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LIFE
IN OTHER PLACES
Science
is still unable to explain what life
really is. This world is the arena where
God manifests His Will from behind the
veil of what we experience and describe
as ‘natural causes’, but life is the
result of the direct manifestation of
His Name, the Ever-Living. So, as long
as science insists on its positivistic,
even materialistic, viewpoint, it will
never penetrate the mystery of what life
is.
Scientists
restrict the concept of life to the
conditions that obtain on or beneath the
outer surface of our planet. Therefore,
when they have looked for
extra-terrestrial life, what they have
looked for is conditions which are the
same as or similar or closely
correspondent to the conditions in which
life is evident on the surface of earth.
But surely, if they had retained a
sufficient sense of the absolute wonder
of life (and that absolute wonder is an
aspect of life’s being a direct
manifestation of the Ever-Living), they
should not have ruled out forms and
conditions of life which are at present
beyond their understanding. In their
view, the arguments put forward by Said
Nursi, a Muslim scholar from Turkey who
wrote mostly in the first half of this
century, for the existence of angels and
other spirit beings may not be worthy of
consideration. However, the latest
discoveries in deep sea biology may
persuade them to review Nursi’s
arguments. Said Nursi wrote at the
beginnings of the 1930s:
Reality
and the wisdom [purposiveness] in
the existence of the universe
require that the heavens should
have conscious inhabitants of
their own as does the earth. These
inhabitants of many different
kinds are called angels and spirit
beings in the language of
religion.
It
is true that reality requires the
existence of angels and other
spirit beings because the earth,
although insignificant in size
compared with the heavens, is
continually being filled with and
emptied of conscious beings. This
clearly indicates that the
heavens. . . are filled with
living beings who are the perfect
class of living creatures. These
beings are conscious and have
perception, and they are the light
of existence; they are the angels,
who, like the jinn and mankind,
are the observers of the universal
palace of creation and students of
this book of the universe and
heralds for their Lord’s
kingdom.
The
perfection of existence is through
life. Moreover, life is the real
basis and the light of existence,
and consciousness, in turn, is the
light of life. Since life and
consciousness are so important,
and a perfect harmony evidently
prevails over the whole creation,
and again since the universe
displays a firm cohesion, and as
this small ever-rotating sphere of
ours is full of countless living
and intelligent beings, so it is
equally certain that those
heavenly [realms] should have
conscious, living beings
particular to themselves. Just as
the fish live in water, so those
spirit beings may exist in the
heat of the sun. Fire does not
consume light, rather, light
becomes brighter because of fire.
We observe that the Eternal Power
creates countless living beings
from inert, solid substances and
transforms the densest matter into
subtle living compounds by life.
Thus It radiates the light of life
everywhere in great abundance and
furnishes most things with the
light of consciousness. From this
we can conclude that the
All-Powerful, All-Wise One would
certainly not leave without life
and consciousness more refined,
subtle forms of matter like light
and ether, which are close to and
fitting for the spirit; indeed He
creates animate and conscious
beings in great number from light,
darkness, ether, air and even from
meanings and words. As He creates
numerous species of animals, He
also creates from such subtle and
higher forms of matter numerous
different spirit creatures. One
kind. . . are the angels, others
are the varieties of spirit beings
and jinn. (The Words 2,
Izmir 1997, pp. 189-94 )
Half
a century after Said Nursi wrote this,
nearly 300 animal species, almost all
them previously unknown, have been
discovered living around hydrothermal
vents which form when sea-water leaking
through the ocean floor at spreading
ridges is heated by the underlying magma
and rushes into the cold ocean. Verena
Tunniclife writes:
All
life requires energy, nearly all
life on earth looks to the sun as
the source. But solar energy is
not the only kind of energy
available on the earth. Consider
the energy that drives the
movement and eruption of the
planet’s crust. When you look at
an active volcano, you are
witnessing the escape of heat that
has been produced by radioactive
decay in the earth’s interior
and is finally reaching the
surface. Why should there not be
biological communities associated
with the same nuclear energy that
moves continents and makes
mountains? And why could not whole
communities be fuelled by
chemical, rather than, solar
energy?
.
. . Most of us associate the
escape of heat from the interior
of the earth with violent events
and unstable physical conditions,
with extreme high temperatures and
the release of toxic
gases-circumstances that are
hardly conducive to life. The
notion that biological communities
might spring up in a geologically
active environment seemed
fantastic. And until recently, few
organisms were known to survive
without a direct or indirect way
to tap the sun’s energy. But
such communities do exist, and
they represent one of the most
startling discoveries of
20th-century biology. They live in
the deep ocean, under conditions
that are both severe and variable.
This
‘startling’ discovery of
biology contains clues to some
other realities, which sciences
should consider. The Prophet
Muhammad, upon him be peace and
blessings, states that angels are
created from light. We read in the
Qur’an that God created man from
dried earth, from wet clay and
from an extract of clay. According
to the Qur’an, man has been made
a khalifa on the earth. Khalifa
means, literally, one who
succeeds. Many interpreters of the
Qur’an have concluded from this
that the jinn once ruled the earth
and they were succeeded by men.
Starting
from the clues above, it should be
possible to do formal studies to
determine the worth of conclusions such
as these:
God
first created nur and then light.
The process of creation followed a
gradual, regular accumulation of
identities and/or a saltational sequence
of abrupt leaps. Fire followed light and
then came water and earth. God spread
one existence through another,
compounding and interweaving. He also
created living beings in every phase of
creation appropriate for each phase.
While the universe was in a state of
pure fire or some other high energy, He
created the appropriate life-forms. And
when the earth became conducive to life,
He created plants, animals and man. He
adorned every part and phase of the
universe with creatures, among them
living ones, that are appropriate for
that part and phase.
Finally,
just as He created innumerable beings
from light, ether, air, fire, water and
earth, so too, from every word and deed
of man, He forms either his paradise or
hell. In other words, as He grows a tree
from a tiny seed through particles of
earth, air and water, so He will build
the other world from the material of
this world which He will adapt for the
other world during the convulsions of
Doomsday. And He will use the words and
actions of human beings in preparing the
paradise or hell of each.
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