Fifty Lessons on Principles of Belief for Youths

Lesson 8: A World of Wonder in a Small Bird

In this lesson, we want to leave aside the large country of our body, which we have only very briefly touched upon, and turn to a look at the wonderful order of other creatures.

We look at the sky in the darkness of night. We see an exceptional bird which is searching for food with all of its energy. This bird is a bat. There are many wondrous things but flying at night is among the most wondrous.

The swift flight of bats in the darkness of the night without hitting anything is so wondrous that no matter how often one studies this, new mysteries of this are revealed.

This bird flies with the same speed and accuracy as a pigeon does in the day time. If it flies into a dark and narrow tunnel which is full of smoke and twists and turns, it will fly through all of the twists and turns without hitting any of the walls and not the smallest amount of smoke will be found on its wings.

This strange ability of the bat is proof of an effect within it which is similar to radar. We now need to know what radar is in order to be able to see it in a small bat.

In physics, in the discussion on forms, waves are discussed which are beyond sound waves. These waves are those same waves whose length and frequency are so great that the human ear cannot hear them. This is why they are called meta-sound waves.

When these waves are set off by means of a very strong transmitter, these waves move forward but whenever they meet up with any kind of a barrier in a point of space (like the aircraft of the enemy, etc), just like a ball when it hits a wall and bounces back, like our voice before a mountain or a high wall and based on an accurate record of how long it takes for the sound to return to us, we can measure the exact distance to the object.

Many aircrafts and ships are guided by means of radar and it takes them to whatever direction they want.

It is also used to find out the location of enemy ships and aircraft.

Scholars say that within this small creature, there is something similar to radar so that if the bat flies in a room which at that same moment a microphone is put to use to transform meta-sound waves into sound waves which can be heard, in each second (30 to 60 times) the meta-sound waves will be heard by the bat.

Scholars in answer to this say, “These waves leave the larynx through the nose of the bat by means of strong organs and its ears, which are the receivers, receive these.

Thus, this bat, in its night travels, is obligated to its ears. A scholar, through experiment, has proven that if you remove the ears of a bat, it cannot fly avoiding things whereas if you completely remove its eyes, it will very expertly still be able to fly. That is, a bat sees with its ears! Not its eyes. And this is most strange.

Now think who created these two wondrous organs in this small creature and how was it taught how to use them? And how can it avoid the dangers which exist during its night flying? Who?

Is it possible that nature have the intelligence and consciousness to do this? and place these organs which scientists copy, at great expense, in its body?

Hadrat ‘Ali, peace be upon him, in the Nahj al-Balaghah, in a very long sermon about creation, mentions the bat, saying, “It is never prevented from the way because of the darkness of the night. Great and glorious is God Who, without a previous model, brought everything into being.

Think and Answer

  1. What other interesting information do you have about the bat?
  2. Did you know that the bat’s wings and how it bears children and that even its method of sleeping differs from other animals and that it is most exceptional?