Are Islamic punishments just or harsh?

Just

Before we comment on anything in this world, it is very important for us to understand the subject perfectly and while doing so, we should attempt to keep our mind open. The ancient art from the Zen monks of 'emptying the cup' is very much an important aspect of life to absorb any new intelligence in its absolute format.

Therefore, before we consider whether Islamic laws are JUST or not, we need to ponder what it will be or what it is if Islam is not there.

Take away Islam, and the world would still be left with the main forces that drive today's conflicts, including colonialism, cross-national ideologies, ethnic conflicts and terrorism says Graham Fuller, a former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA in charge of long-range strategic forecasting and currently a professor of history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada).

In his article entitled 'A World Without Islam', published in Foreign Policy, Fuller believes that given our intense current focus on terrorism, war, and rampant anti-Americanism it's vital to understand the true sources of these crises. He poses a question, is Islam the source of the problem or does it tend to lie with other less obvious and deeper factors?

Fuller presents his thoughts on Islam in an extended game of "what if." What if Islam had never arisen in the Middle East? What if there had never been a Prophet Mohammed, no saga of the spread of Islam across vast parts of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa? Would there still be violent clashes between the West and that part of the world? Would the Middle East be more peaceful? How different might the character of East-West relations be?

Fuller ponders a litany of history's major battles and events to drive home his message that while Islam might be a convenient culprit, but global strife, past and present, can't be blamed on any one religion. Europeans would still have wanted the spoils of the Middle East and launched the Crusades albeit under a different banner. "After all, what were the Crusades if not a Western adventure driven primarily by political, social, and economic needs? The banner of Christianity was little more than a potent symbol, a rallying cry to bless the more secular urges of powerful Europeans. In fact, the particular religion of the natives never figured highly in the West's imperial push across the globe. Europe may have spoken upliftingly about bringing "Christian values to the natives," but the patent goal was to establish colonial outposts as sources of wealth for the metropole and bases for Western power projection."

And so it's unlikely that Christian inhabitants of the Middle East would have welcomed the stream of European fleets and their merchants backed by Western guns, he says adding that Imperialism would have prospered in the region's complex ethnic mosaic-the raw materials for the old game of divide and rule. And Europeans still would have installed the same pliable local rulers to accommodate their needs. We doublespeak about promoting democracy in the Middle East as we back autocratic, despotic and undemocratic client regimes there.

On the U.S. occupation of Iraq, he says that it would not have been welcome by Iraqis even if they were Christian. Fuller points out that the United States did not overthrow Saddam Hussein, an intensely nationalist and secular leader; because he was Muslim and other Arab peoples would still have supported the Iraqi Arabs in their trauma of occupation. "Nowhere do people welcome foreign occupation and the killing of their citizens at the hands of foreign troops. Indeed, groups threatened by such outside forces invariably cast about for appropriate ideologies to justify and glorify their resistance struggle. Religion is one such ideology."

The West still would have tried various ways to get control of oil-rich areas, according to Fuller. But Middle Eastern Christians would not have welcomed imperial Western oil companies, backed by their European vice-regents, diplomats, intelligence agents, and armies, any more than Muslims did. Look at the long history of Latin American reactions to American domination of their oil, economics, and politics. The Middle East would have been equally keen to create nationalist anti-colonial movements to wrest control of their own soil, markets, sovereignty, and destiny from foreign grip-just like anti-colonial struggles in Hindu India, Confucian China, Buddhist Vietnam, and a Christian and animist Africa.

On the current Israeli-Palestinian problem, Fuller believes that Jews would have still sought a homeland outside Europe and the Zionist movement would still have emerged and sought a base in Palestine even if the Middle East was Christian. Why, because, he explains, it was Christians who shamelessly persecuted Jews for more than a millennium, culminating in the Holocaust. These horrific examples of anti-Semitism were firmly rooted in Western Christian lands and culture, he says. "And the new Jewish state would still have dislodged the same 750,000 Arab natives of Palestine from their lands even if they had been Christian-and indeed some of them were. Would not these Arab Palestinians have fought to protect or regain their own land?"

The Israeli-Palestinian problem remains at heart a national, ethnic, and territorial conflict, only recently bolstered by religious slogans, Fuller said adding that we should not forget that Arab Christians played a major role in the early emergence of the whole Arab nationalist movement in the Middle East. He recalls that the ideological founder of the first pan-Arab Baath party, Michel Aflaq, was a Sorbonne-educated Syrian Christian.

