| The Specially-Designed
Elements of Life
 There
is a mind and purpose behind the universe. There are hints of that divine
presence in how abstract mathematics can penetrate the universe's secrets,
which suggests that a rational mind created the world. Nature is fined
tuned to allow life and consciousness to emerge.
John Polkinghorne, British Physicist 84
Up to this point we have been examining how all the physical balances of the universe
in which we live have been specially designed so that we can live. We have seen
how the general structure of this universe, the location of Earth in it, and factors
such as air, light, and water have been precisely designed to have exactly the
attributes we require. In addition to all this however, we also need to take a
look at the elements that make up our bodies. These chemical elements, the building-blocks
from which our hands, eyes, hair, and organs as well as all the living things-plants
and animals-that are our sources of food have been specially designed to serve
the exact purposes that they do.
The physicist Robert E. D. Clark refers
to the special and superior design in the building-blocks of life when
he says: "As if the Creator has given us a kit of prefabricated parts
ready made for the work in hand."85
The
most important of these building-blocks is carbon.
The Design in Carbon
In previous chapters we described the extraordinary
process by which carbon, the element that occupies the sixth position
in the periodic table, was produced in the hearts of the huge stars called
"red giants". We also saw how, having discovered this wonderful process,
Fred Hoyle was moved to say that "the laws of nuclear physics have been
deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside
the stars."86
When we examine
carbon more closely, we can see that not just the physical formation of this element
but also its chemical properties were deliberately arranged to be what they are.
One natural form of pure carbon is graphite. This element however
is able to form an extraordinary range of different substances when
it combines with the atoms of other elements. The main structure of
the human body is the result of the different chemical bonds that
carbon is capable of entering into. |
Pure carbon occurs naturally in two forms:
graphite and diamonds. Carbon however also enters into compounds with many other
elements and the result is many different kinds of substances. In particular,
the incredibly varied range of organic materials of life-the membrane of a cell
and the bark of a tree, the lens of an eye and the horn of a deer, the white of
an egg and the poison of a snake-are all made up of carbon-based compounds. Carbon,
combined with hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in many different quantities and
geometric arrangements, results in a vast assortment of materials with vastly
different properties. Some carbon compounds' molecules consist of just a
few atoms; others contain thousands or even millions. Furthermore, no other element
is as versatile as carbon is in forming molecules with such durability and stability.
To quote David Burnie in his book Life:
Carbon is a very unusual element. Without
the presence of carbon and its unusual properties, it is unlikely that
there would be life on Earth.87
Concerning
carbon, the British chemist Nevil Sidgwick writes in Chemical Elements and their
Compounds:
Carbon is unique among the elements
in the number and variety of the compounds which it can form. Over a quarter
of a million have already been isolated and described, but this gives
a very imperfect idea of its powers, since it is the basis of all forms
of living matter.88
For reasons of both physics and chemistry, it is impossible
for life to be based on any element other than carbon. At one time, silicon
was proposed as another element on which life might be based. We now know
however that this conjecture is impossible. To quote Sidgwick again:
We know enough now to be sure that the idea of a world
in which silicon should take the place of carbon as the basis of life
is impossible…89
Covalent Bonds
The chemical bonds that carbon enters into when forming organic compounds
are called "covalent bonds". A covalent bond is said to occur when two atoms share
their electrons. The electrons of an atom occupy specific orbital shells
that are centered around the nucleus. The orbit closest to the nucleus can be
occupied by no more than two electrons. In the next orbit a maximum of eight electrons
is possible. In the third orbit, there can be up to eighteen. The number of electrons
continues to increase with the addition of more orbits. Now an interesting aspect
of this scheme is that atoms seem to "want" to complete the number of electrons
in their orbital shells. Oxygen, for example, has six electrons in its second
(and outermost) orbit, and this makes it "eager" to enter into combinations with
other atoms that will supply the two more electrons that are needed to increase
this number to eight. (Why atoms behave this way is a question that is unanswered.
But it's a good thing they do: because if they didn't, life wouldn't be possible.) Covalent
bonds are the result of this tendency of atoms to complete their orbital shells.
Two or more atoms can often make up the shortfall in their orbits by sharing electrons
with one another. A good example is the water molecule (H2O), whose
building-blocks (two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom) form a covalent bond.
