23. Hasan said that the allusion is to a large number of people from among the people before Prophet Muhammad and a large number from those of his followers (Ibn Jarir).

Ibn Kathir reproduces a hadīth to the effect that the two “throngs” will be from this Ummah. But it is untrustworthy.

Ibn Jarir and Ibn Kathir also produce another hadīth of Bazzar Hakim (which Dhahabi declared trustworthy) and Ibn Hibban (which Arna’oot declared Sahih) in which the Prophet used the words of the Qur’ān, but which does not clearly specify that both the “throngs” will be from this Ummah. The hadīth however is as follows:

`Imran b. Husayn reports that we spoke in the company of the Prophet until we prolonged the talk, so we returned to our homes. Next day we went up to the Prophet. He said, “Last night Prophets were shown to me along with their followers. A Prophet would pass with three followers or a Prophet with a group of followers or another with a slightly smaller number of followers with him, and one without any follower from the people he was raised in; until I saw Musa b. `Imran among a large number of the Children of Israel. Their numbers amazed me. I asked, ‘My Lord! Who are these?’ He said, ‘This is your brother Musa b. `Imran and those who followed him from among the Children of Israel.’ I asked ‘And where are my followers?’ I was told, ‘Look at your right,’ and lo, one of the smaller hillock of Makkah was covered with men. I said, ‘My Lord! Who are these?’ I was told, ‘Your followers.’ And then it was said, ‘Are you satisfied?’ I said, ‘My Lord, I am satisfied my Lord, I am satisfied.’ I was told, ‘Look at your left.’ I found the horizon covered with people.

I asked, ‘My Lord, who are these?’ It was said, ‘Your followers.’ Then it was said, ‘Are you satisfied?’ I said, ‘My Lord, I am satisfied, my Lord, I am satisfied.’ It was said to me, ‘Along with these there will be seventy thousand who will enter Paradise without reckoning.’ At that point `Ukkasha – a man from Banu Asad of Khuzaymah – got up and said, “Messenger of Allah, seek from Allah that He place me among them.” The Prophet said, “O Allah place him among them.” Then another man and rose up and said “Prophet of Allah, seek from Allah that He place me among them.” He said, “`Ukkasha overtook you.” Then the Prophet continued, “My parents be sacrificed for you, if you can manage to be from among the ‘seventy’ then be. But if you are unable and fall short, then be of the hillock. But if you are unable and fall short, be of those that stretched to the horizon for, I saw people there jostling up there.” Then he added, “I hope that those who follow me will be one fourth of Paradise.” We chanted Allah’s greatness. Then he said, “I hope that they will be one-third.” We chanted Allah’s greatness. Then he added, “I hope you will be one half.” We chanted Allah’s greatness.

The Prophet then recited, “A throng from the earlier ones and a throng from the later ones.” The Muslims discussed it between themselves as to who could those be, saying, “We did not see them but as those who were born into Islamic homes and so kept living according to it and died upon it,” until their talk reached the Prophet. He said, “It is not that way.

But rather they are a people who do not seek to be charmed (by charmers) do not get tattooed with hot iron, and do not seek after and follow omens but rather, place trust on their Lord.”

24. This Ayah reminds us of another passage of the Qur’ān :

“Move on to a shadow that has three branches. Neither providing shade nor saving from the flames.

It sends out sparks the size of palaces as if they are yellow camels.

Woe then that day unto the deniers” (Ibn Kathir).

25. Ibn Jarir offers examples of similar usages among the Arabs (i.e. where the sentence ends with “ka- reem”). In Arabic, everything that is not good is termed as “laysa bi-kareemin” (Qurtubi).

26. That is, the sin of Association (Mujahid, Dahhak, Qatadah and others as in Ibn Jarir).

27. “Heem” is also referred to a camel which suffers from a certain disease because of which it drinks but its thirst is not satiated, so that it keeps on drinking until it dies. The medicine with which it is then treated is known as “huyaam” (Ibn Jarir from the Salaf, Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir).

28. That is, the seminal fluid of the male and female (Au.).

29. The sperm cell is a special creation of Allah. It has a head, a short body and a long tail. It behaves like a little one. In fact earliest biological text books drew a little man to illustrate the spermatozoa.

