Pick up a leaf and look at it
closely. Although it appears quite ordinary, what you cannot see are the
wide-ranging and magnificent chemical processes that enable it to carry out photosynthesis. Its countless factories,
which are invisible to the naked eye, accomplish in seconds a process that is
so sublime that scientists equipped with the most modern laboratory facilities
cannot replicate it. This chemical process, which is performed very quietly by
a usually unnoticed part of creation, is one of the main reasons why humanity
is still present on this planet.
Every square millimeter of
each leaf contains around 500,000 chlorophylls, the magnificent molecules that
are necessary for photosynthesis. Were we able to examine this molecule, a
great many more details would become apparent. For example, the entire
photosynthesis process that takes place inside this particular molecule occurs
within one ten-millionth of a second. In other words, the complex process
initiated by the light reaching a leaf’s water and then activating the relevant
subatomic particles and changing their orbits is repeated 10 million times a
second. In addition, this process takes place separately in each chlorophyll
molecule.
If Allah willed chlorophyll
molecules to cease their activities or the wavelength of the light reaching the
leaf to change, no means of locating another source of oxygen would exist. If
photosynthesis stopped, there would be no other way to convert into oxygen the
carbon dioxide that human beings and animals exhale. It would be illogical to
expect a chlorophyll molecule, which is essential for continued life, to come
into being and set about cleaning the air and giving rise to nutrients all by
itself.
The fact that a plant can
consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen is a great miracle. This
extraordinary system is a great blessing and astonishing work of Allah, the
Lord of the Worlds.
Good
land yields up its plants by its Lord’s permission, but that which is bad only
yields up scantily. In this way, We vary the Signs for people who are thankful.
(Surat al-A‘raf, 58)
الله سبحانه وتعالى