In this compound, oxygen completes the number of electrons in its second orbit
to eight by sharing the two electrons (one each) in the orbital shells of the
two hydrogen atoms; in the same way, the hydrogen atoms each "borrow" one electron
from oxygen to complete their own shells.
The structure of methane: Four hydrogen atoms share one electron each
with a single carbon atom. |
Carbon
is very good at forming covalent bonds with other atoms (including carbon atoms)
from which an enormous number of different compounds can be made. One of the simplest
of these compounds is methane: a common gas that is formed from the covalent bonding
of four hydrogen atoms and one carbon atom. With only six electrons, carbon's
outer orbital shell is short of the eight that it needs by four, rather than two
as is the case with oxygen, and for this reason, four hydrogen atoms are needed
to complete it. We said that carbon was especially versatile in forming
bonds with other atoms and this versatility makes an enormous number of different
compounds possible. The class of compounds formed exclusively from carbon and
hydrogen are called "hydrocarbons". This is a huge family of compounds that includes
natural gas, liquid petroleum, kerosene, and lubricating oils. Hydrocarbons like
ethylene and propylene are the "bedrock" on which the modern petrochemical industry
has been erected. Hydrocarbons like benzene, toluene, and turpentine are familiar
to anyone who's worked with paints. The naphthalene that protects our clothes
from moths is another hydrocarbon. With the addition of chlorine in their composition,
some hydrocarbons become anesthetics; with the addition of fluorine, we have Freon,
a gas that is widely used in refrigeration. There is another important class
of compounds in which carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen form covalent bonds with one
another. In this family we find alcohols like ethanol and propanol, ketones, aldehydes,
and fatty acids among many, many other substances. Another group of compounds
composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are sugars, including glucose and fructose.
The cellulose that makes up the skeleton of wood and the raw material for
paper is a carbohydrate. So is vinegar. So is beeswax and formic acid. Each one
of the incredibly rich panoply of substances and materials that occur naturally
in our world is "nothing more" than a different arrangement of carbon, hydrogen,
and oxygen linked together by covalent bonds.
Olive oil, meat, and brown sugar: Everything we eat is made up of
different arrangements of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon with the addition
of other atoms such as nitrogen. |
When carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen form such bonds, the result is a class of molecules
that is the foundation and structure of life itself: the amino acids that make
up proteins. The nucleotides that make up DNA are also molecules formed from carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. In short, the covalent bonds that the carbon
atom is capable of entering into are vital for the existence of life. Were hydrogen,
carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen not so "eager" to share electrons with one another,
life would indeed be impossible.
 
WATER AND METHANE: TWO DIFFERENT EXAMPLES OF COVALENT
BONDS
In the water molecule (above), there is a covalent bond between
the two hydrogen atoms and the one oxygen atom. In the methane molecule
seen above on the right, four hydrogen atoms form covalent bonds
with a single carbon atom.
| The thing
that makes it possible for carbon to form these bonds is a property that chemists
call "metastability", the characteristic of having only a slight margin of stability.
The biochemist J. B. S. Haldane describes metastability thus:
A metastable molecule means one that
can liberate free energy by a transformation, but is stable enough to
last a long time unless it is activated by heat, radiation, or union with
a catalyst.90
What
this somewhat technical definition means is that carbon has a rather unique structure,
thanks to which, it is quite easy for it to enter into covalent bonds under normal
conditions. But it is precisely here that the situation starts to become
curious because carbon is metastable only within a very narrow range of temperatures.
Specifically, carbon compounds become very unstable when the temperature goes
over 100°C. This fact is so commonplace in our everyday lives that most
of us take it for granted. When we cook meat for example, what we're really doing
is changing the structure of its carbon compounds. But there's a point here that
we should note: The cooked meat has become completely "dead"; that is, its chemical
structure is different from what it had when it was part of a living organism.
Indeed most carbon compounds become "denatured" at temperatures above 100°C: the
majority of vitamins for example simply fall apart at that temperature; sugars
also undergo structural changes and lose some of their nutritional value; and
at around 150°C, carbon compounds will start to burn. In other words, if
carbon atoms are to enter into covalent bonds with other atoms and if the resulting
compounds are to remain stable, the ambient temperature must not go over 100°C.
