THE SPLITTER OF DAWN (VERSE NO. 95)

      Once again the unbelievers and the polytheists, are addressed, with many remarkable reasons through examples of the wonderful aspects and secrets of the creation; in order to prove the oneness of Creator and His universal plan and order. All these refer to God's wonderful artistry and curious fabrication, and strange creation.

      And God's word is as strange as His deed; because so many vast and bulk shades of meaning are contained in few simple words which are all at the tip of our tongue every day!

      Here, we are asked to think a little about the grains and cereals, like the wheat, barly, rice, that make our daily food; and to have a while of contemplation about the interconnection, and the interactions of the living and the dead:

      ``Allah is the Splitter of the grain and the date- stone.'' The Arabic `HABB' means gain, or the seed, or the seed- like fruit of any cereal, such as the wheat, barly, rice, and maize, and etc.

      The Arabic `ANNAVط' is the core or the essential part of anything. It is the nuclues or the central mass about which matter is gathered. In general it may refer to all fruit- stones; but in the Arabian Peninsula, so long as the main and most important fruit is date, we have translated the word to `DATE- STONE'

      The Arabic word, `FALAQA' means to split- to cleave - to divide lengthwise in the direction of the grain or the layer. It also means to sprout, as a seed germinates and pushes up new and young shoot. Therefore both ideas of split and sprout are included in the root, FALAQA' representing a double process of dividing and shooting up.

      We should consider that the most critical and important instance in the life time and vegetation of plants, is when its seed is splitting in order to sprout. It is just like the fetus or embryo of an animal in the womb, or in the egg, which moves on towards the stages of development.

      It is also remarkable that the grain and the fruit core, and in particular that date- stone is something hard like stone. When it is burried in the soil, it is as if settled in a strong fortress. But the plans and systems of creation will soften the walls of the castles in which the date- stone is imprisoned, and the core easily splits the walls and opens a way out of the surrounding, and sprouts up, putting out shoots and leaves, and ultimately the fruit.

      This is indeed a strange and wonderful phenomenon in the life of vegetables and plants, that have many lessons to teach us about our All-mighty, All-knowing Creator. In fact any single leaf of a tree is a voluminous book for teaching us the knowledge of our Merciful, All-knowing Creator and Cherisher, if we do want to take lessons.

   The verse then points at the mystery of life and death:

      ``He brings the living out of the dead, and brings out the dead from the living.''

      In other word; the palm- tree and the sweet soft date comes out of the hard date- stone, and the date- stone which is so hard comes out of the soft flesh of date! How amazing indeed! Where lays the limit, or the wall, between the life and death - between the organic and ignorance? Where is the barrier between them? How does the one, change to the other, where does the cycle of, living from dead, and dead from the living begins, and where does it end? Who, and how, has planted and engraved so much merits, and so many abilities, qualities, and states, in such a small seed, that it can automatically undergo so many changes under the influences of sun ray, water vapour, and soil particles!? So much so that the little seed or particle automatically grows on conditions; and gradually changes into huge, amazing, and fruitful plant! I said automatically! I said so, but how do I know the truth? Is not a mysterious hand of All- power, All- knowledge and All- wisdom guiding the seed in its way of development, instant by instant and step by step?

      Perhaps in future, man discovers some more of the rules and regulation of God's universal plan through Botany and Biology, and could fabricate and invent out of the mother's womb, a superman with some extraordinary power and abilities. Such an invention; not only reduces nothing of man's inabilities and weakness; but on contrary it will increase man's perplexity upon this globe which no one can estimate its size comparing with the universe!

      According to some traditions that we have received from our innocent Imams; death and life here in this verse are not only the physical ones! It also implies the spiritual death and life through which a believer may be born of an unbeliever, and vice versa.