The Nation Newspaper

Tag: quran

  • Fate of man who burnt Quran in Denmark

    Danish Prosecutors on Wednesday said that they had opened a rare blasphemy case against a man who videotaped himself burning a copy of the Koran.

    The 42-year-old in December 2015 posted a clip on Facebook showing him burning the Koran in his garden.

    The video was shared on the group “Yes to Freedom No to Islam.’’

    The man, who was not named, also wrote a text that accompanied the video, which said: “Think about your neighbours, it stinks when it burns.’’

    The incident violated a blasphemy paragraph of the law that states it is illegal to make “public mockery or scorn against a religion,’’ prosecutor Jan Reckendorff said in a statement.

    The blasphemy charge can carry up to four months in prison, but the prosecutor said they would ask for a fine.

    It was not known when a court in Aalborg, western Denmark, would hear the case.

    It is the fourth time prosecutors have gone to trial over the blasphemy paragraph since 1938.

    The most recent case was in 1971, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said.

    In 2006 it ruled against prosecuting the editors of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper with blasphemy over the publication of 12 controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed.

    The September 2005 publication triggered massive protests, and a consumer boycott of Danish products in the Muslim world.

  • Christians must study Quran, says author

    Pastor Nureni Aderemi has launched a book titled “The Islam Christians must know”.

    Nureni pointed out that many Christians don’t know the fundamental beliefs of Islam.

    This, he said, is why they cannot reach out to them.

    ”What Muslims want is to reach this God we are talking about. They are not against Christians.

    “The content is based in the revelation of Quran, which everyone is expected to know to help shape their decisions.”

  • Knowing the Qur’an

    Knowing the Qur’an

    Reading any book has a purpose and a method. No good reader will ever read a book without taking cognisanze of its author, its publisher and its date of publication. And to read any new book, the very first point of call is its contents which tell you the topics and the subjects you will read about in it. Then, to have a pre-idea of the entire book in its summary form, before reading it, a good reader mustgo straight not only to the introduction to such a book but also to the foreword written on it. The combination of both will surely give the reader a pretty idea of what the book is all about. This is the shortest means of familiarizing oneself with a new book before going through its chapters.

    The word Qur’an means continuous recitation. It is so called because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily reading throughout the world, across nations and ages. It is the unsurpassed word of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

    The revelation of this Book to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 23 years (10 years in Makkah and13 years in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often taught by most Imams and Alfas). Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like wood, animal hide, back of trees and others of the like which were then readily available. It was only much later, after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were rendered into a book form. And one of the wonders of recording the Qur’an is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his illiteracy.

    The manner of presenting the Qur’anic revelations is simple and direct. It employs neither artifice nor conventional poses. Its main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. It does not only touch the anecdotes of Prophets of different ages and nations as well as the accounts of earlier revelations, it also covers the period from the beginning of creation to the very last Day of Judgment and beyond.

    Not only that, Al-Qur’an also gives insight into some natural phenomena like sphericity and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5) the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilization of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbit (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences. If any book is ever qualified to called the encyclopaedia of encyclopedias it can only be The Qur’an. More details about these will be written in ‘The Message’ column in The Nation newspaper after Ramadan in sha’Allah!

  • Cleric to Muslims: make Quran your companion

    Cleric to Muslims: make Quran your companion

    he Chief Imam of Apo Legislator’s Quarters’ Jumat Mosque, Abuja, Sheikh Muhammed Khalid yesterday urged Muslims to get close to Allah and pray for the country.

    Khalid said Muslims should see the holy month as an opportunity to increase their charity giving, spiritual purification and pray for the nation.

    He urged them to use the  month for sober reflection, saying that it was a month that all the Muslims all over the world were expected to right wrongs.

    He also advised Nigerians to engage in more spiritual activities, ask for forgiveness of sins and strive to attain righteousness and piety.

    The imam enjoined Muslims to make the Holy Quran their companion.

    He called on Muslims to always do the right thing, not only in the month of Ramadan, but in all other months, to make the society a peaceful place.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Khalid said fasting in the month of Ramadan was one of the five pillars of Islam, which every true Muslim must be part of.

