The Fountain # 120 Nov_Dec 2017

On Life, Knowledge, and Belief

Nov - Dec 2017

It is wrong to enter unknown circles.

Judge well in advance, lest you become lost.

If you really have to go through, think a thousand times…

Is There an American Muslim Song?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS /////

ISSUE

NOV • DEC 2017

Culture&Society

ARTS & CULTURE

Is There an American Muslim Song?

Zara Khan

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Ethics Ali Gomaa

Perspectives

In A Different Light Lawrence Brazier

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Ethics: A Principle in Islamic Epistemology

Lead Article

Perhaps One Day We, Too, Will Be Revived

Literature

Saadi Shirazi’s Influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson Mubina Muftic

M. Fethullah Gülen

A Moment for Reflection

On Bodies Justin Pahl

Education

Prejudice and Ways to Avoid It in Education Esra Akdogan

SCIENCE

Dialogue

I See No Difference Zuleyha B. Ozturk

BELIEF

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12 18 28 50 55

Emerald Hills of the Heart

Ghayba (Absence) Q&A

System Blindness and the Lifespan of a Society

8 24 36 40 53 62

Water

Water Management and the Qur'an Harun Avci

Zoology

Shark Skin Adam Allison

Health

Stem Cell Treatments: A Breakthrough in Medical Science Rafiq Ebrahim

Biology

Arteries and Veins – How and Why Are They Different?

Omer Yildiz

Health

Teenagers and Eating Disorders Gunel Mehraliyeva

Science Square

1. A new drug to stop the cancer cells 2. Reading aloud boosts memory 3. Hidden oceans in frozen worlds

EDITORIAL ///// IS THERE AN AMERICAN MUSLIM SONG?

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his question, posed by Dr. Ingrid Mattson during her address at the conference “Islam in America: Civic and Religious Youth Identities,” stresses the need for Islam to start feeling at home in the so-called “new world.”

Despite its universal claim, many still view Islam as a religion of the Middle East, a faith presumed to be practiced only by Arabs. They view it as an alien phenomenon for Americans. These misperceptions do not reflect the truth for those who are more familiar with the facts about Islam’s history and demographics in America. Muslims have been a part of America for hundreds of years. Islam is not the only religion that originated in the Middle East, nor do Arabs consist of the great majority of Muslims, who live and practice their faith peacefully in the Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia – and, yes, the Americas. Yet, many feel American Muslims still need to form their identity.

In this issue of The Fountain, Dr. Zara Khan, from Respect Graduate School in Pennsylvania, analyzes this issue and the conference where Dr. Mattson posed her question. Can American Muslims produce more holistic, nuanced, and embodied forms of celebration, culture, and sanctified expression? Can American Muslims generate cultural forms that give importance to music, joy, celebration, and community? Can they use the American land, language, experiences, and tradition to produce songs and rituals?

Another perspective about Islam comes to us from Cairo, one of the earliest centers of human civilization. Ali Gomaa, the former grand Mufti of Egypt, writes about the main principles of ethics Islam offers to mankind.

While reading his essay, one cannot help but realize how the image of Islam that is often portrayed in the media is diametrically opposite the real Islam, which is based on freedom, security, and the protection of human rights. According to Ali Gomaa, for a perfect manifestation of religious life, the faithful must adopt universal values like mercy, peace, respect, solidarity, and truthfulness, and they should also be well-versed about their rights and how to obtain them. By holding the wider community responsible for all individuals’ prosperity and security, Islam, according to Gomaa, prescribes a certain social security system.

Exploring the interaction between reason and faith, Lawrence Brazier muses on concepts like infinity, time, knowledge, the story of creation, the forbidden tree, the duality of Adam and Eve vis-à-vis the oneness of God, choice, and perfection. Brazier philosophizes on these deep concepts, encouraging us to exercise our reason and to rely on virtues like patience, sincerity, submission, and grace – values present in all major religions.

www.fountainmagazine.com

LEAD ARTICLE M. Fethullah GĂźlen

The torches of hope that promise revival are burning brightly. Those enlightened spirits who interpret everything according to love and respect are continuing on their journey. They move towards reviving our exalted human values without getting caught up in anger and hatred.

