THE WORLD OF PLANTS

The existence of plants is essential for the survival of living things on the earth. For the importance of this sentence to be fully grasped, we must ask: "What are the most important elements for human life?" Of course, basic needs such as oxygen, water, and nourishment come to mind as the answers to this question. And green plants are the most important factor in ensuring the balance of these basic needs on the earth. And there are other balances in the world, of great importance to all living things, not just human beings, such as temperature control and maintaining the correct proportion of gases in the atmosphere, and again it is green plants which maintain the entire equilibrium.

And the activities of green plants do not end there. As is known, the main source of energy for life on earth is the Sun. But human beings and animals are unable to make direct use of solar energy, because their bodies lack the systems to use this energy as it is. For this reason solar energy can reach human beings and animals as usable energy only through the food produced by plants. For example, while sipping tea, we are actually sipping solar energy, and as we eat bread, we are munching solar energy. The strength in our muscles is really nothing other than solar energy in a different form. Plants store this form of energy for us in the molecules in their bodies by carrying out complicated processes. The position for animals is no different from that of human beings. They are fed by plants, deriving solar energy from the plants' energy, which they store in packets.

Plants being able to produce their own nutrition and maintain themselves, in contrast to other living things, is due to their cell structure, which enables them to employ solar energy directly, unlike human or animal cells. With the help of this structure, plant cells turn energy from the sun into energy which people and animals can absorb through nutrition. They store this energy as food through the special procesesses concealed in their structure. These processes are collectively known as photosynthesis.

The necessary mechanism, or more accurately the miniature factory, by means of which plants are able to carry out photosynthesis, is found in their leaves. The transportation system, with its own very special features, for carrying necessary materials such as minerals and water, functions within plants' stems and roots. The reproductive system too has been specially designed in every species of plant.

There are complex structures within each and every one of these mechanisms. And these mechanisms function in connection with one another. If one is missing, the others cannot carry out their tasks. As an example let us take a plant which just lacks a transport system. It is impossible for such a plant to carry out photosynthesis, because the vessels necessary to carry the essential water are missing. Even if the plant managed to produce food, it would be unable to transport this to other parts of the body, and would eventually die.

As in this example, all the systems present in a plant are obliged to function flawlessly. Any flaws or defects in the existing structure will mean that the plant cannot carry out its functions, and this will result in the death of the plant and the disappearance of the species.

When these structures are studied in detail and in depth in the chapters that follow, a most complex and quite flawless design will emerge. When the variety of plants in the world is considered and evaluated, these extraordinary structures seem even more striking. There are more than 500,000 types of plant in the world. And each species possesses its own special planning within itself and features particular to that species. Together with the same perfect basic systems found in all of them, there is also an unparalleled diversity in terms of reproductive systems, defence mechanisms, colour, and design. The only unchanging thing in all this is the reality that the parts of the plants (leaves, roots, stems) and many other mechanisms, must exist at once and with no defects so that the general system, the body, can function.

Modern scientists attribute to such systems an "irreducible complexity." In the same way that a motor will not work if one of its cogs is missing, in plants the absence of just one system, or a single functional failure in any one of the parts of the system, will lead to the death of the plant.

All of a plant's systems have this feature of irreducible complexity. The complex systems, which must all be present at the same time, and this unbelievable variety bring to mind the question: "How did these perfect systems in plants emerge?"

Once again, let us ask some questions to find the answer to this one. Let us think how the functioning of the most important and best known of the mechanisms in plants, photosynthesis, and the transport systems linked to it, came about.

Can the trees and flowers which we see all around us at all times have themselves formed such perfect systems as to bring about a phenomenon such as photosynthesis, some parts of which are still not fully understood, in their own bodies? Did plants choose to use carbon dioxide (CO2), of the gases in the air, to produce food? Did they themselves determine the amount of CO2 they would use? Could plants have designed those mechanisms which make up the root system and which enable them to take the materials necessary for photosynthesis from the soil? Did plants bring about a transport system where different types of tubes are used for transporting nutrients and water?

As ever, defenders of the theory of evolution searching for an answer to the question of how plants emerged have resorted to "chance" as their only remedy. They have claimed that from one species of plant which came about by chance, an infinite variety of plants have emerged, again by chance, and that features such as smell, taste, and colour, particular to each species, again came about by chance. But they have been unable to give any scientific proof of these claims. Evolutionists explain moss turning into a strawberry plant, or a poplar, or a rose bush, by saying that conditions brought about by chance differentiated them. Whereas when just one plant cell is observed, a system so complex will be seen as could not have come about by minute changes over time. This complex system and other mechanisms in plants definitively disprove the coincidence scenarios put forward as evolutionist logic. In this situation just one result emerges.

Every structure in plants has been specially planned and designed. And this shows us that there is a Superior Intelligence which drew up this flawless plan. And the owner of this superior intelligence, God, the Lord of all the worlds, shows proofs of His flawless creation to human beings. God announces His dominion over living creatures and His incomparable creation in this verse:

He is the Originator of the heavens and the earth. That is God, your Lord. There is no deity but Him, the Creator of everything. So worship Him. He is Responsible for everything. (Surat al-An'am: 101-102)