Heart and inimitability

In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Renewal of all human body cells save the brain and heart:

Dear brothers,
The human body parts replace themselves every five years. This means that your skin five years ago is not the one you have now, so as your bones, tissues or any other part of your body. The average lifetime of the intestinal villus’ cell is 48 hours which makes it the shortest lifetime of a human cell and it replaces itself every two days,


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The intestinal villus



Whereas the average lifetime of the bone cells is five years, which makes it the longest lifetime of a human cell.


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The bone cells



Despite the fact that the human body parts replace themselves every five years, the brain and the heart are not replaced.
Obviously the brain will not replace its cells because they store information, expertise, talents, memories, specialties and studies, and if the brain cells were to be replaced, the doctor, for example, would lose all the medical information he knows and would say to you: I used to be a doctor.
Therefore, it is deemed a grace not to have the brain replaced.
On the other hand, there is another piece of information, that the heart doesn’t replace itself either, and this is a well-known fact since twenty years, yet there is no explanation to it.
Hence, the wisdom behind not replacing the cells of the brain is obvious, but what about the heart? Recently this wisdom was unfolded.
Allah says:

(And of knowledge, you (mankind) have been given only a little)

[Al-Isra’, 85]

(And they will never compass anything of His Knowledge except that which He wills)

[Al-Baqarah, 255]

Allah also says:

(And have they hearts wherewith to understand)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

The Creator is the One who sent the noble Quran:

Dear brothers, for long years, scientists studied the heart physiologically only, furthermore, they considered it as a mere blood pump, but in the early twentieth century and due to the progress in implanting normal and artificial heart and the increased rate of such operations, the researchers started to notice a weird bewildering unexplained phenomenon with regard to the psychological changes in the patients who have received implanted hearts, needless to say that these changes were profound to such an extent that the patient changed the things he used to love or hate, moreover, it affected his beliefs.
All these unfolded facts about the heart are mentioned in the noble Quran, and all the advanced breakthroughs in the twentieth century are referred to in the noble Quran very clearly and simply. If this proves something, it proves that the Quran is ahead of science with regard to the heart, and this is not but an evidence of the greatness and the accuracy of the noble Quran, and it confirms the fact the Creator of heavens, earth and mankind is the One who sent the noble Quran.

The heart works independently from the brain:



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The heart of the embryo is formed before the brain



Dear brothers, the heart of the embryo is formed before the brain, and it starts to beat since then till death.
Though scientists thought that the brain organizes the heart beats, they observed something very weird during heart transplants, for the heart starts to beat the second it is implanted in the chest of the patient without being connected to the brain, which means that the heart operates on its own, and this fact has been unfolded during heart transplants.
If this indicates something, it indicates that the heart beats independently from the brain; moreover, some researches today assume that the heart is the controller of the brain not the other way around.
Furthermore, every cell in the heart has its own memory, and this 250-300 grams organ, which is roughly the size and shape of your fist, controls more than 300 billion cells in the body, whereas the sick heart may weight 1000 grams because of the hypertension and hypertrophy.

The function of the heart:

Dear brothers, a baby’s heart begins to beat 21 days from conception, and it starts pumping blood to the whole body. About 7,000 – 8,000 liters of blood per day is pumped through the heart of an adult human being.
The heart of the adult pumps 8 square meter per day to the body.


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The heart of the adult pumps 8 square meters per day to the body



In comparison, if you have a 1000 liters’ tank full of fuel, it will cover your needs for an entire year, is not that true?
So can you imagine that the heart pumps 8 square meter per day throughout the systole an diastole cycle, for a normal heart contracts about 100,000 times, and when a person reaches the age of seventy, the total pumped amount of blood would be more than a million barrels during these years, which can fill up the highest skyscraper in the world.


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The heart provides all the cells of the body with oxygen and takes out the toxic wastes and carbon dioxide



The blood which is pumped by the heart provides oxygen to all the cells of the body, and the latter takes in the oxygen to use it as a fuel in generating energy and tissues, then they pass out the toxic wastes and carbon dioxide to the blood which takes it to the lungs where it is exhaled and expelled from the body and is replaced by the oxygen.
If we were to connect the arteries and veins in the body, they will reach 100 thousand kilometers in length.

