(From it
We produce green substance out of which
We produce grains upon
each other.)
Allah (SWT) ordained that plants, people and animals
receive their food from what plants produce in their green
factories.
These green
factories are built up by the plant at the beginning of its growth
and are called by botanists “Chloroplasts” which contain the
chlorophyll which the Qur’an calls
“Al-Khadir” (green substance),
where the plant utilizes the light energy and changes it into
chemical energy leading ultimately to the production of various
kinds of grain, fruit and other parts of vegetation that we see in
gardens and fields.
The Qur’an draws
our attention to these facts in the Saying of Allah (SWT):
(It is He who sends down water (rain) from
the sky. With it We produce vegetation of all kinds from which
(water or plants) We produce green substance (Khadir), out of
which We produce grain in clusters. And out of date-palms, from
their spathes come forth clusters of dates hanging low and near,
and
(We produce) gardens of grapes, olives and pomegranates, each
similar (in leaves or shape), yet different (in fruit and taste).
Look at (and think over) their fruits when they begin to bear
fruit,
and (look at) the ripeness thereof. Behold! In these things there
are Signs for people who believe.) (VI: 99)
Thus, these green
factories appear in the plant at the beginning of its growth. The
plant is produced from its seed or part of its body by means of
water. Allah (SWT) sends rain down from the sky to produce with it
vegetation of all kinds, and from the plant He produces these green
factories that produce the substances necessary to produce grain,
fruit and all the other parts of the plant.
Yet this fact was
not uncovered to people till 1600 AD, after 300 years of research,
when botanists carried out numerous researches and experiments in
the field of botanical physiology to understand the process of
photosynthesis.
In 1804 AD, De
Saussure proclaimed that there are two types of gas exchange: one
type takes place in the light, the other in the dark, and that it
is
the green parts of the plant that absorb CO2 and release O2 in the
presence of light. Then there proceeded continuous discoveries in
this field.
In 1942 AD
Meyer said that the original source of energy used by plants and
animals is the sun and that the light energy absorbed by plants is
converted into chemical energy through
photosynthesis.
961 AD Glass said
that the most significant compounds involved in the process of
converting the light energy into chemical energy in plants are the
pigments found inside the chloroplasts or “pigment
carriers”.
The plant starts photosynthesis by means of
these components and organelles. All this results in producing
carbohydrates which are involved in complex biological processes
that produce the raw material for the cellular wall, amino acids,
proteins, lipids, hormones, pigments, …etc. These substances are
the
essential matter to make all the plant parts which people and
animals feed on.
Aspects of the miracle:
Scholarly
researchers in the field of plant physiology have discovered that
the green substance (the chloroplasts) absorbs the light energy and
converts it into chemical energy to produce various fruits. This
discovery was realized after continuous studies and various
experiments that lasted for three centuries, up to the twentieth
century.
This process of
producing grain, fruits and trees was an unknown secret hidden deep
in the thycloids of the chloroplasts that cannot be seen with the
naked eye and which have been known by botanists only after a
prolonged series of continuous researches and studies carried out
by
scholars over several centuries.
And only after
methods of precise scientific investigation were available that
they
ultimately declared that in the plant there is a green substance
and
that it is this substance that produces carbohydrates that
constitute the basic matter for producing all types of fruit, tree
and vegetation.
This is what the
Holy Qur’an decided fourteen centuries ago and was conveyed by an
illiterate Prophet who lived in a desert environment among an
illiterate nation at a time when no equipment of scientific
research
were available.
The Verse of the
Holy Qur’an could have done without mentioning the “green
substance”
and nobody would have objected to that, except one that knew the
fundamental role of that substance. However, its mention implies
that the one who mentions it knows well its main role in the
production of grain, fruit and all tree and vegetation. How great
it
is of the Holy Qur’an to mention the truth and guide people on the
road to find out the secret, by saying: (Look at (and think over)
their fruits when
they begin to bear fruit and (look at) the ripeness thereof.)
It draws the attention to the beginning of the fruit formation and
its relation with ripeness whereupon no more fruits are produced
because the leaves of some plants turn yellow and their cells
die.
Who, then, informed
Muhammad (Peace be upon him) of this fact? Muhammad, the illiterate
Prophet, who lived in an illiterate culture, at a time when the
simplest instruments were not available, let alone possessing the
advanced instruments and research centers and laboratories in the
field of plant physiology that are required to discover these
facts.
The existence of
this precise botanical information in the Qur’an proves that it is
from Allah, Who says:
(But Allah bears
witness to that which He has sent down to you. He has sent it down
with His Knowledge, and the angles bear witness, and Allah is
sufficient as a witness.) (IV:
166)
