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Islam for Muslims

God as the Protector

8:  GOD AS THE PROTECTOR

Merciful God plays the benevolent role as "your Protector in this life and in the Hereafter” and for everyone “the (only) protection comes” from Him (41:31; 18:44).  He has total solvency to meet all kinds of needs of all creatures and protect them from any challenges to their survival.  He is the only entity whose supply never diminishes through spending. God is “free from all the wants of all creations” (29:6). “It is you (people) that are needy” (47:38) and therefore you always need food and other helps from Him and it is not the other way around. With God remain inexhaustible treasures for all creatures from where He “sends down thereof in due and certain measures. (Thus He) portions out livelihood among (people)” in the earthly life. (15:21; 43:32).

 (1)  Helping People with Food: God extends all necessary facilities and cooperation for supplying enough food for satisfying your hunger. He asserts "There is no moving creature on earth whose subsistence does not depend on God" (11:6).

  (i) Supports Farming: God “sends down rain” from the sky (14:32) that not only makes the earth suitable for cultivation but also provide vital water source for man and other living beings. He gives land “nourishment in due proportion” by enriching the soil with needed water and sunshine, natural fertilizer (e.g. rotten leaves processed by earthworm activity) and ‘rotation of crops’ etc. (41:10).  If He replaces these facilities with drought, excessive rain, flood, hailstorm, pests, locusts etc., the production of food will suffer terribly.  All these divine facilities have to be combined with your farming efforts for success in crop production. It is not God’s policy to rain down your food from the sky in the form of prepared lunch packets or repeating the miraculous practice of “supplying (Mary the mother of Jesus) with sustenance” (3:37).  This, however, does not stain His Glory, since the crucial role in ensuring provisions of life lies with Him.

(ii) Matching Food with Population: Geographic distribution of food designed by the Protector God also aims to maintain a positive co-relation between the size of population and quantity of food supply.  For example, China and India respectively rank the first and second in size of population and their production of staple food (rice) also tends to match their respective demand in normal years. All these happen under overall plan of God even if human efforts play a limited part at ground level. Food productivity is keeping pace with population growth due to God’s positive cooperation. This is hinted in God’s claim that “in the earth there are lands neighboring each other” and “watered with the same water”, yet God “makes (produce) of some lands better than those of others in taste” (13:4).Without God’s pivotal role in this regard, land productivity could suffer serious setbacks from drought, pests etc., leading to tragic starvation and deadly famine.  

(iii) Natural Provisions: The violet ray of the sun makes free distribution of vitamin D for helping the poor, particularly the working farmers. God provided for you “sweet (drinking) water” (77:27) for maintaining your required fluid level i.e. about 90% of your blood and 70% of the body. Thanks to divine Mercy, the food which are cheaper and within easy reach of the poor (e.g. vegetables etc.) contain sufficient food value.
For making life habitable in desert areas, God creates oasis as a source of water and makes camel (known as “the ship of the desert”), cactus etc. adaptable to water shortage.

(iv) Variation in Income: God’s invisible hands are active behind causing variation in the provision of your living. He uses discretion for “enlarging or granting of sustenance by (strict) measure” but stops short of providing unlimited provisions so people do not arrogantly “transgress beyond all bounds” (13:26; 42:27).  The same also explains why a better-educated and skillful person sometimes makes less money than the less educated and less skillful one. Likewise, there are some who earn less despite their greater efforts to earn more than others.  As the Kingmaker, He has the power to “give kingdom to and take kingdom from” anyone He pleases (3:26). He feeds everyone including the poor either by granting them direct source of income or indirectly by inspiring the rich to be charitable enough to bridge their budget gap.

 (2) Feeding Those Who Cannot Produce Food:  God not only helps the adult human beings who can earn money and ready their food by own hands, but He also feeds others who are not able to do so. He, therefore, claims himself to be the source of food for other creatures “who do not carry their own sustenance” nor are you “responsible for their livelihood" (29:60; 15:20). Accordingly, God nourishes the baby in the mother's womb where parental kindness cannot reach.  He empowers a fish to use gills to draw oxygen from water (a combination of oxygen and hydrogen) while land based creatures use lungs to draw oxygen from air (which contains 21% oxygen). God also designed a mechanism that enables the hibernating animals like bear to survive without food and water for winter months.

    He also feeds numerous creatures of the land, sea and sky many of whom are even beyond human knowledge.  Though they do not have any definite workplace for earning bread like man, they (for example birds), leave their home (nest) in the morning with empty stomach and come back home in the evening with full stomach.  We do not know the details about how they got their food but we do know that they got something to fill their stomach. This entirely goes to the credit of God Who provides them food “from (sources) they never could imagine” (65:3). He duly warned the people of weak faith against “killing (their) children on plea of want” with a reminder that He provides “sustenance for both you and them” (6:151). 
In this way, He is capable of meeting one of the basic needs of the living beings by providing "food" among many other things (106:4). He created snow-cap mountains for partial purpose of “supplying sweet (wholesome) water” through melting of snow in summer temperature (77:27). It may be recalled the Himalayas is the largest source of fresh water for the Indian subcontinent. By contrast, there is no one else to provide you subsistence if “He withholds His provisions” such as by inflicting a crop failure or drying up of the underground stream “of clear-flowing (sweet) water” or making sweet water “salty” (67:21; 67:30; 56:70).  If He wants to reduce the food supply in a country through calamities, like the “Dust Bowl” drought of the USA in the 1930’s, the most sophisticated food technology may also prove too little to make that up.

(3) Meeting Other Basic Needs:  As a Protector of life, God not only arranges food, but also meets the needs of shelter for both men and animals as He knows the “time and place of permanent and temporary residence” of every creature (11:6). He helps people to build their homes by supplying raw materials like wood, bamboo, iron and skins etc. from natural and animal resources. For some animals, he created natural habitats like forests or “hills He made as some of your shelter” (16:81).  People get wool, skin etc. from animals and cotton, silk etc. from farming to “make garments as protection” from weather extremity (16:81). He also provides direct help to the vulnerable animals in freezing temperature like polar bears, penguins etc. through thick-feather or woolen body etc.     

(4) Protection from Harms: Natural or Human:  God protects life from possible harms from natural agents.  For example, He takes care against the harmful effects of sun by forming the ozone layer that intercepts its radioactive rays high up in the sky. He keeps us safe from any devastating cosmic collisions or meteorite showers. He keeps earthly temperature within normal range suitable for human life. Similarly, He engineered an exceptional behavior for the ice by making it lighter than water and thereby enabling it to float so the underlying fish do not die under its weight. Merciful God “secures you from fear (of danger)” (106:4) by limiting the occurrences of high-handed crimes like war, riot, robbery etc. For their prevention, He also “sent down iron” for making defensive weapons among “many benefits for mankind” (57:25). Likewise, He gives us protection from harms of all “created things” including “Secret Arts”, “malicious” acts etc. (113:2/4/5). Examples of this type abound.

Conclusion:  To sum up, God not only finished job by creating lives but He also does the needful for protecting the living world.