The heart is the center of all feelings:

Allah says in the noble Quran:

(The believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, feel a fear in their hearts)

[Al-Anfal, 2]

Therefore, love towards Allah comes from this pineal like shape heart, which previously used to be referred to as a pump by the scientists:

(Feel a fear in their hearts and when His Verses (this Qur’an) are recited unto them, they (i.e. the Verses) increase their Faith; and they put their trust in their Lord (Alone)

[Al-Anfal, 2]

The heart is the center of love and hatred. Dear brothers, Allah says:

(Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah – Islamic Monotheism), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest)

[Ar-Ra’d, 28]

It is also the center of tranquility, anxiety, love, hatred and fear:

(Those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah – Islamic Monotheism), and whose hearts find rest in the remembrance of Allah, Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest)

[Ar-Ra’d, 28]

A third Ayah:

(That He (Allah) may make what is thrown in by Shaitan (Satan) a trial for those in whose hearts is a disease (of hypocrisy and disbelief))

[Al-Hajj, 53]

The ruthless heart is the farthest from Allah:

The heart also gets sick:

(And whose hearts are hardened)

[Al-Hajj, 53]

The farthest from Allah among people is the one with the ruthless heart:

(Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

This pump is referred to in all these Ayahs:

(Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

This heart also:

(That He (Allah) may make what is thrown in by Shaitan (Satan) a trial for those in whose hearts is a disease (of hypocrisy and disbelief) and whose hearts are hardened. And certainly, the Zalimun (polytheists and wrong-doers, etc.) are in an opposition far-off (from the truth against Allah’s Messenger and the believers). And that those who have been given knowledge may know that it (this Qur’an) is the truth from your Lord, and that they may believe therein, and their hearts may submit to it with humility)

[Al-Hajj, 53-54]

It is the center of security, anxiety, fear, tranquility, love and faith:

(And when His Verses (this Qur’an) are recited unto them, they (i.e. the Verses) increase their Faith)

[Al-Anfal, 2]

The human heart can be cruel, lenient, healthy or sick:

Esteemed brothers:

(Is he whose breast Allah has opened to Islam, so that he is in light from His Lord (as he who is non-Muslim)? So, woe to those whose hearts are hardened against remembrance of Allah! They are in plain error!)

[Az-Zumar, 22]

(Allah has sent down the best statement, a Book (this Qur’an), its parts resembling each other in goodness and truth, oft-repeated. The skins of those who fear their Lord shiver from it (when they recite it or hear it). Then their skin and their heart soften to the remembrance of Allah)

[Az-Zumar, 23]

The heart dear brothers can get loftier and loftier to such an extent that no person, no matter how powerful he is, can bring fear to it, but sometimes it can be so trivial to such an extent that any vile can bring fear to it.
Dear brothers, all these Ayahs embrace profound indications that this heart can be a subject of leniency, harshness, health and sickness, needless to say that it is the center of tranquility, anxiety, security, fear, love, hatred and faith, but how were we able to know that the heart is the center of all these sensations and psychological states?

Mentioning the heart in the noble Quran:

Dear brothers, Allah says:

(Has not the time come for the hearts of those who believe (in the Oneness of Allah – Islamic Monotheism) to be affected by Allah’s Reminder (this Qur’an), and that which has been revealed of the truth, lest they become as those who received the Scripture [the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel)] before (i.e. Jews and Christians), and the term was prolonged for them and so their hearts were hardened? And many of them were Fasiqun (rebellious, disobedient to Allah))

[Al-Hadid, 16]

The word “heart” is mentioned close to 140 times in Quran and it indicates a specific meaning each time it is mentioned:

Proving that the heart is the center of faith and Kufr:

For almost one hundred years, to scientists, this heart was a mere pump, so how come we know now that it is the center of faith, Kufr (atheism), oppression, love, hared, harshness and leniency?
These facts are firstly deduced from Quran’s Ayahs, and secondly from real stories which were close to 300.
Personally I met the most famous heart surgeon in France who was decorated with more than 6 medals from the French government with regard to his successful surgeries of heart implants.
The 300 stories were based on real people who have received heart transplants.
One of these stories is about a woman who received a heart transplant from a young man who was eighteen years old when he died in a traffic accident. After the surgery, she starts to act manly and even likes food she used to hate like green pepper and chicken, but after she met with the family of the donor, she realized that she was acting just like him, and this was evidence enough for scientists to prove that the heart cells have memories of their own.
This brings us to a new perspective of this topic which is the cell.
They found out that the memory is not only stored in the brain, but every cell has its own memory and this makes a breakthrough in medicine.
Another story is about a young man who died when he was eighteen years old and was a poet and used to play music and sing, after his tragic death in a car accident, his heart was donated to a young woman of the same age, so when she met with his parents she played music that their deceased son used to play, and she completed incomplete lyric poetry of a song he wrote and used to sing though she has never heard of this song.
A third story is about a white man who was 74 years old and received a heart from an Afro-American young man who was seventeen years old, after the heart implant this old man started to get fond of classic music, and later on he found out that the donor was fond of this kind of music.
These kinds of stories are more than 300 and I have chosen some of them.
A young man, who has recently received an heart transplant, started using a weird word which he had no idea what it meant, but later on and upon meeting the wife of the donor, he found out that this word was like a secret word between the couple to indicate that everything is fine.
We come to the strangest story which is about an eight years old girl who has received a heart from a ten years old girl who was murdered. After the heart implant the little girl started having nightmares in which she saw a man killing that ten years old girl and she was stressed because of those nightmares to such an extent that her family took her to see a shrink. The people in her dreams were so clear, which made the doctor call the police to describe the face of the killer she was dreaming of, and because of that he was arrested.
This is really the weirdest story of heart implants amongst them all.

