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When the Glorious Quran points to the origin of life on a very general basis, it is extremely concise. We recall here the
Quranic verse that also mentions the process of the formation of the Universe, already quoted and commented on:
<< Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of Creation); before
We clove them asunder? And We made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe? >>
(21: 30)
The notions of getting every living thing out of the water can equally mean that every living thing was made of water
(as its essential component) or that every living thing originated in water. The two possible meanings are strictly in accordance
with scientific data. Life is of aquatic origin and water is the major component of all living cells. Moreover, life probably
began in the shallow seas of the early Earth, as tiny single-celled creatures like algae. Even though many plants and animals
no longer need to live in the sea, the cells making up the bodies of all living things are three quarters water (the rest
being the actual chemicals of life proteins, fats and hereditary chemicals such as D.N.A.). Only within such a wet environment
can the chemical reaction of life take place.
Without Water, life in not possible. When the possibility
Of life on another planet is discussed, the first question is always does it contain water to support life?
Recent researches proved that our planet Earth is the only hospitable world (for a life like ours) in the solar system!
Much of our world's unique character springs from the fact that it is at just the right distance from the Sun for water to
exist as a liquid on its surface. A little closer and it would have boiled away; a little farther from the Sun and would have
become locked in the ice grip that Mars suffers. The blue planet Earth owes its color to the intense cloak of water that shrouds
about 70% of its surface from extraterrestrial view, it has been estimated that if the inequalities on the surface were art
leveled, the whole surface would be underwater. The water vapour, emanating from the Earth's interior as a result of igneous
activity during the Earth's early history (See Sec 1.6), condensed into huge clouds enveloping the Earth, which poured down
rain in torrential storms, drenching the surface for hundreds of millions of years and filling the hollows between We shifting
continental blocks with oceans. This fact may be hinted at in the following Quranic verse:
"He it is Who created the heavens and the Earth in six days (periods or stages) and His Throne was over the waters"
(11 :7)
It is scientifically correct to say that all life was evolved out of water which covered all the surface of the earth
during its early history. Here the Throne of God's authority is metaphorically expressed as over the waters i.e., as regulating
all life.
Modern data leads us to think that the oldest living being much have belonged to the vegetable kingdom algae have been
found since the pre-Cambrian period (3400 million years ago). Organisms belonging to the animal kingdom probably appeared
slightly later. They came from the sea ( see sec 1-8)
Water means in Arabic "Ma" which means (in the Quran) both -water in the sky and water in the sea, plus any
kind of liquid such as the seminal fluid. In the first meaning water is the element necessary to all vegetable life as explained
in the following Quranic verse:
"(God is the One Who) sent water down from the sky and thereby We brought forth pairs of plants each separate from
the other"
(20 :53)
In the second meaning, a liquid without any further indication of what kind, the word is used in its indeterminate form
to designate what is at the basis of the formation of all animal life
"God created every animal from water"
(24 :42)
Thus whether the word "water" deals with the origin of life in general, or the element that gives birth to plants
in the soil, or the seminal fluid, all the statements contained in the Quran on the origin of life are strictly in accordance
with modern scientific data. None of the myths on the origins of life that abounded at the time the Quran appeared are mentioned
in the text !
In recent years biologists have tried to study the mysteries of the living cell. But the greatest mystery, i.e., the secret
of life itself, is still unsolved. During the past 30 years Scientifics have subjected gas mixtures resembling the earth's
early "air" (hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water vapour) to electric flashes, radiations and shocks in laboratory
flasks. And their apparatus has gradually accumulated a tarry deposit of organic molecules, many of them the basic "building
licks" needed 'to form the complex molecules of life. Thus life has evolved from the matter of the early Earth.
Within a few hundred million years, Earth's early seas must have dissolved huge amounts of such chemicals - to achieve
the consistency of a foul-smelling thin soup. And from ancient fossils, geologists know that living cells appeared
Within the next thousand million years! The first living things were single freely-floating cells, like present day algae.
A single cell is an incredibly complex system of interlinked chemical reactions that allow it to move, digest food, grow and
reproduce. The real mystery is how these simple foul smelling organic molecules built up into the enormous and precisely-tailored
molecules needed for life's process, and imprisoned themselves within the shelter of enclosed cells ?!!
Man is asked (in the Quran) to contemplate his own humble beginning. His material body is a piece of earth or foul smelling
mud or clay, which is another term for primeval matter:
"He Who has made everything which He has created must Good: He began the creation of man with (nothing more than)
mud (clay)"'
(32:7)
There is no doubt that Earth's early oceans were rich with the simple molecules needed for life to arise in water, mud,
and land. But no one can demonstrate in the laboratory how these simple ingredients came to work as a living cell ! You can
imagine how extremely mysterious is the creation of a. more complicated organism, like the human body, which is a collection
of huge numbers of cells working together!
Indeed life is a great mystery and it will never be possible to synthesize life under laboratory conditions as indicated
in the following Quranic sign:
"0 men! Here is a parable set forth! listen to it! Those on whom besides God, Ye call, cannot create (even) a fly,
if they all met together for the purpose! And if the fly should snatch. Away anything from them, they would have no power
to release it from the fly. Feeble are those who petition and those whom they petition "
(22:73)
Thus life can be created by God. Both idols and their worshippers are poor foolish, feeble creatures! They cannot create
even a fly. The mysteries of life and death are in God's hands. He brought you into being. When you die on this earth, that
is not the end. You were of Him, and you must return to Him. He the Exalted says in the Quran:
"How can ye reject the faith in God? Seeing that you were without life) and He gave you life, then will He cause
you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will ye return"
(2: 28)
And the Quranic verse:
"From the (earth) did We create you, and into it shall We return you, and from it shall We bring you out once again"
(20: 55)
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