    He said it was compulsory for all good Muslims to fast during the month of Ramadan, except for those exempted by the Holy Quran.

    He said the exemptions were only for the pregnant women, the aged and the very sick, among others.

    He called on Nigerians to join hands with the government in tackling insurgency and other anti-social activities.

    Also, Malam AbdulJelil Kilani, Deputy Chief Imam, Islamic Youth League of Nigeria (IYL), Mosque, urged Muslims to show mercy on the less privileged.

    This, he said, would go a long way in reducing their sufferings and conditions of living.

    “ Those that show mercy and tried to reduce the suffering of the less privileged ones during the month of Ramadan, will have abundant reward here and in the hereafter.

    “Those that show mercy on the less privileged will also receive same from those above them’’, he said.

    He urged Muslims to see the month as a month of sacrifice, spiritual purification and devotion to the worship of the Almighty Allah.

    Kilani warned Muslims not to engage in activities capable of jeopardising the peace and tranquillity in the country.

    He called on Nigerians to pray for the new government to succeed.

    A Muslim faithful, Malam Muhammed Abdulsalam, said fasting was one of the fundamental principles of Islam that must be obeyed by all Muslims irrespective of their status.

    He urged Muslims to be righteous in whatever they do, not only during the month of Ramadan but always.

    Abdulsalam also urged Muslims to use the month of fasting to increase their spiritual cleansing and closeness to the Almighty Allah.

     

  • The Qur’an and Ramadan

    Preamble

    Here is the month of the Qur’an. The revelation of the Qur’an in the sacred month of Ramadan confers the status of a habitat on the latter. But on the other hand, it is the Qur’an that enables humanity to know the significance of the month called Ramadan. Thus, the relationship between the Qur’an and Ramadan is as symbiotic as the one between the egg and the hen. It is difficult for the one to claim an origin that is different from that of the other.

    The word Qur’an means continuous recitation. It is so defined because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily recitation throughout the world, across nations and centuries. Qur’an contains the unsurpassable words of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

     

    Revelation

    The revelation of this sacred ‘Book’ to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW) the son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in 610 CE. It lasted 22 years and three months (12 years in Makkah and12 years plus three months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6236 verses (not 6666 verses often erroneously quoted by most Nigerian Muslim clerics). Of these 114 chapters, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began as soon as its revelations commenced. The writing was however done on primitive materials like wood, animal hide, back of trees, tablets of rock and others of the like which were then readily available. It was only a year (633 C.E) after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were rendered into a book form not in a foreign language as in the case of the Bible but in Arabic which was its original language of revelation. And one of the wonders in documenting the Qur’anic revelations is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his unlettered status.

     

    Manner of presentation

    The manner of presenting the Qur’anic revelations is simple and direct. It employs neither artifice nor conventional poses. Its main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. It does not only touch the anecdotes of previous Prophets and nations in different ages and even the accounts of earlier revelations, it also covers the entire period of human existence from the beginning of creation to the very last Day of Judgment.

    Besides the above, the Qur’an also gives insight into some natural phenomena like spherical objects and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5) the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilisation of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbits (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). All these can be found only in the Qur’an, of all the revealed Books. Or can anybody point out anything similar to these in any other revealed book?

    Yet, the purpose of this Qur’an is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences. It is rather to guide mankind in their pursuit of knowledge towards achieving the benefits of each of these fields throughout human odyssey.

     

    Language of the Qur’an

    Most Muslim clerics read the Qur’an in its original language (Arabic) without understanding what they are reading because they do not speak that language.  Some read it as a means of solving their imaginary problems thus taking the Qur’an for a charm which must yield result if manipulated towards their whims. The Qur’an is not meant for that purpose. It is rather the manual of life for man by which he lives his daily life and conducts his daily affairs.

    The word Qur’an means continuous recitation and understanding. It is so called because of its inimitable origin which makes it a compelling daily reading throughout the world and across ages. It contains the unsurpassable words of Allah not only in the grandeur of its diction and the splendour of its rendition but also in the depth of its meaning, substance and profundity.

