The Miracle In The Spider

Some readers may think that the subject of this book is not one that interests them very much. They may tell themselves both that a book about a little insect has nothing in it for them, and that the busy pace of their lives leaves them no time for such a book.
Then again, these same people may feel that a book on economic or political research, or perhaps a novel, would be more attractive and "useful." Or they may think that books on other subjects will be of greater interest to them. Whereas the fact is that this book the reader is holding will be a great deal more "useful" than many he has hitherto read, and has much more to offer him. Because this book is not a biology text written to give detailed information about this tiny animal called the spider. The book may have the spider as its subject, but its true importance lies in the truth about life it reveals and the message it has to give.
Like a key… A key is a tool which looks pretty unimportant in itself. If you give one to a person who has never seen one before, and who is therefore unaware of the relationship between key and lock, he will consider the thing in his hand meaningless and a useless piece of metal. Whereas sometimes a key, depending upon what lies behind the door that it opens, can be one of the most valuable things in the world.
This book has been written, not with the aim of taking the spider as a subject on its own, but to use it as a "key." As for the reality behind the door which this key opens, it is the greatest truth anyone can ever discover throughout the course of his life. Because it demonstrates how baseless is the theory of evolution, propounded by people who want to deny the truth, is andprovides answers to questions, answers that mankind has been searching for since the dawn of time. The answers to such fundamental questions as "Who am I?" "How were the universe and I created?" and "What is the point and meaning of life?" are the reality behind this door.
The answer is this: human beings and the universe they inhabit were created, down to the tiniest detail, by one Creator, and exist to show that He exists and to praise Him. That Creator, who has no imperfections or weaknesses, but who is infinitely powerful, is God. As God has revealed in the Qur'an, the sole reason for the existence of any human being is to understand the act of his and the universe's creation and to serve God, who is Lord of all.
It takes some effort to acquire this understanding. Part of this consists of observing everything that exists, considering it, and being able to decipher the message within. Because everything which exists, and especially every living thing in nature, is a sign of God's existence and bears witness to His being.
God draws our attention to these verses in the Qur'an, which He revealed to show the true way to the human beings He had created:

In the creation of the heavens and earth, and the alternation of the night and day, and the ships which sail the seas to people's benefit, and the water which God sends down from the sky – by which He brings the earth to life when it was dead and scatters about in it creatures of every kind – and the varying direction of the winds, and the clouds subservient between heaven and earth, there are Signs for people who use their intellect. (Surat al-Baqara: 164)

Everything in the heavens and everything on the earth and everything in between them and everything under the ground belongs to Him. (Surah Ta ha: 6)

On examination, what the Qur'an reveals in the above verse may seem perfectly normal events in many peoples' eyes. The alternation of night and day, ships floating instead of sinking, the rain's giving life to the soil, the movement of winds and clouds… Modern man thinks that all of these can be explained by science and with a mechanical logic, for which reason he thinks that they carry with them no element of surprise. However, science only considers naked material truths, but is never able to provide an answer to the question "Why?" It is from the condition of widespread ignorance created by the religionless social order dominating the world that people are prevented from considering these verses and understanding the different meanings which lie behind them. Essentially, and in fact, the Qur'an says that the nature of those verses can be perceived only by "people who reflect."
For a "people who reflect", basically every part of nature is a sign, or in other words a key to the door to truth. Since nature can be split up into a nearly infinite number of parts, the number of doors and keys is also nearly infinite. But sometimes it is enough to open just one door to lead a person to the truth. Just one part extracted from nature, for example, a single plant or a single animal, can bring a truth-seeker closer to an understanding of the entire universe. For this reason, God states in the Qur'an that "God is not ashamed to make an example of a gnat or of an even smaller thing", because "as for those who believe, they know it is the truth from their Lord." (Surat al-Baqara: 26)
Such tiny creatures as the mosquito, and the spider, are mentioned in God's verses. In the same way as the gnat is considered unimportant by people, so is the spider: but "people who reflect" can see the miracle these verses convey. These tiny animals can each be seen as a key, and can open the door to seeing the perfection of God's creation. This book, which describes the surprising and incredible characteristics of the spider, known by so few people, and which will in describing them also ask "how?" and "why?" has been written with that end in mind. And for that reason alone this book is more significant than many books you may have read up until now. Because to become one of the "people who reflect" is more essential to man than anything else.

