Self-Evident Truths

Self-Evident Truths

Sheikh Abdurraheem Green | SIGNS Conference

The Path to Recognizing the Creator

This path leads to a person who is thinking and reflecting and contemplating deeply to know the reality and the truth that there is a Creator and that this Creator is powerful and wise and that He has revealed guidance for the benefit of mankind. So I want to touch very briefly upon some things that we could think about. Some of the signs and what I'm going to talk about is something that is mostly easily observable.

Observable Signs in Creation

It's something that we can see. It doesn't take a particular great detailed level of scientific knowledge. It's just stuff that is out there. If you look at it and you think about it and you see, you'd have to say, how can it be except that there is a Creator, that there is a Lord, that a great being has brought this into existence.

I don't know about you, brothers and sisters, but the amount of times I've sat watching nature programs and my jaw is, you know, metaphorically on the floor. And you see the wonders in this creation of Allah and I think, how can anyone disbelieve in Allah? Actually, I think, how can this man, this revered man, David Attenborough? I am constantly amazed at how he can disbelieve in Allah.

The Irrationality of Atheism

He's a professed atheist. How is it possible? How can anyone who has an ounce of intelligence imagine or believe that such complexity, that such beauty could be a product of some series of random events or some random process that arose out of what? Of chaos, as they might claim. It's a preposterous, insane claim.

Like about this time of year, lots of kids still believe that a big fat white man dressed in a red suit is somehow going to squeeze down a little chimney. And he's also somehow amazingly going to be delivering millions of tons of presents in a bobsleigh that flies through the air pulled by reindeers. And there's kids that really believe this stuff because their parents tell them that lie.

And sure enough, when they grow up a little bit and they find it's a lie, it shatters everything. It shatters everything. In fact, I think that famous atheist Richard Dawkins himself mentions about his disappointment of finding Father Christmas was not true.

A More Preposterous Claim

But I think that's it. But although they realize that Father Christmas is not true, the stupidity and the irrationality of the whole story still stays with them. Because what was not true was the process. The idea that how could all of this fit? But yet they go on to claim something more preposterous. Yes, something more preposterous than

Father Christmas. Something more preposterous than a fat white man dressed in a red suit squeezing down a chimney.

Something more preposterous than the idea that millions of tons of presents could be delivered overnight in a flying bobsleigh. More preposterous is the idea that this universe, that this world and all the life in it is a product of some random events. That is even more preposterous. That is even more crazy. That is even more insane. It is not rational in the slightest bit.

The Signs Around Us

And look at the signs, brothers and sisters. Look at the signs around you. Look at the world around you and see. Because all of it points us to acknowledge Allah, to acknowledge its creator, to know that Allah not only is the creator, the provider, the sustainer, but every subtlety, every subhanallah, every subtlety to the extent that there is in certain places, there is a certain bird, a certain type of hummingbird with a beak that is shaped in a certain way that it can take nectar from a certain particular flower. And so that that flower is pollinated by that hummingbird taking nectar from that flower. Subhanallah.

The Interdependence of Creation

How? How could this possibly, possibly have arisen through some random process? How could such symbiosis, meaning it's not just one creature existing on its own. It's the interdependence, interdependence of all these different forms of life, one depending and relying upon another. And it goes from the micro level to the macro level.

It goes from the smallest things to the greatest things. Everywhere we look, we find this evidence of design, of purpose, of complexity, of something that is so profound and yet people are blind. People are blind to it.

The Alternation of Night and Day

Let me give a few examples, brothers and sisters, simple examples. Let us think about something simple. Allah gives us the example in the Quran, the alternation of the night and the day. This is one of the things that Allah himself points to, the alternation of the night and the day. Let's think about just that.

So, from what we know today is the earth spins on its axis and one rotation of the earth on its axis takes how long? How long? For the earth to spin on its axis once, how long does that take? How many hours? What? Twenty-four hours.

Oh my God. And I thought it was hard teaching my seven and nine year old boys this stuff, right? No, the earth spins on its axis, everybody, yeah, once every twenty-four hours, yeah? And at the center of our solar system is the sun and the earth also goes round the sun and how long does it take for the earth to go all the way round the sun to come back where it was before? Oh my God. Three hundred and sixty-five days, a year, that's a year, right? It takes a year to go round the sun.

The Perfect Balance for Life

That's a year. That's what a year is, is how long it takes our earth to go round the sun, a day is how long it takes for the earth to spin once on its axis, right? And I want, let's think about a few things, right? Imagine, right, that the earth was spinning really, really, really, really slowly. Imagine that, really slowly.