     

    Originality of language

    That the Qur’an is the only revealed ‘BOOK’ in the world today that has consistently retained the originality of both its language and contents for over 1400 years is enough a testimony to the proof of its divine origin. That also confirms not only the genuineness of the prophet-hood of Muhammad (SAW) as a Messenger of Allah but also the lucidity of Arabic as one of the oldest languages in the world today. Thus, just as there can be no proof of the identity of a messenger without the authenticity of the message so can there be  no proof of the genuineness of the prophetic mission of Muhammad (SAW) outside the proof of the Qur’an.

     

    Proof of divine origin

    It cannot be strange to see anybody who perceives the immortal God in the image of a mortal being perceive Islam as a mere dogma like any other religion. It is such people who keep asking for the proof of Qur’anic revelation as if other revelations before the Qur’an do not need proof. In reason and logic, asking for the proof of the Qur’an after all the manifest evidences in its contents is like asking the sun to prove its rays. However, it is the nature and character of unbelievers to deny the truth and refute the obvious. But does it really bother the sun that a blind man denies its rays? Or can a brook be assaulted in anyway if the herds boycott its water?

     

    Features of the Qur’an

    Qur’an leaves no aspect of life untouched and it leaves no secret unrevealed. Problems and solutions; history and lessons; crimes and penalties; justice and righteousness; discipline and courage; friendship and trust; governance and methodology; marriage and divorce; widowhood and orphanage; childhood and inheritance; poverty and wealth; opinion and logic; facts and figures; life and death; darkness and light; war and peace; leadership and power; angel and man; heavens and earth; all these and many other  matters relating to man and his environment form the subjects of discussion and guidance in the ‘Divine Diary of Life called the Qur’an’.

     

    Profile of the Qur’an

    The revelation of this Book to mankind through an unlettered desert Arab, Muhammad (SAW) son of Abdullah and Aminah, began in the month of Ramadan in year 610 CE. It lasted about 23 years (10 years in Makkah and12 years plus a few months in Madinah). The book contains 114 chapters and 6246 verses (not 6666 verses often announced by most Imams and Alfas). Any individual can verify this by checking the number of verses in each chapter and adding them together. It does not take more than one hour to do this.

    Of the 114 chapters contained in the Qur’an, 86 were revealed in Makkah and 28 in Madinah. But the 28 chapters revealed in Madinah constitute two thirds of the entire Sacred Book. And this is because the Makkah chapters are short and rhythmic while those of Madinah are long and prose-like.

    Although the Qur’an was revealed orally, its writing began almost immediately the revelations started. The writing was however done on primitive materials like wood, animal hides, back of trees and others of the like which were then readily available. It was only much later, after the demise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), that those writings were brought together and rendered into a book form.

    One of the wonders of recording the Qur’an in writing is the classification of those revelations into chapters and verses by the Prophet himself despite his Inability to read and write.

    The manner of presenting the Qur’anic revelations is simple and direct. It employs neither artifice nor conventional poses. Its main appeal is to man’s intellect, feelings and imagination. It does not only touch the anecdotes of the past Prophets in different ages and nations as well as the accounts of earlier revelations, it also covers the period from the beginning of creation to the very last Day of Judgment and beyond.

    Not only that, Al-Qur’an also gives insight into some natural phenomena like sphericity and revolution of the earth (Q. 39:5) the formation of rain (Q. 30:48); the fertilisation of the wind (Q. 15:22); the revolution of the sun, the moon and the planets in their fixed orbits (Q. 36:29-38); the aquatic origin of all creatures (Q. 21:30); the duality of the sex of plants and other creatures (Q. 36:35); the collective life of animals (Q.6:38); the mode of life of the bees (Q. 16:69) and the successive phases of the child in the mother’s womb (Q. 22:5 & 23:14). Yet, the purpose of this Book is not to teach history, astronomy, philosophy or sciences.

