The seagull nodded its head. "We seagulls position ourselves
according to the direction of the wind. Even if there is very little
wind, rising air currents lift us up. We make use of this
movement, and we can make long journeys without flap-
ping our wings at all."
"We move backwards and forwards inside the masses
of air rising up from the sea," it went on. "These currents
mean that we always have air under our wings,
and that allows us to stay up in the air without
using up too much energy."
Jalal was still not sure he quite understood: "I saw you up there
in the air without moving your wings, just as if you were hanging
there. And you do all this by acting according to the direction of
the wind? I can see that, but how do you calculate the strength of
the wind and which direction it will come from?"
"It's impossible for us to do that from our own knowledge,"
began the seagull. "When He created us Allah taught us how to fly
and how to hang in the air without wasting energy. These are ex-
amples given us so that we can realize Allah's existence and un-
derstand His power."
Jalal thought of another question: "Yes, you stay hanging in the
air as though you were held up there by a string... To be able to
do this you'd need to know math very well and be able to make
detailed calculations, but you do it without any problem right from
the first time you fly, don't you?"
"Absolutely," the seagull agreed. "Our Lord gave every living
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