Empire of The Ants (1)
I am an ant, so of course I know why Allah created us ants. I find it quite strange, even amazing, and sometimes irritating, to see a creature that walks carelessly and treads upon armies of ants. More than that, with his horse, he destroys thousands of ants without sensing or feeling anything! He does such things without knowing, without realizing, without noticing, without understanding and without feeling angry or sad. But, nevermind. I want you to get to know the ants, my nation, so that you can learn learn many lessons and signs.
We believe in Allah's fate and the destiny decreed by Him. We know that a cup of water can drown an army of ants, but our belief in Allah does not prevent us from making calculations, feasibility studies, researching and organizing and managing everything striving for wisdom and perfection. Furthermore, we understand that belief in Allah obligates us to do so, for the laws of the universe aloe not to be broken for anybody and no creature is to stray from its nature. That is why, we are never taken by surprise.
I am an ant and an ant, is a very small thing; a small insect but at the same time, a complete being and our existence coincides with our nature and wisdom stands as an integral part of our character. The motto of our life is to be clear and straight to the point. We ants, have some habits in common with man. We build cities and roads, dig tunnels, store food, and plant gardens and crops. We have armies ready for war and defence. We take prisoners-of-war, we have trials, and so forth. There is a subspecies of ants called the 'milkers', which subdues kinds of worms and maggots and raises them in special places and farms, feeding them and taking care of them; it extracts from them a sweet stuff called the 'honey dew'.
Although we are no larger more than two millimeters, Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, has compensated us for our minute size and weak body with the talent of organization, management and making meticulous calculations. We are very clever you know!
We can carry a grain of rice for half a day. You can see how when the ant tribe seeks food, we leave our holes in search of it. Once we have come upon it, we go in files from our holes to it, and start to transfer it. You will see us in two files, one loaded with food and heading home, and the other going from home, not mixing with the other file, the two files constantly distinct and separate. They resemble two groups of people, one going to a place and the other returning from it. If the load is too heavy, a group of ants take part in carrying it, in the same way that a group of men take part in carrying a stone or a trunk of wood. If it is a single ant that has found the heavy thing, its companions assist it in carrying it to its habitation, and then leave it to its owner. On the other hand, if a group have come upon something together, we work together to transfer it, then share it at home.
An experienced person told the following remarkable account: "I once saw an ant that found a half locust; she tried to move it, but she failed to carry it from the ground. So, she moved a little distance and called a group of ants." The narrator adds, "I took away that half locust from the ground, so that when the ant and its companions came, she went around and they went around, but could not find it, so they went back. Then I replaced the half locust, and when the ant came, she saw it, she tried to carry it but failed. So she walked a little distance, bringing her group. They came and went round the place, and when the group did not find anything, they made a circle round the ant, attacked it and cut it limb from limb. I sat there observing all this."
In this case, let me tell how it works. So let us say, when we find a piece of sugar, then we report it to an institution, we call it the High Council of Specialists for Food Security. So this institution, holds a counsel, “There is a piece of sugar over there,” they might say. "Where?" we would ask. "At a distance of one thousand ant steps from the apple tree." "How many ants are required in order to bring it?" we ask. "Ten thousand ants." "Gather an army of fifty thousand ants," we say as we organize ourselves.
The people of knowledge said, "An amazing aspect of the shrewdness of ants is that when they transfer a grain to their habitation, they break it into pieces so that it does not sprout. If it is a two-lobe grain, each lobe capable of sprouting, they break it into four pieces. If it is damped with dew, and they worry that it might rot, they bring it out into the sun, and later bring it back into their habitation. That is the reason you often see outside their habitation a lot of broken grains, then if you come a short time later you find nothing left at all. Another token of their wit is that they do not dig their habitation except on an elevated piece of land, lest the flood should drown it. You never see the ants' village in the bottom of a valley, but raised to a part where the flood does not flow."
