Mohamed Miah | The Narratives
Every movement in the universe turns with intention.
From the orbit of planets to the twist of DNA, nothing spins by accident.
Even in silence, creation leans — slightly, perfectly — to one side.
Science calls it chirality, the handedness of matter. Molecules, like hands, exist in two mirror forms — left and right — identical yet opposite. Hold them up to the light, and they refuse to align. And of those two possible worlds, life chose one: left-handed amino acids, right-handed sugars.
That choice — that subtle bias — shaped every cell that breathes.
And the question remains: why this way, and not the other?
The Qur’an gives a hint not through chemistry, but through rhythm:
“And of all things We created pairs, that you may reflect.” (51:49)
Every pair in creation — light and dark, male and female, mercy and might — reveals a deeper symmetry. Yet within that symmetry, Allah establishes mīzān — a balance that is not equal halves, but measured harmony.
The right hand of life was chosen, and in that choice lies the divine twist of existence.
The Right Hand of Creation
The Prophet ﷺ loved the right. He ate with it, gave with it, entered places of purity with it, and began his prayer with it. To Muslims, the right hand is not superstition — it is direction. An orientation of both body and heart toward what is clean, good, and aligned.
Modern science, without meaning to, echoes that teaching.
The double helix of DNA — life’s script — turns to the right.
The proteins that sustain us are built only from left-handed amino acids, folding neatly into rightward spirals. Even our fingerprints, galaxies, and hurricanes share this tendency to curl one way more than the other.
Nature leans right because creation itself leans toward order.
And when that order collapses — when a molecule forms the wrong way, or an atom loses balance — decay begins. In radioactive decay, for instance, the weak nuclear force acts only on left-handed particles. It is this leftward pull that breaks symmetry and releases energy — the science of disintegration.
In other words: the left belongs to undoing, the right to sustaining.
Not good and evil — but creation and correction, formation and dissolution.
Both necessary. Both held in divine proportion.
“He Who created and proportioned,
and Who measured and guided.” (87:2–3)
Balance Through Asymmetry
If everything in creation were perfectly symmetrical — if right and left matched in every way — the world would freeze in stillness.
Symmetry is beautiful, but lifeless.
Allah breaks that symmetry, slightly, deliberately.
That break is what allows movement, growth, and time.
The heartbeat beats because it is not equal in contraction and release; the atom exists because charge is not perfectly balanced.
Homochirality — life’s single-handedness — is that cosmic signature of asymmetry. It’s the physical reflection of a deeper truth: perfection in creation comes not from equality, but from proportion.
The right does not cancel the left; it completes it.
The left cleanses what the right builds.
Together, they hold the universe in motion — an eternal dance of order and renewal.
The Mirror Temptation
Yet human beings, restless with curiosity, often reach for the mirror.
In recent years, scientists have begun experimenting with mirror molecules — creating right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars to see if they could build “reverse life.” They call it mirror-life: organisms that would twist the other way, built as reflections of our biology.
So far, only fragments exist — mirror peptides, modified bacteria, molecular prototypes. But the ambition grows.
And with it, the warnings.
A group of biologists and ethicists writing in Science (2024) cautioned that a self-replicating mirror organism could become biochemically incompatible with normal life. Our enzymes could not digest it. Our immune systems would not recognise it. In theory, it could persist outside all ecological control.
Reports presented to European and UK safety boards echoed that fear, describing such creations as an “unprecedented biosafety risk.” Even secular scientists admit the unease: to reverse the handedness of life is to rewrite the very bias that makes it possible.
From a spiritual view, this is not just technical danger — it is moral geometry.
To flip creation’s twist is to step outside mīzān, the measured balance Allah ordained.
Just because we can does not mean we should.
Curiosity is sacred, but stewardship is a trust.
The intellect (ʿaql) must bow before the limits of mercy.
“Do not transgress the balance.” (55:8)
The Divine Handedness
When seen through the eye of faith, the universe is not random — it is rhythmic.
The right-hand turn of DNA is not just chemistry; it is remembrance.
The left-hand decay of unstable atoms is not chaos; it is cleansing.
Every twist, every orbit, every asymmetry whispers Subḥāna-llāh — perfection in proportion.
Even the path of the believer mirrors this truth.
We give and greet with the right.
And when our souls are weighed, the Qur’an tells of those who receive their record in their right hand — the symbol of peace, purity, and acceptance — while the left hand holds the account of those who turned away from balance.
“Then the people of the right — what are the people of the right?
And the people of the left — what are the people of the left?” (56:8–9)
The lesson runs deeper than biology or ritual. It’s the reminder that life thrives only when it turns toward the direction of its Source.
Reflection — The Twist of Worship
Every particle, every cell, every orbit obeys this unseen code.
From quantum spin to DNA’s spiral, the entire cosmos leans the same way — toward order, toward mercy, toward life.
And humanity, in its best moments, follows that lean.
To turn the right way is not just a motion of the body — it is a posture of the soul.
Homochirality becomes tasbīḥ — the constant remembrance that even matter submits to its Lord.
Every molecule turns in praise.
Every atom remembers balance.
“Which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?” (55:13)
In a universe of endless reflections, only one direction sustains.
The divine twist — right over left, harmony over distortion keeps the world alive.
© Mohamed Miah | The Narratives
Further Reading — The Science Behind the Twist:
Chirality: means “handedness.” Just like your left and right hands look the same but can’t fit on top of each other, some molecules come in left- and right-handed versions too — like matching gloves that don’t overlap.
Homochirality: means everything in life turns the same way. From an ant to an elephant, from a whale to a human, every living thing is built from the same kind of “handed” molecules — left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars. It keeps life connected, as the Creator designed it.
Mirror-Life: is a scientific idea to make life from the opposite kind of molecules — a mirror version of us. Imagine a germ or tiny creature made backwards, that our bodies couldn’t break down or recognise. It could live outside the balance of nature — and that’s why many scientists say it’s too risky to create.
The Narratives - Mohamed Miah 
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