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n our gloomy lands, we have waited years for a breeze of revival, expecting the momentous sound of a resurrecting trumpet.

Though we hope God will not make us wait any longer, we are determined to actively wait until the day we find our lost values. But I wonder, are we qualified for such an expectation? Is our spiritual enthusiasm high enough? And are we able to stand before God as duly required?

If not, obviously such a passive stance is everything but being in expectation. If the resurrection we are awaiting is a revival during which we become ourselves in our feelings, thoughts, spiritual lives, and lives of the heart – and there is no doubt that it is – then it is necessary to once more review our situation and our expectations. For according to the principle of causality, there is a proportional relationship between our current attitude, behavior, and our expectations.

This great expectation is not a task for the ignorant, those without ideals, those bereft of a cause, or those poor in wisdom. It is an ideal for those spirits who possess knowledge and wisdom and who are dedicated to the truth. If one day our ill-fated fortune is to change, it will change with God’s permission by the hands of these heroes, and anything other than God’s will is an unnecessary condition (shart al-adi). To date it has always happened like this – God knows best, after all, but it will be like this again, and attacks from both inside and outside will continue. Loyalty that is normally expected from friends will not be shown. Destruction will follow destruction. Our spiritual roots that make us who we are will constantly be harmed. Our hearts will long for love, and moans of death will be heard from all sides. But, despite all these negative things there will always be the vanguards of revival who will blow life in every direction.

Our society has suffered from many different ruptures and disintegrations throughout history.

People’s cultural and religious values were snatched from their hands while they were made to endure the most painful alienations.

Their sun was stolen, the moon was extinguished, and they were subjected to eclipses one after another.

While writhing under their adversaries’ oppression, they cried because of the disloyalty of “friends.” The bands of evil that were destroyed and dispersed were followed by new ones that always made their predecessors look good. The oppression of tyrants has never ceased nor did the hostility toward and hatred of the faithful; it did not end and they turned this world into Hell.

Today, the same despotism, oppression, and assaults are continuing. There is an attempt being made to put out the lights of 6

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Regardless of the reason, it is our duty to perform our jobs according to the rules and within the circle of wisdom, and refer the rest to God. Every servant of revival should know that as long as they respond to the call of God and His messengers, God will show them the paths to revival and will never allow them to fall. people’s hope, and their rights and justice are being infringed.

Those who want to live what they believe, as individuals or as societies, are not given the opportunity to do so; in fact, they are being subjected to an inquisition.

Despite all of this, the torches of hope that promise revival on behalf of the future, and in different dimensions are burning brightly.

Those enlightened spirits who interpret everything according to love and respect are continuing on their journey. They move towards reviving our exalted human values without getting caught up in anger, hatred, and assault, and they do not falter. God has never forsaken servants faithful to His door, as opposed to oppressive tyrants and despots – may His grace upon these servants never diminish!

Although sporadically false thought has drowned the surroundings in noise and done everything to cut the voice and breath of the truth, the cawing of society is always transitory; the voice of truth is heard in a higher pitch. Even if God gives tyrants respite upon respite in some periods; but when their tyranny reaches to a point where divine response becomes inevitable, He eventually takes them in His grip and punishes them. He raises up the innocent and shows them the path to gathering themselves

together. He always alerts them of the roads to scientific, social, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual revival.

Thus, the people God held and supported, and those He will hold and support, will give voice – in the near future, if not today – to those deep feelings of compassion that constantly rise in their spirits. Like a celestial angel, they will embrace the innocent everywhere; they will say to all the oppressors and high-handed tyrants and those merciless cutthroats, “This day let no reproach be (cast) on you: God will forgive you, and He is the Most Merciful of those who show mercy!” (12:92) They will not hesitate to open their bosoms with compassion to even the bloodiest madmen who, until the revival, always thought blood, talked blood, spilled blood and drank blood.

Yes, it’s certain that one day these idealistic people, who represent the manifestation of such broad mercy; these heroes of faith and action; and these servants who are cautious and vigilant in their relationships with God, will appear from all four sides, each embodying mercy, and they will offer us goblets filled with the tonic of revival.

Now, if God is going to realize such a revival with people of this high level, first, He will spiritually

resurrect them according to the principles necessary in this world, and then He will revive all of us. It is not possible for believers who have no purpose or goals in this life, who are tired in their feelings and enthusiasm, and who are not fully alive, to help revive others.

