THE ART OF NON-PROVOCATION Character Above Every Insult

human beings who run the economy are themselves products of a system they did not design. Transportation provides another example. Today we travel in cars, trains, ships and aircraft, but the principle of transportation existed long before modern technology. The Quran reminds man of animals that “carry your loads to lands which you could otherwise not reach without great hardship.” (16: 7) Elsewhere, it declares that God has honoured the children of Adam and “carried them on the land and sea, and provided them with good things.” (17: 70) Modern technology has greatly expanded these possibilities, but technology itself works only because the universe is technologically exploitable. A ship floats because matter possesses particular properties. An aircraft flies because the atmosphere follows consistent physical laws. An engine works because energy behaves according to discoverable principles. Electricity can be generated because nature has been created with stable characteristics. Scientists discover these laws; they do not create them. Engineers make use of the properties of matter; they do not originate those properties. This is the deeper meaning of divine facilitation. Human civilization is possible because the universe has already been made favourable to human activity. Consider something as ordinary as buying a piece of fruit. You enter a supermarket, select an apple and pay at the counter. From your immediate perspective, the transaction appears complete: you paid money and obtained an apple. But money did not create the apple. Before you arrived, a seed had to contain the programme for becoming an apple tree. Soil had to provide nutrients. Roots had to absorb them. Sunlight had to power photosynthesis. Rain or irrigation had to provide water. Flowers had to develop and pollination had to occur. The tree then had to transform these materials into a fruit possessing a particular colour, fragrance, texture and taste. After all this, farmers harvested it, workers packed it, vehicles transported it and retailers displayed it. Your payment came at the very end. This pattern applies to almost everything we consume. Modern economics explains production in terms of land, labour, capital and enterprise. This analysis is useful at the human level. But reflection takes us one stage further. Who