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First published May 2001
Goodword Books, 2001
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HHAARRUUNN YYAAHHYYAA
On his way to school every day, Omar walksover to the garden of the house across the streetand waits there for a while. A very special friend ofhis lives in this garden. No one knows this friend,but Omar loves him a lot. Omar never forgets tovisit his friend, and enjoys their friendship a lot.After all, he has a friend who is more intelligentthan anyone else. Despite being very small in size,his friend can do many important things. He is also
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WELCOME
TO THE
WORLD OF ANTS!
very hard-working. He does all of his jobs very welland at the proper time, just as if he was a
soldier in an army. Although he does not goto school like Omar, he successfully
carries out the many tasks which heneeds to do in his life.
You are wondering whothis little friend is, aren't
you?
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Omar's secret friend is a little ant, who can domany wonderful things.
You may never have heard how skilful andintelligent ants are. Some of you may even think ofthem as simple insects that wander around all daywithout doing anything. But those of you who thinklike that are mistaken, because ants, just like manyother living things, also have a life of their own.
Omar has the chance to learn about the details ofthis life from his friend. This is one of the reasons whyhe never fails to visit his friend and enjoys his chatswith him so much.
Omar is very amazed by the things he learns fromhis friend about the world of the ants. He wants toshare everything he learns about his little friend'stalents, intelligence and all his other superior traitswith other people.
What, then, makes Omar so excited? Why is he sofascinated by the world of ants? You must bewondering why. So just continue reading...
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Ants have more of their own kind in this worldthan most other living creatures. For every 700 millionants that come into this world, there are only 40 new-born human beings. In other words, the number ofants in the world is way above the number of humanbeings.
Ant families are also very big. For instance, youprobably have a family of 4-5 people. In an ant family,however, there are sometimes millions of ants. Nowthink for a minute: if you had millions of brothers andsisters, would you be able to live in a single house?Surely not!
The astonishing features of ants do not end here.Despite the fact that millions of them live together,they have no problems with each other, no mix-upsand no disorder. They live an extremely well plannedlife with everyone obeying the rules.
Some ant families do tailoring, others grow theirown food like farmers, and yet others run small farmswhere they raise some smaller animals. In the sameway as human beings breed cows and use their milk,ants breed small plant lice (aphids) and use their milk.
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Now let's see what Omar has to say about theworld of ants:
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Weaver ants areskilful tailors.
They combine le-aves by pullingthem from twosides and se-
wing the leavestogether. In this
way, they make anice home for
themselves.
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Doorman ants guard thenest. They do this job verysuccessfully. Other antsare also very hard-working. They do all thework of the nest.
Omar: I first noticed him when I saw his tinyhead emerging from the earth. His head attractedmy attention, as it was a bit bigger than his body. Iwondered why his head was like that and started towatch this tiny friend of mine. The big head on hislittle body was helping him serve as a guard at theentrance of the nest. Do you want to know 'how?'He was checking whether the ants that attemptedto enter the nest belonged to his own family or not,and did not let them in if they were strangers.
Soon after seeing him, I met him and asked himto tell me what was happening inside. My little friendunderstood my curiosity, and started to tell meabout it. What I was wondering most was how theants with big heads recognised their nest-matesand let them in.
The Ant: Omar, let me first tell you that wecall our families a 'colony.' In other words, we live incommunities called colonies. An ant can easily tellwhether another ant belongs to its own colony ornot. He does it by touching the other ant's bodywith his antenna, (thin little rods coming out of thetop of his head) which helps him to distinguishstrangers, thanks to the 'colony scent' they have. Ifthe ant is a stranger, then we cannot let him into ourhome. Moreover, we may even have to use force tosend him away.
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Ants "talking" to oneanother by touching.
Ants do not wantstrangers to enter theirnests, because this willthreaten their security.They never hesitate toget into a fight toprotect their nest andfriends.
Omar was surprised to hear about theirperfect security system and wondered howstrangers that tried to enter the nest dared to doso. When he shared this thought with his friend,he smiled at him and said that there were manyother things that would surprise him.
The Ant then said: "Let me tell now you aboutthe inside of our nest, which you were eager toknow about. Our colonies consist of the queenant, male ants, soldiers, and worker ants.
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The queen and male antskeep our species going. Thequeen is larger than all of us.The duty of the males is tomake the queen give birth tonew ants. Soldiers areresponsible for protectingour colony, hunting, andfinding new places for nests.The last group consists ofthe worker ants. Worker antsare all sterile female ants.