God’s promise of reviving people and making them a vehicle for the revival of others is dependent upon people turning towards Him sincerely and that they have a prophetic resolution and determination. These people are such monuments of sincerity that if God is going to give special favors, He will give them to these servants because of their steadfastness and devotedness. They possess an unshakable faith, always stand firm in their place, ignore all the pressures that may come from any direction, and are never distraught by the difficulties and disasters that they may face. On the contrary, they are always a source of morale for those around them, are advanced in service and duty, have no desire for monetary rewards, and are absorbed in silent selfaccounting. If God is going to blow life into people, He will do it using the breaths of these servants.

At any rate, these heroes of resurrection, who have dedicated themselves to the revival of mankind, are determined to use, to the last centimeter, their capabilities and capacities that God has bestowed upon them to establish their ideals. They are always willing to make enormous sacrifices, are as sure as possible in seeing and monitoring the trust they have taken upon themselves, possess a deep feeling of submission, and are waiting with active patience for the commendation and favor of God. These are things that must be done by a spirit that has truly dedicated itself to the Truth. They do everything necessary to gather themselves together and stand on their feet, yet they are also aware of the fact that results cannot be

obtained when their time is not yet due – they know how to wait for years and years; they never panic.

Yes, sometimes all responsibilities are fulfilled; however, standing up and expressing oneself as a servant of revival may not be realized immediately. Sometimes this is because the person waiting for revival has not fully ripened, or, even if they have, are not being able to concentrate all their energy to awaken their spirit. At other times they are distracted by busying themselves with things that they should not be, things that can in no way contribute to the process of revival.

Reviving and becoming ourselves is a divine favor, and indeed it is. If that favor is given before the people are ready for it, its value will not be appreciated, thus it will go as immediately as it comes, and it will cause some new deprivations to be experienced, the compensation of which will be very difficult.

In addition, if God has tied His material-spiritual blessings to people’s giving their willpower its due – which we believe to be the case – then divine favor will probably be delayed until the moment they can utilize all the opportunities.

Other matters related to this topic are as follows: Sometimes, God does not immediately give to the travelers of this path what they want, because they have either fallen – or there is a danger that they may fall – into the mistake of considering their own power, strength, and capability to be absolute – and relying solely on them, thus straying from God. This is to protect them from this mistake of associating partners to what is within the domain of divine power. In this what may be called a favor that is rather compelled upon them, God turns their faces towards a perfect faith in His uniqueness. Sometimes, servants of revival may fail to fully achieve this turn, although all the

conditions are convenient; in such a situation, they are subjected to different oppressions, attacks, and pressures, and God does not respond to their efforts at revival for a certain period of time in order for them to turn towards Him with a spiritual state of need and to divulge their difficulties to Him. Sometimes, they may entertain some worldly expectations and not be able to purify their hearts from considerations of position, status, high rank, and their personal future aspirations. They may also have difficulty being fully selfless. In this respect, until the moment they can fully escape from other considerations and turn towards God with pure resignation, they may not be able to obtain the results of revival.

In addition to all these matters, such tribulations serve as a litmus test to see who is sincerely involved with pure intentions and those who are not. Such difficult tests also reveal the true identity of the tyrants and oppressors to be recognized as they are by every sector of society. Based on their partisanship with the oppressors, masses who are easily deceived might oppose the heroes of revival, and this is partly due to the fact that things are not clearly revealed to them as they are supposed to be. In this respect, until the moment when good and evil are separated from one another, and where everyone, the learned and the ignorant, will position themselves become apparent, everyone is given an opportunity to reflect; consequently, the result becomes delayed a little.

Regardless of the reason, it is our duty to perform our jobs according to the rules and within the circle of wisdom, and refer the rest to God. Every servant of revival should know that as long as they respond to the call of God and His messengers, God will show them the paths to revival and will never allow them to fall.

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WATER Harun Avci

Water is one of our most precious, resources. What do Islamic sources say about its protection?

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ater is a unique blessing, given to all living beings. It needs to be used with balance, harmony, economy, and justice. Agriculture, industry, and ecology depend on our water sources. What happens in one country may affect another.