Such shrewdness is not to be wondered at in a species that glorifies the Rabb in gratitude. Abu Hurayrah, radhiyallahu 'anhu, reported the Prophet (ﷺ) as saying,
"An ant had bitten a Prophet (one amongst the earlier Prophets) and he ordered that the colony of the ants should be burnt. And Allah revealed to him, 'Because of an ant's bite you have burnt a community from amongst the communities which sings My glory'." - [Sahih Muslim]
We have good reasons for increasing the number of our armies. The main reason is that man is so excessive in destroying us without reason or excuse. Narrated Abdullah ibn Abbas, radhiyallahu 'anhu, said that
"the Prophet (ﷺ) prohibited to kill four creatures, ants, bees, hoopoes, and sparrow-hawks." - [Imam Ahmad and Sunan Abi Dawud; Sahih by Ibn Hibban and Shaikh Al-Albani]
Do you know where the valley of Empire of Ants is? If you do not know, then I think that is for the best. It is better for little creatures to hide their valleys in order to preserve their lives, especially from the big feet of man. It is common knowledge that a creature's small size may be the cause of his destruction. Amidst this worldly jungle in which we live, you have to be either a wolf or be eaten by wolves; and you have to be either a tiger or be eaten by tigers. That is what man says, isn't it? So what can ants do as they are one of the smallest creatures in this world?
The mercy of Allah has answered this question. We do not need to be wolves anymore in order to not be eaten by the strong among the wolves. Allah has provided us with an outstanding life and there are no other creatures that can do meticulous work to the degree of finesse like ants! Ants do not live alone. We live in colonies that consist of hundreds of thousands and the division of labor is clear and well known. For example, males cannot perform the work of females and the job of the worker-ants cannot be performed by anyone except them. Our cities are located underground. They are cities that are connected by a complicated system of roads that make it impossible for anyone but ants to pass through. Moreover, we build our cities deep under the ground in order to ward off any possible danger.
There are three kinds of ants: females, males and worker-ants. Every kind is born with an inherent knowledge of the work it is supposed to do. Unlike humans, we do not have teachers, for we learn directly from Allah, the Almighty. The first ant that was created by Allah knew all the sciences and passed her knowledge onto the successive generations. As soon as an ant is born and knows her position in the world of the ants, she instantly starts performing her responsibilities. We do never complain, we never aspire, we never covet and we never dream. We do not grow wings except when we are in love. Only in the mating season, do our wings grow. What people regard as a special kind of species of flying ants is in fact nothing but a troop of males and females in the season of love. At the end of this season, the male falls to the ground and dies. His task is over and his life has no more meaning. Once the male dies, the female's task begins. She bites off her wings, for she does not need them any more. Then, she builds her nest in the ground and lays her eggs. This little nest will become a colony of ants.
It is a colony that may become colonies and then turn into an Empire of Ants. The empire is laid out over and under the ground. It includes houses for each individual in it and also contains a certain percentage of each kind living in it.
One of the mysteries that scientists have not yet discovered about us, and I do not think that they will ever discover, lurks in these questions, "Why do ants have males, females and workerants each of a limited number? Why does the mother ant lay her eggs that hatch to be workerants? Why do these workeants grow in order to make it possible for the mother ant to lay millions of eggs throughout the rest of her life?" "Also, why does the mother lay the males after that and then the females? Why does she choose a certain number of males and a certain number of females so that are the number will be sufficient for life to continue and be organized in such an astonishing way? Does the mother ant make all these calculations that no human or electronic mind could ever achieve? Does an ant really do that?"
Human beings cannot determine the sex of an embryo, but ants can do that easily and do so without understanding how they are able to. Scientists will remain confounded in this secret of the ant world and this secret will ever remain a mystery for them as well as for me. I, also, do not know the answer to this secret.
It is enough to say that Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful, knew before He created us what we would encounter at the hands of human beings; and Allah, the Almighty, knew that if a child were to tread upon a colony of ants he could unintentionally kill a thousand ants with his foot. For this reason Allah provided us with what He did not provide man. He has guided us to what He did not guide man to and bestowed upon us weapons that help us survive in a world where the conflict of survival never ceases for a moment.
[Part 2]
