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Al Hakeem: The Wise, The Creator With A Purpose

Source: The Muslim Sunrise Fall 2019, the longest running Muslim publication of North America, since 1922

Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times

Let me start off by saying, if my articles are boring to you, it may be that you need to read more of them, as was suggested by John Cage, who was a famous American composer of the twentieth century, “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”

Our universe is not a chaotic or an indiscernible creation of a whimsical Creator. No, not at all. “We have created the heavens and the earth and all that is between the two,” says Allah, “in accordance with requirements of truth and wisdom.” (1)

The creation of the universe was not a frivolous pursuit. “We created not the heaven and the earth and all that is between the two in sport.” Says Allah in the Quran, “Had We wished to find a pastime, We would surely have found it in that which is with Us, if at all We would have been inclined in that way.” (2)

For the universe to come into being, it required at least ten raised to the power of five hundred parameters to be set right for the universe to come out biophyllic for the existence of human species. What a marvelous feat of creation by All-Knowing, All-Powerful and All-Wise God.  I did not fabricate this unimaginably large number of ten raised to the power of five hundred. This is the number of universes that the scientists are proposing in the multiverse to explain the biophyllic nature of our universe, in what is called multiverse theory or M theory. Of course God does not have any physical hands and He works through the laws of nature.  Nevertheless, any reasonable person, unless strongly driven by an ideology of atheism, when facing such odds and examines the complexity, elegance and beauty of the universe, sees the hand of an infinite All-Wise God under the surface.

No wonder Allah says: “And He it is who created the heavens and the earth in accordance with the requirements of wisdom and the Truth; and the day He says, ‘Be!’, it will be. His word is indeed the Truth.” (3)

To describe the M theory, I take you to Stephen Hawking’s 2010 book that he had co-authored with Leonard Mlodinow. The title of the book is The Grand Design.  In this book the authors have described their agnostic or atheistic world view, through the glasses of contemporary physics. However, the title itself is a Freudian slip revealing the underlying conflict of Hawking’s premise. He cannot express his proposition, even briefly so, without borrowing a phrase that argues the exact opposite and suggests a Designer, a Creator, a First cause, Alpha and Omega! The authors do not offer us any new evidence to prove their premise. The book repackages commonly known scientific information.

Nowhere in the book have the authors told us what could science have discovered that would have proved a Transcendent God, in other words their conclusion is in fact, only their starting premise.

The multiverse theory or the M Theory, is used to rescue the sinking ship of atheism and is invoked in one form or the other in concluding paragraphs of almost every chapter, of this book, after the fifth one. The multiverse theory, however, may belong to science fiction rather than science as we do not have access to multiverse to examine it through scientific methods.  Hawking teaches us in the final paragraphs of the fifth chapter that the M theory allows for ten raised to the power 500 different universes, together represented with the term multiverse, each universe with its own laws, to explain the biophyllic nature of our universe. For additional reading about multiverse theory, please read my article, Ten Raised to Five Hundred Reasons for Our Gracious God, online (4).

The divine attribute of Al Hakeem, the Wise is mentioned at least fifty times in the holy Quran.  The verse that links the creation of the universe with this attribute is, “He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner; His are the most beautiful names. All that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Him. He is the Mighty, the Most Wise.” (5)

The Most Wise has not only based the creation on sound reproducible principles, but has also made them predictable and discernible by human nature.

Three physicists born in Britain but now working in the United States were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2016 for research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states, including superconductors, superfluids and thin magnetic films.

David J. Thouless of the University of Washington was awarded half of the prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $930,000, while F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University and J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University shared the other half.

The scientists relied on advanced mathematical models to study “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter,” in the words of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm (6). Mathematics somehow magically has the power to predict and allow discovery of the natural phenomena.

The universe is an amazing creation that is discernible and is open to scientific inquiry.  “Most of what will be said on these questions will not be new;” wrote Eugene Wigner, Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1963, in an article, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, “it has probably occurred to most scientists in one form or another. My principal aim is to illuminate it from several sides. The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories.” (7)

God made our universe biophyllic, He based it on mathematical principles, as He willed the creation of multiverse into being, through modulation of some ten raised to the power of five hundred variables, and then some four billion years ago, He started orchestrating various forms of life into existence, through the process of evolution and caused millions of species on our planet earth, with Homo sapiens being at the apex of His creation.