On blaming Islam for current violence and terrorism, Fuller echoes Robert Pape's argument about the strategic, social and personal motivations work together to encourage suicide terrorism. Pape, in his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, argues that nationalism and religious difference between the rebels and a dominant democratic state are the main conditions under which the "alien" occupation of a community's homeland is likely to lead to a campaign of suicide terrorism. He finds that religion plays a smaller part than thought.

Fuller reminds that the West's memories are short when it focuses on terrorism in the name of Islam. He recalls: "Jewish guerrillas used terrorism against the British in Palestine. Sri Lankan Hindu Tamil "Tigers" invented the art of the suicide vest and for more than a decade led the world in the use of suicide bombings-including the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Greek terrorists carried out assassination operations against U.S. officials in Athens. Organized Sikh terrorism killed Indira Gandhi, spread havoc in India, established an overseas base in Canada, and brought down an Air India flight over the Atlantic. Macedonian terrorists were widely feared all across the Balkans on the eve of World War I. Dozens of major assassinations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were carried out by European and American "anarchists," sowing collective fear. The Irish Republican Army employed brutally effective terrorism against the British for decades, as did communist guerrillas and terrorists in Vietnam against Americans, communist Malayans against British soldiers in the 1950s, Mau-Mau terrorists against British officers in Kenya -the list goes on. It doesn't take a Muslim to commit terrorism."

Fuller points out that even the recent history of terrorist activity doesn't look much different. "According to Europol, 498 terrorist attacks took place in the European Union in 2006. Of these, 424 were perpetrated by separatist groups, 55 by left-wing extremists, and 18 by various other terrorists. Only 1 was carried out by Islamists."

Fuller makes a compelling argument that conflict between East and West remains all about the grand historical and geopolitical issues of human history: ethnicity, nationalism, ambition, greed, resources, local leaders, turf, financial gain, power, interventions, and hatred of outsiders, invaders, and imperialists. Faced with timeless issues like these, how the power of religion could not be invoked, he asked.

He also reminds us that virtually every one of the principle horrors of the 20th century came almost exclusively from strictly secular regimes: Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. It was Europeans who visited their "world wars" twice upon the rest of the worldtwo devastating global conflicts with no remote parallels in Islamic history.

Some today might wish for a "world without Islam" in which these problems presumably had never come to be. But, in truth, the conflicts, rivalries, and crises of such a world might not look so vastly different than the ones we know today, Fuller concludes.

In short, Fuller has done a great job in spelling out the real root of the contemporary problems which lie in imperialism/colonial ism, more than religion, although certainly religion is a part. His paradigm repudiates uninformed and biased pundits and neoconservatives who condemn Islam as the root of all conflict and see "Islam fascism" the sworn foe of the West in a looming "World War III."

Moving on with our subject, we need to now determine indisputably whether Islam/Quran is from our Almighty God or not.

The first five verses which were revealed were as follows:

1. Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created,

2. Has created man from a clot (a piece of thick coagulated blood).

3. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous,

4. Who has taught (the writing) by the pen,

5. Has taught man that which he knew not.

Let us now take a brief trip in time and go back to the past. Let us study an extraordinary story, one full of miracles.

Let us see how a human being is created.(taken from the article 'The Miracle of Man's Creation' by Harun Yahya)

A single cell in the mother's womb. A helpless thing in need of protection. Smaller than a grain of salt. You, too, once consisted of this single cell. Just like everybody else in the world.

And then this cell divided, becoming two cells. Then they divided and became four. Then eight, then 16 cells.

The cells continued dividing. First a piece of flesh emerged. Then this piece of flesh took shape. It developed arms, legs, eyes. It grew 100 billion times larger than the initial cell, and 6 billion times heavier.

God performed a string of miracles and created the human being, who was once just a drop of water.

And He revealed to Man how He created him in the Qur'an, in these words:

Does man think that he will be left uncontrolled, (without purpose)? Was he not once a drop of ejected semen? Then he became a clot, so He created and fashioned him and made him into two sexes, male and female. Is He who does this not able to bring the dead to life? (Surat al-Qiyama: 36-40)

THE JOURNEY OF THE EGG

Wrapped up in our daily lives, we remain most of the time unaware of the one most important miracle taking place right before our very eyes. This miracle, is the miracle of creation in human beings.

