The Strength and Power of the Atom is a Sign of God

You breathe air made up of atoms, eat foods composed of atoms and drink water made up of atoms—with a body that itself consists of atoms. The objects you see around you are actually nothing more than photons striking the electrons belonging to the atoms in your eyes.

And what about the things you touch and feel? Those too—hard and soft, rough and smooth, cold or hot—consist of the atoms in your skin interacting on the atoms in those external objects.

Many people, of course, know that their bodies, the Earth, the galaxies—in short the entire universe—consists of nothing but tiny atoms. But they may still never have thought about the system and solidity in the basic building blocks of matter that we call “atoms.”

The fact is, however, that human beings live in the closest possible proximity to this flawless arrangement throughout the course of their lives. So splendid is this system that each one of the trillions of atoms that comprise the chair you sit in possesses an order and a complexity about which an entire book could be written. And under natural conditions, failing a major intervention, that matchless order will persist without ever suffering any impairment.

Internal Order Inside the Atom

Every atom consists of a nucleus and electrons that revolve around the nucleus at a considerable distance away.

Electrons are particles that revolve around their own axes, and also around the nucleus itself—just as the Earth revolves on its own axis every 24 hours, during its year-long orbit around the Sun. Just like the planets, this revolution we refer to as the electron’s orbit takes place according to an enormous precision and without ever ceasing.

Up to dozens of electrons, that revolve and spin in an area too small to be seen with even the most powerful microscopes, create heavy traffic inside the atom. The most vitally important point here is how these electrons, which surround the nucleus just like a swarm of satellites, never give rise to even the smallest accident. For even the smallest mishap within the atom might have terrible consequences. Yet no accident ever occurs; all functioning continues in a perfect order, flawlessly. Electrons, which revolve around the nucleus at the unimaginable speed of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) a second, never collide with one another. The way that these electrons, all identical to one another, maintain their own separate paths is quite astonishing.

Various questions—of why identical electrons have different orbits around the nucleus, how they follow their orbits without ever straying, and how they avoid colliding with one another while traveling at great speeds in such unbelievably minute spaces—all lead us to a single point. The sole truth that confronts us in this matchless order and fine balance is God’s immaculate creation. In one verse, our Lord tells us:

You see the mountains you reckoned to be solid going past like clouds—the handiwork of God Who gives to everything its solidity. He is aware of what you do. (Qur’an, 27:88)

As this verse tells us, the atom behaves as it does because God gave it its solidity. The Arabic word of the phrase translated here as “give solidity” is atqana, which means to arrange or dispose of things to obtain the most perfect result. The electrons within the atom constantly revolve in the perfect manner, in the paths that God has arranged for them—again as the verse informs us. Never do they stray, even to the slightest degree. Furthermore, when we consider the universe, we see that everything composed of matter gradually decays over the course of time, is worn down by external factors, erodes, breaks down and becomes impaired. Yet no such corruption is ever observed in the atom—aside from in nuclear reactions (fission and fusion, which we’ll discuss shortly) carried out through deliberate, artificial interventions. As our Lord tells us in the verse, the atom has been created to be perfectly solid.

The Awesome Power in the Atomic Nucleus

Atom nuclei consist of protons and neutrons. But what is the force that binds together these particles comprising the nucleus? The so-called “strong nuclear force,” the most powerful force that has yet been described by the laws of physics, holds the atomic nuclei together.

This force keeps the protons and neutrons in the nucleus together without dispersing. So powerful is this force that it enables the protons and neutrons in the nucleus to literally adhere to one another, yet keeps the protons and neutrons separate and apart from one another. If this force had any more binding power, the protons and neutrons would combine with one another, and were it any less, they would all spin away and the atom would disintegrate.

When this attractive force in the nucleus is released, the atom is “split” and the awesome power known as nuclear energy results. As the number of protons and neutrons grows, so does the size of the nucleus, as does the magnitude of the force that binds these particles together.

In the larger nuclei, it becomes exceedingly difficult to release this energy that binds the protons and neutrons together. As the particles separate from one another, they attempt to come back together with a greater force, just like a spring. This force is approximately 1038 times greater than gravity—in other words, a hundred billion, billion, billion, billion times greater. So long as it is not interfered with, this energy does no harm. Yet with human intervention, it can assume a power capable of killing millions of people.