Ants havedifferent
tasks. They allwork very
hard at theirjobs without a
moment's rest.
That is, they cannot give birth to new ants. Theytake care of the queen and her babies, and cleanand feed them. In addition, they also have to do allthe other jobs in the colony. They build newcorridors in the nest, search for food and clean thenest up. The worker and soldier ants also divideinto smaller groups among themselves. Some ofthese are breeders, builders, and food-hunters.Each group has a different job. While one groupfights off enemies or hunts, another group buildsthe nest, and yet another takes care of thecleaning and repairs of the nest."
As Omar's little friend explained all that, helistened to him with wonder, and then asked him:"Do you never get bored, waiting at the entranceof the nest all the time? What is your duty in thenest?"
The Ant replied: "I am also a worker, and myduty is to serve here as a doorman. As you see, myhead is big enough to cover the entrance hole ofthe nest. I am pleased that I have this ability, and Icarry out my duty with great pleasure. I never getbored; on the contrary, I am very glad that Iprotect friends from threats."
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Hard-workingworkers onthe job.
Omar couldn't help but be amazed at his answer.Ants were working all the time to help others, withno thought for themselves and without anyproblems—something even people cannot managemost of the time.
From what his little friend told him, he couldeasily understand that the work of the nest wasperfectly divided up between the ants. It wasobvious that the life of ants was very well-orderedand all the ants had to be quite unselfish. Then hewondered whether they had any fights amongstthemselves because some of them claimed thatthey were better or stronger than others. His friendsaid that nothing like that ever happened and added:
"We are a big family, Omar. There is no jealousy,competition or ambition among us. We always helpeach other and do our best to serve the colony.Everything in the colony is based on sacrifice. Eachant thinks of the good of his friends first, and onlythen of himself. Let me give you an example. When
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there is a shortage of food in the colony, the workerants immediately change into 'feeder' ants, and startfeeding others with the food in their reservestomachs. When there is enough food in the colony,they again become worker ants.
I used to hear people saying that there iscompetition among living things in nature. Neverbelieve what they say. We know very well that wehave to cooperate to be successful."
Omar said that what he had told him abouthimself and his colony was a very good example ofthis. He was very glad to know that God had createdhim so unselfish, helpful and so fond of his friends.After what he told him, he decided to be at least asthoughtful of others as ants were, and be a goodperson whom God loves.
It had got quite late and he had to get to school.He told his friend that he had to go, but wouldcertainly come to see him the next day.
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The next day Omar went back to the same placeand waited for his little friend. After a few minutes, heappeared. He told him that he had waited impatiently allnight to see him again. Then he reminded him of hispromise to tell him about the inside of the nest. So theant started to tell him about his home:
"Although we are tiny animals, our nest is amazinglybig, just like the headquarters of a big army. If you are astranger, you can never get in. Because, as you alreadyknow, there are guards like me at the doors.
Inside, there is extremely orderly, non-stopactivity. Thousands, even millions, of soldier and workerants carry out their jobs in an organized way. Ourbuildings are very suitable for indoor work. There arespecial departments for each job, and thesedepartments are designed in such a way that both thesoldier ants and the worker ants like me can work in theeasiest manner.
Besides, we consider all our needs while putting upour buildings. For instance, our building has floorsunderground which only let a limited amount of sunlightin. But there are also some departments where thesun's energy is needed. We build these departments onthe top floors, which receive sunlight at the widestpossible angle. And then again, there are departmentsthat have to stay in constant touch with each other. Webuild these close to one another, so that the ants can
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easily reach each other. Ourstorehouse, where thesurplus materials are kept, isbuilt as a separatedepartment at one side ofthe building. The larderswhere we store our
provisions are in placeswhich are easy to reach. Inaddition to these, there isalso a big hall right at the
centre of the buildingwhere we gather oncertain occasions."
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At the side, wesee anundergroundcity built byants. Despitetheir tiny size,they can,amazingly,build such bigcities.
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1. Air Defence System 2. Greenhouse 3. Main entrance and sideentrances 4. Ready-made chambers 5. Storage cemetery 6. Guards'chamber 7. Outer shield 8. Nursing chamber 9. Meat depot 10. Graindepot 11. Childcare for larvae 12. Wintering room 13. Central heatingdepartment 14. Brooding room 15. Royalty room...There is no doubt that ants cannot plan and devise all these detailsthemselves. They are inspired by God to do so.
