The Miracle of Fire and Wood, That Cannot Be Obtained Artificially
Have you thought about the fire that you light? Is it you who make the trees that fuel it grow or are We the Grower?We have made it to be a reminder and a comfort for travelers in the wild. So glorify the name of your Lord, the Magnificent! (Surat al-Waqi 'a, 71-74)
One of the chemical substances mainly responsible for the structure of wood is "lignocellulose." This substance is a compound of the materials known as "lignin" and "cellulose" that give wood its hardness. In terms of chemical structure, wood is made up of 50% cellulose, 25% hemicelluloses and 25% lignin.22An analysis of these substances' chemical formulae reveals three vital elements: hydrogen, oxygen and carbon.
Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon are the building blocks of millions of substances in nature. But as a miracle from Allah, these three also combine to give rise to the substance "lignocellulose", which is found in plants. Although scientists know that hydrogen, oxygen and carbon are the ingredients of lignocellulose, some of the greatest minds in the world have been completely unable to reproduce this special material in plants. Although these elements can easily be obtained, scientists have been unable to create a single piece of wood by artificial means, despite having countless examples before them to study. Yet all the trees we see around us have been ceaselessly producing this compound for millions of years by combining oxygen, carbon, water and sunlight.
One of the compounds in lignocellulose is water, expressed by the formula H2O. Despite containing a large amount of water in its make-up, wood is still somehow one of the most flammable materials in nature. The above verse is very wise in noting that wood cannot be made by human beings. By means of these compounds and the water it contains, wood is one of the most important fuels of fire.
Trees are an important sphere of scientific research. Scientists are still struggling to grasp all the details in their Creation. The complex structures of the cells that constitute trees have still not been fully unraveled, despite advances in technology and intensive research. The Forestry Commission of Great Britain, one of the world's leading forestry research institutions, says the following under the heading "Lack of Information on the Chemistry and Structure of Wood Fibres":
Despite the knowledge resulting from earlier and ongoing research, there still exists a lack of information on the chemistry and structure of wood fibres. Large variations can be found within a single tree, from the pith to the bark and from the base to the top of a tree. Often the chemistry and structure of a wood cell are extremely heterogeneous and difficult to investigate with conventional techniques.23
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| An examination of the chemical structure of wood shows it consists of 50% cellulose, 25% hemicellulose and 25% lignin. |
A paper in the scientific journal Plant Physiology titled "Our Understanding of How Wood Develops is not Complete" describes the limited knowledge of the subject that scientists possess:
Considering the important role that wood is foreseen to play in the near future, it is surprising to see that our understanding of how wood develops is far from complete. With a few exceptions, very little is known about the cellular, molecular, and developmental processes that underlie wood formation. Xylogenesis represents an example of cell differentiation in an exceptionally complex form. This process is controlled by a wide variety of factors both exogenous (photoperiod and temperature) and endogenous (phytohormones) and by interaction between them. It is driven by the coordinated expression of numerous structural genes (some of known function) involved in cell origination, differentiation, programmed cell death, and heartwood (HW) formation and by virtually unknown regulatory genes orchestrating this ordered developmental sequence. The presence of gene families and the extreme plasticity of the metabolism involved (as exemplified by the unusual behavior of plants with transformed cell walls; for review, see Fagard et al., 2000) add a further complexity to our understanding of the process of wood formation.24
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The extraordinary Creation in wood is emphasized thus in another scientific journal, Annals of Botany:
Wood formation is a highly complicated process involving an unbelievable variety of metabolic steps in the roots, stem and crown of shrubs and trees. At the centre of these processes is cambial activity which results in the release of young woody cells that undergo maturation until autolysis of the protoplast, indicating the final developmental stage. Later on, in various tree species, woody cells become further modified by an additional process called heartwood formation. The properties of wood that make it an appropriate raw material for many purposes are largely determined by the specific architecture of the cell walls. Difficulties in investigating these many developmental stages appear when routine techniques, which work well for soft plant tissues, are applied. Therefore, in most cases, these techniques need modification or the use of completely revised protocols to yield good results for woody tissues.25
These details in the Creation of wood remind us, as set out in Surat al-Waqi 'a, that wood cannot be made by human beings. Just a few of the inimitable features of wood, which cannot be produced artificially, are as follows:
Wood, a Resistant Material
The hard and resistant nature of wood is the result of the cellulose fibers it contains. Cellulose is exceptionally hard and is insoluble in water. It is this property of cellulose that makes the use of wood in construction so advantageous. Cellulose, described as a "contractible and incomparable substance," has been used for centuries in the construction of buildings, bridges and many other structures.
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| The Mosquito, one of the aircraft most tolerant of damage, was made of laminated plywood. |
Wood consists of parallel columns made up of convex cells laid end to end. These are surrounded by cellulose fibers in spiral form. In addition, these cells are contained in "lignin," a substance made from a complex, polymer structure resin. These spirally-enclosed layers make up 80% of the thickness of the cell wall and bears most of the load there is to bear. When a wood cell collapses internally, it absorbs the shock of a blow by detatching itself from the surrounding cells. Even when such collapses causes a crack along the length of the fiber, the wood remains remarkably unharmed. That is why wood is strong enough to bear specific loads even if it is broken.
In addition, wood is also able to absorb the energy of low-speed blows. World War Two era fighter plane known as the "Mosquito" was made by compressing wood between strips of fiber board, making it the most damage-resistant plane of its time. The rigid, resistant nature of wood make it a very reliable material because wood breaks or cracks slowly enough to be visible from the outside, thus giving people enough time to take the necessary precautions.26
A material based on the structure of wood can be up to fifty times more resistant than other synthetic materials currently in use.27 Today, these unique properties of wood are used against high speed impacts and destructive fragments such as bombs and bullets. Yet scientists have not been able, despite their staunchest efforts, to come even close to replicating a piece of wood with all its many attributes. Every detail in the Creation of wood, - the thickness of the internal layers, their level of compression, the number of vessels, their layout and the materials inside it, have been specially created to result in that resistance.
The Hydraulic System That Raises Water Many Meters against the Force of Gravity
The dead part of wood, known as the "xylem," contains hollow channels. These, also known as "wood vessels," consist of inanimate cells that gradually lose their nuclei and cytoplasm, and which are piled one on top of the other. Long, thin wood vessels form when the membranes between the cells dissolve and disappear.
Roots spreading out beneath the soil carry the water and minerals the plant needs upward through these tissues. The water is then transmitted as far as the leaves. The way the roots absorb the water in the ground is reminiscent of the “test bore technique”. The roots themselves have no engines to initiate the water absorption process; neither do they have any technical equipment with which to pump water and minerals for distances of up to several meters. But the roots absorb the water present in the depths of the soil by spreading over a very wide area.
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| As seen in the picture to the left, wood consists of tube or strawshaped cells. By combining one on top of the other, these cells, which make up the roots and trunks of plants, serve as channels that carry water and minerals right through the plant. This tissue, known as "xylem," also constitutes a powerful structure that enables the plant to remain upright. To the right, we can see a slice of dry wood in crosssection. When dried out, the tubelike channels become hollow, as shown in the illustration.28 | |
This lifting process that the plant performs so flawlessly is an exceedingly complex one. Yet this system has still not yet been fully understood, even in these days of high technology and space travel. The presence of a "hydraulic system” in plants was determined some two centuries ago, but we still do not know how this action in defiance of the force of gravity takes place. The superior technology squeezed into such a confined space is just one of the examples demonstrating the incomparable knowledge of our Lord, the Creator of the system. Like everything in the universe, Almighty Allah created the transportation system in trees.
As seen in the picture above, wood consists of tubular or straw-shaped cells. By combining one on top of the other, these cells, which make up the roots and trunks of plants, serve as channels that carry water and minerals throughout the plant. This tissue, known as "xylem," also constitutes a powerful structure that enables the plant to remain upright. To the right, we can see a slice of dry wood in cross-section. When dried out, the tube-like channels become hollow, as shown in the illustration.
Roots Capable of Selecting Minerals from the Soil
Plants draw all the mineral nutrients they need from the soil; this includes potassium, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and sulfur. Since the substances are not found separately in the soil, they absorb them as ions (positively or negatively charged atoms). Of all the many inorganic ions in dissolved state in the soil, plants absorb only the fourteen they need.
The iron concentration inside plant cells is 1,000 times greater than that in the soil outside.29 Under normal condition, an exchange of matter from a high density region to a lower density one will take place. But exactly the opposite happens in plant roots, and the ions in the soil are easily able to pass into the root cells.30
Because of this state of affairs that operates contrary to the pressure system, the plant uses a high level of energy in the pumping process. In addition, in the plant roots' taking up ions from the soil, there needs to be an identification system that attracts only the wanted ions and repels the unwanted ones. This shows that the ion pumps in the root cells are no ordinary pumps, but possess the ability to select between ions. Bearing in mind that the cell in the plant roots are made up of atoms devoid of any intelligence or consciousness, we must all surely acknowledge what an extraordinary process ion selection truly is.
Photosynthesis: The Superior Technology in a Miniature Factory
Whilst you may think that it is rare for a material to be as elusive to scientists as wood is, leaves tell a similar story. Leaves play a part in one of nature’s most important processes - photosynthesis. Photosynthesis, one of the systems that scientists still do not fully understand, may be summarized as plants manufacturing their own nutrients. Because of the delicate but perfect structure contained within plant cells, plants are able to store solar energy. At the end of various complex processes, this energy takes on a form which can readily be used by human beings as well as animals. In addition, the photosynthetic energy stored in trees is also emanated during burning. For example, the energy emitted by wood when burned to heat a house is actually energy from the Sun stored during the formation of wood.31
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| During photosynthesis, whereby plants manufacture their own nutrients, they use the energy arriving from the Sun. Plants convert this into food as the result of a number of complex chemical processes. This sublime Creation in plants is one of the matchless examples of Allah’s creative artistry. |
The photosynthesis system, which operates like a miniature factory, takes place in an organelle known as the "chloroplast" inside the plant cell. This is where it gets its distinctive green color from. Chloroplasts are just one-thousandth of a millimeter in size, for which reason they can only be seen under a microscope. When solar energy falls on the leaf, they transmit it to the layers inside it. Chlorophyll inside the chloroplasts in the leaf cells convert this light energy into chemical energy. The plant obtaining this chemical energy immediately uses it to obtain nutrients. It took scientists until the mid-20th century to obtain this information - summarized in just a few lines here. Pages of chain reactions were written to describe the whole process of photosynthesis. But some links in the chain are still a mystery to scientists. Yet, plants have been performing these processes uninterruptedly for hundreds of millions of years, thus providing the earth with food and oxygen.
The chloroplast shown magnified in the illustration above is in fact just one-thousandth of a millimeter in size. It contains many organelles that assist with the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis, which takes place in many stages, not all of which are yet fully understood, takes place at high speed in these microscopic factories.
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Here, we must take a moment to remind ourselves of the following: not a single cell constituting wood can be made by artificial means, and human beings' helplessness in the face of dead wood cells, shows the presence of a sublime Creator. The properties of wood, about which many volumes could be written, reveal the perfection in Allah’s Creation. The countless qualities which wood is synonymous with inspires scientists to research its make-up yet despite extensive efforts, there is still much that is not known about the true nature of wood. Allah’s Sublime Knowledge and intellect is the only possible explanation behind wood.
