Voice of British Muslim Women

Iffat Mirza, Raynes Park

“He it is Who sends down water for you from the clouds; out of it you have your drink, and there grow from it trees on which you pasture your cattle.”

(Holy Qur’an chapter 16, verse 11)

If anyone knows anything about me, it is that I love flowers. They give me a sense of pure and unadulterated happiness. Not only is it their beauty and aroma which captures me, but also the biological structure of plants has always fascinated me. I’ve never been one for the sciences but when at school our topic in biology would turn towards the plant kingdom, I would eagerly anticipate the lessons. I remember sitting in each of those biology lessons often left speechless by the absolute perfection of the structures of the plants which allow the survival of the species and the organism for millennia. This is where I saw the face of God.

It occurred to me that there was absolutely no reason that each of the millions of species of plants should have evolved so perfectly. In fact, that is not only true for plants but for all organisms. There is no logical reason as to why any organism should have reached the point that it has reached today. If we were to try and explain it without considering the presence of an omnipotent power, we’d have to accept the role that luck and chance has played. However, for me, the issue is that luck and chance can only prove to be successful once or twice. The current approximate number of species in the world is 8.7 million.[1] Could luck have worked 8.7 million times?

Any logical thinker would have to face the fact that this cannot be. After all, would you roll the dice even just ten times and expect to get a six each time? The chances of evolution therefore having been a pure coincidence is infinitely smaller than that. It is only rational then, that we look towards another cause. That cause, as the Holy Qur’an testifies, is God Almighty.

In the aforementioned verse of the Holy Qur’an we see the wise force that is behind nature which gives humankind our sustenance and ensures our survival. We see that God, in His power and His compassion, not only states that He has created the wonders of the world, but also highlights that they have been created as such for the benefit of His creation. In our arrogance, having achieved this pinnacle of evolutionary development, we have convinced ourselves that this was a coincidence, to avoid having to confront the fact that there is still One Being Who is far higher than us, Who is far more powerful than us. It is much easier to eliminate Him from the equation to allow humankind to revel in false and insecure sense of superiority. In doing so, humankind can also deny the fact that we still need, and always will need, our creator. His Holiness Mirza Tahir Ahmad (May God have mercy on his soul), the fourth Caliph or Khalifa of the Ahmadiyya Community wrote in his stellar work Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge and Truth:

“If man looks down from the dizzy heights he occupies on the ladder of life, at the innumerable steps below him in the chain of evolution, seldom will he realize that for him to have survived the hazards he faced at each of these steps, was no less than a grand miracle. We owe gratitude to the many generations of dedicated biologists who with their hard work have helped us to understand, to some degree, the inexhaustible mysteries of life! But alas, few among those who themselves unravel the mysteries ever realize how much they owe to the infinite mercy of God and His limitless creative Wisdom.”[2]

This encapsulates the way in which humankind in our arrogant ways have hidden the face of God, though the reality is that it is plain for us to see all around us, should we only open our eyes for a moment. The perfection of the natural order of our planet, let alone that of the universe, is far beyond our imagination and it does not bode well that many are intent on considering it a coincidence rather than intentional design.

Just as I saw the face of God in my biology classes, I continue to see it as the daffodils bloom in the spring, filling my heart with infinite joy. I absolutely refuse to believe any of this to have been a coincidence. Surely, to do so will be futile and arrogant.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm

[2] Revelation Rationality Knowledge and Truth by Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad (rh) page 402.