Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 419
SURVIVAL BY ACCIDENT OR DESIGN? species. Incidentally, it leaves one to wonder by what stroke of chance only one ovum is created in the female instead of billions, like the sperms created in the male. If it had so happened, the number of offspring which every married or unmarried couple would gift to the world would have created some problems for the already overburdened economics of the world, struggling hard for their survival in the modern competitive world. . Hence, in the course of the struggle for existence, a very large number of contestants had to be sacrificed for the sake of every small gain in the quality of life. Yet, once the threshold of death is crossed successfully, it is not the end at all. Every living moment of their lives, those who pass the test of survival once, continue to face death. It is this perpetually impending danger from which the Quran declares that the living are saved consciously at the command of God by the angels of life. Hence, neither death is accidental, nor life. They go side by side like night and day to weave the yarn of conscious existence. . The protective system which we are discussing covers the entire span of the operation of life, both at its visible. outer level as well as the invisible deep recesses. This complementary design of advancement and protection along the course of evolution is an all-pervasive law covering the entire scheme of things. As we look back at the journey of life from the time of its origin to the present day, we observe it to have travelled through many a different unfriendly, even hostile, terrain. It could also be portrayed as attempting to move across a large expanse of quicksand with stepping stones at convenient distances. If the traveller was a blind, senseless creature, how many chances, if at all any, would one give him to move safely across, step by step, in the right direction, without wavering and without making a single faux pas? If the distance to be 408