     

    Qur’anic Lessons

    In this glorious Book are practical lessons such as the great deluge, the cataclysm of Sodom and Gomorrah, the defeat of Jalut (Goliath) by Daud (David), the doom of the tyrannical Pharaoh, and similar catastrophes that had afflicted iniquitous people of the past. All these are taught to man through the Qur’an that he (man) might know how to re-assess himself continually and properly akin to the guidance of Allah.

    Apart from the facts mentioned above, many other devices were adopted from time to time, by Allah, to remind man of his mortality and to see him through a successful sojourn on earth. But unfortunately, man has always been blind to genuine divine guidance just as he has been deaf to warnings and deviant from reason as much as he has persistently been insensitive to rightful thoughts even as he remains unreceptive to positive ideas. In his choice to form freemasonry with Satan (the custodian of ruins and deception, the inventor of arrogance and vanity and the master of avarice and woes), man has ignorantly and continuously strayed into a quagmire of sorrow. Taking Satan for his best friend, he refuses to use the long spoon with which he is provided in the Qur’an by Allah to dine with the damned Lucifer.

     

    Testimony

    To Muslims who understand the teachings of Islam through the Qur’an, all the genuine Prophets, including Musa (Moses) and Isa (Jesus) are from Allah and all the divinely revealed ‘BOOKS’ are series of the same ‘MESSAGE’. They are like Ambassadors of a nation to another nation. Changing them from time to time does not change the nation from where they come or the foreign policy of that nation. This fact has been firmly established in the Qur’an itself thus:

    “The Messenger of Allah (Muhammad (SAW) believes in what has been revealed to him from his Lord; and every true believer also believes in Allah and His Angels and His revealed Books and His Messengers; We do not discriminate against anyone of them (those Messengers) as they say we hear and obey (the contents of the revelation) oh God, we seek your forgive, to You is our return” Q. 3:285-286

     

    Discipline

    That is why Muslims are not known for maligning any Prophet or genuinely revealed ‘BOOKS’ that have not reflected any traces of human tampering. Right from its very first day of revelation, the Qur’an has come with undeniable proof. But it takes only a divinely cleansed heart to comprehend such proof and acknowledge its authenticity. Qur’an itself is the master proof of all other celestial messages that preceded it. It is the final divine revelation which has no human interference or human tampering.

    Neither Prophet Muhammad (SAW), who brought this Sacred Book to mankind nor any of his companions (or disciples) had a say in it. The Book contains no chapters or verses according to anybody. And unlike some other books no one speaks in the Qur’an on behalf of Allah in the name of revelation. Even the personal expressions of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) about mundane life which are generally known as Hadith were not to be mingled with the verses of the Qur’an despite his endowed divine inspirations. And where such expressions seem to contradict any part of the Qur’an they automatically become superseded by the contents of the latter.

     

    Mirror of Life

    Qur’an is the extraordinary compendium in which the activities of man from the very beginning of human existence to the end of human life are chronicled. It is the eternally concrete ‘MIRROR’ through which the descendants of Adam and Hawau can see life in its past, its present and its near and far future. This ‘MIRROR’ is the spectacle that heals the blind, the natural manure that fertilises the human brain and the greatest treasure in the possession of mankind.

    For the rightly guided mind, the Qur’an is the eye with which to see, the ear with which to hear and the sense with which to reason. It is the bridge across the valleys of life; the insurance against any damnation; the passport for salvation and the only reliable redeemer of mankind.

    For any divinely tamed mind therefore, life begins and ends with the Qur’an, Allah’s own tradition and the only authentic fountain from which man can draw and sip from the living spring of wisdom. The sense that reasons with the Qur’an makes no mistake. Any mind that thinks with the Qur’an can never be devilled. Any eye that sees with it can never incur sore. Any tongue that talks with it will never stammer. Any power that genuinely rules with it will never falls. Meanwhile, the Almighty Allah warns in this non-such Book (the Qur’an) thus: “But whosoever deviates from My guidance, verily for him is life of subjugation and We shall raise him up a blind person on the Day of resurrection” (Q. 20: 124).

