Defence is an issue that has to be given top priority by a country for the
continuance of its existence. Nations have always to watch out for all kinds of
internal and external threats, assaults, risks of wars and terrorist actions.
This is why they allocate a great part of their official budgets to defence.
Armies are provided with the most advanced aircraft, ships, and arms, and the
forces of defence are always kept at the highest level of preparedness.
The human body is surrounded by a great number of enemies and threats. These
enemies are bacteria, viruses, and similar microscopic organisms. They exist
everywhere; in the air we inhale, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the
environment in which we live.
What most people are not aware of is that the human body has an excellent army,
the immune system, which fights against enemies. This is a real army made up of
many "soldiers" and "officials" with different assignments, who are specially
trained, employ high technology and fight with conventional and chemical
weapons.
Every day, even every minute, a permanent war is fought between this army and
the enemy forces, but away from our knowledge. This war can also be in the form
of minor, local skirmishes as well as battles in which the whole body is
involved and alarmed. We call these battles "diseases".
The general conduct of this war almost never changes. The enemy attempts to fool
the other side by camouflaging itself when intruding into the body. The trained
investigative forces are assigned by the defence to identify the enemies. The
enemies are identified and appropriate weapons are produced to exterminate them.
Then there is close contact, the defeat of the enemy, cease-fire, and clearance
of the battleground. Last, there is storage of every type of information about
the enemy as a precaution against the possibility of a later attack....
Now let us examine this interesting war closer.
THE BESIEGED CASTLE: THE HUMAN BODY
We can liken the human body to a castle besieged by enemies. The enemies look
for various ways to invade this castle. The human skin is the wall of this
castle.
The substance of keratin in the cells of the skin is an impassable barrier for
bacteria and fungi. Foreign substances that reach the skin cannot pass through
this wall. Moreover, although the outer layer of skin that contains keratin is
continuously rubbed off, it is renewed by skin growing from beneath. Thus, all
unwanted guests that have squeezed between the skin are ejected from the body
together with dead skin, during renewal of the skin from inwards to outwards.
The enemy can only make its way in through a wound that is inflicted on the
skin.
THE FRONT LINE
One of the ways through which viruses enter the body is air. The enemy pushes
its way to the body through the air inhaled. However, a special secretion in the
nasal mucous membrane and cell-swallowing defence elements in the lungs
(phagocytes) meet these enemies and take control of the situation before the
danger grows. Digestive enzymes in the stomach acid and small intestine
eliminate a great number of the microbes that seek to enter the body through
food.
THE CLASH OF THE ENEMIES
There are some microbes that have settled in various parts of the human body
(such as skin, skin folds, mouth, nose, eye, upper respiratory canals, digestive
canal, the genitals) yet do not cause illness.
When a foreign microbe enters the body, these domestic microbes - thinking that
their habitation would be invaded- and not wishing to give way to the foreigners
who invade their habitation - fight strenuously. We can define them as
professional soldiers. They try to protect their territory for their own ends.
Thus, the complex army in our body is reinforced by these micro supports.
STEP BY STEP TO HOT WAR
If a microscopic intruder entering the body can overcome defence elements on
guard and bacteria serving as soldiers, it causes war to begin with. After that,
the body, with its ordered army, fights a perfect offence-defence war against
this foreign army.
The war fought by the defence system is comprised of four parts:
1. Identification of the enemy.
2. The fortification of defences and the preparation of offensive weapons.
3. Attack and battle.
4. Retreat to normal state.
The cells that first meet the enemy units are macrophage cells that make "phagocytosis",
i.e., that engulf the enemy. These cells are involved in close contact with the
enemy, and fight a hand-to-hand war. They are just like infantrymen who fight a
bayonet war against enemy units and struggle at the distant front line of the
army.
Moreover, macrophages function as intelligence units, or as the secret service
of an army. They hold one portion of the enemy they destroy. This portion is
used to identify the enemy’s identity and to determine its features. Macrophages
pass this portion to another intelligence unit, messenger-T cells.
GENERAL ALARM
When a country is involved in war, a general mobilisation is declared. Most of
the natural resources and the budget are spent on war expenses. The economy is
re-arranged according to this extraordinary situation and the country is
involved in total action. In a war, which the defensive army of the body will
fight as a whole, mobilisation is also declared. Do you wonder how?
If the enemy is more than they can handle, the cavalcades (macrophages) that
launch an attack secrete a special substance. The name of this substance is "pyrogen"
and it is a kind of alarm call. After travelling a long way, "pyrogen" reaches
the brain and stimulates the fever-increasing centre of the brain. Following
this stimulation, the brain sets off alarms in the body and the person develops
a high fever. The patient with a high fever naturally feels a need to rest.
