Page 134 - Commonly Disregarded Qur'anic Rulings

132 COMMONLY DISREGARDED QURANIC RULINGS

auricle and directs them to the middle ear, the middle ear
transmits the sound vibrations by intensifying them, and the
inner ear sends these vibrations to the brain by translating
them into electric signals. Just as with the eye, the act of hear-

ing finalizes in the center of hearing in the brain.
The situation in the eye is also true for the ear. That is,
the brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. It
does not let any sound in. Therefore, no matter how noisy is
the outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent.
Nevertheless, the sharpest sounds are perceived in the brain.
In your completely silent brain, you listen to sym-
phonies, and hear all of the noises in a crowded place.
However, were the sound level in your brain measured by a
precise device at that moment, complete silence would be
found to be prevailing there.
As is the case with imagery, decades of effort have been
spent in trying to generate and reproduce sound that is faith-
ful to the original. The results of these efforts are sound
recorders, high-fidelity systems, and systems for sensing
sound. Despite all of this technology and the thousands of

engineers and experts who have been working on this
endeavor, no sound has yet been obtained that has the same
sharpness and clarity as the sound perceived by the ear. Think
of the highest-quality hi-fi systems produced by the largest
company in the music industry. Even in these devices, when
sound is recorded some of it is lost; or when you turn on a
hi-fi you always hear a hissing sound before the music starts.
However, the sounds that are the products of the human