The Nile river and its branches pass through nearly 10 countries.

The Danube passes through 15.

The pollution of water sources has a devastating impact on the entire ecosystem.

There are two essential problems around water sources: 1) the inability to meet the increasing need for water, and 2) pollution. Beginning in the mid-19th century, these problems grew in parallel with industrialization and an increase of urban populations.

In time, nations started facing colossal problems concerning how to develop and manage their water sources.

The Dublin Statement

Particularly after the 1980s, worldwide water organizations as World Water Council and Global Water organization were founded to bring together state leaders, ministers, and scientists to seek solutions.

Among these, the World Water Forum meetings were started in 1997, and the seventh was held in 2012, and the eighth one will be in Brazil, March 18-23, 2018.

Along with trying to find common, reasonable, and balanced ways for water management, these meetings sought to raise public attention to the issue of water conservation. One of the most important of such meetings was the United Nations Water and Environment Conference, held in Dublin, in 1992. The World Water Council and Global Water organization were founded thanks to this conference. The Dublin conference was organized to discuss the danger that if water sources were not managed wisely, human health, food safety, economic development and ecosystem would all be under risk.

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As far as local or higher level councils and policies are concerned, women can and should be active members of water planning and management commissions.

Teaching and transmitting correct practice and values about water and environment to new generations is critical for the future. Women play a key role in this respect.

In the conference, essential new approaches for utilizing, developing, and managing fresh water sources were demanded, and it was emphasized that these approaches must be supported by certain programs. Significant investments, campaigns for raising public consciousness, studies for developing technology as well as legal and organizational regulations were listed as supportive programs.

Four guiding principles were determined at the Dublin Conference. In relation to the value of the water and what needs to be done for its management, one can easily draw parallels between the principles that were drafted in this conference and some religious teachings. Here, we will discuss the compatibility of this approach with the Islamic viewpoint on the issue.

The first principle: valuable and limited

The first guiding principle of the Dublin Conference says, “Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment.”

Many verses in the Qur’an draw attention to the significance of water, how it is formed, and that it needs to be protected. For example, verses like, “Say: "Have you ever considered (this): if your water should vanish underground (leaving you with no source of water), who is there that can bring to you (a source to replace it of) gushing water? (Mulk 67.30)” urge us to reflect on the significance of this Divine blessing, reminding us that water is valuable for every living being; it is a scarce thing to be protected.

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The second principle: a participatory approach

The second guiding principle of the statement was participative management: “Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels.”

Accordingly, a participatory approach promotes policy and the consciousness of water’s importance. It encourages the participation of users in decisions, planning, and implementation of their projects. This can be realized by establishing user unions or civil society organizations; these can play an important role in the formation of laws and regulations in conformity with sustainable water management. Active and positive participation in decisions concerning society are in perfect compliance with the Islamic teaching. The Qur’an praises and encourages making consultation with eligible persons about making decisions around a certain issue: “And those who answer the call of their Lord and obey Him (in His orders and prohibitions), and establish the Prayer in conformity with its conditions; and whose affairs are by consultation among themselves… (Shura/Consultation 42:38).

A similar command is given to believers in the person of the Prophet in another verse: “ …Then pardon them, pray for their forgiveness, and take counsel with them in the affairs (of public concern); and when you are resolved (on a course of action), put your trust in God. Surely God loves those who put their trust (in Him)” (Al Imran 3:159).”

When these channels became unusable in the 1560s, Princess Mihrimah, daughter of the Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Lawmaker, had them repaired with metal and extended from Istanbul to Egypt, and she had fountains built all over Istanbul. This work continued for ten years with a thousand workers. Today as well, women from Anatolia continue to make serious contributions, opening water wells across Africa. These examples show that the third principle is in compliance with Islamic principles and practices.

The fourth principle: economic value

The third principle: the role of women

According to the third principle, “Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water.”

Protecting water and preventing water pollution is a social responsibility. In Islamic teaching, taking care of resources is not a gender-specific responsibility. Both men and women are protectors of resources. Both enjoin what is good and forbid what is evil. Parents, and especially mothers, can convey useful knowledge, customs, and practices to their children, contributing to the protection of water, preventing pollution, and encouraging sustainable water consumption. This means fulfilling a very important responsibility for protecting water as the essential building block of society.

