Episode 1In us
Medicine restarts hearts (CPR, defibrillation) and grows tissue; IVF helps life begin.
But: Works only on life already given; cannot make a living cell from non-life.
The 99 Names · Name 60 of 99 · Act
الْمُحْيِيal-Muḥyī
The Giver of life
Say it: al-Muḥyī. A recording by our own reciter is on its way.
Heard together with: al-Muḥyī / al-Mumīt
Start with what we know
Then take away everything it needs. What is left is not a bigger version of us. It is the Name.
Episode 1
Episode 2In nature
Microbes in 101.5-million-year-old seafloor sediment revived (Morono et al. 2020).
Episode 3At our best
Russian Academy of Sciences team regenerated Silene stenophylla plants from ~32,000-year-old fruit tissue from Siberian permafrost; the plants flowered and set seed (PNAS, 21 Feb 2012).
But: They used living cells that had survived, tissue culture and hand-pollination. Life came from life.
Episode 4The Break
Take away prior life, a surviving cell, a lab, a body to work on.
We can only pass on life. al-Muḥyī gives it.
From the tradition: 2:258: Abraham (peace be upon him) to the king who said (Q 2:258): 'Allah brings up the sun from the east, so bring it up from the west'. Deut 32:39.
On screen
Victor Frankenstein needed a body, a storm and a laboratory, and could not love what he made. (30:50).
Where it shows up
- In scripture
- Q 30:50; 41:39; 2:28; 2:258; 67:2; Deut 32:39.
- The same thread in Jewish and Christian scripture
- Deut 32:39 'I deal death and give life'; 1 Sam 2:6. Strong.
- In the universe
- NASA Hubble/Webb 'Pillars of Creation': star-forming region.
- In nature
- Photosynthesis: BBC The Green Planet (iPlayer).
- In people
- Seed banks and revival of extinct-in-the-wild plants.
- In science
- Biology: what life is (metabolism, reproduction, heredity); 'omne vivum ex vivo'.
Watch and listen
Films, documentaries and voices that reach towards this Name. Each links out to where you can watch it.
Sources for this page
sci.news/biology/article00194.html