Thus, the energy needed by the defence army is not spent elsewhere. As seen,
there exists an extremely complex plan and design at work.
THE ORDERED ARMY SWINGS INTO ACTION
The war between the microscopic intruder and the immune system becomes more
complicated after mobilisation, that is, your falling ill in bed. At this stage,
infantrymen (phagocytes) and cavalrymen (macrophages) have proved insufficient,
the whole body is alarmed, and the war becomes heated. At this stage,
lymphocytes - (T and B cells) - intervene.
Cavalrymen (macrophages) pass the information they have on the enemy to T helper
cells. These cells summon T cytotoxic and B cells to the battleground. These are
the most effective fighters of the immune system.
WEAPONRY PRODUCTION
As soon as B cells receive information about the enemy, they start producing
weapons. These weapons, just like ballistic missiles, are only produced to hit
the enemy on whom information is available. This production is so perfect that
the three dimensional structure of the microscopic intruder and the three
dimensional structure of the weapon fully match each other. This accord is like
that between a key and its lock.
Antibodies advance towards the enemy and clamp tightly on it. After this stage,
the enemy is neutralised like a tank that has its treads, cannon and gun
destroyed. Afterwards, other members of the immune system come and eliminate the
neutralised enemy.
Here, there is a very important point to consider: there are millions of types
of enemy that the immune system will confront. B cells can produce an
appropriate weapon for all types of enemy no matter what they are. This means
that the immune system innately has the knowledge and capability to produce the
keys appropriate to millions of different types of locks. These unconscious
cells have the ability to make millions of types of antibodies, and their using
it in the best way proves the existence of a creation by the Owner of an exalted
power.
Furthermore, the system is more sophisticated. As B cells destroy the enemy with
ballistic weapons, T cytotoxic cells also fight a tough war against the enemy.
When some viruses enter a cell, they can hide from the weapons produced by the B
cells. The T cytotoxic cells find the diseased cells in which this camouflaged
enemy hides and destroy them.
AFTER THE VICTORY
After the enemy is defeated, the T suppressor cells swing into action. These
cells give the army of defence the command to cease fire, and cause the T
cytotoxic and B cells to stop their activities. Thus, the body does not carry on
in a state of mobilisation in vain. After the war is over, most of the T and B
cells produced specifically for the war complete their lifecycle and die. This
tough war, however, is not to be forgotten. Before the war, a short time passed
while the enemy was identified and the necessary preparations made. If the enemy
ever comes back, the body will be much better prepared. A group of memory cells,
which have come to know the features of the enemy, will constantly serve in the
immune system in future. In a possible second attack, the immune system, with
the information in the memory cells, will have the means to react before the
enemy gains force. The reason why we do not catch mumps or measles again, after
we have once caught them, is because of the memory of our immune system.
WHO IS HE WHO CREATES THE SYSTEM?
After all the information we have examined, we have to take our time and think
about how this perfect immune system to which we owe our lives has come to
exist. There is a flawless plan at work. Everything needed for the operation of
this plan is intact: macrophages, the pyrogen substance, the fever raising
centre of the brain, the body’s fever raising mechanisms, B cells, T cells,
weapons... How, then, has this perfect system come into being?
Not surprisingly, the theory of evolution, which proposes that living beings
have come into being by coincidence, cannot explain how this complex system came
about. The claim of the theory of evolution is that living beings and living
systems have originated step-by-step by the accumulation of little coincidences.
However, the immune system cannot by any means have originated "step-by-step".
The reason is that in the case of the absence or malfunction of even one of the
factors that make up the system, the system cannot work and the person could not
survive. The system must have come into being completely and flawlessly with all
its components intact. This reality renders the notion of "coincidence"
meaningless.
Who, then, makes this plan? Who knows that the body’s fever must rise, and that
only that way the energy needed by the army of defence will not be spent
elsewhere? Is it the macrophages? Macrophages are merely tiny cells. They do not
have the capacity to think. They are living organisms that obey an established
superior order and that fulfil their duties.
Is it man? Certainly not. People are not even aware that such a perfect system
is at work in their own bodies. However, this system, of which we are unaware,
protects us from certain death.
It is obvious that the one who created the immune system, and who created the
whole human body, should be a Creator Who has exalted knowledge and might. This
Creator is Allah, Who has created the human body from a "drop of fluid".
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