Communication means between the heart and the brain:

Dear brothers, scientists have mentioned the means through which the heart affects the brain and controls it, one of which is neural through neuro-electric, the second is chemical through hormones, the third is physical through pressure waves and the forth is energetic through electromagnetic band.
These are the means of communication between the heart and the brain.


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The electric field of the heart is sixty times stronger than the one of the brain



Dear brothers, the electric field of the heart is sixty times stronger than the one of the brain, moreover, the neurons of the heart are 5 thousand times stronger than those of the brain, and thus the heart is the controller of the brain:

(And have they hearts wherewith to understand)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

Dear brothers, these facts provide strong evidence that the noble Quran is the words of Allah:

(Falsehood cannot come to it from before it or behind it (it is) sent down by the All-Wise, Worthy of all praise (Allah))

[Fussilat, 42]

Every cell in the human body has its own memory:

Upon knowing that every cell has a memory of its own, let us recite the following Ayah:

(On the Day when their tongues, their hands, and their legs or feet will bear witness against them as to what they used to do)

[An-Nur, 24]

Beware every cell in your body has a memory of its own. I have chosen some paragraphs from this 100 pages research, and skipped other paragraphs due to its sophisticated, complicated and difficult nature which makes them unsuitable for a Friday sermon.

Communication between heart and brain:

Dear brothers, it is scientifically proven beyond doubt that the heart is connected to the brain by a complicated network of nerves through which signals of electric nature are conducted back and forth.
Scientists assure that the heart and the brain work in amazing harmony, and any disturbance in this harmony will be reflected on the whole body.
Some scientists said: The heart has its own system in processing incoming information from different parts of the body which is carried on the red and white blood cells, and after the heart sorts this information, it sends it to the brain, and this is the reason behind the fact indicated by a heart surgeon who said: the success of heart transplant depends on the neural system of the implanted heart and its ability to adapt with the patient’s brain.
In one of the stories, a doctor implanted a heart of a child, whose mother is a doctor and agreed to donate her son’s heart, to another child, and the surgery was observed by the mother of the deceased son, she said: I feel that my son is still alive especially when I come close to this child who received my son’s heart and I can feel his heart beat and his emotions and when he hugged me I felt as if he was my son, and my son was still alive in the heart of this child.
In another story, a girl received a heart implant to replace her sick heart, but after the surgery she felt as if something is severely hitting her chest every day, and upon complaining to her doctor, he thought that the drugs have that influence, but later on, she found out that the donor of the heart was hit by a car in her chest and her last words were: “I feel the pain of the bump in my chest”.
In hundreds and hundreds of cases, people who received heart implants experience profound changes only to prove that the heart is the center of emotions, affection, values, tastes, love, hatred, harshness and leniency.
A three years old girl drowned in the swimming pool at her home, and her family donated her heart which was implanted in a nine years old boy, but the latter became afraid of water and continued saying to his parents: “Don’t toss me in water”
Since the heart is the center of feelings, emotions, values, principles, love, hatred, faith and Kufr (atheism), some people who have received an implanted heart lost their faith:

(And have they hearts wherewith to understand)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

The artificial heart will lose the ability to comprehend, characterize, compare:

In regards of the people who received artificial heart implants, which has nothing to do with a human heart, they lost their sensations, emotions and the ability to love others.
The “Washington Post” published a study about Peter Houghton who had an artificial heart transplant. He says: “my feelings have changed, I am not able to know what I hate and what I love, I don’t even have feelings toward any of my grandchildren and I don’t know how to treat them, and whenever they approach me I feel as if they are strangers and not a part of me as I used to feel”