  • The insect that heals

    The insect that heals

    It cannot be strange to regular reciters of the Qur’an that there are 114 chapters in that sacred book. Out of these, six chapters are dedicated to the animal kingdom, three of which are specifically dedicated to insects. They are chapters 16, 27 and 29 which are dedicated to ‘The BEE’, ‘The ANT’ and ‘The SPIDER’ respectively.

    Each of these chapters is particularly symbolic of the purpose to which it is dedicated. But it takes only those who can reason to comprehend them. However, our immediate concern here is the insect called ‘BEE’ about which Qur’an 16, verse 68 quoted in this column last week is explicit thus:

    “And your Lord revealed to the bee (saying): Build your homes in the mountains, in the trees and in the hives which men shall make for you. Feed on every kind of fruit and follow the trodden path of your Lord’. “From its belly comes forth a fluid of many hues as healing (fluid) for mankind. Surely in this, there is a sign for those who can reason….”

    Honey is like a message. No one can gain access to a message except through the messenger. And the messenger, in this case, is the bee. To appreciate the value of honey and other bee products, it is necessary to know something about the life of the bees.

    Bees are social insects living a communal life under an organised and disciplined government. Bees have male and female genders. Their males are called drones. Their females are known as workers. They all live together in an abode called hive. Such hive may be wild or man-made. Though people had been harvesting honey for thousands of years, it was not until 1851 that the idea of a definite man-made hive came into existence. In that year, an America apiarist, Lorenzo Lorrain Langstroth, discovered the principle of ‘bee space’ and designed a man-made hive that came to be named after him (Langstroth). According to his discovery, bees leave spaces of about 0.6 cm (about 0.23 inches) between wax combs. Thus, Langstroth’s discovery made it possible to remove individual frames from a beehive and to harvest honey and wax without destroying the colony. It also became possible to control diseases in the hive and to maintain a larger number of colonies. (A colony is a hive effectively occupied by bees while an apiary is a place where hives are sited and kept by an apiarist).

    Man-made hives are of three types. These are Langstroth, Kenyan top bar and Tanzanian top bar. Kenyan and Tanzanian top bars are similar in shape and outlook. The one was designed in Kenya while the other was designed in Tanzania in the 1950s and 1962 early 1960s. Each of the Kenyan and Tanzanian hives can contain an average of 20 litres of honey. Langstroth on the other hand can contain as much as between 38 and 40 litres because of its double chamber capacity. To get the bees to occupy a hive, what apiarists do is to bate such hives. And to bate the hive, some pure, genuine honey is added to a piece of beeswax and put at the entrance of the hive. Once this is done, the bees will come in their hundreds to colonise the hive. Thus, it becomes a colony.

    Bees are governed by a female monarch called ‘the Queen’. To choose a Queen, a group of kingmakers in the hive meet to select some fertilised eggs shortly before those eggs are hatched and give them royal incubation. When they are hatched and become princesses, they are then fed with a special food called Royal Jelly to accelerate their growth and facilitate their longevity. After about 16 weeks, one of them is chosen and made the Queen while the rest are either taken out into new hives as Queens or left altogether to slug it out among themselves in a battle of survival. In such a situation, whichever of them emerges as overall winner retains the crown as the Queen of that particular hive. The other fertilised eggs not specially selected for the same purpose are left to grow naturally until they become worker bees.

    Drones are the male bees produced from unfertilised eggs. They neither sting nor work. They are idle in the hive except for mating with an emerging queen which they do only once in a lifetime. As soon as they finish mating, the drones fall down and die as they have completed their destined duty. The queen also mates only once in a lifetime but she does not die as a result. Drones are very few in any hive since the unfertilised eggs that produce them are scantily laid by the Queen. They constitute less than one per cent of the hive population. The other drones which do not participate in mating only loiter around the hive and feed freely from the labour of the workers. Their population is invariably determined by the Queen which lays very few big and unfertilised eggs from which the drones are produced. The worker bees are produced from smaller but fertilised eggs. Only one Queen can be found in a hive at any given time. And she has no deputy. If two or more Queens should meet in the same hive, they will engage in a fight of survival killing one another until only one (the strongest) is left to reign.