When Omar heard all that, he asked his littlefriend: "Do you really do all these things? I did notknow that ants could work like skilful engineersand architects. If people are to build such perfectbuildings, they have to spend many years atschool and work very hard. Do you also receivesuch training?" In reply, the ant went on telling himof more mind-boggling things about hisfriends:
"No, Omar. All of us have theseskills within us. These are nevertaught to us, but we know exactly
The house that antsbuild forthemselves isalmost like acastle for them.
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what to do, and when. And that is not all. What I amgoing to tell you next will surprise you even more.
As I told you before, our building is very bigcompared to our size. In spite of this, however, itis heated evenly. In our nests, there is a veryadvanced central heating system. This way, thetemperature stays constant all day long. Toguarantee this, we cover the outside surface ofour building with various materials that do not letthe heat in. In this way, we prevent cold air gettingin during the winter and keep hot air out in thesummer. That is how we always keep thetemperature at the same level."
There was no doubt that if Omar had not methis little friend, he would hardly have believed thatants could do all this. He said to the ant: "Before
you told me all this, if someone hadcome up and told me about the
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details of your nest and asked who could build anest like that, I would have come up with verydifferent answers. I would have said that such anest could only be built with very fine tools andhard work by highly skilled people. If someone hadtold me that this building was not constructed byeducated people but by ants, to tell you thetruth, I would never have believed him."
While his little friend, theant, was talking to him, manythoughts crossed his mind. Hethought that they were more skilful thanpeople, and started to see these animalsdifferently. He understood that ants were createdby God, and that it was God's inspiration at everymoment that made them behave the way they did.Otherwise, they would never be able to do allthese things successfully.
As all this was crossing his mind, his little
friend kept on speaking. As he went on, Omargrew even more interested, and wanted to askhim about everything that came to his mind. Heasked the first question that occurred to him rightaway. He had earlier been told that ants behavedlike farmers, so he asked him how they managedto do that. How could an ant, being so small, farmland without any tools, something that even a man
could hardly do?
The Ant said: "Let me tell youone more thing about us. That way,it will be easier to answer yourquestion. Although we all look
very much alike, we are dividedinto many distinct groups
according to the way welive and look. There arearound 8,800 differentkinds of ants. All thespecies have distinctfeatures. The farmer antis one of these species.Now, I will tell you aboutants that engage in
farming. They are called"attas", that is, leaf-cutting
ants.
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The foremost characteristic of attas is theirhabit of carrying on their heads the leaf piecesthat they cut out. For this purpose, they firstsmooth out their path, so that they can easilymove about on it. The road they travel to theirnest while carrying the cut leaves looks like a smallhighway. Ants walk slowly along this path,collecting all the twigs, small bits of gravel, grassand wild plants on the ground, and removing them.Thus, they clear a path for themselves.
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Attas cut leaves skil-fully and with greatcare.
After much long and hard work, the highwaybecomes straight and smooth as if flattened by a
special tool. Attas walk towards their nest onthis path, hiding under big pieces of
leaves, which they hold in their tightlyclamped jaws."
Omar: Did you say they hideunder leaves? Why do attas feelthe need to hide under leaves?
The Ant: Attas have tobe careful sometimes, Omar.For instance, medium-sized
atta workers spend almostall day away from the nest,carrying leaves. It isdifficult for them toprotect themselves whenthey are doing that,
because they carry theleaves in their jaws,which they normallyuse for self-defense.
Omar: So, if theyare not able to protectthemselves, who does
it for them?
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1- Ants chopthe leaves theybring to thenest into bits. 2- They chewthese bits intopulp. 3- They applythis pulp over abase of driedleaves in newchambers.4- They placebits of fungusthey take fromother chambersover this pulp. 5- A busy groupof ants cleansthe garden andremoves allunnecessarymaterials.
The Ant : Leafcutter worker ants arealways accompanied bysmaller workers. Theseworkers climb on thetop of the leaves thatthe attas carry andkeep watch. In theevent of an enemyattack, they protecttheir friends, despitetheir small size.
Omar: That is another amazing example ofself-sacrifice. But I want to know one more thing.What do attas use these leaves for? Why do attaskeep carrying those leaves all day long?
