Zoo

A crowd has gathered to see the newborn cubs of the lioness at the Karachi Zoo. Small children wearing bright and colourful clothes are standing in front of the lioness's cage, delighted at seeing the cubs. The lioness sitting next to her cubs, filled with maternal love, gazes at the human children in the same caring way she looks upon her own children. At times she looks disapprovingly at her cubs' mischief and, with her glances, the tells them to stop. But the cubs cannot be stopped from engaging in their antics. Their mischievous play and jumping around is providing human children standing outside the cage with plenty of amusement. At a distance, the lion is pacing gracefully. He is also feeling happy watching his cubs but shows restraint and does not let his face betray any emotions. Nonetheless he, intently, watches over his cubs.

As my wandering glance set upon the king of the jungle, I could not help but be impressed by the glow and magic in his eyes. As my eyes met those of the lion, I felt as if the thought-hearing waves in the lion's brain, through the eyes, were colliding with his internal eye muscles and then those waves were being transmitted onto the screen of my own brain, conveying a message.

At first, I was a little worried at this situation, wary of how a lion could convey a message. What could this speechless beast say an ashraf-ul-makhlooqat ['best of the creation'] like me?

As soon as the thought entered my mind that a lion is a beast, the lion's intoxicated eyes started to stir up storms, and the transmission became so intense that I was forced to listen to the lion's conversation. The lion was conversing with me through the mode of telepathy.

He sarcastically said:

O human, you call me a beast. Beastliness is defined by the fact that I hunt animals weaker than myself and fill my belly. How strange is it then that when a lion consumes meat he is called a beast; yet man, who for the sake of his enjoyment shoots at the tiniest little bird and eats meat, is not a beast!

My conscious started to shake with fear as I heard this from the lion. I really desired to say something to the lion in justification, but all my knowledge and all my pride at being ashraf –ul-makhlooqat collapsed instantly. As I was thinking of attempting to escape from the waves coming out of the lion's eyes, the cub’s mother, the lioness, set her gaze upon me and said:

O human! What is it that makes you so proud? Look—look at me! Do not turn your eyes away from me. I may be a female, but it does not make any difference. We are not overtaken by sexuality. We do not use it to amuse ourselves; rather we participate in this act to fulfil our roles in the creative mechanism of the laws of nature.

O person claiming to be ashralul-makhlooqat, listen! A few days ago, a man from your species visited here. My husband here has somewhat of a philosophical and logical disposition. Out of nowhere he got it into his head to start an argument with that human, and began by saying, 'I am stronger than you.'

The man replied, "No, I am stronger than you."

When my husband asked him to present an argument to support his claim, the man took a picture out of his pocket and showed it. In that picture the man was sitting on top of a lion.

The lion thought it over for a little while and then asked the man, "Who has made this picture?"

The human replied, "A man has made this picture."

The lion laughed a mighty laugh that seemed to shake the entire zoo, and then said: "O human, how ignorant and foolish you are! You could not comprehend a simple thing like this—had a lion made this picture, the lion would have been on the top and the man underneath him."

The distraction of children's play and other noise in the vicinity broke my link with the lioness. And I returned from the zoo trying not to think anything of the matter, yet could not help but draw number of different conclusions.

There is only One being who creates, and it is He who has bestowed upon another being the ability to create as well, but it is an indisputable fact that this second being is forced to utilize the same matter and elements in his creation which have been created by the first, One and unique being.

 Man is that second being who has been given the ability to create. Whenever man creates something—whenever he brings something into existence—in one way or the other, it is influenced by what has already been created by Allah. In other words it is by utilizing Allah's creation that secondary creations are brought into existence. When two of Allah's pre-existing creations merge together, or are forced to merge, third creation comes into being. Take water and sweetness for example, which are two of Allah's creations. When water and sweetness are mixed and merged, a sweet beverage results as product.

Sometimes patchwork between two things results in the creation of a third. Patchwork [in the form of crossbreeding [between animals has resulted in the creation of mules Patchwork [in the form of grafting] on mango trees results in the many different varieties of mangoes. Similarly, there is a system of such patchwork established throughout the world. When looking at this field of patchwork one observes that this skill is prominently present in God's creation, the human, and there is present a distinction between man and a tree, or man and an animal, that man is able to perform this patchwork whereas a tree is not.

People who are familiar with the principles of spiritual perception know that when the eyes of the spirit open, distances disappear. A period of hundreds of thousands of years is compacted to seconds. All the evolutionary stages from the time of Adam until the scientific age of today pass before the eyes like a motion picture.

While viewing this motion picture of human evolution, as the spiritual eye leaves the age of caves, stones and metal, and scans the present scientific age the spirit is struck by agitation and distress, having realized that the evolutionary stages which man has called progress, are actually not progress at all. The object of this progress is not the welfare of mankind but its destruction. There is no plausible justification for this fatal and destructive "progress". Here, amassing vast wealth seems to be the only objective. And when the spiritual eye settles on the image that man, by creating test-tube babies, is busy in the patchwork [or grafting] of humans as well, dark looming clouds of ignorance and injustice seem to permeate the surroundings. The subconscious speaks out that the thankless human has reduced his status and has placed himself on the same level as mere trees.

One of the reasons God created trees is for them to be used as fuel. In other words man, by degrading his own kind to the level of plants, is forcing the earth to treat humans as fuel. As Allah the Exalted has bound the earth to obey man, the earth continuously and consistently has been turning into a volcano [in response to man's own actions]. Indeed if man falls to change his condition, the earth will burn down his species to ashes.

“So take a lesson, O ye who have eyes." (Holy Quran ch59:v2)]