As far as local or higher level councils and policies are concerned, women can and should be active members of water planning and management commissions. Teaching and transmitting correct practice and values about water and environment to new generations is critical for the future. Women play a key role in this respect.

Throughout history, Muslim women supported and pioneered the establishment of water-providing facilities. Lady Zubayda, who was the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid’s wife, had a waterway built in order to channel the water springing from Mount Tad (on the Mecca-Taif way) across 40-km to the pilgrims’ ground in Arafat, and from there to Mecca.

Principle four says, “Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.” The noble Prophet stated that the water, fire, and meadows in Muslims’ possession are their common property. This is the reason why water bodies are treated as belonging to the public in Islamic law. Based on this point of view, natural lakes and rivers cannot be sold. Reaching water is a public right.

Islamic laws make a distinction between publicly and privately owned water. Water wells, tanks, and other reservoirs are private water. If somebody makes extra expenses for conveying, purifying, or storing water, then it is regarded as privately owned. This has the following meaning: water users have to pay for the expenses of water management, purification, and protection. Together with this, a special tariff for low-income users needs to be practiced; such people must be supported. The water in canal systems or closed water distribution systems can be private, but everybody has the right to drink from this water. Complete private ownership can only be possible for water put in a vessel. The state has the right to charge people for the costs of providing, purifying, and distributing water to the public.

The issue of treating water as an economic commodity seems to be a contradictory issue.

Much research needs to be carried out on water with respect to the economy, rights, and value.

Protecting the environment, the sustainability of the ecosystem, and issues related to water purity and distribution, are not independent issues. Water issues are interdisciplinary and can be solved only with collective study by scholars of law, science, and religion.

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RELIGION Ali Gomaa

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slam has been ordained for higher objectives designed to refine the conduct of those who endeavor to follow its guidance. The hope is to yield benefits both for society and individuals. These honorable objectives aim at providing safety and peace by ensuring the security of one’s life, freedom to practice one’s faith, right to obtain property and have a family, and safeguarding one’s intellect.

Islam has been ordained for higher objectives that are designed to refine human behavior and to provide peace by ensuring the security of one’s life, freedom to practice one’s faith, right to obtain property, right to have a family, and safeguarding one’s intellect.

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God has prescribed us to act mercifully and charged us with the responsibility of getting to know one another and living together in peace so that religion is practiced for God alone, and no human is given authority over another. The purpose of this prescription is to ensure that everyone is free to practice their faith, is safe, doesn’t worry about their financial interactions, and can express one’s beliefs. In fact, all the rules, laws and regulations of Islam have actually been placed in order to secure, guarantee, and regulate these freedoms.

Community freedoms are different; some are shared by all, and some are agreed upon. While some are mutually inclusive, some might conflict or oppose the freedoms of others. By reminding of possible consequences and promises of rewards in the hereafter, Islam aims to prevent such conflicts by commanding virtue and prohibiting vice.

A truly free human being is one whose presence in a community is respected. A free individual can enjoy the opportunities of advancement and development, in realms both material and immaterial. Therefore, what befalls upon such a free person is to observe and respect the rights and freedoms of others and to defend these rights just like his own rights are defended. Free individuals seek equality.

It is among one’s rights to discuss and debate with others regarding their thoughts and creeds; even to raise objections in light of one’s faith and creed. However, one is not allowed to cause any harm to others, nor mock what they consider holy or make fun of the symbols of their religions. Rather, one must respect what they hold high. In turn, one might expect others to respect what you consider holy.

Shedding light on this topic, God says, “And do not insult those they invoke other than God, lest they insult God in enmity without knowledge” (Qur’an 6:107-8). And He the Exalted also said, “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom

and good instruction, and argue with them in a way that is best” (16:125). He also added, “Do not argue with the People of the Scripture except in a way that is best, except for those who commit injustice among them” (29:46).

The main structure of freedom, according to Islam, is based on the obligation of securing the individual’s life through providing his or her basic necessities and needs. Based on this provision, it is possible for an individual to utilize their right of freedom in thought, faith, religious practice, and expression. Nonetheless, if the community fails to cater to the rights of the poor, weak, and impoverished some people will be deprived of their freedoms. This is especially so when the distribution of welfare is off balance, for the crushing forces of poverty will further curtail the freedoms of the poor.