    By the natural culture of the bees, the Queen neither mates inside her own hive nor mated by the drones from the same hive. This is similar to the principle of endogamy (marriage within the same family) which is culturally prohibited in most African clans. When it is time for the Queen bee to mate, she produces a glandular secretion with which she sends out a powerful pheromone into the air to alert the drones in other hives that she is ready for mating. A meeting is then arranged by the worker bees, between her and some interested drones, to mate with the Queen. And the mating is done in the air.

    To breed new bees, the Queen bee lays unfertilised eggs in the larger chambers of the bee comb while she lays fertilised ones in the small chambers of the comb. The eggs in the larger chambers are meant for the production of the drones while those in the smaller chambers are meant for the production of the workers. This is because the drones are naturally bigger in size than the workers. Both chambers are expertly designed in the honeycomb by the worker bees for the purpose of breeding. One of the mysteries of the beehives is the building of the honeycomb by the bees. Researchers in the field of apitherapy know that the bees use wax to build honeycomb but they are still puzzled by the natural skill with which those tiny insects do it. An attempt by those researchers to manufacture similar honeycomb as a means of assisting the bees in reducing their workload has proved abortive as the bees have shunned such artificial comb. Honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal cells built by the honeybees in their nest to contain their larvae and store honey and pollen.

    Worker bees are classified into groups for the purpose of carrying out specific duties assigned to them. Some go out every morning to scout for flower nectars with which to produce honey. Some are assigned to the duty of picking resin with which to produce propolis. Some others are charged with fetching water to be used in the hive. All of them travel out in groups of hundreds into the wild vegetations or plantations every morning as a matter of duty. For carrying out such duties, they are called foragers.

    Among the other multitude others remaining in or around the hive, some are responsible for guarding the hive against any foreign attack or aggression. They are the security officers. Some are assigned to carrying out the conversion to honey of the flower nectars brought into the hive by the foragers. Those are the corporate cooks in the hive. Some engage permanently in fanning the interior of the hive with their tiny wings to reduce the heat and neutralise the humidity therein. Those are the ventilators. Some specialise in converting to propolis the resin brought by the foragers. Those are the pharmacists or apothecaries. Some are assigned to the Queen’s kitchen as special cooks and prepare royal jelly for the Queen which is the latter’s exclusive food. Those are the Queen’s royal chefs. Some are kept at the entrance of the hive for monitoring the environment and for passing any gathered information to the busy workers. Those are the informants. Some are put in charge of nursing the young bees into adults. They are the foster mothers. Some are assigned to the building and maintenance of the honeycomb. Those are the colony architects and builders. Some are assigned to sterilising the interior of the hive with propolis and to ceiling any leakages therein as well as to embalming any predators that stray into the hive after such predators might have been stung to death to prevent any outbreak of epidemic in the hive. Those are the sanitary inspectors. All of these duties are carried out by the female bees called worker bees.

    In the performance of their duties, some foragers do alert others about the discovery of sources of raw materials like nectar and pollen in the visited vegetations by doing a “waggle” dance, which explains the direction and distance of those raw materials. If the source is within the range of 100 meters from the hive, the bees dance in a circular shape. If it is further away than 100 meters, they dance in figure 8 shape. Worker bees, by their nature, do travel very far in search of water or raw materials needed to carry out their assigned duties in the hive. And they follow the principle of ‘esprit de corps’ in carrying out such duties.

    This great division of labour is a daily routine which enables perfection to be attained in the hive. And all these activities are centrally co-ordinated by the Queen bee from her palatial chamber. The Queen bee herself is about three times bigger in size than the worker bee. She lays an average of about 2,000 eggs per day. And she lives about 40 times longer than those other bees because of the exclusive diet of Royal Jelly which she takes every day. The average lifespan of an ordinary bee is six weeks. That of the Queen bee is two and a half years but she can live for as long as six years depending on the conduciveness of her royal environment.

