The Light (English) The Light (English) September 2013 | Page 6
September 2013
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which exists the fuel of life of all animals, produces the ‘fire’ of life (oxygen), upon which depends all plant and animal life. However, chlorophyll by itself is not sufficient. In fact, it is in a sense a burden on the tree. So when the tree can no longer make use of it, it sheds it. In the autumn when heat and light from the sun start to diminish, and the leaves cannot perform their function, nature causes trees to shed the burden of leaves. from the sun, becomes the source of life for both plant life and other life. Just as chlorophyll, with the help of the sun’s light and heat, breaks up carbon dioxide into its life-giving constituents, so does the spiritual tree, by receiving light from the Holy Quran, separate good and evil, and give life to the Ummah. The words which follow, “so that from it you kindle”, do not refer to burning wood but to man kindling the fire of spiritual life within himself. Chlorophyll is a wonder of nature because it is extremely difficult to break down the carbon dioxide in the air into carbon and oxygen. To do this in a scientific laboratory requires creating high temperatures of thousands of degrees with expensive equipment and noisy machinery. Yet the leaf of a green tree, with the aid of sunlight, and without any expense or noise, can separate carbon and oxygen from ordinary air and support the life of countless animals. Is this not a strong proof of the existence of God, that only a Knowing and Wise Power can bring this about?
The sun
That great sea of fire and heat, by those help chlorophyll does its wonderful work, is the sun. It is rightly said: “Without the sun there would be no life at all upon this earth, no light and no life”. The chapter Y? S?n is a grand exposition of the power and the blessings of the sun, which brings life to earth after its death. In Arabic, Hebrew, and in fact all Semitic languages, the words s?n (where s is the letter s?n) and ??n (where ? is the letter ??d) are used with the meaning of ‘the rising sun in the east’. The Arabs call China a?-??n (? being ??d here) because for them it lies in the direction from where the sun rises. In Semitic languages, the word for a year is sana (s being the letter s?n) because the sun is the basis for measuring the year. The purpose of the Holy Quran is not to teach astronomy but to convey, in the words “Y? S?n! By the Quran full of wisdom. You are certainly one of the messengers” (36:1–3) that the spiritual sun of the world is the Holy Prophet Muhammad, who is elsewhere called “a lightgiving sun” (33:46). Jesus is called “the morning star” (Revelation, 22:16) because he came to deliver the good news of the coming of this sun, the Holy Prophet Muhammad. The mention of the Quran shows that it is due to the Quran that the Holy Prophet became a light-giving sun.
Rising of the sun of Islam throughout the whole world
The sun whose blessings are mentioned in the chapter Y? S?n bears a perfect analogy to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. This sun is to rise twice, once upon the eastern world and once upon the western The power of nature: a lightning strike
The working of chlorophyll
Although the source of life is the sun, it is the green matter in plant life which, taking the light world. This is the meaning of the Quranic verse “Lord of the two Easts and the two Wests” (55:17),