The first miracle of creation begins in a woman's body, in the organ called the ovary, with the maturing of a single egg cell

There is a long journey ahead of this maturing egg. It will first enter the organ known as the fallopian tube, then travel through this for a long distance and finally reach the mother's womb.

Shortly before the mature egg is released from the ovary, the fallopian tube gets ready to catch it. With sensitive movements, it tries to locate this egg cell on top of the ovary.

As a result of this search, the fallopian tube finds the maturing egg and pulls it into itself. And the egg's journey has begun at last.

The egg is obliged to travel the whole of the fallopian tube. But it has no organelles to help it do this, no fins or feet, for instance. For this reason a special system has been created for the egg's journey. Millions of cells on the inner surface of the fallopian tube have been charged with ensuring the egg reaches the womb.

These cells position the tiny hairs on their surface, called cilia, so that they lie in the direction of the womb.

In this way they send the egg cell in the correct direction, as if passing a very valuable item from one hand to the next.

Consider this for a moment. These tiny hairs are part of a very intelligent plan, and have been situated just where they need to be, in just the shape they need to be. All of them together, they perform a carrying motion, in a unified direction.

If one part of these cells did not carry out their function, or if they performed that function in different directions, the egg would not reach its target, and birth could not take place. God's creation, however, is flawless and every cell carries out the task assigned to it without error.

In this way, the egg cell progresses straight to the place which is being specially prepared for it, in other words, the mother's womb. But the egg cell being so carefully carried has a life-span of only 24 hours. If it is not fertilized within this time, it will die. It needs a vital material in order to be fertilized; the sperm which will come from the male body

THE DESIGN OF THE SPERM

A sperm is in fact a cell, the function of which is to convey the genetic data of the male to the egg cell in the woman's body. When it is examined closely, sperm looks just like a machine specially designed to carry this load. The front of the sperm is covered with amour. There is another layer of amour under the first, and under this second layer lays the cargo carried by the sperm.

In this cargo are 23 chromosomes belonging to the male. All the information concerning the human body, right down to the finest detail, is carried inside the chromosomes.

In order for a new human being to emerge the 23 chromosomes in the sperm have to unite with the 23 chromosomes inside the mother's egg cell. In this way, the first foundations of a person's 46 chromosomes will be laid.

The amour system at the head of the sperm will protect this valuable cargo from all danger right through its journey.

But the design in sperm is not limited to this. There is a very powerful engine in the middle of the sperm. The end of the engine is connected to the tail of the sperm. The power produced by the engine turns the tail like a propeller and enables the sperm to move swiftly.

Since there is an engine in the middle, it will need fuel to make it work. This need has been thought of, and the most productive fuel for the engine, fructose, has been placed in the liquid surrounding the sperm. In this way the fuel for the engine is provided throughout the length of the journey it will undertake.

Thanks to this perfect design, the sperms head rapidly straight for the egg cell. When the length of the sperm and the distance travelled are considered, it emerges that this is relatively as fast as a speed boat.

The production of these miraculous engines is carried out in a most expert manner. Inside each of the testicles, the sperm production centers, there are microscopic tubes of a total distance of around 500 meters long. The production inside these tiny tubes works just like the conveyor-belt assembly system inside a modern factory. The sperm's amour, engine, and tail parts are assembled onto one another in turn. What emerges as a result is a real wonder of engineering.

We have to think a little in the face of this reality.

How do these unconscious cells, know how to prepare the sperms in the appropriate form, despite the fact that they know nothing about the mother's body? How have they learned to make the amour, engine, and tail that the sperm will need in the mother's body? With what intelligence do they assemble these components in the correct order?

How do they know that the sperm will need fructose? How have they learned to build an engine that runs on fructose? There is but one answer to all of these questions. The sperms and the seminal fluid that they are placed in were specifically created by God for the continuation of the human race.

This wonderful planning in the design of sperm is in itself a miracle of creation. In fact, God draws especial attention in the Qu'ran to the creation of the seminal fluid in which the sperms exist:

It is We Who have created you. Why, then, do you not accept the truth? Have you ever considered that (seed) which you emit? Is it you who create it? Or are We the Creator? (Surat al-Waqia, 57-59)

Sperms' powerful race

Some 250 million sperms at a time are sent to the mother's womb. This number is deliberately kept high, because as soon as the sperms enter the mother's body they find themselves facing lethal dangers.

