Who created cats and dogs, squirrels, giraffes, and the other creatures?

Most of you will all answer these questions in the same way:

“God created us and everything else.”

Of course, this is the right answer!

So, how well do you know Almighty God, the Creator of us and the whole universe?

God has revealed Himself to us in the Qu’ran.

 

 

GOD IS THE FIRST; HE EXISTED BEFORE EVERYTHING

“He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward. He has knowledge of all things.”

(Surat al-Hadid, 3)

The world we live in is part of a very big universe. Through history, people have wondered whether this huge universe had a beginning or not. In the 20^th century, it was proved that it had.

In 1929, a scientist by the name of Edwin Hubble observed that the universe was always expanding. Starting from this fact, scientists made an important deduction: if one went backwards in time, the universe would get smaller. And, a universe that was getting smaller would eventually become one single point. So, the universe came from the explosion of this tiny point.

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Gratitude Episode Aug 18

When my "owh..." is turning into "wow!", I see life full of blessing.
(feeling of abundance)

Alhamdulillaahi rabbil'alamiin....

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The Signs In Living Things (part 7-end)

PROOFS OF GOD’S EXISTENCE ARE EVERYWHERE

Whatever plant or animal we examine, the final result of our search will always point to the reality of a flawless creation.

All living things have countless undiscovered aspects, and each one of these is created for its own particular purpose.

Every living thing contains the proof of its creation. It is the duty of every rational individual to reflect on God’s creation and to praise and glorify our Lord at all times.

“That is God, your Lord. There is no deity but Him, the Creator of everything. So worship Him. He is responsible for everything.”

(Surat al-An‘am, 102)

PS: this is a copy of Harun Yahya’s article (with the title: The Sign of Living Things), available on http://www.harunyahya.com/.

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The Signs In Living Things (part 6)

BUTTERFLIES WITH OPTICAL KNOWLEDGE

There are three basic laws of light-ray optics used by physicists:

The closer the sun’s rays strike it to a right angle, the more a surface warms up.

If sunlight strikes two surfaces at the same angle, the darker of the two will warm up more.

A reflective surface reflects light at the same angle at which the light strikes it.

Students of physics are aware of these laws, but many people today may be unaware that these laws even exist. They are unaware of how these laws affect their daily lives or the purpose they serve. But there are also other living things that know these laws very well: Butterflies.

Butterflies make use of the laws of optics in their day-to-day lives. Everyone likes butterflies. These creatures with their bright colors and delicate flight patterns are among the beauties created for us by God.

However, there is more to butterflies than just their attractive external appearance. Sometimes these short-lived creatures must make the most expert calculations. The Colias butterfly, for example, is unable to fly if its body temperature falls below 28 degrees Centigrade. In that event, it immediately extends its wings and turns its back to the Sun to receive its rays perpendicularly. When the butterfly has warmed up enough and its body temperature has risen to 40 degrees Centigrade, it turns 90 degrees around its own axis. The Sun’s rays now strike it horizontally. This minimizes the warming effect of the Sun’s rays. The butterfly’s body temperature now starts to fall.

In addition, some species of butterfly have large, dark scaly spots on those parts of their wings closest to their bodies. According to their color, these scales are able to adjust the temperature to the maximum or minimum level.

We have all seen butterflies opening and closing their wings in the sun, as if they were trying to keep them at a particular angle. The black spots on these insects’ bodies help them to absorb the Sun’s rays. By adjusting the opening and closing motion of its wings to the direction of the sun’s rays, a butterfly can increase its body heat.

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Gratitude Episode Aug 15

These are miracles!
Thanks to everyone who's contributed.
Praise be to Allah for everything.

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The Signs In Living Things (part 5)

NIGHT-HUNTING OWLS

All living things on Earth have been created with miraculous characteristics and amazing abilities. We can come across a wide variety of these creatures wherever we may live and we can see these astonishingly different qualities in all species.

There are some 10,000 species of birds—one class of the flawless living things on Earth—each of which possesses its own miraculous features. One amazing member of the bird kingdom is the owl.

Most owls are nocturnal. Night is a time of concealment and sleep for most living things but it is a time for hunting for the owl. All their qualities have been created to allow these creatures to move with ease through the darkness.

First and foremost, a creature that hunts by night has to be able to move silently. But most birds make a noise when they fly. The noise made by the wings of a flying swan, for instance, can be heard from a long distance. The wings of many large birds make a noise as they fly. Noisy wings are a major disadvantage in that intended prey becomes aware of an impending attack.