With reference to the number of chromosomes, there are two types of cells that the human body manufactures:

those with the standard 46 chromosomes and those with half the numbers, i.e., 23. The latter are manufactured in testicles and ovaries. Chromosomes are helical strands that contain 3 billion molecules around 3% of which function as genes. Genes are spread far and wide on the 46 chromosomes, and randomly placed, yield meaningful messages. They are the blue-prints of life. A whole human being can be built with the instructions contained in the 46 chromosomes.

During cell division, the 46 chromosomes replicate to become two sets of chromosomes. These two new sets of 46 chromosomes each, move to extreme ends of the cell, which then splits from the middle to result in two daughter cells. Each daughter cell now has 46 chromosomes or 23 pairs.

The cells made in testicles and ovaries are specialized forms called sperms and eggs. In their case something mysterious happens during the division of normal cells containing 46 chromosomes. The helical strands open up in the testicle and the 23 pairs of chromosomes uncoil to resemble a ladder. Then they are vertically sliced into two halves from the middle. The two sliced sets of chromosomes move apart to two ends of the by now enlarged cell. The cell itself splits into two, giving birth to two daughter cells. Each daughter cell contains only half the chromosomes 23. When these two specialized cells, sperm and egg, merge to become one cell during fertilization the two sliced halved chromosomes (from sperm and egg) join together to become, once again, 23 pairs, thus completing the number 46.

Emitted into the vagina, the spermatozoa in their millions begin to swim upstream with the help of their long tails, as if searching for an egg. Once found, each tries to force itself into the egg. Normally only one succeeds.

(If more than one succeeds, the result is twins or more). The head forces itself into the egg with the help of an enzyme at the tip which breaks the outer lining of the egg. As soon as a sperm penetrates into an egg, the egg undergoes massive chemical changes in an instant. Its wall hardens up to render it impenetrable by other sperms. Soon the 23 sliced pieces of chromosomes of the male sperm and female egg find each other, arrange themselves, join up, and assuming the shape of a ladder, result in 23 complete pairs.

This is a simplistic description of the sperm and egg, and of the fertilization with reference to the chromosomes alone. A detailed description describing thousands of events, each a miracle in itself, has to be obtained from biological books (Au.).

30. So that, it comes early to some late to others (Ibn Jarir).

31. That is, are you not afraid that Allah should destroys you to bring another people in your place, and then, He should develop you into a new creation altogether, in form and shape completely different from what you are now? (Ibn Jarir)

32. Why can you not recall the creation of Adam to convince yourself that the Power that created him can create another kind of creation in your place? (Ibn Jarir with slight modification). Alternatively, why should you not consider your own creation: from semen drop, to a clot to a chewed flesh-like piece, and so on – although you were nothing earlier? (Qurtubi)

33. Today’s botanic knowledge is so well spread that we may not repeat any of the amazing things that are reported in the media, and perhaps taught in schools. We shall present here some of the latest findings about plant life, some functions within, especially their ability to communicate with trained persons, express feelings of joy and fear, and friendliness with those who care for them. The source is “The Secret Life of Plant” by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird (Rupa Publications, 2006):

“The true matrix of human life is the greensward covering mother earth.

Without green plants we would neither breathe nor eat. On the undersurface of every leaf a million movable lips are engaged in devouring carbon dioxide and expelling oxygen. All together, 25 million square miles of leaf surface are daily engaged in this miracle of photosynthesis, producing oxygen and food for man and beast… Of the 375 billion tons of food we consume each year the bulk comes from plants, which synthesize it out of air and soil with the help of sunlight. The remainder comes from animal products, which in turn are derived from plants. All the food, drink, intoxicants, drugs and medi¬cines that keep man alive and if properly used, radiantly healthy are ours through the sweetness of photosynthesis. Sugar produces all our starches, fats, oils, waxes, cellulose.

From crib to coffin, man relies on cellulose as the basis for his shelter clothing, fuel, fibers, basketry cordage, musical instruments, and the paper on which he scribbles his philosophy.