There is a dense mixture of acids in the mother's reproductive organs designed to combat bacteria. This acid mixture is also fatal to sperms. Within a few minutes, the walls of the womb are coated with millions of dead sperms. A few hours later, most of the 250 million sperms will have died.

This acid compound, which is most important for the mother's health, is so powerful that it can comfortably destroy all the sperms that enter the womb. In that event, fertilization could not take place, and the human race would come to an end.

But God, Who created the sperms, has also created precautions against the dangers that they will face in the mother's womb.

While sperm is being produced in the man's body, a basic compound is added to the fluid that contains the sperms. This compound partially eliminates the effect of the acid in the mother's womb. Thanks to this, a number of sperms pass the mother's womb and manage to reach the entrance to the fallopian tube.

If you notice, the sperms all travel together in the same direction. But how do they find this right direction? How do they know where the egg, no larger than a speck of dust, is? The sperms find the way to the egg, because another perfectly created biological system comes into action.

The egg gives off a chemical signal to attract the sperms, which are about 15 centimeters away from it. The sperms head straight to the egg thanks to this signal. In short, the egg cell, which knows nothing about the sperms, and has never come into contact with them before, calls them to it. Two cells, perfect strangers to one another, engage in communication. This reality is another proof that egg and sperm are created in the most ideal form for each other.

THE GREAT UNION

Finally, around a hundred sperms manage to reach the egg. Yet the race is not yet over. Because only one sperm will be allowed inside the egg. So another race begins. There is one particularly important obstacle confronting the sperms.

This is a hard protective layer surrounding the egg, which kills off any unwanted micro organisms that may approach it. It is also extremely difficult to penetrate. In order to overcome this obstacle, special systems again are created on the sperm.

Underneath the amour in the sperm's head, it houses secret weapons which it has so far concealed. These are tiny, dissolving enzyme sacs. These little sacs make a hole in the protective layer, by dissolving it, and the sperms can then enter this layer.

While the sperm is moving ahead inside the layer, the amour at the end gets worn away, eventually falling apart. The falling apart of the amour is part of the perfectly functioning plan. Because thanks to this, the second set of enzyme sacs inside the sperm, can emerge. These enable the sperm to overcome the last obstacle facing it, in other words, the piercing of the egg shell.

You are now looking at pictures taken by an electron microscope. The sperm has red-coloured amour This amour melts away, and the sperm enters the egg through its shell

The flawless conception in the coming together of sperm and egg does not end here.

As soon as the sperm reaches the egg shell, yet another miracle takes place. The sperm suddenly abandons the tail which has brought it all this way. This is essential, because if the sperm did not do so, the tail, which is constantly in motion, would enter the egg cell and destroy it.

The discarding of the tail section resembles the way a rocket might jettison its spent fuel tanks on leaving the atmosphere, having no further use for them. But how can the tiny sperm make such a fine calculation? In order for the sperm to be able to make this calculation, it has to know that it has come to the end of its journey and therefore has no further need for its tail. But a sperm is an unconscious biological machine which has no intelligence and is not able to perceive its surroundings.

God, who creates sperm, created it together with a system that enables the tail to fall off at just the right moment.

The sperm abandoning its tail, pierces the egg, and deposits the load, in other words the chromosomes, through the hole it opens up. The process of the carrying of the genetic data in this way comes to an end. As a result of the harmonious functioning of hundreds of different and independent systems, genetic data regarding the man's body reaches the egg cell. As we have seen, even just the union of sperm and egg, is only possible thanks to a perfect planning and design, leaving no room for any coincidence.

Even if people are not aware of it, the intelligence and planning seen in every part of these events are clear proofs that human beings are created by God.

THE EMBRYO

The genetic data of the sperm and the egg are side by side. But, one of the greatest miracles in the world is about to happen. Two sets of genetic information are about to mix with one another to form an entirely new human being.

And union has happened! ...This first cell is called a "Zygote".

It may be hard to believe, but inside this cell is all the information regarding a person as yet unborn. The unborn baby's eyes, complexion and hair colour, the shape of his face and all his other physical features are encoded here.

And it is not just his appearance, but also his skeleton, internal organs, skin, veins, and even the shape and number of the blood cells circulating in those veins and all the other details of his body that are determined here.