But this problem has been resolved in the nocturnal owl through the special structure of its feathers. The owl’s feathers are soft, and the edges of their powerful wing feathers have a tasseled structure that enables them to fly. The velvet-soft surface of the wing feathers effectively drowns out noise and allows the owl to fly in silence.

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The Signs In Living Things (part 4)

HIBERNATING BEARS ARE A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION FOR NEW DISCOVERIES IN MEDICINE

The first animals one thinks of whenever the word “hibernation” is mentioned is without doubt bears.

Scientists have recently been researching how it is that bears can remain healthy over the long months of hibernation, and are looking for ways to make use of bears’ physiological characteristics in the field of medicine. For example, the objective behind one piece of research being carried out at the Michigan Technological University is to find a cure for osteoporosis by studying the bone metabolism of bears.

Our bones are constantly being renewed throughout our lives. Yet if bone breakdown increases for reasons such as old age or immobility, and if renewal declines, then the bone tissue weakens. This is something that applies to human beings. Yet, although the American Black Bear remains almost totally immobile during the months it spends in hibernation, it suffers no loss in bone density. It is thought that if a human being were to remain in bed for a similar length of time his bones would grow very brittle and break easily.

An article on the subject by the research team, led by Seth Donahue of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, was published in The Journal of Experimental Biology in 2003. It describes how there is an increase in bone breakdown as the bear hibernates, but bone production remains constant. Immobile human beings suffer damage because breakdown increases while bone production declines rather than remaining constant. As the animal wakens from hibernation and begins to move again, production reaches its highest level, and the bones are thus able to return rapidly to their former state. Yet a human being immobilized for a long period of time due to injury or sickness suffers bone loss and may never fully return to his former condition.

The Black Bear does not feed during hibernation. That may give rise to the following question: From where does it obtain the calcium necessary for bone production? Donahue thinks that the calcium released by bone loss is re-absorbed by the body and recycled in bone production. One of the reasons why he believes this is because the Black Bear has no excretory or urinary activity during hibernation. Seth Donahue sets out his thoughts in these terms:

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The Signs In Living Things (part 3)

SHARKS ARE SENSITIVE TO ELECTRICAL CURRENTS

Sharks’ respiratory systems, and the magnetic receptors that enable them to find their way, and ability to swim very rapidly are all miracles of creation. As with all living things, God has created sharks flawlessly. White sharks, that rely heavily on vision to catch their prey, experience no difficulty when swimming off warm coral reef waters. They can easily see their prey.

In cold ocean waters, however, it might be expected that their vision would be impaired by the cold, because chemical reactions slow down under the influence of the cold water. Therefore, the animal’s eyes should not be able to track a fast-moving prey; yet white sharks never encounter such difficulties because their eyes are not cold-blooded like their bodies.

In this species of shark the heat from their body's muscles is directed straight to the eyes. Thus, they can catch the fastest swimming fish and even seals. Yet how do other shark species whose vision is too weak in cold waters to track their prey manage to find food?

The answer to this question introduces us to the perfect creation in sharks.

All living things give off electricity in addition to heat. Those creatures that live on land find it hard to perceive these currents because the air serves as an insulator. But things are different in water.

Water is a natural conductor of electricity, therefore, a living thing capable of perceiving that electricity possesses a very effective sense.

Sharks have this advantage to such an extent that they can perceive all the vibrations, changes in temperature and salinity levels in water, and especially the minute changes in electrical fields produced by moving creatures.

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The Signs In Living Things (part 2)

THE BIOLOGICAL CLOCK IN PLANTS

The ability to measure time may be thought to be limited to man. But both plants and animals possess a time-measuring mechanism, or "biological clock."

Plants, in their endless variety, have known what to do, and when to do it, for millions of years. They do this without forgetting and without error, thanks to the program hidden in their seeds.

Leaves fall from the trees at exactly the right time every autumn, and re-appear every spring. Every function performed by plants, from a seed falling to earth and sprouting to the water absorbed from the soil and distributed to the furthest tips of giant trees, takes place with impeccable timing.

Under natural conditions, plants select certain times for certain activities. They do this in line with certain changes in the sunlight. Because their internal clocks are tuned to sunlight, they complete their rhythmic activities in 24 hours. No matter how long the rhythmic motions last, there is one point that does not change: These activities occur to ensure the life of the plant and the survival of the generations, and they always take place at the most appropriate time. And in order for them to function properly, several complicated processes have to be completed in a flawless manner. For example, flowering is not an ordinary function that takes place of its own accord, because plants do not always give off pollen.

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