The lower boundary on the other hand is around 0°C: if the temperature drops too
much below that, organic biochemistry becomes impossible. In the case of
other compounds, this is generally not the situation. Most inorganic compounds
are not metastable; that is, their stability is not greatly affected by changes
in temperature. To see this let's do an experiment. Stick a piece of meat on the
end of a long, thin piece of metal such as iron and heat the two together over
a fire. As the temperature grows hotter, the meat will darken and eventually burn
long before much of anything happens to the metal. The same thing would be true
if you substituted stone or glass for metal. You would have to increase the heat
by many hundreds of degrees before the structures of such materials began to change. By
now you certainly will have spotted the similarity between the temperature range
that is necessary for carbon compounds' covalent bonds to be established and remain
stable and the range of temperatures that prevails on our planet. As we have said
elsewhere, in the whole universe, temperatures range from the millions of degrees
in the hearts of stars to absolute zero (-273.15°C). But Earth, having been created
for humanity to live in, possesses the narrow temperature range essential for
the formation of the carbon compounds that are the building-blocks of life. But
the curious "coincidences" do not end here. The same temperature interval is the
only one in which water remains liquid. As we saw in the earlier chapter, liquid
water is one of the basic requirements of life and, in order to remain liquid,
it requires precisely the same temperatures that carbon compounds need to form
and be stable. There is no physical or natural "law" dictating that this should
be so and under the circumstances, this situation is evidence that the physical
properties of water and carbon and the conditions of the planet Earth were created
so as to be in harmony with one another.
Weak Bonds
Covalent bonds are not the only type of chemical bonding that keeps
the compounds of life stable. There is another and different category of bond
known as "weak bonds". Such bonds are about twenty times weaker than covalent
bonds, hence their name; but they are no less crucial to the processes of organic
chemistry. It is thanks to this weak bonding that the proteins that make up the
building-blocks of living things are able to maintain their complex and vitally
important three-dimensional structures. To explain this, we have to talk
briefly about the structure of proteins. Proteins are usually referred to as a
"chain" of amino acids. While this metaphor is essentially correct, it is also
incomplete. It's incomplete because for most people a "chain of amino acids" conjures
up the mental image of something like a string of pearls whereas the amino acids
that make up proteins have a three-dimensional structure more like a tree with
leafy branches. Covalent bonds are what hold the atoms of amino acids together.
Weak bonds are what maintain the essential three-dimensional structure of those
acids. No proteins could exist without these weak bonds. And of course without
proteins, there could be no life.
Covalent bonds: The atoms are strongly linked to one another
|
Weak bonds: An organic compound is maintained in a unique three-dimensional
form by means of weak (non-covalent) bonds (the broken lines).
|
Now the interesting part of this business is that the temperature range
in which weak bonds are able to perform their function is the same as the one
prevailing on Earth. This is rather odd because the physical and chemical natures
of covalent bonds versus weak bonds are entirely different things and independent
of one another. In other words, there's no intrinsic reason why they should both
require the same temperature range. And yet they do: Both types of bonds can only
be formed and remain stable within this narrow temperature range. And if they
did not-if covalent bonds required a range of temperatures wildly different from
that of weak bonds, say-then it would be impossible to construct the complex three-dimensional
structures that proteins require. Everything that we have seen concerning
the extraordinary chemical properties of the carbon atom shows that there is an
enormous harmony existing among this element that is the fundamental building-block
of life, the water that is also vital for life, and the planet Earth that is the
shelter for that life. In Nature's Destiny, Michael Denton underscores this fitness
when he says:
Out of the enormous range of temperatures
in the cosmos, there is only one tiny temperature band in which we have
(1) liquid water, (2) a great plenitude of metastable organic compounds,
and (3) weak bonds for stabilizing the 3-D forms of complex molecules.91
Among
all the heavenly bodies that have ever been observed, this "tiny temperature band"
exists only on Earth. Moreover it is only on Earth that the two fundamental building-blocks
of life--carbon and water-are to be found in such generous supply. What
all this indicates is that the carbon atom and its extraordinary properties were
specially designed for life and that our planet was specially created to be a
home for carbon-based life-forms
The Design in Oxygen
We have seen how carbon is the most important building-block of
living organisms and how it was specially designed so as to fulfill that function.
