and plants produced by seeds, each of which is a different factory and workbench, a different printing-press, treasury, and antique, a different manifesto proclaiming the Glorious Maker’s Names and ode hymning His perfections, it is as definite as two plus two equalling four that the particles of earth are acting at the command, with the permission, and through the will and power of an All-Glorious Maker Who is Lord of the command of “Be!” and it is,1 and to Whose command everything is subjugated. In this we believe.
SECOND MATTER: The Second Matter indicates briefly the duties and instances of wisdom in the motion of particles.
The Materialists, whose use of their reasons is limited to what is immediately apparent to them, have, in their nonsensical philosophies which are based on foundations of futility, taken the transformations of particles, which they regard as the results of coincidence, as the fundamental basis of all their principles and shown that the Divine works and creatures result from those transformations. Anyone with a grain of intelligence would know how contrary to reason is their attributing creatures adorned with infinite instances of wisdom to something based on purposeless, meaningless coincidence, which is quite without order.
Whereas, from the point of view of the wisdom of the All-Wise Qur’an, the transformations of particles have many purposes and duties, and demonstrate many instances of wisdom. The Qur’an points to these duties and instances of wisdom with many of its verses, such as:
And there is nothing but extols His limitless glory and praise.2
We shall mention several of these by way of examples.
The First: Renewing and refreshing the manifestations of His act of creation, the Necessarily Existent One takes all spirits as models and in order to every year clothe them in fresh bodies through miracles of His power, and through His wisdom to transcribe thousands and thousands of different books from every book, and to demonstrate single truths in constantly differing forms, and also to prepare the ground and make way for the beings, worlds and universes, which follow on one after the other, group by group, the Glorious Creator causes particles to move and employs them through His power.
The Second: The Glorious Lord of All Dominion created this world, and especially the field of the face of the earth, in the form of a cultivated property. That is to say, He prepared it in such a way that it would flourish and produce ever-fresh crops and He might sow and reap the numberless miracles of His power. Thus, by causing the motion of particles with wisdom and
Qur’an, 36:82, etc.
Qur’an, 17:44.