     

    When the Queen bee becomes old or weak and can no longer lay enough eggs (of between 1,500 and 2,000 per day) with which to sustain the population of the hive, the kingmakers in the hive meet and decide to depose her by jointly stinging her to death. Then, she is replaced with a new, vibrant Queen.

    The drones (male bees) cannot sting because they are naturally not endowed to do that by virtue of the infertile eggs from which they are produced. Stinging is part of the duties of the worker bees. And each of them can sting only once in a lifetime. No bee can sting twice. That is why they move in groups when they are going for attack on an enemy. Stinging bees are like suicide bombers. They die in less than 30 minutes after they had stung. However, by virtue of her position and the special food she eats, the Queen can sting many times without any fear of death.

    It must be noted that the bees work and produce honey and other products for themselves and not for human consumption. Honey is the food of the bees. They work during the dry season and never in the rainy season because they cannot cope with the wind and storm which often accompany rains. Thus, during the rainy season, they concentrate on taking care of the Queen and on nursing of the younger bees. Therefore, the food which they had stored during the dry season is what they consume during the raining season. It takes an average bee about 21 days to grow into an adult from the egg status while it takes the Queen about 16 day to develop from the egg status to the royal status of a Queen.

    Bees have as much friendly stinging as they have of hostile stinging. Their friendly stinging is for healing purposes. Their hostile stinging is like missiles reserved for attack on enemies. The natural sac in which their venom is kept at the tail end of their abdomen is called ‘ovipositor’. Bees also have three ways of communicating among themselves. These are through buzzing by the collective clapping of their wings; through pheromone released by the Queen and through certain dancing styles. They have eight of such dancing styles each with comprehensible connotation. The number of honey bees inhabiting a hive at a time may range from 10,000 to 100,000 depending on the size of the hive and its proximity to the needed raw materials.

    The Queen bee mates with about six to eight drones, only once in a lifetime. And this is done over a period of two to seven days. And she must fly to at least a height of 20 metres in the air before mating. This is to maintain royal privacy and avoid unnecessary disturbance. There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world. But the most prominent ones in relation to human life are seven. These are Bumble Bees; Carpenter Bees; Honey Bees; Killer Bees; Ground Bees and Yellow Jackets Bees. Some worker bees are stingless. But generally, the world of bees is a wonderful one. It takes those who know it to appreciate its value. Without bees, there will be neither crops nor farmers. No amount of narration here can expose all about the communal life of the bees. Their story is inexhaustible.

     

    Identifying genuine honey

    Following the publication of an article in this column last Friday entitled ‘The Prophet’s Medicine’, many readers of this column (not less than 401, as of last Tuesday when this piece was being put together), have called yours sincerely or sent messages wanting to know how genuine honey can be recognised. This column has no choice but to oblige since readers, like customers, are kings and queens.

    A genuine honey can be recognized in two simple ways thus:

    (1) By dropping a little quantity of honey in a transparent glass of water. It should ordinarily go straight to the bottom of the water and stay there without mixing with the water. If it mixes, consider it as either debased or not genuine.

    (2) By dropping a little quantity of honey on a small portion of sand (not soil). It should ordinarily stay on top of such sand without sinking. If it sinks then it is not genuine. There are other ways by which genuine honey is tested. But those two ways should suffice for now. The idea that ants do not go near a genuine honey has no basis. Ants will go for anything sweet anywhere. The only reason why ants are careful about honey is its gummy nature. Ants have six legs. If they are not careful about their approach to honey they may get trapped in it. Thus, when the ants want to consume honey, they put only two legs forward and retain the other four backwards to enable escape getting trapped in gummy honey.

    Besides, consummation of honey by human beings has rules and regulations. For instance honey should not be put in any hot substance like tea or pap. Such substance should be allowed to cool down to a warm level before honey can be added to it. Otherwise, one will merely be consuming the fructose in honey and not the vital properties like enzymes in it which are of high benefit to the body system.

