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Islam for Muslims

God as the Creator

6:  GOD AS THE CREATOR

Introduction:  God is the Greatest Creator.  He has the glory of being the only original “Creator of everything" of the Universe (6:102). His unique and unchallenging position as the Creator is established in the following analysis.

(1) The Original Creator:  God is the First Cause of everything.  There was a time when man was “nothing"(19:9) and nothing existed except God.  Out of that vacuum, God created everything "according to His pleasure" (5:17).  In this process, He “originated creation” and keeps on “repeating it” (10:34). For each of His creations, He gives specific and unique features that make every species different from one another both inside and outside.

Man Cannot Create Anything: By contrast, human beings can not create anything new; they can simply create utility by changing the form of what God already created.  For example, people create planes, rails and boats respectively from aluminum, steel and wood; all these natural resources were made by God.  Thus, all human creations may rightly be called an act of processing or assembling instead of creation. That is why, God throws the challenge “Show me who besides Him has created” (31:11).

(2) The Excellent Creator:  God is not only the “original” Creator (2:117), He created everything with "excellent" quality (32:7). For all the heavenly bodies, He chose nice, circular shape, instead of odd shapes like trapezium with dissimilar sides. He made man in “beautiful shapes” and gave them faculties of “hearing, seeing, feeling and understanding” (64:3; 67:23). Thus, He created all kinds of things according to His “choice” and He ordered them “in due proportion” (28:68; 25:2). For countless number of creations, God designs their “form” (shape, size, height, weight, body chemistry etc.) and “nature” (character, habit, personality, mental features etc.) (20:50). All these mean an amazing diversity in the wonderful world of animal life across ocean, land and sky.

Divine Creations Vs Human Provisions:  Human creations made through processing activity, are different from God’s creations, by means of being imperfect and deficient in comparative strength.  You will, therefore, see the qualitative difference between the natural breeze vs air cooler, brightness of sunshine vs electric light, rain-fed farming vs artificial irrigation, natural brightness of skin vs cosmetic makeup, born intelligence vs acquired knowledge, breast milk vs artificial baby food, natural healing vs medical therapy plagued with side-effects, scenic beauties of flowers and water bodies vs artificial beauties from building projects and so on.

(3)  The Only Creator of Lives: 

(a) Quantity: The artistic creativity of man is limited only to a number of lifeless things.  They are totally powerless to create any living being like their own.  Even if they put in their best efforts for creating a man, they are not even able to create even a microscopic human cell or a tiny hair, much less of their soul. By contrast, God, from a sperm drop, has been very easily “multiplying” human population by the millions throughout the earth since unknown past, without showing any signs of being “tired” (67:24; 46:33). With current world population approximating 8 billion (as of 2022), total population created so far since the first man Adam runs into tens of billions, all obviously having high quality described below.

(b) Quality: Wonders of “Due Proportion”: Creation of man in numerous quantity, however, does not compromise with the quality of their creation performed in "the best of molds" and with their "beautiful shapes"(95:4; 40:64). God brought you forth “from the wombs of mothers when you knew nothing. He gave you hearing, vision, intelligence and affection” etc. (16:78). He also made for you “a pair of eyes, and a tongue and a pair of lips” among other body parts (90:8/9). He chooses your form by wisely “putting your body parts together” which are indeed in “due proportion” (82:8; 80:19) as exampled below:

God created our paired eyes of matching size with protective lids as well as nose and mouth: all 3 parts are aligned on our front so we can check and smell our food before eating; lips help to talk and eat; tongue is not made bigger to impair speech and it possesses right kind of nerves for tasting like no other organs; both ears have lobes so they can trap sound for transmitting to brain, multi-tasking hands can be used as spoon, hammer or crane etc., feet are not too small or head is not too big to lose balance; bones, muscles and joints are flexible up to 360 degrees, for making our work easier and so on. God applied amazing skills in giving uniqueness to human appearance, fingerprint, DNA, color, voice etc. which make every person different from one other.  Accordingly, among the billions peopling the world, you will not find two persons (including even twins) who are exactly alike.  By contrast, in case of designing of human statues by a sculptor, you can hardly distinguish among dozens of them, not to speak of billions.

(4) The Creator of Delicate Things: God is the only Creator of delicate things like time, soul, mind, memory, imagination, sleep, dream, “intelligence and affection” (16:78), “darkness and light” (6:1) and so on.  It is not within capacity of any human scientists to create any of them or know much about them.  For example, God claims to have created “affection (or love) between their hearts” (8:63). Love between two spouses and parental affection toward the children are both invisible feelings but they clearly suggest differentiable positions in mind, thanks to amazing creative skill of God.

Soul, Mind, Sleep, Dream & Time: In another example, no surgeons can ever put their fingers on what is known as mind by opening the brain up through a surgical process. Nor can they identify any visible existence of soul anywhere in the body.  Little knowledge has been “given to people about souls (or spirits)” which is nothing but “the command of my Lord” (17:85). At death, “He takes away the soul” forever and during sleep and coma, He also takes away souls but “sends (them) back (to the bodies)” (39:42). The dream all along continues to be a puzzle to the scientific world, with little progress has so far been achieved in understanding of ‘the wonderful land of colorful dream’.  Another unique divine creation is the invisible but ever-flowing time.  No one except God can ever turn back the clock of time to allow us glimpses of our sweet childhood days or happy wedding event.

(5) The Creator of Gigantic Things:  The superb creative skill of God is also mirrored in His amazing creation of the Universe.  He raised “seven heavens” “without any pillars” and created “the vastness of space” (2:29; 13:2; 51:47) along with its countless gigantic contents like galaxies, stars, planets etc.  It is roughly estimated that our universe includes about 100-200 billion galaxies and each of them is a gigantic embodiment of roughly several hundred billion of stars. Many of these stars are even larger than our sun and are located so far from our earth that their lights, traveling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second, are millions or billions years away. Needless to say, given the enormity of their size and distance of their location, the human scientists have no way to reach out to them or fully know about them, not to speak of creating or even think of creating them.  God, therefore, rightly challenges any arrogant unbelievers who would vainly claim a share in the universe, “Let them mount up with the ropes and means (like rockets) to reach the higher end and explore the unknowns like the Black Hole, farthest galaxies etc. (38:10).

Conclusion: The above discussion establishes the unique position of God as the sole Creator and dismisses any human pretensions of their creative roles.