London based entrepreneur, cybersecurity analyst doing a PhD in AI
Advanced Engineering behind an Apple.
This article is written with my children in mind – to teach them to observe as scientists in the real world. I believe it’s a very good way to teach all children – outside of school (which isn’t very good) – to be able to observe reality carefully and see the world as scientists. A really good book in this regard is On Looking – 11 walks with experts.
There is an apple hanging from a tree. Or we pick one up at the supermarket.
It looks simple.
A fruit and a thin stem. We normally try and get this little stem out before eating.
But pause for a moment here.
That apple may weigh 150 or 200 grams. Yet a stem only a few millimetres thick holds it through wind, rain, heat, movement and growth.
That tiny stem has to do two opposite things.
It must hold the fruit securely while it develops.
Then, at the right time, it must let the fruit go. Sort of like a docking station for a laptop.
That is not just strength.
It is controlled strength.
Agricultural engineers actually study this system. The apple branch-stem-fruit connection has to carry changing loads as the fruit grows heavier, while the stem remains biologically alive and mechanically functional.
We usually compress all of this into three words:
“The apple grew.”
The Qur’an asks us not to move past such things too quickly.
Allah says:
“Look at [each of] its fruit when it yields and [at] its ripening.”
— Qur’an 6:99
Look at the fruit.
Not merely eat it.
Look.
The Qur’anic word āyah means a sign.
A road sign marked “Jerusalem” is not Jerusalem. Its value is that it points beyond itself.
Creation can be read in the same way.
The apple is not the destination.
It points.
As the apple grows, its support system grows with it.
Cells divide.
Water enters.
Sugars arrive through the plant.
The fruit gains mass.
The load on the stem increases.
Yet the connection adapts as part of the same living process.
Human engineering normally works differently.
We calculate a load.
Choose a material.
Design the joint.
Manufacture the pieces.
Then bolt, weld or glue them together.
The tree grows the load, the support, the transport system and the eventual release mechanism at once.
The stem is not simply a rope.
Inside it run vascular tissues connecting the fruit to the tree. The same structure that carries mechanical load also carries water and nutrients.
A bridge cable mainly carries load.
A pipe mainly carries fluid.
A data cable mainly carries information.
Biology often combines multiple functions inside one tiny structure.
There are three main functions combined here :-
- Load bearing,
- Resource Transport and
- Communication.
Structural support. The pedicel has to carry an increasingly heavy fruit while tolerating wind and movement. Cellulose-rich cell walls and reinforced vascular tissues, provide stiffness and strength without making the stalk completely rigid.
Transport. Inside are vascular bundles containing xylem and phloem. Xylem supplies water and minerals; phloem delivers sugars and other photoassimilates produced by the leaves to the developing fruit. The stalk therefore acts simultaneously as support structure and supply line.
Signalling. The vascular system is also a communication network. Phloem can carry hormones, proteins, peptides and mobile RNAs involved in coordinating growth and responses across the plant. Plants additionally use electrical, calcium-related and hydraulic signals, so the distinction between “transport” and “information” is much less clear than in most human engineering. Long-distance phloem signalling · Electrical signalling · Hydraulic signalling
So the analogy can be made more precisely:
A bridge cable carries load. A pipe carries fluid. A data cable carries information.
The pedicel helps do all three at once—supporting the apple, feeding it, and connecting it to the tree’s distributed signalling system.
And while the apple grows heavier, the living structure grows with it.
And then the function changes.
When the fruit ripens, specialised tissues at the abscission zone allow the apple eventually to detach.
If the stem were too weak, the fruit would fall too early.
If it never weakened, ripe fruit could not release properly.
The solution is not maximum strength.
It is strength with timing.
The tree follows a biological programme it did not consciously design.
Science gives names to these mechanisms: gene expression, tropism, signalling, instinct, development.
Those names matter.
But naming the mechanism does not remove the wonder.
Now look upward.
Allah says:
“Do they not look at the sky above them—how We built it and adorned it, with no rifts in it?”
— Qur’an 50:6
No rifts.
That phrase becomes more interesting when compared with human design.
Jony Ive once described a moment in Italy with Steve Jobs.
Jobs picked up a knife, examined it, and put it down. Ive then picked it up himself.
He noticed a tiny change in reflection between the handle and the metal collar.
Then he realised what he was seeing.
Glue.
Ive recalled:
“We were in Italy, and he picked up a knife – he was looking at this thing and he put it down. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a nice knife.’ Picked it up. But I could see this tiny change in reflection between the handle and the metal collar. And then I realized it was the glue. So it was no longer a knife. It was a bit of metal that had been glued to a stone handle.”
He continued:
“Normally I would have noticed that and not said it to anybody else at the risk of sounding slightly fanatical. But we realized that we’d both done exactly the same thing.”
That story captures something beautiful about design.
Once you see the seam, you cannot unsee the assembly.
The object stops appearing whole.
You see the pieces.
Human engineering is full of these joins.
Aircraft have rivets, bonded joints, panels, fasteners and seals.