The existence of all carbon-based life-forms however is contingent upon a second
imperative: energy. Energy is an indispensable requirement for life. Green
plants get their energy from the sun through the process of photosynthesis. For
the rest of the living creatures of Earth-and that includes us-the only source
of energy is a process called "oxidation"-a fancy word for "burning". The energy
of oxygen-breathing organisms is derived from burning the nourishment that they
get from plants and animals. As you may guess from the term "oxidation", this
burning is a chemical reaction in which substances are oxidized-that is, they
are combined with oxygen. This is why oxygen is as vitally important to life as
are carbon and hydrogen. A generalized formula for "burning" (oxidation)
looks like this: Carbon compound + oxygen > water + carbon dioxide
+ energy What this means is that when carbon compounds and oxygen
are combined (under the proper conditions of course) a reaction takes place that
generates water and carbon dioxide and releases a considerable amount of energy.
This reaction takes place most readily in hydrocarbons (compounds of hydrogen
and carbon). Glucose (a sugar and also a hydrocarbon) is what is constantly being
burned in your body to keep it supplied with energy. Now as it happens,
the elements of hydrogen and carbon that make up hydrocarbons are the ones most
suitable for oxidation to take place. Among all other atoms, hydrogen combines
with oxygen the most readily and releases the most energy in the process. If you
need a fuel to burn in oxygen, you can't do better than hydrogen. From the standpoint
of its value as a fuel, carbon ranks third after hydrogen and boron. In The Fitness
of the Environment, Lawrence Henderson comments on the extraordinary fitness that
is involved here:
The very chemical changes, which for
so many other reasons seem to be best fitted to become the processes of
physiology, turn out to be the very ones which can divert the greatest
flood of energy into the stream of life.92
The Design in Fire (Or Why You Don't Just Burst
Into Flame)
As we've just seen,
the fundamental reaction that releases the energy necessary for the survival of
oxygen-breathing organisms is the oxidation of hydrocarbons. But this simple fact
raises a troubling question: If our bodies are made up essentially of hydrocarbons,
why aren't they also oxidized? Putting it another way, why don't we just go up
in flame, like a match that's been struck?
 Our
bodies are constantly in contact with the oxygen of the air and yet they
don't oxidize: they don't catch fire. Why not?
The reason for this seeming paradox
is that, under normal conditions of temperature and pressure, the molecular (O2)
form of oxygen has a substantial degree of inertness or "nobility". (In the sense
that chemists use the term, "nobility" is the reluctance (or inability) of a substance
to enter into chemical reactions with other substances.) But this raises another
questions: If molecular oxygen is so "noble" as to avoid incinerating us, how
is this same molecule made to enter into chemical reactions inside our bodies?
The answer to this question, which perplexed chemists
as early as the mid 19th century, did not become known until the second
half of the 20th century, when biochemical researchers discovered the
existence of enzymes in the human body whose only function was to force
the O2 in the atmosphere to enter into chemical reactions.
As a result of a series of extremely complex steps, these enzymes utilize
atoms of iron and copper in our bodies as catalysts. A catalyst is a substance
that initiates a chemical reaction and allows it to proceed under different
conditions (such as lower temperature etc) than would otherwise be possible.93
In
other words, there is a very interesting situation here: Oxygen is what supports
oxidation and combustion and normally one would expect it to burn us up too. To
prevent this, the molecular O2 form of oxygen that exists in the atmosphere
has been given a strong element of chemical nobility. That is, it doesn't enter
into reactions easily. But, on the other hand, our bodies depend upon the oxidizing
property of oxygen for their energy and for that reason, our cells have been fitted
out with an extremely complex enzyme system that makes this noble gas extremely
reactive.
While we're on the subject we should also point out
that this enzyme system is a marvellous example of design that no evolutionary
theory holding that life developed as a result of chance events can ever
hope to explain.94
There is yet another precaution that has been taken
to keep our bodies from burning up: what the British chemist Nevil Sidgwick
calls the "characteristic inertness of carbon".95
What this means is that carbon is not too much in a hurry either to enter
into a reaction with oxygen under normal pressures and temperatures. Expressed
in the language of chemistry this may all seem rather arcane, but in fact
what is being said here is something that anyone who's ever had to light
a fireplace full of huge logs or a coal-burning stove in winter or start
a stubborn barbecue in summer already knows. In order to get the fire
going, you have to take care of a lot of preliminaries (kindling, starter,
etc) or else suddenly raise the temperature of the fuel to a very high
degree (as with a blowtorch). But once the fuel starts burning, the carbon
in it enters into the reaction with oxygen quite rapidly and a great amount
of energy is released. This is why it's so hard to get a fire going without
another source of heat. But after combustion begins, a great deal of heat
is produced and this can cause other carbon compounds nearby to catch
fire as well and so the fire spreads.
