Maulana Wahiduddin Khan I Discover God
“Do they never reflect on the camels and how they were created,” (The Quran, 88: 17)
The camel is one of the unique creations of God. It serves as a sign for those who disbelieve Him. Besides giving us milk, meat, wool and hide, as other animals do, a camel is endowed with some unique characteristics, hence its title, ‘Ship of the Desert’. It escorts man on his unbearably harsh journey through the barrenness of the hot, dry deserts of sand.
Water resources, in the desert, are very few and far between. Camels can go without water for about twenty-five days in winter and about five days in summer. They can travel, carrying their master, for 400 kilometers at a stretch, without receiving so much as a drop of water. And when it arrives at an oasis, it stores water in vast quantities as though its hump were a water tank. In a short span of ten minutes, it can take in about one hundred litres of water, which keeps it alive for several weeks.
In times of scarcity of water, during a journey, it can live on its own resources. Recent researches have shown that a camel’s hump is like a generator of water. In adverse conditions, it draws on this reserve by converting the stored fat into water through some mysterious chemistry.
The camel loses its body water slowly and can regain lost weight in ten minutes by drinking as many as 25 gallons of water!
Standing seven feet tall at the shoulder, they can survive on coarse sparse food such as thorny plants and dried grass.
Ranging through many colours from white to black, they have double rows of protective eyelashes, haired eye-openings, the ability to close the nostrils and a keen sense of sight and smell—just the sort of things required to help them adapt to their harsh environment.
When kneeling, they are supported by horny pads on the chest and knees. Their long limbs and soft, wide-spreading double-toed feet enable them to walk on sand or snow. In spite of being a wild animal, it is docile when trained properly. In this way the camel is one of the unique creations of God.
Like the camel, we can see in everyday life, signs like these, which are full of meaning, high design, and the goodness of God to us. If we are observant and thoughtful, we will be able to see the bounty of God’s magnificence in various creations of nature. When we recognize God’s meticulous planning to sustain this world, we are left with no choice but to believe in Him.