The seen and the unseen

The seen and the unseen  © Greeks Rethink

Last summer I made a resolution – not exactly an oath, but a strong resolution – to memorise the last part (the 30th part) of the Noble Qur’an by end of Ramadan.

Now, compared to the daunting task of memorising the whole book achieved by hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the world – most of which aren’t even Arab or don’t even speak Arabic, the task ahead of me seemed a humble one.

Luckily enough, I found myself advancing at a good pace and ended up memorising the 29th part too.

Two Ayas, among the many ayas in this section of the Qur’an that made me think often ever since were the deceivingly simple Ayas 38 and 39 of Surat Al-Haaqqa (The Inevitable):

“So I swear by whatsoever you see, And by whatsoever you don’t see”.

Now, when we humans swear by anything, we intend to give an extra boost of strength to our arguements.

But when Allah, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, in all His glory, swears by elements of His own creation, then it is to draw our attention to His glory that is manifest in those elements.

Example? Ayas 74 and 75 of Surat Al-Waqi’a, where Allah (swt) says: “So I swear by the locations of the stars. And verily, that is indeed a great oath, if you but know.”

These two Ayas – though they don’t consist a scientific miracle per se – do draw our attention to a fascinating reality: when we lift our gaze towards the sky on a clear moonless night and see that spectacular view of the stars, what we see is actually zillions of spectacular “video clips” of past events seamlessly merged together!

Only God knows what minute part of the visible heavens is actually still there; since Alpha Centauri – the closest star to us outside our solar system – is 4.37 light-years away. In other words, its light takes 4.37 years to reach us!

On the other hand, the Andromeda Galaxy is one of the farthest objects visible to the naked eye and that is approximately 2.5 million light-years away!

Now back to the two Ayas of Surat Al-Haaqqa…

Consider what a man – any man – could see at the time when the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (in the 7th century)… Pretty much the same as a person living nowadays could see if he were living a primitive life in a remote part of the world with no access to modern technologies.

As little as that may be, it is enough to fascinate a wise person with a reflecting mind.

But now let’s consider just some of the things that we can see nowadays that were unseen in the 7th century:

 Clear images of distant stars and galaxies – thanks to powerful space telescopes.

 The surface of the moon and Mars in detail – thanks to space travel and space probes.

 The Earth itself – as a planet – thanks to developments in the field of aerospace.

 Aerial views of continents, countries, cities and homes – thanks to the development of aeroplanes and reconnaissance satellites.

 Inside views of our own (living) bodies – thanks to endoscopy.

 Extreme close-ups of insects, flowers, organic tissue, cells, crystals, snow flakes, germs, etc. – thanks to light micorscopes.
The list can go on and on. Yet this is nothing but a fraction of “the unseen” (things not seen without the aid of technology).

Thus, we realise that when we take in the full meaning of these two deceivingly simple Ayas and give our minds full rein, we could spend perhaps ages just pondering, wondering and – hopefully – getting humbled by God’s awesome ability to create.

And so we also see that mankind’s “creations” (technological advancements) have only served to enhance the believers’ admiration of God’s own incomparable and immatchable creation – a fact exemplified in the following beautiful Aya (the 11th Aya of Surat Luqman):

“Such is the Creation of Allah. Now show Me what is there that others besides Him have created; nay, but the transgressors are in manifest error!”.