Let's say instead of a day being twelve hours, more or less, depending on the time of the season, yeah, imagine a day instead of being twelve hours was, say, twelve years. Imagine one day is twelve years and imagine one night is twelve years. Or let's say twenty years or forty years, I mean, in terms of the length of the existence of the cosmos, that's not very long.

And there are planets with nights and days like that, from what people tell us. So imagine, what would happen if the earth was spinning much more slowly? And so for twelve years, one part of the earth's surface is constantly being exposed to the sun and the other side is constantly in darkness. What do you think would happen, right? You'd have, the part that is exposed for so long to the day would become super hot and the other side would become super cold.

Do you think life could exist as we know it, if night and day were like that? Subhanallah. Imagine the earth is a certain distance from the sun. If the earth was much closer to the sun, it would be too hot again. If it was much further from the sun, it would be too cold. In fact, if the earth was much bigger, the force of gravity would be much stronger. If it was much smaller, the force of gravity would be too weak.

The Atmosphere and Its Protective Layers

We just happen to have the right combination of gases in the atmosphere, not only oxygen and carbon dioxide, but nitrogen and various other gases. There's an incredible gas that surrounds our atmosphere. A layer of a gas that has a very amazing function. This is the ozone. The ozone layer has an amazing function of being able to filter out many of the harmful effects of the sun's radiation. This gas just happens to be there, right? Just happens to be there.

But if this gas was there, would life exist? Extremely unlikely. Not as we know it, definitely not. If we didn't have the right combination of gases in the atmosphere, life as we know it would not exist.

Jupiter: A Cosmic Shield

And brothers and sisters, by the way, this goes on and on and on. When you start looking at these mechanisms that exist within the creation, that everything is constructed in such a way as to allow life to exist. I recently discovered or heard about something amazing, that Jupiter, Jupiter is a massive gas planet.

And the force of the gravity, the force of gravity of Jupiter, the scientists think now, had a very important and still has a very important role in diverting asteroids from space away from Earth. So, what it does, because the

force of gravity of Jupiter diverts these space objects, these objects flying through space, comets and stuff, away from Earth and some of them crash into Jupiter. It's like a shield.

Subhanallah, like a, this thing acts like a shield for our planet. Without it, we may be struck quite often by huge comets that would wipe out life on Earth. Brothers and sisters, I mean, think about this.

The Precision of Creation

That's on the level, these, some of these things are very easily observable. Is it really, you think, just a product of some random event? It's just this precision in the size and the vastness of space that everything is so finely tuned in order for life to be able to exist. And then you look again at the complexity of life.

The Marvel of Termites

There are so many examples. But one of the examples that always, like, it just, I'm just amazed by this, is actually a little creature called a termite. A termite is a little bit like an ant. They're not ants. They're a little bit like ants, okay? And what you have in Africa, in equatorial Africa, you have these massive termite mounds, probably, you know, maybe as high or higher than the roof here. They're mounds.

These little creatures build these massive mounds out of mud, right? But that's not the half of it. It's not the fact that these little creatures, which have no brain to speak of, how do these little insects that have no brain, no planning capability, how are they able to build these massive, proportionally to their size, massive towers? But not only that. They have a natural inbuilt air conditioning system.

The Engineering of Termite Mounds

Because underground, these termites have somehow figured out, with no brains, yeah, that they build rings of earth underground, and they build, like, tunnels. And so these tunnels, basically, they funnel the air. The rings of earth cool the air as it goes under the ground. It comes up, and these rings are underground. It cools the air, and it keeps the whole mound at a precisely consistent temperature.

It doesn't fluctuate between more than a couple of degrees, even though the outside temperature, the outside temperature in the midday equatorial Africa, the middle of the day in the equator of Africa, and the cool of the night, it fluctuates dramatically. Inside this termite mound, the temperature remains almost completely constant. How? How is that possible? How can you claim, like, we can't even do something like that? How is it possible?

Divine Guidance in Creation

Do you think, brothers and sisters, are these not signs, are these not signs, my brothers and sisters, that point to something, that there must be a creator, there must be one that has guided these creatures and inspired them with this knowledge and this information? They could not have come with this information and knowledge by themselves. How is it that all of these conditions are so perfectly aligned in order for life to be able to exist?

What Makes Humans Unique

And when we look within ourselves, brothers and sisters, and this is not something I'm not going to go into because another speaker is going to deal with this, but we look at our nature as human beings. What is it that fundamentally separates us from every other creature? It's very interesting, especially when you study and look at what people in the West have been saying for the last, I don't know, three, four hundred years.

They're always coming up with something, okay, well, what's different about human beings? Because they used to say, we make tools, and then they found that, like, they found apes that make tools, they found different creatures, not even apes that use tools, and it's like, okay, well, it's not tools, right? Well, it's something else. They'd always come up with something and then they'd find that some other animal does it.

