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The Islamic Bulletin
T
HE
M
IRACLE OF
T
HE
A
NT
By Harun Yahya
On his way to school every day, Joseph walks over to the garden of
the house across the street and waits there for a while. A very special
friend of his lives in this garden. No one knows this friend, but Joseph
loves him a lot. Joseph never forgets to visit his friend, and enjoys their
friendship a lot.
After all, he has a friendwho ismore intelligent than anyone else. Despite
being very small in size, his friendcandomany important
things.Heis also
veryhard-working.Hedoes all of his jobs verywell andat theproper time,
just as if he was a soldier in an army. Although he does not go to school
like Joseph, he successfully carries out the many tasks which he needs to
do in his life. You are wondering who this little friend is, aren’t you?
Joseph’s secret friend is a little ant, who can do many wonderful things.
You may never have heard how skilful and intelligent ants are. Some of
youmay even think of themas simple insects that wander around all day
without doing anything. But thoseof youwho think like that aremistaken,
becauseants, just likemanyother living things, alsohavea lifeof their own.
Ant families are very big. For instance, you probably have a family of
4-5 people. In an ant family, however, there are sometimes millions of
ants. Now think for a minute: if you had millions of brothers and sisters,
would you be able to live in a single house? Surely not!
The astonishing features of ants do not end here. Despite the fact that
millions of them live together, they have no problems with each other,
no mix-ups and no disorder. They live an extremely well planned life
with everyone obeying the rules.
Some ant families do tailoring, others grow their own food like farmers,
and yet others run small farms where they raise some smaller animals.
In the same way as human beings breed cows and use their milk, ants
breed small plant lice (aphids) and use their milk.
Weaver ants are skilful tailors. They combine leaves by pulling them
from two sides and sewing the leaves together. In this way, they make
a nice home for themselves.
Joseph: I first noticed him when I saw his tiny head emerging from the
earth. His head attracted my attention, as it was a bit bigger than his
body. I wondered why his head was like that and started to watch this
tiny friend of mine. The big head on his little bodywas helping himserve
as a guard at the entrance of the nest. Do you want to know ‘how?’ He
was checkingwhether the ants that attempted to enter the nest belonged
to his own family or not, and did not let them in if they were strangers.
Soon after seeing him, I met him and asked him to tell me what was
happening inside. My little friend understood my curiosity, and started
to tell me about it. What I was wondering most was how the ants with
big heads recognized their nest-mates and let them in. ...and these are
my hard-working friends.
The Ant: Joseph, let me first tell you that we call our families a ‘colony.’
In other words, we live in communities called colonies. An ant can
easily tell whether another ant belongs to its own colony or not. He
does it by touching the other ant’s body with his antenna, (thin little
rods coming out of the top of his head) which helps him to distinguish
strangers, thanks to the ‘colony scent’ they have. If the ant is a stranger,
then we cannot let him into our home. Moreover, we may even have
to use force to send him away.
Antsdonotwantstrangerstoentertheirnests,becausethiswillthreatentheir
security.Theyneverhesitatetogetintoafight toprotecttheirnestandfriends.
Joseph was surprised to hear about their perfect security system and
wondered how strangers that tried to enter the nest dared to do so.
When he shared this thought with his friend, he smiled at him and said
that there were many other things that would surprise him.
The Ant then said: “Let me tell now you about the inside of our nest,
which youwere eager to knowabout. Our colonies consist of the queen
ant, male ants, soldiers, and worker ants.
The queen andmale ants keepour species going. The queen is larger than
all of us. The duty of themales is tomake the queen give birth to newants.
Soldiers are responsible for protectingour colony, hunting, and fi dingnew
places for nests. The last group consists of theworker ants.Worker ants are
all sterile female ants. That is, they cannot give birth to newants. They take
care of the queen and her babies, and clean and feed them.
In addition, they also have to do all the other jobs in the colony. They
build new corridors in the nest, search for food, and clean the nest
up. The worker and soldier ants also divide into smaller groups among
themselves. Some of these are breeders, builders, and food-hunters. Each
group has a different job. While one group fights off enemies or hunts,
another group builds the nest, and yet another takes care of the cleaning
and repairs of the nest.”
As Joseph’s little friend explained all that, he listened to himwithwonder,
and then asked him: “Do you never get bored, waiting at the entrance
of the nest all the time? What is your duty in the nest?”
The Ant replied: “I am also a worker, and my duty is to serve here as a
doorman. As you see, my head is big enough to cover the entrance hole
of the nest. I am pleased that I have this ability, and I carry out my duty
with great pleasure. I never get bored; on the contrary, I am very glad
that I protect friends from threats.”