Everything is determined and written in this cell, from a person's features at age 7, to his features at age 70.

Shortly after fertilization, the cell will perform another very surprising action. It divides, and two new cells form. Then these cells divide again, and become four cells. The construction of a new human being has now begun.

But why does the cell decide to divide? Why does it have the task of building a new human being? Who gave the cell the knowledge to build a new person?

These questions lead us to the existence of God, possessor of infinite intelligence and power, Who created us, the world, the human being in that world, the cell in that human being, and the entire universe around him.

At this moment you are seeing the journey inside the fallopian tube of the constantly dividing and multiplying cell. This collection of cells is known as a morula.

As the cell cluster divides and multiplies, another astonishing thing happens. Some cells start to grow different to others. The old cells gather in the centre, and these are surrounded with the new cells which are growing into a different kind of cell. A short time later, the group of cells in the centre will form the embryo, in other words the first cells of the baby to be born, and the group of cells around these will form the placenta, which will nourish the embryo.

Cells' beginning to grow different from one another, and deciding to form the embryo or the placenta, is accepted by the world of science as a great miracle. There is a secret order which makes these cells do this.

About four days after fertilization, the dividing cells reach an area specially prepared for them, that is to say, the mother's womb. In order not to be expelled from the body, they have to cling on to the womb. However, the newly forming embryo is a round cluster of similar cells. It has no special hook or extension to enable it to cling on anywhere. So, how does it stick to the wall of the womb?

This, too, has been taken into account. When these cells reach the wall of the mother's womb, a special system goes into operation.

What is happening now is a cell cluster which has just reached the mother's womb, seen now under an electron microscope. The cells on the very outside give off a special enzyme which dissolves the womb wall. In this way, the cells cling tightly to the womb, and avoid being expelled from the body.

The presence of these cells, which are both in the right place and which release the necessary enzyme, once more reveals the perfection of creation.

Thanks to this flawless creation, the cell cluster is buried in the wall of the womb. This new living creature, which sticks to the womb and begins to grow, is now known as an embryo.

This truth, discovered by modern science, revealed an important miracle of the Qu'ran. In the Qu'ran, God uses the term alaq to refer to the first phase in the mother's womb.

Read in the name of your Lord Who created. He created man from alaq. Read and your Lord is Most Honorable.(Surat Al-Alaq, 1-3)

Alaq in Arabic means a thing which holds on to somewhere. The word is even used in describing certain parasites which stick to the skin and suck blood.

In other words, in the Qu'ran, which was revealed to us at a time when man's knowledge of biology was still very limited, a word is used which exactly describes the embryo in the mother's womb. This proves once more that the Qur'an is the word of God.

CONSTRUCTION IN THE MOTHER'S WOMB

Countless numbers of single-celled creatures live on our world, which is a planet full of life. All of these single-celled creatures multiply by dividing, and form exact copies of themselves as they do so.

The embryo developing in the mother's womb also begins life as a single-celled creature, and this cell multiplies by copying itself.

In this situation, unless there were a design, the cells of the unborn baby would all turn out to be the same, and what eventually would emerge would not be a human being, but a shapeless mass of organic matter.

But nothing like that happens. Because the cells are not unsupervised.

A few weeks after the sperm and the egg have come together, the cells start to differentiate, obeying a secret command which is apparently given to them.

We are now witnessing this change, which is described as a miracle by all scientists. The unconscious cells have set about building the internal organs, skeleton, and brain.

Brain cells have begun to form in these two small gaps. This view you are now seeing, taken under an electron microscope, is the first development of the brain.

The brain cells will multiply rapidly here, and as a result of this growth the baby will possess some 10 billion brain cells.

Now the formation of the brain cells will take place. Every minute, 100,000 new cells are added to this collection.

Each new cell that forms behaves as if it knows where it belongs, and which cells it has to make connections with. Each cell finds its own place. Out of an infinite number of possibilities, it joins only to the cell it needs to.

There are 100 trillion connections in the human brain. In order for brain cells to be able to make these trillions of connections properly, they need to demonstrate an intelligence far superior to that possessed by humans. However, cells have no intelligence at all.

And not just brain cells: each of the dividing and multiplying cells in the embryo heads from the place where it first formed straight to the point it has to occupy. And each one finds the place designed for it.

And here, whichever cells they have to form connections with, they also do.