When we look into this matter more carefully,
we can see that fire itself is a most interesting example of design. The chemical
properties of oxygen and carbon have been so arranged that these two elements
enter into a reaction with one another (combustion) only when a great amount of
heat is already present. It's a good thing, too because if this weren't the case,
life on this planet would be very unpleasant if not downright impossible. If oxygen
and carbon were even slightly more willing to react with one another, the spontaneous
combustion-self-ignition-of people, trees, and animals would become a commonplace
event whenever the weather got a little too warm. Someone walking through a desert
for example might suddenly burst into flame at noon when the heat was at its most
intense; plants and animals would be exposed to the same risk. Even if life were
possible in such a world, it certainly wouldn't be much fun. On the other
hand, if carbon and oxygen were slightly more noble (that is, slightly less reactive)
than they are, it would be much more difficult to light a fire in this world than
it already is: indeed, it might even be impossible. And without fire, we not only
would have been unable to keep ourselves warm: it's quite likely that there would
never have been any technological progress on our planet because that progress
depends upon the ability to work materials such as metal and without the heat
provided by fire, purifying and working metal is all but impossible. What
all this shows is that the chemical properties of carbon and oxygen have been
arranged so as to be the most suitable for the needs of mankind. Concerning this,
Michael Denton says:
This curious unreactivity of the carbon
and oxygen atoms at ambient temperatures, combined with the enormous energies
inherent in their combination once achieved, is of great adaptive significance
to life on Earth. It is this curious combination that not only makes available
to advanced life forms the vast energies of oxidation in a controlled
and orderly manner but has also made possible the controlled use of fire
by mankind and allowed the harnessing of the massive energies of combustion
for the development of technology.96
In
other words, both carbon and the oxygen have been created with properties that
are the most fit for human life. The properties of these two elements allow us
to light a fire and to make use of fire in the most convenient way possible. Furthermore,
the world is full of sources of carbon (such as the wood of trees) that are fit
for combustion. All this is an indication that fire and the materials to start
and sustain it have been specially created to be fit for human life. In the Qur'an,
Allah speaks to mankind with these words: He Who produces
fire for you from green trees so that you use them to light your fires. (Surah
Ya-sin: 80)
The Ideal Solubility of Oxygen
The
utilization of oxygen by the body is highly dependent upon the property of this
gas to dissolve in water. The oxygen that enters our lungs when we inhale is immediately
dissolved into the blood. The protein called hemoglobin captures these oxygen
molecules and carries them to the other cells of the body where, thanks to the
special enzyme system described above, the oxygen is used to oxidize carbon compounds
called ATP to release their energy. All complex organisms derive their energy
in this way. However the operation of this system is especially dependent upon
the solubility of oxygen. If oxygen were not sufficiently soluble, not enough
oxygen would enter the bloodstream and cells would not be able to generate the
energy they require; if oxygen were too soluble on the other hand, there would
be an excess of oxygen in the blood resulting in a condition known as oxygen toxicity. The
difference in the water-solubility of different gases varies by as much as a factor
of a million. That is, the most soluble gas is a million times more soluble in
water than the least soluble gas is and there are hardly any gases at all whose
solubilities are identical. Carbon dioxide is about twenty times more soluble
in water than oxygen is for example. Among the vast range of potential solubilities
however, the one possessed by oxygen is precisely what it needs to be for it to
be fit for human life. What would happen if the water-solubility rate of
oxygen were different: a little more or a little less? Let us take a look
at the first situation. If oxygen were less soluble in water (and thus also in
blood) less oxygen would enter the bloodstream and the body's cells would be starved
of oxygen. This would make life much more difficult for metabolically active organisms
such as human beings. No matter how hard you worked at breathing, you would constantly
be faced with the danger of suffocation because not enough oxygen was reaching
your body's cells. If the water-solubility of oxygen were higher on the
other hand, you would be confronted by the threat of oxygen toxicity, mentioned
briefly above. Oxygen is, in fact, a rather dangerous substance: if an organism
gets too much of it, the result can be fatal. Some of the oxygen in the blood
enters into a chemical reaction with the blood's water. If the amount of dissolved
oxygen becomes too high, the result is the production of highly reactive and damaging
by-products. One of the functions of the complex system of blood enzymes is to
prevent this from happening. But if the amount of dissolved oxygen becomes too
high, the enzymes cannot do their job. As a result, every breath we take would
poison us a little bit more leading quickly to death. The chemist Irwin Fridovich
comments on this issue:
All respiring organisms are caught in
a cruel trap. The very oxygen which supports their lives is toxic to them
and they survive precariously, only by virtue of elaborate defense mechanisms.97
What
saves us from this trap-from being poisoned by too much oxygen or from being suffocated
by not enough of it-is the fact that oxygen's solubility and the body's complex
enzymatic system have been carefully designed and created to be what they need
to be. To put it more explicitly, Allah has created not only the air we breathe
but also the systems that make it possible to use that air in perfect harmony
with one another. The Other Elements Carbon
and oxygen of course are not the only elements that have been deliberately designed
to make life possible. Elements like hydrogen and nitrogen, which make up a large
part of the bodies of living things, also possess attributes that make life possible.