Instinctively aware of the aesthetic vibrations of plants, which are spiritually satisfying, human beings are happiest and most comfortable when living with flora. At birth, marriage death, blossoms are prerequi¬sites as they are at mealtime or festivities.

We give plants and flowers as tokens of love, of friendship, or homage and of thanks for hospitality. Our houses are adorned with gardens, our cities with parks, our nations with national preserves. The first thing a woman does to make a room livable is to place a plant in it or a vase of fresh cut flowers… Wormlike rootlets, which Darwin likened to a brain, burrow con¬stantly downward with thin white threads, crowding themselves firmly into the soil, tasting it as they go. Small hollow chambers in which a ball of starch can rattle indicate to the root tips the direction of the pull of gravity.

When the earth is dry, the roots turn toward moister ground, finding their way into buried pipes, stretching, as in the case of the lowly alfalfa plant as far as forty feet, developing an energy that can bore through concrete.

No one has yet counted the roots of a tree, but a study of a single rye plant indicates a total of over 13 million rootlets with a combined length of 380 miles. On these rootlets of a rye plant are fine root hairs estimated to number some 14 billion with a total length of 6,600 miles, almost the distance from pole to pole.

As the special burrowing cells are worn out by contact with stones pebbles, and large grains of sand they are rapidly replaced, but when they reach a source of nourishment they die and are replaced by cells designed to dissolve mineral salts and collect the resulting elements. This basic nourishment is passed from cell to cell up through the plant which constitutes a single unit of protoplasm, a watery or gelatinous substance considered the basis of physical life.

The root is thus a water pump, with water acting as a universal solvent raising elements from root to leaf evaporating and falling back to earth to act once more as the medium for this chain of life. The leaves of an ordinary sunflower will transpire in a day as much water as a man perspires.

On a hot day a single birch can absorb as much as four hundred quarts, exuding cooling moisture through its leaves.

No plant, says France, is without movement; all growth is a series of movements; plants are constantly preoccupied with bending, turning and quivering. He describes a summer day with thousands of polyp like arms reaching from a peaceful arbor, trembling, quivering in their eager¬ness for new support for the heavy stalk that grows behind them.

When the tendril, which sweeps a full circle in sixty-seven minutes finds a perch, within twenty seconds it starts to curve around the object and within the hour has wound itself so firmly it is hard to tear away. The tendril then curls itself like a corkscrew and in so doing raises the vine to itself.

A climbing plant which needs a prop will creep toward the nearest support.

Should this be shifted, the vine within a few hours, will change its course into the new direction. Can the plant see the pole? Does it sense it in some unfathomed way? If a plant is growing between obstruc¬tions and cannot see a potential support it will unerringly grow toward a hidden support, avoiding the area where none exists.

Plants, says France, are capable of intent: they can stretch toward, or seek out, what they want in ways as mysterious as the most fantastic creations of romance.

Far from existing inertly, the inhabitants of the pasture—or what the ancient Hellenes called botane—appear to be able to perceive and to react to what is happening in their environment at a level of sophistica¬tion far surpassing that of humans.

The sundew plant will grasp at a fly with infallible accuracy, moving in just the right direction toward where the prey is to be found. Some parasitical plants can recognize the slightest trace of the odor of their victim, and will overcome all obstacles to crawl in its direction.

Plants seem to know which ants will steal their nectar, closing when these ants are about, opening only when there is enough dew on their stems to keep the ants from climbing. The more sophisticated acacia actually enlists the protective services of certain ants which it rewards with nectar in return for the ants’ protection against other insects and herbivorous mammals.