    Finally, looking at the communal life of the bees as well as the style of government in the beehive, no sensible person will disagree with an Arab poet who once coined a couplet part of which reads thus:

    “…..And in every creature, there is a natural sign confirming not only the true existence of Allah but also His indisputable oneness”. God bless the readers of ‘THE MESSAGE’.

  • Free speech and its expanding list of subtle enemies

    These are not the best of times for free speech. The killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 by an al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has brought to the fore in all its ugly ramifications the difficult, if not impossible, relationship between humanity and freedom of expression.

    The killings, if AQAP’s claims are believable, were ostensibly to avenge the killing by US drones in June of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a top ranking al-Qaeda militant of Libyan descent. Libyan authorities seem to think that much more than any other reason, AQAP’s explanation is closer to the truth of what happened in Benghazi last week.

    The Americans are still piecing clues together, but they seem to believe that the killings were connected with the protests by Muslims in many parts of North Africa and the Middle East against the film, Innocence of Muslims, produced and posted on the Internet by an American citizen, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. YouTube hosts a 14-minute clip of the film that is considered by most people to have excessively denigrated Prophet Muhammad.

    Protests against the film have spread like wild fire in Arabia and some countries even in Europe. While many African countries south of the Sahara have been largely equanimous about the film, public officials in the US and Europe have struggled on one hand with genuine outrage and veiled contrition, and on the other hand with a steely determination to sustain the constitutional freedoms, especially that of speech, that have become integral to their civilisations.

    It is unlikely they will be able to easily resolve the quandary the hated film has put them. In 1988 when Europe was confronted with The Last Temptation of Christ, an award-winning film by Martin Scorsese, state officials were more successful in resisting any temptation to meddle either in restraining the film’s producers or in censoring its availability to cinema houses. Perhaps, too, because of Europe’s sophistication, protests against the film were not too successful. In fact, when a cinema house showing the film in Paris was fire-bombed, a French Minister of Culture at the time remarked that: “Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts.”

    However, the controversy over Scorsese’s audacious film pre-dated 9/11 and the al-Qaeda phenomenon. Since 2001, when al-Qaeda bombed targets in the US, the issue of free speech has assumed more alarming dimensions. In September 2005, a Danish medium, the Jyllands-Posten, published 12 editorial cartoons that depicted Muhammad contrary to Islamic injunctions. The newspaper said at the time that the publication was its own contribution to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. The ensuing riots that greeted the publication and its reprint in more than 50 other countries led to the death of about 100 people and the burning of many Western embassies.
    After the current gale of protests subside, the world, especially Western societies, will have to grapple with the volatile issues relating to freedom of speech. They will once again begin an examination of the difficult question of where free speech ends and intolerance begins, and how to disaggregate blasphemy in a world of shifting mores, values, interpretations and reassessment of religious principles and practices.

    The world will also have to examine whether the reactions to the Basseley film are just one more landmark in the so-called clash of civilisations between Western culture, or perhaps Christianity, on one hand, and Islamic values on the other hand; or whether the conflicts between the two civilisations merely mask geopolitical struggles in which Israel is at the core.

    What cannot be denied is that the West is finding it difficult to react with the same equanimity with which they often tackle problematic issues relating to the freedoms that underpin their societies. Like the deliberately provocative Danish cartoons, and now the Basseley film, there will be yet more provocations, some fairly harmless, and others quite lurid, to test the frontiers of free speech.

    Western societies do not think free speech must be circumscribed by borders when it comes to religion. Arabia and many Muslim societies think there is a red line that must not be crossed. The current furore will, therefore, not be the last in a world that seems to be growing increasingly and overtly less tolerant. Countries like Nigeria may be unable to contribute meaningfully to the debate, given its peculiar religious tapestry, but advocates of free speech must feel relieved to know that there are still parts of the world that allow or enable challenges to the orthodoxies of the day, whether those orthodoxies are religious, political or cultural.

    For in the end, it must be obvious to all that the world did not start out as either Christian or Muslim, or as any other religion for that matter. What religious texture the world will wear at the end of history, if indeed history will end, remains to be seen.