In fact, there appears not to be a single element in the periodic table that does
not fulfill some sort of function in support of life.
In the basic periodic table there are ninety-two elements
ranging from hydrogen (the lightest) to uranium (the heaviest). (There
are of course other elements beyond uranium but these do not occur naturally
and have all been created under laboratory conditions. None of them are
stable.) Of this ninety-two, twenty-five are directly necessary for life
and of those, just eleven-hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, sodium,
magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, and calcium-make up
some 99% of the body weight of nearly all living things. The other fourteen
elements (vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, copper,
zinc, molybdenum, boron, silicon, selenium, fluorine, and iodine) are
present in living organisms only in very small amounts but even these
have vitally important functions. Three elements-arsenic, tin, and tungsten-are
to be found in some living things where they perform functions that are
not completely understood. Three more elements-bromine, strontium, and
barium-are known to be present in most organisms, but their functions
are still a mystery.98
This
broad spectrum encompasses atoms from each of the different series of the periodic
table, whose elements are grouped according to the attributes of their atoms.
What this indicates is that all of the element groups of the periodic table are
necessary, in one way or another, for life. In The Biological Chemistry of the
Elements, J. J. R Frausto da Silva and R. J. P Williams have this to say:
The biological elements seem to have been selected
from practically all groups and subgroups of the periodic table... and
this means that practically all kinds of chemical properties are associated
with life processes within the limits imposed by environmental constraints.99
Even the heavy, radioactive elements at the end of
the periodic table have been marshaled in the service of human life. In
Nature's Destiny, Michael Denton describes in detail the essential role
that these radioactive elements, such as uranium, play in the formation
of the earth's geological structure. Naturally occurring radioactivity
is closely associated with the fact that the earth's core is able to retain
its heat. That heat is what keeps the core, which consists of iron and
nickel, liquid. This liquid core is the source of the earth's magnetic
field which, as we have seen elsewhere, helps shield the planet from dangerous
radiation and particles from space while performing other functions as
well. Even the inert gases and elements such as the rare-earth metals,
none of which seem to be involved in the support of life, are apparently
there because of the demands of ensuring that the range of naturally-occurring
elements would extend as far as uranium.100
In
short, it is safe to say that all the elements whose existence we know of serve
some function in human life. Not one of them is either superfluous or purposeless.
This situation is further evidence that the universe was created by Allah for
mankind.
Conclusion
Every physical and
chemical property of the universe that we have examined turns out to be exactly
what it needs to be in order for life to exist. And yet in this book we have only
scratched the surface of the overwhelming evidence of this fact. No matter how
deeply you delve the details or broaden the search, this general observation remains
true: In every detail of the universe, there is a purpose that serves human life
and each detail is perfectly designed, balanced, and harmonized to achieve that
purpose. Certainly this is proof of the existence of a superior creator
who brought this universe into being for this purpose. Whatever property of matter
we may examine, we behold in it the infinite knowledge, wisdom, and power of Allah,
Who created it from nothingness. Every thing bows to His will and that is why
each and every thing is in perfect harmony with everything else. This is
the conclusion that 20th-century science has at last reached. And yet, it is only
a recognition of a fact that was imparted to mankind in the Qur'an over fourteen
centuries ago: Allah has created every detail of the universe to reveal the perfection
of His own creation:
Blessed be He who has the Kingdom in His Hand!
He has power over all things. He who created the seven heavens in layers.
You will not find any flaw in the creation of the All-Merciful. Look again-do
you see any gaps? Then look again and again. Your sight will return to
you dazzled and exhausted. (Surat al-Mulk: 1-4)
| 
