Are there Blind Forces in Nature
Al-Risala (English), May 1986, p. 17
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Are there Blind Forces in Nature
1986 5 May 17 Are there Blind Forces in Nature (375) Do they not look at the camels, how they are made? (The Quran)
The camel is one of the unique creations of God. It serves as a sign for those who disbelieve Him. Besides giving us milk, meat, wool and hide, as other animals do, a camel is endowed with some unique characteristics, hence its title, ‘Ship of the Desert’. It escorts man on his unbearably harsh journey through barrenness of the hot, dry deserts of sand.
Water resources, in the desert, are very few and far between. Camels can go for about twenty five days in winter and about five days in summer without water. They can travel, carrying their master, for 400 kilo-meters at a stretch, without receiving so much as a drop of water. And when it arrives at an oasis, it stores water in vast quantities as though its hump were a water tank. In a short span of ten minutes, it can take in about one hundred litres of water, which keeps it going for several weeks.
In times of scarcity of water, during a journey, he can live on his own resources. Very astonishing indeed. Recent researches have shown that camels’ humps are like generators of water. In adverse conditions, it draws on this reserve by converting the stored fat into water through some mysterious chemistry.
The Camel loses its body water slowly, and can regain lost weight in ten minutes by drinking as many as 25 gallons of water!
Standing seven feet tall at the shoulder, they can subsist on coarse, sparse food such as thorny plants and dried grass.
Ranging through many colours from white to black, they have double rows of protective eyelashes, haired eye-openings, the ability to close the nostrils and keen senses of sight and smell, just the sort of things required to help them adopt to their harsh environment.
When kneeling, they are supported by horny pads on the chest and knees. Their long limbs and soft, widespreading two-toed feet enable them to walk on sand or snow.
Inspite of being a wild animal, it is docile when properly trained. Man can see in everyday life, signs like these, which are full of meaning, high design, and the goodness of God to man.
