Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 387
THE ESSENTIAL ROLE OF CLAY. AND PHOTOSYNTHESIS IN EVOLUTION. The journey of exploration is far from over. In fact, the entire research of scientists and their efforts to unravel the riddle of the origin of life are no more advanced than the very primordial organic soup, the mysteries of which they are attempting to fathom. What happened and how it happened, during the misty dawn of creation in the primordial soup of the oceans, is as yet a study at its nascent stage. . Having examined the amazing significance of dry ringing clay at the preparatory stages of biotic evolution, let us pause and wonder for a while at the dazzling brilliance of the Quranic claim made over fourteen hundred years ago. The idea of the participation of dry ringing clay in the creation of man is so bizarre and unique, and is diametrically opposed to the then prevalent popular tale of the genesis of Adam. One can easily understand the workings of a simple mind, under the influence of such popular tales, to think of God as mixing earth with water, drying it up to a degree, until it achieved the consistency of modelling clay. What remained to be done was the simple exercise of moulding it into the shape of man. And Lo!. Adam is raised from dust, complete with all his organic constituents! In that instant sprang into being the entire complex of his body cells furnished with DNA, RNA, chromosomes, genes, somatic cells, reproductive cells etc. . Ears, nose and eyes were formed, blood vessels were created, and heart and lungs with all their complexities were completed and set in place. Also, of course, the central nervous and immune systems were completed that instant!. All that miracle was created, according to some naive readers of the scriptures, within the space of a single breath of life which, as they understand, the Creator blew into the statue of clay which He had moulded as Adam. This belief 376