The Maintenance of the Force in the Nucleus

This extraordinary force in the atom’s nucleus, sufficiently powerful in the aggregate to endanger the lives of millions, is released by way of two different atomic reactions. The reaction known as fission results from the division or splitting of the atomic nucleus, while fusion is the combining of two separate nuclei under enormous force. In both types of reaction, a tremendous quantity of energy is released.

During early experiments with fission, scientists bombarded the nucleus of uranium-235 with neutrons at very high speed—and found themselves confronted by a most interesting state of affairs. After the neutron had been absorbed by the uranium atom’s nucleus, it became highly unstable. There was now a difference in the numbers of protons and neutrons in the nucleus, creating an imbalance. Therefore, to resolve that imbalance, the nucleus begins splitting apart, emitting a specific level of energy as well as the particles contained within it, at very high speeds.

Scientists aimed the moving neutron in such a way as to strike one of the nuclei in the uranium atoms. All that’s required is for one of the atomic nuclei in that mass of uranium-235 to split asunder. During such splitting, each nucleus releases an average of two or three neutrons, which strike other nuclei in turn, initiating a chain reaction by striking other uranium nuclei.

Each newly split uranium nucleus behaves just like the first one. A series of nuclear splits or fissions thus takes place. And since a very large number of uranium nuclei are split, an extraordinary level of energy is released as a result.

It is this splitting of the U-235 nuclei that led to the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, costing the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. But since the Earth, the entire atmosphere and our very bodies all consist of atoms, what prevents all these atoms from entering into just such a reaction? What prevents catastrophes like those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki taking place anywhere, at any time?

Bearing in mind that some 100 trillion atoms can fit onto the head of a pin, you can easily appreciate how any impairment to the stable structure of one single atom could lead to a similar chain reaction. That being the case, what prevents such a nuclear reaction that could very quickly obliterate the whole universe?

Neutrons have been created in such a way that when moving about in a free state in nature—that is, independent of an atomic nucleus—they undergo a process known as beta decay. Because of this, one seldom encounters a free neutron in nature, and then only for a very limited duration. For that reason, the neutrons to be used in nuclear reactions are released by artificial means.

God, the Creator of this flawless order, the Creator of the entire universe, has perfected all things. As revealed in verse 100 of Surah Yusuf, “... My Lord is Subtle in what He wills. He is indeed All-Knowing and All-Wise.” God has created the atom together with the awesome power contained within it, and He keeps that force under control in an extraordinary way. Our Lord has created the atom with a system that can never go awry in its natural state. Although everything in the universe is eventually exposed to decay, the atom maintains its solidity. The nucleus and the electrons that revolve around it at such an unimaginable speed show us this sound creation and matchless dominion of God’s.

Atomic Energy and Nuclear Fission: A Miracle of the Qur’an

God is He Who splits the seed and kernel. He brings forth the living from the dead, and produces the dead out of the living. That is God, so how are you perverted? (Qur’an, 6:95)

The terms “seed” (alhabbi) and “kernel” (annawa) in the above verse may also indicate the splitting of the atom. Indeed, the dictionary meanings of annawa include “nucleus, center, atomic nucleus.” Furthermore, the description of bringing forth the living from the dead can be interpreted as God creating matter from dead energy. Producing the dead out of the living may refer to energy (dead) emerging from matter (living), since the atom is in motion. (God knows best.) That is because as well as “living,” alhayyi can also mean “active, energetic.” With its meaning of “non-living,” almayyiti, translated above as “dead,” may very probably refer to energy.

Scientists define energy as the capacity for doing work. Matter, the material that comprises all objects on Earth and in the universe, consists of atoms and molecules that can be seen to be in motion under an electron microscope. In the early twentieth century, Albert Einstein theorized that matter could be converted into energy, suggesting that the two were inter-related at the atomic level. This may be the bringing forth of the dead from the living, as described above, or, in other words, obtaining energy from matter, which is in motion at the atomic level. In addition, yukhriju, translated as “brings forth,” also means “bringing out, emitting” (as in the case of electrical waves). Therefore, the terms in this verse may be indicating the form of energy obtained from the atom. (God knows best.)

As we’ve seen, today it is possible to split the atomic nucleus into its components. Based on Einstein’s theories, scientists succeeded in obtaining energy from matter through nuclear fission back in the 1940s. The verb “to split,” expressed by the word faliqu in the above verse, may be a reference to the splitting (of the nucleus) that represents the dictionary definition of fission. As we’ve seen, extraordinarily high levels of energy are released when this process takes place.