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The people who receive artificial heart implants lose their sensations, emotions and the ability to love others



Believe it or not, he who receives an artificial heart will lose his sensations, emotions and the ability to love, not to mention that he will be careless towards anything whether towards money or life, and he will be unable to cope with life to such an extent that he will be suicidal in order to get rid of this ill-fated artificial heart because of which he became incapable of comprehending the world around him:

(And have they hearts wherewith to understand)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

He lost the ability to comprehend, characterize, compare, predict, or think about the future, namely, he lost his hunch, he may even lose his faith and become careless towards his hereafter, all in all because his normal heart was replaced with an artificial one to which phenomenon doctors have no explanation.
What is the reason behind this paradigm shift in the soul and what is the connection between the heart and between the soul, emotions and mind of the person?
A scientist, who happens to be the president of the medical ethics department in the University of Pennsylvania, said: “Scientists haven’t given much thought to this phenomenon, and since we dealt with the heart as a pump only, we didn’t study the connection between body organs and emotions of the soul”.
According to this quote, the science, for a hundred years, mistakenly dealt with the heart as a pump only, hence they studied the artificial heart as a pump only, which is implanted in the chest of the patient and works on batteries held by the patient constantly, and when you try to put your ear on the chest of the patient you will not hear any heart beats, but only the sound of an electric engine instead.

The heart is a store of mass memory:

Dear brothers, in concise words, the more feasible explanation to this phenomenon is that there is a special memory in the heart in which all lifetime events of anyone are stored first hand, then the heart sends these events to the brain in order to handle them. Hence, there is a mass memory in the heart which sends the information later on to the brain to process.


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There are more than 40 thousand neurons in the heart that work punctiliously to organize its automatic rhythmic beat



Andrew Armour, M.D., Ph.D. said: “The heart is a sensory organ and a sophisticated information encoding and processing center, with an extensive intrinsic nervous system sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a “heart brain.”
According to this scientist there is a complicated brain within the heart, yet it is within every cell of the heart which consists of 40 thousand neurons in the heart work punctiliously to provide the heart its automatic rhythmic beat, to release hormones, to store information and to send them to the brain in order to play a crucial role in cognition and comprehension.
So information flows from the heart to the brain through special paths, then it leads brain cells to be able to understand and realize

The heart and connection between body cells:

Nowadays scientists are working to establish many centers concerned about studying the relationship between the heart and the brain and the relation between the heart and the cognitive and psychological operations.
DR Paul Pearsall says that heart can feel and remember and it transmits vibrations to communicate with other hearts, also it helps in organizing immunity of the body beside transmitting information in each pulse to the entire body, therefore some researchers have got a question, is it possible for the memory to stay deep inside our hearts?
Dear brothers the heart with its organized harmony controls the entire body as it is considered to be a method to linking all cells, when blood goes into each cell then it feeds these cells not only with oxygen but also with information.

Allah made the heart as a means to comprehend:

Scientists consider having a brain inside the heart which consists of 40 thousand neurons, namely, a brain in the center of the heart which controls the brain to function. Therefore, Allah has made the heart the means to comprehend, Allah says:

(Have they not travelled through the land, and have they hearts wherewith to understand and ears wherewith to hear? Verily, it is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the hearts which are in the breasts that grow blind)

[Al-Hajj, 46]

This Ayah specifies the exact place of the heart so that no one assumes that the heart (which is mentioned in Quran) is in the head or that the Ayah is referring to the brain or any other heart than the one in our breasts, for these assumptions are not supported by any scientific profound evidence.

The great role of the heart in reasoning and comprehending:

Scientists nowadays talk about the important role the heart plays in comprehension, perception and understanding things around us, and this fact is referred to in the noble Quran, Allah says:

(They have hearts wherewith they understand not)

[Al-A’raf, 179]

This means that the Quran specifies the heart as the center of perception in the human being.
Due to this fact, most of people who have received an artificial heart implant feel that their hearts turn into stones, they experience weird harshness in their chests and they lose their faith, affection and love, and this fact is referred to by the noble Quran when Allah addressed Jews:

(Then, after that, your hearts were hardened and became as stones or even worse in hardness)

[Al-Baqarah, 74]

Cruelty and leniency of hearts: according to Quran:

The noble Quran characterized the heart by being harsh or lenient when Allah described the Kuffar (Atheists):

(So, woe to those whose hearts are hardened against remembrance of Allah! They are in plain error!)

