Page 30 - The Miracle in the Ant

he Qur’an supplies an interesting piece of information when talking
about Prophet Sulayman’s armies and mentions that there is an ad-
vanced "communications system" among the ants. The verse is as fol-
lows:

Then, when they reached the valley of the ants, an ant said, ‘Ants!
Enter your dwellings so that Sulayman and his troops do not
crush you unwittingly.’ (Surat an-Naml: 18)

The scientific research made on ants in this century has shown that
there is an incredible communications network among these creatures.
In an article published in the National Geographic magazine, this point
is explained:

Huge and tiny, an ant carries in her head multiple sensory organs to pick
up chemical and visual signals vital to colonies that may contain a mil-
lion or more workers, all of which are female. The brain contains half a
million nerve cells; eyes are compound; antennae act as nose and fin-
gertips. Projections below the mouth sense taste; hairs respond to touch. 7

Even if we do not notice it, the ants have quite a different method of
communication in virtue of their sensitive sensing organs. They employ
these sense organs at every moment of their lives, from finding their
prey to following each other, from building their nests to fighting. They
have a communication system which astonishes us, as human beings
with intellect, with their 500,000 nerve cells squeezed into their bodies
of 2 or 3 millimetres. What we should keep in mind here is that the half
a million nerve cells and the complex communication system mentioned
above belongs to an ant which in bulk is almost one millionth of a hu-
man being.

Kar›nca Mucizesi
30 THE MIRACLE IN THE ANT