Chapter Tariq – Part 4

Part 4

Recap-

86:11 “Consider the heavens ever-revolving.”

My existence is not static here, rather in continuous motion and change.  Example: if I am moving my cup, then I am repositioning it, giving it a new place for it.  If someone is moving, then s/he is taking on a new situation in his/her existence.  Anything in the Quran related to motion or “time” infers that creation is constantly changing.  When the Quran refers to morning/night, changing the day to night and replacing with each other, it all refers to the time dimension of the act of creation.  Time dimension of the act of creation demonstrates that creation itself is transient, not permanent.  It means that it cannot remain on its own and cannot sustain its existence by itself.  Time dimension is extremely important to pay attention to in creation because it demonstrates that the universe is dependent, and the One who gives existence to the universe is not dependent on anything, it must be a self-existing One.

86:12 “and the earth, bursting forth with plants.”

All these movements demonstrate that it is not happening by itself, and so all the motions are for a purpose.  The things are changing, and it is not changing for nothing.  Example: the seasons are changing; the Earth is revolving around the sun.  There must be a purpose in this continuous change.  During the season, all kinds of changes are taking place.

86:13 “It is indeed a distinguishing speech,”

Now the subject changes that what we are talking about comes at night, i.e., Tariq is all about the Quran.  What is a distinguishing speech here? The Quran as the distinguishing speech makes the differentiation between right and wrong (true/false).

86:14 “It is not an idle tale.”

The Quran is not talking about meaningless tales.  It means two things:

1. You must pay attention to it, and it is talking about your real life.
2.  You need to put yourself in the place of the actors in the story. You must read the seemingly story-like narrations in the Quran as real-life experiences for yourself.

Anything created here on Earth is an opportunity for us to take advantage of and get to know who the Creator of this event is and what He is telling me, in order to educate and prepare myself, so that I will be ready to be facing my Creator.

86:15 “Behold they are devising a scheme (to refute the truth)”

Who are the people devising the scheme to refute the truth?  Who is competing with God?  Is there any other authority in the world which will challenge God and devise a scheme so that God will not fulfill its promise?  What does this mean?

86:16 “and I, too, am devising a scheme”

There are deep meanings engrained in these two verses.  Devising a scheme means looking at the universe and trying to explain it away in a manner that the truth will be covered up or denied.  How is that done?  People use different ways/schemes.  Nowadays, people are looking for any excuses about not confirming the truth, and rejecting it.  We must be careful with the way things are created, i.e., the most important aspect of creation is that it is taking place within an order.  It gives the impression as if everything is happening as they must happen by themselves, because it is created in a regularity.  Regularity means that every time you do something, another event follows it, because of the preceding thing.  This regularity does not change.  For some people who are obstinate not to confirm the truth, it may give them an opportunity to deny the fact that there is an Absolute Will organizing all this.  Example: when we get in a car, and start driving it, we think that when I turn the wheel right, the car goes right. (I think that it must be this way by itself).  That is my relationship with a car, a human made thing, and it may seem that it is happening by itself, rather it is arranged in this way by a conscious being and the matter side of the car has been put within an order, according to the choice and will of the engineer as s/he willed it to be.  

• Similarly, in the universe, everything is arranged by its Creator in the way that we are accustomed with, where everything follows each other in a regular way.  Example: If I hit on the table, it makes a noise.  That is how it is.  I may not see that this is a new creation according to the choice and decision of its Creator.  I may just think that it is how it is supposed to be, a table made of wood when it is hit by something, it makes noise.

The relationship between the Speech of the Creator and the action of the Creator are going parallel to each other.  If the Speech of the Creator makes a distinction between right and wrong, the creation also makes the distinction between right and wrong.  

• We see that the order is taking place within a regularity.  The first thing happens, and another follows it.  Example: the plants grow when I water them, and if I do not water it, then the plant does not grow.  It means that those people who devise a scheme and refute the truth, say that the water is the cause of the growth of the plant.  At first glance it seems to be correct.  That is, absence of cause, results in the absence of effect.  In other words, the presence of the cause results in the presence of the effect.  Another way to say it would be, the water is the cause of the growth of the plant, and anything happening in the plant is because of the effect of the water in the plant.  Also, plants have their own structure, called “DNA”, a written form of what will happen to the future of the plant, like a blueprint or project of an object.  If we have the blueprint of a car, then we know what the car will look like. This only shows that the engineer knows what s/he is going to make. It never means that this blueprint develops by itself and becomes a car at the end. 