Right? Is it even our intelligence? No, actually, really. When it comes down to it, the only thing that really separates us from every other creature is our choice. You see, we have a choice whether we are going to worship Allah or not, whether we're going to worship the creator or not, whether we're going to submit to God or not.

The Sign Within Ourselves

This is a sign within yourself. This is what is really unique about the human being. Yes, there are things that we have done in terms of architecture and art and many other fields that there's nothing comparable in the animal world, that's true. But something that is really unique to us is that ability to override our instincts, to do things that are against our instincts, to make certain choices, and those choices when you think about them and you contemplate it, it takes us back to something very deep, and that is our connection between us and our Lord and our creator.

What is unique about human beings is that we have been created with the choice whether we are going to worship and acknowledge this God that is so obvious, this being that so obviously has left these signs and put these signs everywhere within the universe and within ourselves, and Allah will keep showing them to people until they know, until they know that this is the truth.

"We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth."

Look Within and Beyond

So brothers and sisters, I encourage you to look within yourself. I encourage you to look on the furthest horizons, travel the earth, travel the earth as Allah says, look at the consequence of those people who have rejected faith, study history, many people do not take the study of history seriously, but in the study of history are so many lessons for us, maybe we think we're going to last forever, you're not going to last forever.

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations

How many nations have come before us? How many civilizations, maybe you look at the world today and you think, oh America is so powerful, China is so powerful, everything, no, but how many other civilizations and empires have come and gone? You know brothers and sisters, think about this, think about this, this is something I always think about, I'm sure that in the times of ancient Rome, and this is something I used to do, when I used to travel up and down the country, one of the things I used to do, when I used to go far up north, right, to Newcastle, Middlesbrough, not far is Hadrian's Wall, not far from Middlesbrough is Hadrian's Wall.

The Lesson of Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall is a wall built by the Emperor Hadrian, right, to keep out the Picts, who are basically the Scots, right, the Scots, it was the most northern, most border of the Roman Empire, stretched all the way from sub-Saharan Africa, all the way up to Hadrian's Wall, and I would stand there, I would go there, this is when I was a Muslim, I would stand there, but why would I go? Because there's something to remember there brothers and sisters, there's a lesson, and I would stand on the remains of this wall and I would look south and think, a legionnaire, a Roman legionnaire probably stood on these walls and he thought, as far as I can travel south is Rome, as far as I can travel, I can keep travelling and travelling, it's all Rome, where is it now? What's left? What is left? Scattered remains of a broken wall, a few traces of that empire.

Everything is Temporary

You see everything brothers and sisters, these are the signs, everything is temporary, our life is temporary, we are mortal beings, we are here for a short short time, do not be deluded by power, do not be deluded by wealth, do not be deluded by the so-called trappings of civilisation and quasi-intellectual, quasi-intellectual quasi-rational presentations of wrapping up falsehood and making it, presenting it as if it's truth and the other way round, don't be fooled by that brothers and sisters.

Forgotten Celebrities of the Past

And I'm sure that in those days that Roman, that Roman legionnaire standing there, he probably knew about some famous gladiator who fought in the Colosseum, I don't know what his name was, Maximus Sordicus or something, whatever, right, okay, yeah, Swingimus Shieldus, I don't know, whatever, right, his name was, right, glorified and known by everybody, the great gladiator, you know like the day to day we talk about, you know, UFC fighters and the great gladiator, everyone knew his name, but does anyone know his name today?

Can you name me one single gladiator, the most celebrated people in the Roman Empire, can you name me one gladiator, just one? I don't say Maximus Sordicus, I made that up, right, okay, you can't think of one brothers and sisters, seriously, you can't think of one, right, and so let me tell you this is the reality, all these movie stars, these pop stars, these famous fighters, these famous footballers, nothing, nothing.

True Permanence and Honor

But I tell you, let me tell you someone's name that until today, we all know his name, everyone in this room knows his name, in fact probably two-thirds of the earth in some way, shape or form, many of them know his name well, some of them have an idea who he is, Ibrahim (peace be upon him), where was his, he was just one, you know they say he was, there was a time when he was the only Muwahid, the only believer on earth, the only one on his own, no kingdom, no power, no nothing, not even any sons, subhanallah, until he was so old and then he goes and he builds this house like this building in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the desert, leaves his kid there, subhanallah.

The Call of Ibrahim

And Allah says to him, call the people for pilgrimage, but Allah, who's going to hear me, call, call them, I'll take care of the rest, and look today brothers and sisters, look today, you want permanence, that's permanence, you want honour, you want dignity, you want respect, that is honour and dignity and respect, that Allah gives to the believers and he will certainly show his signs within yourself and on the furthest horizons until you know that this is the truth.