وَإِذْ قَالَ إِبْرَٰهِـۧمُ رَبِّ أَرِنِى كَيْفَ تُحْىِ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ قَالَ أَوَلَمْ تُؤْمِن قَالَ بَلَىٰ وَلَـٰكِن لِّيَطْمَئِنَّ قَلْبِى قَالَ فَخُذْ أَرْبَعَةً مِّنَ ٱلطَّيْرِ فَصُرْهُنَّ إِلَيْكَ ثُمَّ ٱجْعَلْ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ جَبَلٍ مِّنْهُنَّ جُزْءًا ثُمَّ ٱدْعُهُنَّ يَأْتِينَكَ سَعْيًا وَٱعْلَمْ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
Translations | CommentaryAY | Read/Context
And, lo, Abraham said: ‘O my Sustainer! Show me how Thou givest life unto the dead!’ Said He: ‘Hast thou, then, no faith?’ (Abraham) answered: ‘Yea, but [let me see it] so that my heart may be set fully at rest.’ Said He: ‘Take, then, four birds and teach them to obey thee; . then place them separately on every hill [around thee]; then summon them: they will come flying to thee. And know that God is almighty, wise.’
For some time now, I have wondered what kind of answer Abraham’s lord gave to him here and whether Abraham’s question and his wish are my question (how?) and my wish (my heart to be satisfied) and they are! Its one of those questions that, should I get a satisfying answer for, could really change my life. It would be, as if, I found that magical potion or elixir that makes me and everything else immortal in a real way not only in a wishful and wistful sense.
I have felt for some time – God’s answer is pretty obscure and unhelpful! and i kept thinking and asking what is my maker telling me/abraham? Sometnhing occured to me that i have found helpful so I share it here breifly.
I realize that when it comes to thinking about the life and existence of beings (such as myself, other human beings, animals), I can see them as wholes made up of parts. I see myeslf alive and existing because all the physical systems and parts that make up me (my limbs, my digestive system etc) are all working. I assume, without thinking, that each of those parts must be contributing life to the life of the whole (me). The love i have for the whole (the life and existence of the whole is then given to the parts that i feel are making the whole possible. The verse tells abraham to put parts of the birds on different hills. It is as if, in my mind, i am asked to break apart the whole into its parts and ask myself – is the whole now possible, now that you have broken it into parts? Each parts, as it were, is dead on its own! How is it then that when they come together, there is a whole living being? is there not a knowledge and power by which the dead parts are made into a living whole before my eyes right now? To make it simple, let me put it this way. Is it the case that my head, my heart, my upper body and my lower body each have 25% of my life and so that when they come together i have 100% life? I have no indication that my arm, if it were to be cut off and put in a table, would leave me only 75% living and that the arm would be 25% alive. I would still be 100% alive as me and the arm, 100% dead, with no life! If you took my head, the head and me will both be 100% dead and there is no life at all! But was the dead head, combined with other dead parts giving me the life I had? That is the question!
I realize that i see myself as a living whole as a result of the various parts (which are all dead on their own) being together. I attribute the life of the whole to the combination of the parts because life is there only as long as the combination of those parts, is there. take away certain key parts and there is no living whole anymore. The verse makes me ask the question: is the whole alive because of the combination of dead parts? is life the result of dead parts combined together or there is a power and knowledge that does not belong to the parts that is the cause of the life of the whole even as the whole is made up of parts that are needed, physically, for that life to manifest as life in my eyes? If I can see, as Abraham is shown, that the parts come together as wholes by the power and knowledge of a sustainer and lord, I can be satisfied that before my very eyes, dead are being brought to life all the time and everywhere that i see living beings (made of parts that are dead on their own). This resurrectionary power is what I can “see” and to my question ‘show me! how you bring dead to life’, this is a satisfactory answer! I can indeed see but to see it, I will need to see that the whole that I see cannot be made a living whole by a combination of its dead parts! It is being made into a living whole by a power and knowledge that brings dead things together and creates a living whole out of dead parts. If I see it I can see that only as a combination of parts, I would be (or shoud have been) a composite dead. And so woud everything else be. And by the power and knowledger of a living sustainer, the dead parts are being made into living wholes. In itself, all matter is dead. Only by a life-giving sustainers knowledge and power are there life and living beings.
The Quran as Revelation 