The Quran makes the distinction between right and wrong and comes to our aid and says: “Look at the results, there is purpose in it, there are enormous qualities in it.  That is, the plant has its own existence, nature, shape, qualities and life”.  Do you think a DNA project is happening by itself or a conscious being who has arranged it there is creating it in harmony within an order which is continuously changing?  Materialists say that it is developing by itself.   Look at yourself, getting older and older.  Are we changing by ourselves?  Look at the qualities of matter and the qualities created out of this material.  Example: Look at the car and its qualities.  The car has no planning ability, it is a dumb thing.  The car needs a conscious agent to help it function a certain way.  Everything needs a conscious agent to be arranged in a specific way. We notice that things here get arranged not by themselves, but according to a conscious will.  All the causes in the universe are made up of matter, hence we should ask these qualities:

1. Does matter have any quality to arrange the existence of the plant (its shape, minerals)?
2. Does matter have any quality of consciousness?
3. Does matter have any quality of choosing/knowing/communicating with other parts of the plant and acting together in perfect harmony?

When we examine the qualities of matter, we realize that matter has no qualities of itself, it is just given existence and has no choice to get out of the order of the universe.  If you put matter somewhere, it stays there with no option from itself.  Life is a completely different nature of existence, like my human qualities, my feelings have nothing to do with matter.  Matter cannot be the Source of Existence of my feelings and intelligence.  The nature of the existence of my feelings has nothing to do with the matter at all.  Example: Love, hate, fear, hope, anxiety, have nothing to do with matter.  They all need a special arrangement by a One who is conscious and has enough power to organize all this.  The distinction between the qualities of the matter/plant, and the result which is organized by the matter/plant is that matter/plant is the material side of things, but life or whatever is happening on the plant has nothing to do with the material parts of the plant.  The plant as matter is of a completely different nature to the happenings of the plant.  That is, we look at the result of a water molecule, appearing as a plant at the end of the process of creation.  Example: a bird is made of matter materially, just like a computer.  What makes the difference between a $5 matter and its worth of $1000?  Its qualities, the way it functions, software, operating systems.  Can the software be the result of an accidental happening acted by its material parts, coming out as a computer?  Can your mind accept this?

• There is a scheme going on in the materialist analysis of what is happening in the universe.  

If you take thousands of different seeds, all the programs are written differently in each seed.  If you put them in the same soil and water them, what will happen?  One thousand different plants will grow, and they will all have different qualities.  The trick that scientists play here as a scheme is that there are different projects going on here.  We must ask:

• Can the project happen by itself?  

• If the project develops by itself, does it have any quality in the material structure of the cell to develop into a tree?

A distinguishing act of creation is happening here, so that the Creator of the universe says the following verse: “I too am devising a scheme”.

86:16 “and I, too, am devising a scheme”

That is, I am making a distinction between “cause” and “effect”.  Hence, we should not be carried away by these interpretations that are superficial.  Example: When I press a certain key, the following screen is shown.  What does it mean?  As if the key is causing what is happening there, or is it a design made by a conscious being and the key is employed there?  The key has no knowledge, wisdom, and will to communicate with the other parts of the universe.  We are reminded by the Quran that the way the things are created and explained in the Speech of the Creator, are completely distinguishing between right and wrong.  In other words, there is no possibility of saying that the universe might have developed by itself.  Creation is taking place in such a way that there is no way to make confusion between right a wrong to the point of saying that this universe does not need an Absolute Conscious Creator 

86:17 “So bear with the unbelievers.  Let them be for a while.”

People are free to claim what they want but I must be careful when examining how things/the universe is created.  I must always be patient with the deniers of the reality manifested in the  creation and follow the act of creation and see the difference between the seemingly causes and the seemingly effects.  This is nothing but the creation of God.  That is, on every occasion we see the difference between right and wrong.  Example: whatever qualities we see on a plant are the qualities of the Creator manifested in this act of creation, manifesting, and introducing Himself to conscious human beings.  Therefore, we must busy ourselves by seeing the qualities and getting to know our Creator through these qualities.  That is how, we can get to know who the Creator is, and we are given the ability to get to know who this Creator is and get familiar with Him.  This is called belief in God and communicating with God.  We can do this in every occasion in our life and every occasion we are experiencing in this universe, and get to know our Creator better.