[Az-Zumar, 22]

On the other side, Allah described the believers:

(Then their skin and their heart soften to the remembrance of Allah)

[Az-Zumar, 23]

Scientists also believe that every cell of the heart is a single store of information and events and they start talking about the memory of the heart. This fact accords with Quran when Allah establishes this truth by affirming that everything is located in our hearts which are subjects of divine trial, Allay says:

(But that Allah might test what is in your breasts; and to Mahis that which was in your hearts (sins), and Allah is All-Knower of what is in (your) breasts)

[Aal-‘Imran, 154]

The importance of the heart in:

1- The hearing process:

Some researches give big importance to the role of the heart in the hearing process, moreover, any dysfunction in the heart leads to hearing loss and this is mentioned in a scientific research which I read personally, this scientist said:
When he was in one of the hospitals he saw a Muslim patient who abandoned Salah, didn’t fast in Ramadan and never followed the right path, so upon having a minor cardiac infarction which caused dysfunction in the heart, he lost his sense of hearing completely, and the last thing he was heard saying is: I can’t hear anything.
The Quran was clear in linking the heart to the sense of hearing, Allah says:

(And We seal up their hearts so that they hear not?)

[Al-A’raf, 100]

2- Learning process:

Researchers talk about the important role of the heart in the learning process and this is mentioned in the most recent published researches. Thus, the heart is involved in knowledge and learning because it affects and controls the cells of the brain. The Quran also linked the heart with knowledge, Allah says:

(And Allah has sealed up their hearts (from all kinds of goodness and right guidance) so that they know not (what they are losing))

[At-Taubah, 93]

They don’t comprehend, nor do they hear.

The information stored in the heart is real and true:

Now, it is confirmed that the lying center is in the forelock which is in the upper front of the brain, scientists observed a great activity in this area when a human tells lies, but the stored information in the heart is real and sincere, so when a man tells lies he speaks with his tongue opposite of what is in his heart, Allay says:

(They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts)

[Al-Fath, 11]

The real information is stored in the heart, whereas the lying center is in the forelock which is in the upper front of the brain, so accordingly, the tongue speaks of lies with what in the brain, while the heart speaks of truth:

(They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts)

[Al-Fath, 11]

Allah has mentioned the forelock:

(A lying, sinful forelock!)

[Al-Alaq, 16]

The importance of the heart in one’s faith and Aqida:

One more thing, we read about the man who implanted an artificial heart and how he lost his belief in God to be an atheist, and from that we deduce that the belief is in heart not in brain, and this fact is confirmed by some researchers who believe the in the role of the heart in both faith and creed, Allah says:

(O Messenger (Muhammad)! Let not those who hurry to fall into disbelief grieve you, of such who say: “We believe” with their mouths but their hearts have no faith)

[Al-Ma'idah', 41]

We need to do complete review to the Ayahs in which the heart is mentioned in the noble Quran, which brings us face to face with the fact that most recent scientific researches, about the heart neural and emotional functions, amazingly accord with these Ayahs.

The role of the heart in reconciliation:

After many researches about the artificial heart, scientists found that the heart has a vital role in fear and horror, as when they asked the man who implanted an artificial heart about his feelings, he told them that he has lost the ability to feel fear and he became careless about future matters, the Qur’an told us about hearts that feel fear, Allah says:

(The believers are only those who, when Allah is mentioned, feel a fear in their hearts and when His Verses (this Qur’an) are recited unto them, they (i.e. the Verses) increase their Faith; and they put their trust in their Lord (Alone)

[Al-Anfal, 2]

Also Allah made fear and horror located in the heart, Allah says:

(And He cast terror into their hearts)

[Al-Hashr, 2]

As for Sunnah, the prophet PBUH was ahead of the western scientists when he talked about the role of the heart and its importance in one’s righteousness, furthermore, and scientifically speaking, the prophet PBUH gave the heart a leading role, in which the goodness of it will reflect on the intactness of the rest of the body organs, and in case it is corrupted (or scientifically is sick), the rest of the body organs will be corrupted as well.
This explains what we observe in the cases of patients who receive artificial heart implants, for all the organs of the body will be imbalanced. The Hadith which is said by the prophet PBUH with regard to this scientific fact is the following:

Surely there is in the body a small piece of flesh; if it is good, the whole body is good, and if it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted, and that is surely the heart

[Agreed upon, by Al Nu’man Ibn Bashir]

Dear brothers, one of the prophetic supplications is the following:

O Allah, O Controller of hearts, make my heart firm in Your Deen (religion)

[Tirmizi by Anas]

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds