Page 50 - Devotion Among Animals Revealing the Work of God

DEVOTION AMONG ANIMALS

living species; and from the moment of laying their eggs or giving birth
to their young, protecting them becomes the parents' sole occupation.
The penduline tit, paying utmost attention to the safety of its offspring,
builds a number of dummy nests in the vicinity of its real nest, to divert
the attention of any hungry enemy. This diversion strategy, obviously
the result of careful planning, couldn't possibly be the product of the
penduline tit's own intellect.
One of the most common methods birds use to protect a nest from
predators is to build it in a thorny bush or camouflage it among dry
leaves. Some species, in order to protect the female and her eggs, wall
off the entrance to their nest structure with mud while she is inside, or
else mix their saliva with soil to form a sort of mortar they use to build
a wall covering the entrance.
These can hardly be skills those animals could develop on their
own. What, then, enables these birds and other animals to build nests so
intricate and perfectly designed?
How do animals acquire these
"God created you from skills?
dust and then from a Another detail should not be
drop of sperm and then disregarded. At birth, every animal
made you into pairs. possesses the knowledge of build-
No female becomes ing its characteristic nest. Every
pregnant or gives birth member of that species, wherever
except with His knowl- on Earth it might be, builds its nest
edge. And no living in the same way. This clearly
thing lives long or has shows that creatures did not learn

its life cut short without their nest-building methods or ac-
quire them in any casual sort of
that being in a Book.
way, but that this knowledge and
That is easy for God."
skill was given them by the same
(Qur'an, 35: 11)
power. God, the All-knowing and
All-powerful, creates them to-

48