REVELATION AND INSPIRATION — Guidance From God

others, or a study of the discoveries of others or the experience of oneself of unfamiliar conditions and situations. If man were to be cut off from the progressive and historic collective knowledge base and the interaction and exchange of ideas with others and the knowledge from the academic institutions of learning then he would be helpless and unable to make a journey or do anything. The flight patterns of migratory birds demonstrate a very high level of geographical arrangement. For instance, Muslim geographer Al-Idrisi (1099–1165 AD) got his initial concepts of the spherical shape of the earth from the works of Indian astronomers and mathematicians, possibly Aryabhata. The Latin translation of Al-Idrisi's geographical works amongst others influenced Christopher Columbus' voyages. Columbus' experiences advanced the knowledge of those explorers who came after him. This sequence progressed one after another until the knowledge of the earth's geography reached the advanced stage, which we find it in today. Today when the captain of a ship sets sail across the oceans from one shore to the other or when the pilot of an airliner takes off from one airport to land at another, they are able to do so, utilizing the knowledge gained from thousands of years of human experience. Birds do not have any recourse to such knowledge. They cannot exchange ideas with others in the manner that man does. Hence, they are unable to derive any benefit or knowledge from the experiences of their brethren. No bird can express its ideas in the form of a book so that other birds could read and benefit from it. Completely devoid of any such capability or facility they are still able to undertake journeys similar to those of man. They are able to successfully complete incredible journeys from one place to another distant place in the same manner as the remotely controlled journeys of a rocket in space. An expert researcher on the migration of birds has written that, 'the migration flights of birds follow specific routes, sometimes quite well defined over long distances.' The migratory behaviour of birds has a unique regularity in Africa. For example, the standard-wing night jar which nests in a belt extending from Senegal in the west to Kenya in the east along the equatorial forest migrates northward to avoid the wet season.