And He has made everything in the heavens and everything on the earth subservient to you. It is all from Him. There are certainly Signs in that for people who reflect.(Surat al-Jathiyya: 13) 

There are hundreds of species of spiders in the world. These small animals can appear to us sometimes as a construction engineer capable of performing calculations for building its nest, sometimes as an interior designer making complicated plans, sometimes a chemist making incredibly strong and flexible threads, deadly venoms, and dissolving acids, and sometimes as a hunter using the most cunning tactics.
Despite their numerous superior characteristics, nobody in his daily life even bothers to think what special creations spiders are. According to this underestimation there is nothing surprising in the existence of spiders, nor in that of anything else. But this is a completely mistaken way of thinking. Because, as we begin to learn more about spiders, as about the behaviour of all creatures, examining for example their methods of hunting, reproducing, and defending themselves, we find ourselves face-to-face with characteristics that fill us with awe.
In nature all living things adopt behaviour patterns that require intelligence in order to live their lives. These behaviour patterns, that underlie skills, proficiencies and superior planning capabilities, have one thing in common. Each and every one necessarily requires ability. Skills that a human being can master only by learning, and gaining proficiency and experience, already exist in these living creatures from the moment they are born. The later parts of this book consist of questions which need to be answered: how these abilities, which will be described in some detail, came about, and how living creatures learned them. These living things, acting in accordance with such highly intelligent blueprints, hunting with such calculation, and when necessary, behaving like chemical engineers, knowing what material to produce in a particular situation, really baffle scientists who study them. So much so that even evolutionist scientists admit that the cleverest living creatures have characteristics necessitating intelligence. Scientist Richard Dawkins, despite the fact that he is an evolutionist, describes spiders' behaviour in this way in his book, Climbing Mount Improbable:

On our route we shall have occasion to look at spider webs - at the bewildering, though unconscious, ingenuity with which they are made and how they work.¹

Actually, saying these, Dawkins comes up against such questions as "how the animals' conscious and intelligent behaviour emerged, and what its source was," which cannot be explained in any way by the theory of evolution. Really, questions such as "How do living creatures come to possess this intelligence, and how do they learn where to apply it?" are ones to which the defenders of the theory of evolution are unable to supply open and definitive answers.
At this point an examination of the arguments the evolutionists use to try to answer the question of conscious and intelligent behaviour in animals will be appropriate. Let us do this by explaining the real meaning of a term which evolutionists use in their claims.
Evolutionists searching for an answer to the question of "how living creatures came to have purposeful behaviour" use "instinct" to try to shed light on the matter. But they are in no way successful. This can be clearly seen by a more thorough appreciation of the concept of "instinct." Evolutionists say that animals engage in such things as devotion, planning, tactics or behaviour requiring special abilities, which require consciousness and intelligence, thanks to "instinct." But, of course, evolutionists' just saying this is not sufficient. In addition to making this claim, they also have to provide answers to such questions as how this behaviour first came about, how it was passed down the generations, and how the concept of "instinct" managed to give living creatures consciousness and intelligence. However, evolutionists have absolutely no answers to these questions. Gordon Rattray Taylor is an evolutionist expert in genetics. He has this to say about instincts:

When we ask ourselves how an instinctive pattern of behaviour arose in the first place and became hereditarily fixed we are given no answer. ²

Other evolutionists say that all living creatures' behaviour is founded not on instinct but on their genetic programming. But in that case they have to explain who wrote the programme and installed it in living creatures. But evolutionists are unable to do this. Despite being the originator of the theory, Charles Darwin admits their dilemma in the following words:

So wonderful an instinct as that of the hive-bee making its cells will probably have occurred to many readers, as a difficulty sufficient to overthrow my whole theory.³

As the above makes quite clear, a concept such as "instinct" is absolutely insufficient to shed light on living creatures' conscious behaviour. Of course there is a power that programmes living creatures and teaches them what to do. But this is not a result of "Mother Nature" as it is called, nor of the living creature itself, which will defend its young at the cost of its own life, or which will go back to deceive the enemy with various tactics in order to save the life of another member of its own group.
The power which gives them all these characteristics, which creates their intelligent behaviour and purposeful movements, belongs to God. God is the only lord of that intelligence which we witness in living creatures in countless examples in nature. It is God Who inspires living creatures to do what they do.
It is impossible to explain the behaviour of any living creature by coincidence, or by any other mechanism or interesting concept. No such claim can be any more than a deception. All this is revealed in one of His verses:

Say: 'Have you ever seen your associates whom you appeal to instead of to God? Show me what they have created of the earth; or do they have a partnership in the heavens?' Have We given them a Book whose Clear Signs they follow? No indeed! The wrongdoers promise each other nothing but delusion. (Surah Fatir: 40)

The living creature which is the subject of this book, the spider, its behaviour patterns and the flawless mechanisms it possesses, is one of those that give the lie to the theory of evolution, or, to put it more robustly, "destroy the theory of evolution." The pages that follow will demonstrate one of the countless miracles of God's creation, the spider. At the same time they will once again set forth how the theory of evolution, which relies totally on coincidences, has fallen into impotence and ridicule.