Is it chance that plants grow into special shapes to adapt to the idiosyncrasies of insects which will pollinate them, luring these insects with special color and fragrance, rewarding them with their favorite nectar devising extraordinary canals and floral machinery with which to ensnare a bee so as to release it through a trap door only when the pollination process is completed? Some plants, unable to find nitrogen in swampy land, obtain it by devouring living creatures. There are more than five hundred varieties of carnivorous plants, eating any kind of meat from insect to beef, using endlessly cunning methods to capture their prey, from tentacles to sticky hairs to funnel-like traps. The tentacles of carnivorous plants are not only mouths but stomachs raised on poles with which to seize and eat their prey, to digest both meat and blood and leave nothing but a skeleton…” Plants are even sentient to orientation and to the future. Frontier men and hunters in the prairies of the Mississippi Valley discovered a sunflower plant, Silphium laciniatum whose leaves accurately indicate the points of the compass. Indian licorice, or Arbrus precatorius is so keenly sensitive to all forms of electrical and magnetic influences it is used as a weather plant. Botanists who first experimented with it in London’s Kew Gardens found in it a means for predicting cyclones, hurricanes tornadoes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

So accurate are alpine flowers about the seasons, they know when spring is coming and bore their way up through lingering snowbanks, developing their own heat with which to melt the snow… Whereas plants have been almost universally looked upon as senseless automata, they have now been found to be able to distinguish between sounds inaudible to the human ear and color wavelengths such as infra-red and ultraviolet invisible to the human eye; they are specially sensitive to X-rays and to the high frequency of television… (Introduction pp. vii-xii).

If a plant is threatened with overwhelming danger or damage, Backster (a scientist) observed that it reacts self-defensively in a way similar to an opossum — or, indeed, to a human being—by “passing out,” or going into a deep faint. The phenomenon was dramatically demonstrated one day when a physiologist from Canada came to Backster’s lab to witness the reaction of his plants.

The first plant gave no response whatsoever. Nor did the second; nor the third Backster checked his polygraph instruments, and tried a fourth and a fifth plant; still no success.

Finally, on the sixth, there was enough reaction to demonstrate the phenome¬non.

Cjrious to discover what could have influenced the other plants, Backster asked: “Does any part of your work involve harming plants?” “Yes,” the physiologist replied. “I terminate the plants I work with. I put them in an oven and roast them to obtain their dry weight for my analysis.” To see if a plant could display memory a scheme was devised whereby Backster was to try to identify the secret killer of one of two plants. Six of Backster’s polygraph students volunteered for the experiment, some of them veteran policemen. Blindfolded the students drew from a hat folded slips of paper, on one of which were instructions to root up, stamp on, and thoroughly destroy one of two plants in a room. The criminal was to commit the crime in secret; neither Backster nor any of the other students was to know his identity; only the second plant would be a witness.

By attaching the surviving plant to a polygraph and parading the students one by one before it, Backster was able to establish the culprit. Sure enough, the plant gave no reaction to five of the students, but caused the meter to go wild whenever the actual culprit approached. Backster was careful to point out that the plant could have picked up and reflected the guilt feelings of the culprit; but as the villain had acted in the interests of science, and was not particularly guilty, it left the possibility that a plant could remember and recognize the source of severe harm to its fellow.

In another series of observations Backster noted that a special com¬munion or bond of affinity appeared to be created between a plant and its keeper, unaffected by distance.

With the use of synchronized stop¬watches, Backster was able to note that his plants continued to react to his thought and attention from the next room, from down the hall, even from several buildings away. Back from a fifteen-mile trip to New Jersey, Backster was able to establish that his plants had perked up and shown definite and positive signs of response—whether it was relief or welcome he could not tell—at the very moment he had decided to return to New York” – Au.

But perhaps the most interesting for someone with a flare of biology, and a doubter of the theory of evolution would be the latest finding that plants seem to be capable of rectifying gene errors:

“Challenging a scientific law of inheritance that has stood for 150 years, scientists say plants sometimes select better bits of DNA in order to develop normally even when they inherited genetic flaws from their predecessors.

In the Purdue experiment, researchers found that a plant belonging to the mustard and watercress family sometimes corrects the genetic code it inherited from its flawed parents and grows normally like its unflawed grandparents and other ancestors.

Researchers found that in 10 percent of Arabidopsis thaliana plants with two copies of a mutant gene called “hothead” didn’t always blossom with deformed flowers like their parents, which carried the mutant genes. Instead, those plants had normal white flowers like their grandparents which didn’t carry the hothead gene. So the deformity appeared only for a single, previous generation.” (JOSEPH B. VERRENGIA Yahoo News (Au.).