Al Hakeem and All-Wise God chose not to be like an absent land lord, but in His supreme wisdom decided to guide humanity through a long series of prophets, until His message climaxed in the holy Quran.

In the Quran, Allah argues from the physical to the moral, from the tangible to the intangible: “Do they not look at the camels, how they are created? And the firmament how it is raised high? And at the mountains, how they are set up? And the earth, how it is spread out? Then continue to admonish for you are but an admonisher; you have no authority to compel them.” (8) Again we read in Surah Rehman: “And the firmament has He raised high and He set up the balance. That you may not transgress in balance and justice. So weigh all things with fairness and fall not short of the measure.” (9)

The teachings of Allah given in His final scripture are full of wisdom and of utilitarian value for us. Majority of the references in the Quran to His attribute Al Hakim that are more than fifty as mentioned before, are in this context.

The Quranic teachings of family value and chastity are absolutely essential for the survival and flourishing of our families and human societies.  The Quranic ideals have guaranteed religious freedom for all in the domain of man relation to God and appropriate legislation to manage the domain of human interaction, man relation to man.  It has also guided us how to not fall victim to the evils of alcoholism and gambling, among scores of other beneficial teachings, about marriage, divorce and inheritance, to name a few. In the Muslim Times we have collected several articles to document the utilitarian benefit of the Quranic teachings (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).

Al Hakeem, the Most Wise not only created the universe on the principles of truth and wisdom, but has frequently mentioned the elegance of His first creation as a proof for human accountability and the second creation or hereafter (21).  From the elegance of His creation, flows the wisdom of His teachings and then the ultimate consummation of human life, when we meet our Creator in the hereafter.

References

  1. The Holy Quran 15:86.
  2. The Holy Quran 21:17-18.
  3. The Holy Quran 6:74.
  4. https://themuslimtimes.info/2013/11/13/ten-to-five-hundred-reasons-for-our-gracious-god/
  5. The Holy Quran 59:25.
  6. https://themuslimtimes.info/2016/10/05/2016-nobel-prize-in-physics-shows-once-again/
  7. https://themuslimtimes.info/2016/06/08/the-unreasonable-effectiveness-of-mathematics-in-the-natural-sciences-4/
  8. The Holy Quran 88:18-23.
  9. The Holy Quran 55:8-10.
  10. https://themuslimtimes.info/2015/06/28/continue-to-build-the-case-for-utilitarian-value-of-the-teachings-of-islam/
  11. https://themuslimtimes.info/2019/06/17/is-god-necessary-for-morality-we-have-the-best-collection/
  12. https://themuslimtimes.info/2014/05/17/alcohol-kills-one-person-every-10-seconds-worldwide-who-2/
  13. https://themuslimtimes.info/2013/11/07/divorce-islam-versus-christianity/
  14. https://themuslimtimes.info/2015/06/25/pope-francis-has-become-a-muslim-at-least-on-the-divorce-issue-but-1400-years-too-late/
  15. https://themuslimtimes.info/2019/06/19/why-pope-francis-may-open-the-door-to-married-priests/
  16. https://themuslimtimes.info/2019/06/19/europes-oldest-person-dies-aged-116-after-crediting-her-long-life-to-faith-in-god-and-avoiding-booze/
  17. https://themuslimtimes.info/2018/07/31/alcohol-in-breast-milk-may-lead-to-lower-cognition-in-kids-study-finds/
  18. https://themuslimtimes.info/2018/07/15/video-lessons-from-the-life-of-prophet-yusuf-avoiding-the-lure-of-lust/
  19. https://themuslimtimes.info/2018/05/22/autophagy-and-fasting-its-effect-on-disease-and-how-fasting-may-help/
  20. https://themuslimtimes.info/2016/01/14/gambling-related-problems-an-international-repository/
  21. https://themuslimtimes.info/2015/10/28/stephen-hawking-there-is-no-heaven-its-a-fairy-story/

Suggested reading

Cataloging 750 verses of the Holy Quran inspiring believers to study nature

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Categories: Abrahamic faiths, Deism, Highlight, Monotheism, Religion & Science

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