:salam2: Brothers and Sisters,
assalam,well some documentaries about creationism and so on are good mashallah but keep an eye open brother ,he tends to believe in wahdatu`ll woujoud in his writings ,and he is an admirer of ibn Arabi just keep your tawhid in mind,however i do not think that his documentaries are harmful in contrary but we simply need to be selective and critical enough to see where a certain line is being crossed inschallah,like with everything else
I saw this video and agree with Dr. Bilal Philips. I also read one article in which harun yahya stated that secret beyond matter is not identical to the teaching of Wahdatul Wujood. I wrote some of my comments below and i would like to know what others think about it.
I have read many books of Harun Yahya on the subject of miracles of various creations and found them very informative. It helped me to understand how complex is the structure of living and non-living beings at micro level. It compels us to think that such a miraculous creation could not have occurred own its own. There must be a creator. However, when i read his book on secret of matter, i did not like it and had many questions and i even wrote to him with some queries.
To my reasoning the concept of Wahdatul Wujood is incorrect i.e. the idea that God is physically present everywhere and in every object (even in side you) is incorrect and has no logic.
Recently in one thread I have posted something related to the same topic “where is God”. I am quoting it again below:
Where is God?
If we want to know how a product (say your computer) was manufactured, you should have seen its all the stages of manufacturing, from beginning to the end, so that you will know what all processes and hand were involved. Inside the computer you can’t find person who assembled it. Similarly, sculpturist can't be found inside the sculpture, as both are two separate entities.
Therefore to find the creator we must:
1. search him not inside the creation but outside the creation.
2. have seen all the stages of creation, from start to end so that we can declare that we have seen the creator.
But if the creation is finished and the product is in our hand we can neither see the creator any more nor we can find him inside the object. Now we are left with only two options:
1. Either object has been created by someone or
2. It has appeared on his own.
Similarly, our eyes have not witnessed the beginning and the end of universe. In fact we are living our life of "few moments or lesser" in comparison to the total time involved. So how we can know our creator and find him? Only Logic and Patience will give us the answer!
Creator Is Not Sitting Inside His Creation:
Concept that creator is physically present his creation will cause some one to ask that what will happen to creator if the creation itself is destroyed? e.g. if you eat vegetable or a fruit. So, it’s not the creator who sits inside the creation but his powerful intelligence and knowledge (by which he know his creation far better than the creation itself).
It was We Who
Created man, and We know
What suggestions his soul
Makes to him: for We
Are nearer to him
Than (his) Jugular vein.
[Surah: 50: 16]
Limitations Of Human Brain:
Human brain, which weighs about few hundred grams, is like a formatted hard disk when he is born. Whatever he experience (see, smell, hear or taste etc) is stored in his brain as information. Our all decisions and conclusions are based on that stored information.
Suppose a baby is told in his mother's womb that after the birth he will be transferred to another world. This new world will be a very big space where he will find big mountains, rivers, clouds, seas, trees, flowers, fruits, all type of foods, bus, ships, airplanes, millions of other people...., it will be hard for the baby to believe, because his conclusion will be based on what he has seen to the date.
Similarly our conclusions on this earth are based upon what we experience here unless God himself guide us about "unseen". From the time of the creation of man God has guided him. God also tells us that after the death we are going to meet him and it is his promise about hereafter which will not be broken.
…. Allah promise is the truth,
And whose word can be
Truer than Allah’s?
[Sruah: 4:122]
So logically, we can see that God is not present in side his creation physically. Following verse also tells us clearly that God is not sitting inside his creation:
21:16. not for (idle) sport did we create the heavens and the earth and all that is between!
21:17. if it had been Our wish to take (Just) a pastime, we should surely have taken it from the things nearest to us, if we would do (Such a thing)!
If Allah was physically present everywhere, there would be no use of using the word "from the things near to us". Near / Far terms are relative to a reference point and can not be applied to someone that is present everywhere physically. So, the concept of Wahdatul Wujood is refuted and harun yahya also claiming that he does not support this idea as well. Ok let us come to second point.
Scientifically it is true that matter is composed of atoms and they are further sub-divided into sub atomic particles such as proton, neutron and electrons etc. In my personal opinion, we can study these particles at two levels.
STUDY STAGE-1
General study of atoms at atomic level and come across many facts that are mind blowing, such as:
(Taken from Harun Yahya Work)
*
The diameter of an atom is only of the order of one millionth of a millimetre.
* Let us suppose that we want to count all the atoms in a single grain of salt and let us assume that we are able to count one billion (1,000,000,000) atoms per second. Despite our considerable deftness, we would need over five hundred years to count the number of atoms inside this tiny grain of salt.
* Since we cannot visualize this vastness (better to say, minuteness), let us take our example of the cherry. Let us look for the nucleus inside the atoms that we had visualized as the size of cherries when the key in your hand was magnified to be the size of the earth. But such a search would be inconclusive because even at that scale, it is absolutely impossible for us to view the nucleus, which is still exceedingly small. If we really want to see it, then we would have to change the scale again. The cherry representing our atom must again expand and become a large ball two hundred meters in diameter. Even at this unbelievable scale, the nucleus of our atom would not become any bigger than a very tiny grain of dust.
* Yet there is one thing even more surprising than that: although its size is one ten billionth of an atom's size, the nucleus' mass comprises 99.95% of the mass of the atom. How is it that something constitutes almost all of a given mass, while, on the other hand, occupying almost no space?
* The reason is that the density comprising the mass of the atom is not distributed evenly throughout the whole atom. That is, almost the entire mass of the atom is accumulated in the nucleus. Say, you have a house of 10 billion square metres and you have to put all the furniture in the house in a room of one square metre. Can you do this? Of course you cannot. Yet, the atomic nucleus is able to do this thanks to a tremendous force unlike any other force in the universe.
* Tens of electrons revolving in an area so small as to be invisible even to the most powerful microscopes create a very complex traffic inside the atom. The most remarkable point here is that these electrons surrounding the nucleus like an armour of electrical charge do not have even a small accident. In fact, any small accident inside the atom would cause a disaster for the atom. However, such an accident never takes place. The whole operation runs flawlessly. The electrons revolving around the nucleus at the mind-boggling speed of 1,000 km/second never collide with each other. It is extremely amazing that these electrons, which are no different from each other, follow separate orbits, and it is obviously the result of a "conscious creation"
Studies until this point (stage-1) help the believer to understand the complexity and the beauty of Allah's creation and admire his wisdom. So, no objection.
However, Harun Yahya has gone deeper at energy level which I think is of no use. Why? But let us see what he has to say about matter.
STUDY STAGE-2
More deep study of atom and its interaction with photon and then describe the questions such as:
(From Harun Yahya Writings)
Why we see the colours and How Do We Perceive Matter?
What we have told so far has revealed that what we call matter is not an entity having a specific colour, smell and form, as we believed it to be. What we imagine to be matter, that is our own body, our room, our home, and at large, the world and the whole universe, is in reality nothing but energy. What is it then that makes everything around us visible and touchable?
The reason why we perceive the things around us as matter is the collision of electrons in the orbital shells of atoms with photons, and the atoms' attracting and repelling each other.
With your body made up of atoms, you are breathing atoms in the air, eating atoms in food and drinking atoms of water. What you see is nothing other than the collision of electrons of the atoms in your eye with photons. And what about what you feel by touch? The sensations are simply formed by atoms in your skin repelling atoms of objects.
If you think that your body consists of atoms alone, then which one of your atoms directs which, and which atom directs what? Do the atoms of your brain that are no different from other atoms control the others? If we assume that the atoms of your brain are directors, then we have to answer these questions:
* If all atoms forming the brain are directors, how and based on what do they make their decisions?
* How do trillions of atoms forming the brain cooperate?
* Why does not a single atom out of trillions of them oppose the decision that is taken?
* How do the atoms communicate with each other?
Considering the above questions, it is obviously an illogical deduction to say that all of the trillions of atoms forming the brain are directors.
So, can it be correct to think that only one of these trillions of atoms is the director and the others are its followers? If we believe a single atom to be the director, then the questions that come to the mind are:
* Which atom is the director and who elected this atom?
* Where in the brain is this atom?
* What is the difference of this atom from the others?
* Why do the other atoms obey this atom unconditionally?
Thus according to him (as well as science) any object we see e.g. water we drink or any thing you may imagine all is a form of energy. Moreover he also explains that what we see is not the real matter but image / reflection of it that formed in our brain. The real matter is only seen by Allah. So, what next? As I wrote above, stage-1 study helped us to understand the beauty and design of creation and praise Allah for that. However, in what way stage-2 study has helped us?
Sometimes I ponder to how much extent a medical surgeon can enjoy the company of his wife. Not just because he don’t have time for family but due the fact that when he sees her face, is he not thinking or seeing all the nerves, bones and internal structure of his head, skin or body, which he get used to see at his work? Can he enjoy her real beauty? At least not as much as a non-medical person can enjoy it. Or can a microbiologist enjoy real taste and feeling of having yogurt?
Similarly, if we peep too deep into creation we are left with different energies interacting with different energies. For example, somebody took a stick and hit someone and blood came out. So in this case also you have to think that one set of energies hit another set of energies and third set of energy that was contained in second one start to bleed with their set of properties and characteristics. Also, the colour of third set of energy is red because at micro level all other colours all absorbed and only red colour is reflected back to our retina.
So, what we benefit by this stage-2 study? In my opinion instead of getting any benefit we are harmed. We stop to perceive the beauty of creation as Allah willed. We are led to think world is nothing but different shades of energies or mere deception.
But I don’t want to go so deep. I want to enjoy the way Allah made me and the way he wanted me to be. Allah gave me sense to hear, see, feel, taste for what? I want to enjoy the nature’s beauty as it is. I want to enjoy colours of the plants and flowers and wind that touches my face, the clouds and rain and so on and thank to Allah for his mercy and wisdom.
It is like examination room, when you write an exam on computer, your first priority is to start writing the answers of the questions. You may admire the computer or the font type of the question text etc for some time to take it as “sign” that the computer or the questions did not appear on its own but was manufactured or written by some one. But if you start to research how computer was manufactured or worst start thinking that question paper on the screen of computer is not real, it is only signals and deception (no matter how right it may be) than you are doing nothing but wasting your time and after two hours you will have to leave the examination room without doing anything worth.
So, I think it your choice if you want to stop thinking at atomic level and appreciate Allah’s creation , enjoy it and thank him or go beyond this to energy level and surely stop at some point further but with great confusion due to limitation of our brain. Moreover, you can see harun yahaya is also struck with many questions at the end as he himself asked (see in quote above) and has no answer to them. The only answer with him as well with us is that it is Allah that does this with his power and wisdom. How he do this, he knows better. Shouldn’t we mind our own business?
Wasalam