Joseph couldn’t help but be amazed at his answer. Ants were working
all the time to help others, with no thought for them selves and without
any problems-something even people cannot manage most of the time.
From what his little friend told him, he could easily understand that
the work of the nest was perfectly divided up between the ants. It was
obvious that the life of ants was very well-ordered and all the ants had
to be quite unselfish. Then he wondered whether they had any fight
amongst themselves because some of them claimed that they were
better or stronger than others. His friend said that nothing like that ever
happened and added:
“We are a big family, Joseph. There is no jealousy, competition, or ambi
-
tion among us. We always help each other and do our best to serve the
colony. Everything in the colony is based on sacrifice. Each ant thinks of
the good of his friends first, and only then of himsel .
Let me give you an example. When there is a shortage of food in the
colony, the worker ants immediately change into ‘feeder’ ants, and start
feeding others with the food in their reserve stomachs. When there is
enough food in the colony, they again become worker ants. I used to
hear people saying that there is competition among living things in na
-
ture. Never believe what they say. We know very well that we have to
cooperate to be successful.”
Joseph said that what he had told him about himself and his colony was
a very good example of this. He was very glad to know that God had
created him so unselfish, helpful and so fond of his friends. After what he
told him, he decided to be at least as thoughtful of others as ants were,
and be a good person whom God loves.
Whenmentioning thebeeswhohaveasocial order similar tothatof theants,
Allah states in theQur’an that this social order has been “revealed” to them:
“And your Lord revealed to the bee: ‘Builddwellings in themountains
and the trees and also in the structures which men erect. Then eat
fromevery kind of fruit and travel the paths of your Lord, which have
been made easy for you to follow.’ From inside them comes a drink
of varying colors, containing healing for mankind. There is certainly
a sign in that for people who reflect.” (an-Nahl: 68-69
The verse conveys the message that everything the honey bees do is
governed by a “revelation” Allah has given to them. Accordingly, all the
“homes”, that is, hives - and therefore the entire social order in these
hives - and all the work they perform to make honey, are made possible
by an inspiration Allah has given them.
Whenwe look at ants, we see that things are no different for themeither.
Allah has inspired in them a social order also and they abide by it abso
-
lutely. This is the reasonwhy each groupof ant performs the duty assigned
to it perfectly with absolute self-surrender and does not strive for more.
A story tells that two friends were walking through
the dessert, at a specific point of the journey, they
had an argument, and one of them slapped the
other one in the face. The one, who got slapped,
was hurt but without anything to say he wrote in
the sand:
“Today, my best friend slapped me in the face.”
They kept on walking until they found an oasis
where they decided to take a bath. The one who
got slapped and hurt started drowning and the
other friend saved him. When he recovered from
the fright, he wrote on a stone:
“Today my best friend saved my life.”
The friend who saved and slapped his best friend
asked him, “Why after I hurt you, you wrote in
the sand, and now you write on a stone?”
The other friend, smiling, replied:
“When a friend hurts us, we should write it down
in the sand, where the winds of forgiveness get
in charge of erasing it away, and when something
great happens, we should engrave it in the stone
of the memory of the heart, where no wind can
erase it.”
Learn to write in the sand.
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest
of the world walks out.”
ALGERIAN SOUP-CHORBA
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds of Lamb (or Chicken, or Beef)
- 7 Tomatoes (blended) or 2 table spoons of paste
- ½ cup of garbanzo beans
- 1 Tablespoon of Oil
- 1 Onion (chopped)
- 1 Carrot
- 1 Zucchini
- ¼ cup chopped Cilantro
- ½ cup chopped Parsley
- ¼ teaspoon of Black Pepper
- ¼ teaspoon of Cinnamon
- ½ cup of Orzo pasta or another soup Pasta
Preparation:
1. Wash, slice, and puree the tomatoes.
2. Cut the meat in 1 inch cubes.
3. Brown the meat and chopped onion in the oil on
medium heat.
4. Add the chopped cilantro, parsley, and all the spices
and continue to cook.
5. Add enough water to cover the meat (approx. ½
the pot full) and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer
for about 30 minutes.
6. Now add the carrot and zucchini (whole) to the
boiling pot, along with the pureed tomatoes.
7. When the meat is tender and the vegetables are
cooked, take out the carrot and zucchini and puree
them in a blender. Return to pot.
8. Now add enough water to achieve the needed
quantity, along with any tomato paste, if necessary.
9. Add the pasta and cook until done.
Serve with slices of lemon.
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