So, who is it who makes these cells, which have no awareness, follow this intelligent plan?

Construction inside the mother's womb goes on unceasingly. Some of the cells undergoing change suddenly begin to expand and contract.

Following that, hundreds of thousands of these cells come together. And these make up the heart.

This heart will continue to beat for a lifetime. In a short while we will see a real miracle. These cells which stand independent of each other are in fact vein cells.

Then these cells suddenly start to join onto each other and form connections between themselves. And the cells form the veins.

How have these cells learned that they have to form a vein, and how can they do it? That is one of the questions that science has not yet found an answer to.

The vein cells eventually make a perfect tubing system, with no cracks or holes in it. The internal surfaces of veins are smooth, as if made by expert hands.

This perfect vein system will soon begin to carry blood to every part of the baby's body. The length of the vein network is more than 40,000 kilometers. That is almost as long as the circumference of the Earth.

Developments in the mother's womb go on non-stop. In the fifth week the embryo's arms and legs become visible.

This bump will later turn into an arm. Some cells will then begin to form into hands. But in a while, some of these cells will do a most surprising thing. Thousands of them will commit mass suicide.

Why do these cells kill themselves?

The dying cells perform a crucial function. The bodies of these cells, which die along a specified line, are necessary for the formation of fingers. The remaining cells begin to eat the dead ones, and empty spaces appear in these regions. These empty spaces are the gaps between the fingers.

But why do these cells make such a sacrifice? How is it that a cell can kill itself so that the baby can have fingers in due course?

How does the cell know that its death will serve such a purpose?

All this once again shows that all the cells which make up the human being are directed by God.

At this point, some cells have started to make legs.

The cells cannot know that the embryo will need to walk in the outside world. But still they make legs and feet for the embryo.

This is now a four-week old human being.

At this stage two holes develop, one on either side of the embryo's head. It is hard to believe, but the eyes will be constructed in these holes.

Development of the eyes starts in the sixth week.

The cells operate with an unbelievable plan for months, and one by one form the different regions of the eyes.

Some cells build the cornea, some the pupil, and others the lens. Each cell stops when it reaches the limit of the region it has to build. And the eye, which consists of 40 different components, is constructed flawlessly

In this way, the eye, which is accepted as the world's most perfect camera, is brought into existence from nothing inside the mother's womb. It has been borne in mind that the person to be born will open his eyes to a world full of colour, and an eye has been built which is ideally suited to its perception.

The sounds this as yet unborn person will hear and the music he will listen to have also been taken into consideration. The ears which will listen to that music are also constructed in the mother's womb. These cells make up the finest sound reception instrument in the world.

These scenes remind us once more that sight and hearing are in fact great blessings that God has bestowed upon us. God puts it this way in the Qur'an:

And God has brought you out from the wombs of your mothers while you know nothing. And He gave you learning, sight and hearts that you might give thanks. (Surat an-Nahl: 78)

THE MIRACLES OF THE QUR'AN

All the information that we have so far given regarding the development of the embryo in the mother's womb has emerged from scientific research in the last 30 to 40 years. And this new information has enabled more new miracles of the Qur'an to be grasped.

Until quite recently, it was thought that the bones formed at the same time as the muscles. But the latest research has revealed a truth that human beings were unaware of. First bone tissue develops in the embryo, and then muscle tissue forms around the bones.

The interesting thing is that this newly discovered fact was revealed 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an:

(We) then formed the drop into a clot and formed the clot into a lump and formed the lump into bones and clothed the bones in flesh; and then brought him into being as another creature. Blessed be God, the Best of Creators! (Surat al-Mumenoon, 14)

On the other hand, scientific research into birth has shown that the baby goes through three stages in the mother's womb. This fact is described in the following way in a text-book on embryology, Basic Human Embryology:

Life in the womb goes through three phases: pre-embryonic (the first 2.5 weeks), embryonic (up to the end of the eighth week), and fetal (from the eighth week to birth.)

This information which was come by with the use of modern technology, the result of long years of research, was nevertheless given in the Qur'an some 1,400 years ago. These three phases in the mother's womb are announced in the Qur'an in this way:

... He creates you stage by stage in your mothers' wombs in a threefold darkness. That is God, your Lord. Sovereignty is His. There is no god but Him. So what has made you deviate? (Surat az-Zumar: 6)

THE PLACENTA

The instruments you see in our ICUs are medical tools which possess some of the world's most developed technology. It is a life support system, which people in intensive care are linked up to.