Bridges have bolts, welds, bearings and expansion joints.
Buildings have beams meeting columns, glass meeting frames, pipes meeting fittings.
Industrial designers spend enormous effort hiding where one component ends and another begins.
Then look at the sky.
Where is the seam?
Where is the rivet?
Where is the ridge showing where one section was attached to another?
Qur’an 50:6 is not an engineering specification, and it should not be forced into one.
But as an invitation to look, it is magnificent.
We admire a product when its seams disappear.
Then we live beneath the heavens and barely notice their apparent continuity.
Perhaps that is the danger of familiarity.
The extraordinary becomes ordinary because it was already here when we arrived.
A smartphone impresses us because we remember older phones.
A bird becomes “just a bird.”
A jet engine looks like engineering.
A lung becomes “just biology.”
Computer code fascinates us.
DNA becomes “just genetics.”
But ChatGPT or MacOS we marvel at, which does not reach anywhere near the sophistication of gene expression in a human body.
The Qur’an repeatedly interrupts that numbness.
It asks us to look again.
Science should help.
The closer we look, the larger the ordinary becomes.
An apple stem becomes a load-bearing structure, transport network, growing tissue and timed release mechanism.
The point is not to force modern science into scripture.
Nor to claim that every biological mechanism is a hidden prediction in the Qur’an.
The point is simpler.
An āyah gives direction. A good way to think about it is life are a series of vectors pointing to God.
The fruit points.
The bee points.
The heavens point.
And revelation teaches us how to notice.
Perhaps the Book of Creation has never been difficult to find.
Perhaps it has been too close.
An apple hangs from a branch.
A tiny stem holds it, feeds it, grows with it, communicates with it, survives movement, and releases it when the time comes.
We walk past.
We call it normal.
And before we bite into the apple, we remove it without a second thought and discard it alongside the annoying sticker on the Apple.
Before our eyes, unnoticed.
And the Qur’an says:
Look.
And then ask yourself :-
وَٱللَّهُ أَخْرَجَكُم مِّنۢ بُطُونِ أُمَّهَـٰتِكُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ شَيْـًۭٔا وَجَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلسَّمْعَ وَٱلْأَبْصَـٰرَ وَٱلْأَفْـِٔدَةَ ۙ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَ ٧٨
And Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave you hearing, sight, and intellect so perhaps you would be thankful.
— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran
Are you thankful?
Footnote :-
There are many concepts in the Quran and Hadith and Torah and Talmud – like Yajuj Majuj, Dhul Qarnayn, Jinn (Shedim), Magic of which I have not the slightest idea. And I don’t need to. Or really have any interest in it. Science, My own beating heart and the knowledge that I will die one day, is more than enough for me to believe in God. I find obtuse arguments about God strange – because death is a reality we all have to face one day – so might as well “do the homework”. A bit like going all in on “Karl Marx” – great – till you need money to pay for holidays or want a functioning transport system in your country. His theory hit reality – and failed – and people still won’t give up on the idea of “communism”. Same with “Dawkins” and “Atheism” – great for him, but unfortunately, it does nothing to alleviate my fear of death. There is no “psychological safety” in “evolution and a meaningless world” – which I believe is a fundamental need for human beings.
Allah addresses this in the Quran :-
He is the One Who has revealed to you ˹O Prophet˺ the Book, of which some verses are precise—they are the foundation of the Book—while others are elusive. Those with deviant hearts follow the elusive verses seeking ˹to spread˺ doubt through their ˹false˺ interpretations—but none grasps their ˹full˺ meaning except Allah. As for those well-grounded in knowledge, they say, “We believe in this ˹Quran˺—it is all from our Lord.” But none will be mindful ˹of this˺ except people of reason. (Quran 3:7)
And while we are healthy, eating, sleeping, and enjoying safety and comfort, we need to remember those less fortunate than us as Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Humanism repeatedly point us towards. Contrary to some opinions, “children are not terrorists”, neither do they grow up “having beef” in an adult conflict. If they are being taught that, they can be “untaught” that such as this article. Spare a thought through UNICEF for Children in Gaza or in any other conflict – Sudan, Chad, Mali, Afghanistan or really anywhere “adults” have decided children should suffer the consequences of their “supremely good decision making” some of which makes “Kim Jong Un” look truly “benevolent” and a “great leader” compared to their actions. North Korea does not have as many amputees, and the median monthly income in North Korea (USD 111) is higher than the Congo (USD 90) where cobalt mining is ongoing. Go figure – who is more “enlightened”. Another simple way is to make your elected leaders “inboxes relatively full with serious concern” by a critical mass of people sending emails till they realise their office is not just for free coffee and long lunches and DAVOS. There are a lot of “untidy loose ends” they are getting paid to clear – and it’s high time they get back to “real work” instead of showboating. The numbers don’t lie. If North Korea starts beating “free countries” in GDP metrics and standard of living, the whole narrative seems to be falling apart a bit. A big kudos to the Times of Israel for publishing this article and others, and what a fantastic editorial team!
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