The Ant: They need them for their farming.Attas use these leaves to grow fungus. Antscannot eat the leaves themselves. So, worker antsmake a heap of these pieces of leaves afterchewing them, and then place them in theunderground chambers in their nest. In thesechambers, they grow fungus on the leaves and
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obtain their food from the shoots of the growingfungus.
You must now be wondering how tiny ants cancarry out such miraculous events all bythemselves?
Omar: Yes. I am really trying to understandhow ants manage to do all that. For example, if youasked me to grow fungus, it would not be at alleasy for me to do. At the very least, I would haveto read some books or else seek the advice ofpeople who do know how to do it. But I know thatattas do not receive any training like this.
Now I can better understand what makes youand your ant friends so
talented. You areprogrammed todo your jobs.
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For example, attas come into the world already knowingabout farming. Certainly, God, the Creator of all livingthings, gave attas this skill. It is God Who created you andall your friends with all these awesome features.
The Ant: You are right, Omar. We know all thesethings innately. Our Creator, God, gave them to us asblessings.
Omar was late again. He thanked him, and left forschool. As he walked, the things his ant friend had toldhim were still echoing in his ears. Meanwhile, he kept onthinking.
Ants' skilful actions pointed to a great wisdom. Butthis wisdom could not belong to the ants themselves.They were, after all, tiny creatures. Then all ants' skillsmust show man the wisdom of God. In order to show thegreatness of His being and His art of creation, God, theCreator of the ants, made these tiny creatures carry outtasks they could never do by their own wisdom and will.
His friend owed his innate wisdom, skill andsacrificing nature to the inspiration of God. Everything hedid was proof not of his, but of God's power and wisdom.
Thinking about all that, he realized that certain thingsthat he had earlier imagined differently had been
3 0
replaced by true versions ofthe facts. He understood onceagain that the stories toldabout living things, how theycame into existence by chance,how they acquired the skillsthey had by chance overperiods of time, were lies. Howcould they be true? Just think,how could ants "talk" to eachother so perfectly if they hadcome into being by chance?How could they make contactwith each other without anydisorder, and build perfectnests? Besides, even if allthese ants had come intoexistence by chance and ifthey lived only to defendthemselves, how was it thatthey could make suchenormous sacrifices for oneanother?
He thought about thesethings all day at school. Whenhe got home in the evening, he
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Attas carrying the leavesthey have cut.
decided to read the Qur'an, which God sent down toall people. The first verse he read was the following:
IInn tthhee ccrreeaattiioonn ooff tthhee hheeaavveennss aanndd tthhee eeaarrtthh,, aannddtthhee aalltteerrnnaattiioonn ooff nniigghhtt aanndd ddaayy,, tthheerree aarree SSiiggnnss ffoorrppeeooppllee wwiitthh iinntteelllliiggeennccee:: tthhoossee wwhhoo rreemmeemmbbeerr GGoodd,,ssttaannddiinngg,, ssiittttiinngg aanndd llyyiinngg oonn tthheeiirr ssiiddeess,, aanndd rreefflleecctt oonntthhee ccrreeaattiioonn ooff tthhee hheeaavveennss aanndd tthhee eeaarrtthh ((bbyy ssaayyiinngg))::''OOuurr LLoorrdd,, YYoouu hhaavvee nnoott ccrreeaatteedd tthhiiss ffoorr nnootthhiinngg.. GGlloorryybbee ttoo YYoouu!! SSoo ssaaffeegguuaarrdd uuss ffrroomm tthhee ppuunniisshhmmeenntt oofftthhee FFiirree..'' ((SSuurraahh AAll IImmrraann:: 119900--119911))
He was totally convinced that God alone createdthe ant, himself, his mother and father, his brother andeverything in the universe. His little friend hadreminded him of the most important fact in the world:that there was no creator but God.
I believe that when you read these lines, all of you
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will also understand thetruth like Omar, and knowthat it is God Who createdeverything. Then you willsay: "Darwin, who said that'living beings were notcreated, but came intoexistence by chance' was abig liar. When we aresurrounded by creatureswith so many fascinating skills, it is impossible to thinkthat they came into existence by chance."
So, if like Omar you also chance upon a good friendone day, never forget that you have a lot to learn fromhim. Investigate and think about the perfection in theart of God, Who created him. And if you ever meet liarslike Darwin, tell them about the features of your littlefriends and say that you will never ever believe in theirnonsensical lies.
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ALSO BY HARUN YAHYA
They said 'Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what Youhave taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.'
(Surat al-Baqarah: 32)