But this entire roomful of high technology fails by comparison to another far more developed system of biotechnology.

This superior piece of equipment is the placenta, which surrounds the embryo in the mother's womb and meets all its needs.

The placenta is like a kidney dialysis machine, a heart-lung machine, and an artificial liver. It carries out all these functions at the same time. It is a wonderful design which enables mother and baby to live.

The cells which make up the placenta recognise the food particles from the millions of molecules in the mother's blood and allow these to reach the baby.

Another of the placenta's duties is to protect the embryo.

The defensive cells in the mother's body flow towards the womb to attack the growing embryo. But cells on the very outermost layer of the placenta form a kind of filter between the mother's veins and the embryo. They allow the nutrient molecules to pass, but not the immunity cells.

If the job of thinking care of the growing embryo's needs had been given to a human being and not the placenta, then the embryo would not survive more than a few minutes. Because mankind does not possess the kind of technology it would need to calculate the embryo's changing needs and then meet them. The only piece of technology sufficiently sophisticated to carry out this function is the placenta.

This cord enables the link to be formed between the baby and the mother's body.

This cord, which is cut and thrown away after birth is in fact a true wonder of engineering and carries out vital tasks for nine months. It contains one vein and two arteries.

The vein carries food and oxygen to the embryo. Thanks to this, the embryo does not drown even though it lives in a liquid-filled environment and its lungs are full of water. It does not die, even though its digestive system has not yet been constructed and it cannot eat. Both of these two basic needs are provided for by the embryo through its placenta.

The arteries remove the carbon dioxide and waste food products from the baby's body.

Neither the mother, nor the embryo growing in her womb, are aware of these systems and processes.

BIRTH

As the months pass, the baby in the mother's womb takes shape and grows. It becomes ready to step into the outer world.

The time has now come for the final stage, birth.

But there is a grave deal of danger for the baby waiting in its mother's womb. The baby will be born by passing through the mother's womb and between her pelvic bones, posing a great threat to the unborn child. But during birth, the baby's head will be squashed in these narrow areas and its skull will come under pressure.

But here again a special precaution has been taken to protect the baby's health.

The bones in the skull of a newborn baby are soft. Furthermore, unlike in adults, the bones which make up the skull are not fused together. Thanks largely to this, the bones are able to slide onto one another during birth. The gaps between the bones stop the skull from being crushed during this process.

In this way, the baby is born healthily, and its skull and brain come to no harm.

In the months that follow its skull will harden, and the baby will lead its life in a healthy way.

It is the duty of everyone in the world to consider this fact

And your duty is to consider how you came to be, and to be grateful to God.

Do not forget that our Lord, Who created our bodies once, will recreate us after our deaths, and will hold us to account for the blessing He has bestowed upon us.

This is very easy for Him.

Those who forget their own creation and deny the afterlife are greatly deceived.

God speaks of these people in the Qur'an:

Does not man see that We created him from a drop yet there he is an open antagonist! He makes likenesses of Us and forgets his own creation, saying, "Who will give life to the bones when they are decayed?" Say "He Who made them in the first place will bring them back to life. He has complete knowledge of every created thing." (Surah Yasin: 77-79)

Thus the man is created in the above mentioned fashion. Now to think of this in reflection to what is said in the Quran to be as a coincidence is nothing but folly.

The above examples draw the fact upon us to believe that Quran is the Word of God. Now if Quran is the word of God, shouldn't it be JUST. Therefore, we might be fooled into thinking that in today's life, all the punishments mentioned in the Quran are barbaric, but if we analyse closely we will find correlation to all that is happening and that mentioned in the Quran are completely compatible with each other.

The reason as somebody mentioned in another write-up is not only to punish the evil doer but also to prevent the acts from repeating itself. If my intrinsic nature calls upon me to do a crime like say murder or rape, I would also be thinking about the consequences. But if the consequences are not fatal or as befitting my crime itself, I would not be bothered much. If we were to face a scenario wherein our mother/sister/wife gets raped and we are asked to be the judge for that perpetrator, I don't think I would proclaim any other punishment than capital to him. If possible, I would even be very much in favour of carrying out that task myself. Let me ask any normal sane person out there, would this not be the case with any of you?

If this is not being JUST, then pray tell me what is.

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