34. This is how Ibn `Abbas, Mujahid and Qatadah understood the word “tafakkahoon” though there have been other (minor) opinions (Ibn Jarir).

35. That is, this is what you would have said in frustration if Allah had broken the seed into broken orts (Au.).

36. How rain drops form, i.e., as large as about 6-8 mm in dia., has been a mystery, since the droplets must necessarily fall off the clouds because of gravitational force, even when of dia. 2-3mm. Now with a new instrument, scientists have effectively reached into the clouds, revealing that a process they call cloudstirring leads to the rainfall.

“As water vapor rises from the surfaces of the oceans and other bodies of water, it begins to cool off. This cooling causes condensation, which transforms the vapor into tiny water droplets — that form clouds — with diameters smaller than the width of a human hair. These droplets are far too small to fall as raindrops, which are typically at least a millimeter across and a million times heavier. To balloon to raindrop size, the droplets need to collide and stick together.

Past studies have relied on computer simulations of the rain-making process.

These showed that once the itsybitsy droplets materialized inside the clouds, they turned into raindrops in one or two hours. In the real world however, rain can start to fall within 15 minutes of cloud formation.

Something must be speeding up the mergers of tiny droplets, which are so light they float around in clouds and often easily avoid the collisions necessary to make rain.

One way to speed the coalescence of droplets is to stir them up. If you stir up the droplets, they will more readily collide with one another.

It is now found that that droplets boasting larger-than-raindrop sizes in sinking pockets of air are found at the tops of clouds. This implies mixing occurs at the cloud edges, a support for the process of entrainment.

But that doesn’t completely rule out turbulence” (LiveScienc.com) - Au.

37. Water is a miracle, in the truest sense of the word; for details see Surah al-A`raf, note 22.

38. The Prophet has said about this world’s fire :

“Your fire is one-seventieth part of the fire of Hell.” It was said “Messenger of Allah, it would have sufficed as it is.” He replied “It has been made more intense by sixty-nine times, each of them of the same intensity as it is now” (Qurtubi, Ibn Kathir).

39. “The relation of Fire to Trees is intimate. In nearly all the fire that we bum, the fuel is derived from the wood of trees. Even mineral coal is nothing but the wood of prehistoric forests petrified under the earth through geological ages” (Yusuf Ali).

40. That is, the fire of the world is a reminder for the Fire of the Hereafter (Ibn Jarir, Razi).

41. The word “muqween” carries several other meanings (Ibn Jarir and others).

Asad explains: “The participial noun muqw is derived from the verb qawiya ‘it became deserted’ or ‘desolate’.

From the same root is derived the noun qawaa (or qiwaa’) which signifies ‘desert’, ‘wilderness’ or ‘wasteland’ as well as ‘hunger’ or ‘starvation’.

Hence muqw denotes ‘one who is hungry’ as well as ‘one who is lost [or “who wanders”] in a deserted place.’”

42. Although the following quote is slightly off the mark, stopping at Nature rather than proceeding to God it could still be read with profit and applied with success to the study of the Qur’ān as well. It is from a lecture delivered by a botanist Burbank on “How to Produce new Fruits and Flowers”: “In pursuing the study of any of the universal and everlasting laws of nature, whether relating to the life, growth, structure and movement of a giant planet, the tiniest plant or of the psychological movements of the human brain, some conditions are necessary before we can become one of nature’s interpreters or the creator of any valuable work for the world. Preconceived notions, dogmas and all personal prejudice and bias should be laid aside. Listen patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons one by one which Mother Nature has to teach shedding light on that which was before a mystery, so that all who will may see and know. She conveys her truths only to those who are passive and receptive. Accepting these truths as suggested, wherever they may lead then we have the whole universe in harmony with us. At last man has found a solid foundation for science having discovered that he is part of a universe which is eternally unstable in form, eternally immutable in substance.” The author follows up with another quote from another scientist called Fechner. It reads: “it is a dark and cold world we sit in if we will not open the inward eyes of the spirit to the inward flame of nature.” (The Secret Life of Plants, Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, Rupa Publications 2006).