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25. "So that they should not worship Allah, Who brings to light what is hidden in the
heavens and the earth, and knows what you hide and what you reveal.
26. "(Allah)!- there is no god but He!- Lord of the Throne Supreme!"
27. (Suleiman) said: "Soon shall we see whether you have told the truth or lied!
[Surah An-Naml (The Ants): 27: 22-27]
What do we learn in this passage about the ability of the animal (the hoopoe)?
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What do we learn about the particular relationship between the Hoopoe and Suleiman
(peace be upon him) when the prophet, peace be upon him, says: “Soon shall we see whether you
have told the truth or lied!”?
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Subject for a final discussion or an essay:
Humans and animals’ senses
Differences & similarities:
Animals (under the term ‘animals’ let’s include any living creature as opposed to
humans) and humans live in many different worlds that rarely overlap. Each animal creates its
territory and lives inside this territory on its own, inside its own community. On the contrary,
humans move from one cycle (one community) to another. He can move this year from Japan to
Los Angeles, or he may become salesman after abandoning his former profession of dancer. The
animal world is extremely reduced compared to the one of humans. Animals seldom bother each
other and continue basically the same life from birth to death. At the same time, animals and
humans understand little of each other, or at least this is what we presume, but humans have
learned to use animals, not the contrary.
Humans understand things animals cannot understand, and animals perceive things
humans cannot perceive. The dog’s nose is a million times more sensitive than ours. Dogs can
hear sounds that humans cannot hear, and from a great distance too. It is interesting to notice that
if the animal senses are more developed, their sense of space is usually much more restricted. A
field for instance would appear like a big forest for an ant. Ants recognize the obstacles and its
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height by the vibration on its antennae. So touching is very important for them, as well as for the
housefly that tastes from its feet.
Humans rely a lot on their eyesight. But again, if humans would like to see like a hawk, they
would have to look through binoculars that magnify eight times what they see!
Humans have a sense that help them to recognize where is their right and where is their
left, where is up and where is down, where is front and where is back. Humans have three
semicircular canals, in the ear, called cochlea, filled with fine hair and fluid. When the fluid
leaves the base of the ‘cochlea’, hair sense it and gives a signal. This is what humans call the
sense of balance. In the ‘cochlea’, there are the ‘saccule’ and the ‘utricle’ that contain cells
responsible to gravity and tell us which way we are. Fish orient themselves like humans!
However, insects have fine hair all over their body that plays the same role!
Humans live in a tri-dimensional world: they recognize three plans: vertical, horizontal
and depth. Some animals live in a two dimensional world like the water strider, an insect that
glides along the surface of the water as if it had air cushion under its feet. The water strider can
perceive only a flat surface of lines: the horizontal and the vertical dimensions. If you do the
experience of looking at each flat object at the eyes level, you will have an idea of what the water
strider perceives. Therefore, the water strider does not perceive movements coming from above
or from under the surface of the water. It cannot see its enemies, which are birds and fish! It can
only perceive the vibrations at the surface of the water just before being attacked.
Usually animals have a better vision than humans. Eagles or simple birds can see much
better than humans do, and some insects can even see in all directions at the same time. But
many animals do not even need to see; they send sounds into the air or into the water to recognize
their surroundings or their peers. As the sound waves return to them, they know with accuracy
what lies ahead and how far. The bat uses this device as well as the dolphin that lives in rivers.
Some animals, like the snake, orient themselves by changes in temperature. The snake has a pit
organ under its eye that has more than 150,000 heat-sensitive points, enabling it to detect any
prey. Humans have only two or three of them per square centimeter, so they can perceive very
little changes in temperature.
Animals like the snail cannot perceive the movement of things. For it, the grass pushed
by the wind is seen like not moving at all. The reason is that snails do not perceive a movement
as a series of movements when the succession of images goes too fast. And this stage occurs
much faster for the snail than for humans.
On the contrary, many animals perceive things that are without motion or change
for humans, like the growing of plants.
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