Page 88 - Allah's Art of Detail

86 ALLAH'S ART OF DETAIL

The Superior Detail in Taste Perception Cells

We can remember the flavor of a food we enjoyed ten days

ago. If we eat it again, we can perceive the same taste once again
and experience the same enjoyment, because its taste is now famil-
iar. However, the tongue’s taste cells are not the same as the ones
that existed ten days ago. Every day our taste cells come into con-
tact with acidic foods that are hotter or colder than the body’s tem-
perature. Hot tea, an ice-cold fruit juice, thick coffee, or bitter
grapefruit juice all damage these cells to some extent. But by His
will, new cells mature in the taste buds to replace those that have
completed their life’s work.
Even if people are unaware of them, these processes occur so
quickly that the taste cells we use at dinner are not those we use at
breakfast. And yet we do not imagine ourselves to be eating that
food for the first time. We never confuse an apple’s flavor, because
every new cell contains exactly the same knowledge as the old cell.

In fact, all of our cells are constantly being renewed, and yet one’s
nose never changes shape and one’s hair never changes color. New
cells never install themselves in the wrong place, and thus every-
thing always retains the same shape.
If the old taste cells were not renewed, we would be unable to
taste anything. A delicious meal or a piece of wood would taste the
same. We would forget what sweetness was and be unaware if a
piece of food were poisonous or rotten, for only specially created
taste cells can initiate this superior process and blessing. In fact,
Almighty Allah, the Creator and Lord of all beings, has created
these cells with a perfect memory and a sublime renewal system.
This and thousands of other similar blessings are His gifts, for He
is generous to His servants, forgives unrequitedly, and is all-com-
passionate: