The Miracle of Repair
The iPhone is widely renowned as a hallmark of man’s ascent to technological greatness. He has, in it, the ability to find the answer to any question, to calculate any equation, to capture any moment. He has made it impossibly slim, refined it from every angle, fashioned it, and from his perspective, perfected it. Yet with every advancement he has made, he has made it less easy to repair; with every complexity, an added hurdle to its servicing.
Built-in lithium batteries have now replaced the removable batteries of the past. Preceding the battery, with cuts in size, even the back panel has become a challenge to remove. However, Allah SWT creates with the most perfect design. No matter how complex we make the iPhone, we know that the complexity of a fly, or merely the eye of a fly, or even a wing, still holds the capability to amaze us… to bewilder us. Then what can be said for man, the most excellent creation of the Most Excellent Creator?
The Most Merciful has embedded within us the ability to repair ourselves. He has given us the brains to study the human body and the plants from which we derive so many of our most important medications. He has also designed us in a way that lends itself to repair. Is the lumbar cistern not a miracle? The brain, hidden away in its layers, protected by the skull, separated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier, is accessible to us so conveniently. As we please, with a minimally invasive procedure, we can diagnose meningitis, find spinal tumours, and detect bleeding in the brain. The same pathway also allows us to administer medication, such as life-saving chemotherapy drugs, or to inject contrast dye which we can later use for diagnostic imaging.
Had the spinal cord extended all the way down to the vertebral canal, a lumbar puncture would’ve been unthinkable. It would’ve always come with the risk of lower body paralysis. Or had the subarachnoid space not extended all the way down, or had it not contained the CSF, we would’ve been practically unable to access the brain with any significant ease. But Allah SWT, the most Glorious Creator, has let us access it almost as easily as we can access the veins in our forearms.
Or take the clinical signs so often drilled into us. When our liver fails, when an organ hidden deep in the body stops working, our eyes go yellow. The pathophysiology is relatively straightforward: red blood cells break down, bilirubin leaks out, builds up in tissues, and becomes visible from afar. But if we zoom out, something truly remarkable has happened. Al-Latif, The Most Subtle, has built into us a colour-based indicator for the status of one of our organs, hidden within the whites of our eyes. When we are healthy, all is well, but when our liver fails, it is clear as day.
What is even more spectacular is that (unlike the heart, brain or lungs), without jaundice, we would have little non-clinical way of knowing something was wrong with the liver. We would feel weaker, perhaps more nauseous, our skin would itch, we’d feel confused, but with jaundice, we instantly narrow down the culprit, Subhanallah.
Or take Kayser-Fleischer rings, golden-brown or greenish rings that surround the eyes of those with Wilson’s disease- a rare genetic disorder causing toxic copper build-ups. Without early diagnosis, it could cause irreversible damage to our brain or our kidneys. Yet sometimes, by simply looking in the mirror, Al Hakim, the Most Wise, has given us the ability to notice something is off.
Or take even the fundamental geometry of our body. The way Al Musawwir, the fashioner, has built throughout our body a symmetry between organs. When one lung develops a disease, we can compare the tissue to the other to understand what is different. When one eye fails, we can see through the other. Glory be to Him, even if someone else’s kidney fails, a healthy individual can offer up one of theirs in order to save them. How far could medicine have come if He had not given us the ability to compare, understand, and learn about ourselves? And to bring good into the world.
His miracles are found yet still in our dermatomes and our myotomes, an invisible map He has carved onto our bodies. A map we cannot see when we are well, yet becomes so apparent when we are not. Had our nerve distribution been random in each person, what would we have done? He has made it so easy for us, as a mercy, to detect which nerve must be at fault and where we must focus our efforts. And yet still there are more miracles, in the lines on nails that draw onto us our diagnoses, the reflexes that let us test our hypotheses, the compounds we can measure in our blood. All planned. All perfected.
It is this very foresight that man could never place in that which he claims is his own work. The repairability of the human body is a miracle we often fail to pause and appreciate. It is an apparatus so complex that it would take multiple lifetimes to master the known knowledge of just one of its organ systems, yet Al-Hadii, the Guide, has made us capable of repairing it. The saving of a life holds far more importance than the complicated repair of any one of the gadgets man holds with such pride.
Built-in lithium batteries have now replaced the removable batteries of the past. Preceding the battery, with cuts in size, even the back panel has become a challenge to remove. However, Allah SWT creates with the most perfect design. No matter how complex we make the iPhone, we know that the complexity of a fly, or merely the eye of a fly, or even a wing, still holds the capability to amaze us… to bewilder us. Then what can be said for man, the most excellent creation of the Most Excellent Creator?
The Most Merciful has embedded within us the ability to repair ourselves. He has given us the brains to study the human body and the plants from which we derive so many of our most important medications. He has also designed us in a way that lends itself to repair. Is the lumbar cistern not a miracle? The brain, hidden away in its layers, protected by the skull, separated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier, is accessible to us so conveniently. As we please, with a minimally invasive procedure, we can diagnose meningitis, find spinal tumours, and detect bleeding in the brain. The same pathway also allows us to administer medication, such as life-saving chemotherapy drugs, or to inject contrast dye which we can later use for diagnostic imaging.
Had the spinal cord extended all the way down to the vertebral canal, a lumbar puncture would’ve been unthinkable. It would’ve always come with the risk of lower body paralysis. Or had the subarachnoid space not extended all the way down, or had it not contained the CSF, we would’ve been practically unable to access the brain with any significant ease. But Allah SWT, the most Glorious Creator, has let us access it almost as easily as we can access the veins in our forearms.
Or take the clinical signs so often drilled into us. When our liver fails, when an organ hidden deep in the body stops working, our eyes go yellow. The pathophysiology is relatively straightforward: red blood cells break down, bilirubin leaks out, builds up in tissues, and becomes visible from afar. But if we zoom out, something truly remarkable has happened. Al-Latif, The Most Subtle, has built into us a colour-based indicator for the status of one of our organs, hidden within the whites of our eyes. When we are healthy, all is well, but when our liver fails, it is clear as day.
What is even more spectacular is that (unlike the heart, brain or lungs), without jaundice, we would have little non-clinical way of knowing something was wrong with the liver. We would feel weaker, perhaps more nauseous, our skin would itch, we’d feel confused, but with jaundice, we instantly narrow down the culprit, Subhanallah.
Or take Kayser-Fleischer rings, golden-brown or greenish rings that surround the eyes of those with Wilson’s disease- a rare genetic disorder causing toxic copper build-ups. Without early diagnosis, it could cause irreversible damage to our brain or our kidneys. Yet sometimes, by simply looking in the mirror, Al Hakim, the Most Wise, has given us the ability to notice something is off.
Or take even the fundamental geometry of our body. The way Al Musawwir, the fashioner, has built throughout our body a symmetry between organs. When one lung develops a disease, we can compare the tissue to the other to understand what is different. When one eye fails, we can see through the other. Glory be to Him, even if someone else’s kidney fails, a healthy individual can offer up one of theirs in order to save them. How far could medicine have come if He had not given us the ability to compare, understand, and learn about ourselves? And to bring good into the world.
His miracles are found yet still in our dermatomes and our myotomes, an invisible map He has carved onto our bodies. A map we cannot see when we are well, yet becomes so apparent when we are not. Had our nerve distribution been random in each person, what would we have done? He has made it so easy for us, as a mercy, to detect which nerve must be at fault and where we must focus our efforts. And yet still there are more miracles, in the lines on nails that draw onto us our diagnoses, the reflexes that let us test our hypotheses, the compounds we can measure in our blood. All planned. All perfected.
It is this very foresight that man could never place in that which he claims is his own work. The repairability of the human body is a miracle we often fail to pause and appreciate. It is an apparatus so complex that it would take multiple lifetimes to master the known knowledge of just one of its organ systems, yet Al-Hadii, the Guide, has made us capable of repairing it. The saving of a life holds far more importance than the complicated repair of any one of the gadgets man holds with such pride.
This verse of the Quran, in Adh-Dhariyaat, should serve as a reminder to us all, that every step we take as doctors is a testimony to the mercy and precision of the One who Created us, and to pause and reflect on His Greatness, Glory be to Him.‘There are ˹countless˺ signs on earth for those with sure faith, as there are within yourselves. Can you not see?’. (52:20-21)
- Saud Qureshi
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