God says in the Qur’an, “God will surely perfect His light, however hateful (it may be) to the unbelievers dislike it. He it is Who has sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religions” (61:8-9).

The “perfecting of the light” and the “manifesting of the truth” can only be realized when the community and the nation become an exemplary embodiment of the values they hold.

These values include mercy, peace, respect, solidarity, unity, prosperity, truthfulness, and other high moral qualities. In the community where all these values are manifested, creedal concepts are translated into behavior and aesthetic values. For this to be possible members of the community have to be aware of their rights and the ways of obtaining them. Consequently, communities will be committed to preserving these rights – and then extending

them to other states or nations. Just as one must live justly, one should support other nations and communities that strive to obtain their human rights, prosperity, and freedom; this is an inseparable part of the being an exemplary community.

When moral qualities and values are firmly rooted in a community and the consciences of the people, these values will be seen in their behaviors, actions, and attitudes guiding them to becoming the “perfect human” who is potentially equipped with faculties to receive the heavenly message and benefit from it. A community’s advancement and civilization are in direct proportion with nobleness of the moral values it possesses.

Islam did not leave the issue of a community’s morality to the wills of individuals.

Rather, it put certain limits and borders on freedoms and established rules and regulations to establish a moral atmosphere. It also laid down a set of punitive measures to ensure security and peaceful coexistence in the society.

By entrusting the rights of the needy and poor upon the society at large it can also be said that Islam enjoins a social security system. As an extension of these rights, Islam has prescribed alms-giving (zakat) upon the rich and other legal incentives for the giving of charity through vows (nadhr), expiations (kaffarah), and financial compensations. In return, to protect peoples’ rights of property, Islam has also laid down a penal system against crimes like theft, rebellion, and murder which endanger a community’s safety and unity whilst also undermining its ethical values. *** Sep / Oct 2017

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The moral system that Islam lays down is unique in the following aspects: 1. The source of Islam’s moral system is divine revelation: the Qur’an and the Sunna. In these two sources, there are measurements and broad objectives that adjust a person’s behavior in the universe in accordance with a lofty system of high morals.

2. Good character is obtained by effort. The opportunity to advance and acquire high moral levels is open to all humans and all people. All start from a common point where they are all equal in this race for a higher good, that being that they are all the children of Adam (pbuh). In light of this, it is narrated that the Companion of the Prophet, peace be upon him, Abu Said al- Khudri said, “Some of the people of the Ansar asked for something from the Messenger of God and he gave it to them. Then they asked him again and he gave it to them until he had used up everything he had. He said, ‘If I had anything, I would not keep it away from you. (Remember) Whoever abstains from asking others, God will make him contented, and whoever tries to make himself self-sufficient, God will make him self-sufficient. And whoever remains patient, God will make him patient. Nobody can be given a blessing better and greater than patience.’”

3. This moral system is also uniquely characterized by steadiness and stability. The reason for this is that morality in Islam has a “worship element” (ta’abbudi) in which a person seeks his Lord’s pleasure. Hence the reason behind the morality emanates from the fact that it is requested by the Almighty and hence it is not merely a way of interacting with others based on utilitarian principles and interest. In relation to this, the Companion of the Prophet, Abu Hurayra, narrated that the Prophet said, “May he be miserable, the worshipper of the coins, and the worshipper of the striped silk cloak. If he is given anything, he is satisfied; but if not, he is unsatisfied" (Bukhari, Riqaq).

4. Islamic morality is also distinguished by being comprehensive and completing all aspects of life, the public and private, from one’s relationship with the Lord to those with other human beings, even down to the level of his domestic interactions.

5. The moral values in Islam point to ideal forms, yet they are also applicable and realistic. They do not oblige a person to do something that is beyond his or her ability. God said in the Holy Qur’an, “Keep, then, from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety as far as you can, and listen attentively and submit (to His commands), and obey Him, and spend (in His cause and for the needy), as it is to the betterment of your souls. Whoever is guarded against the avarice of his soul, those are they who are truly prosperous” (64:16).

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The Prophet categorized good manners as worship through which a person can gain great spiritual rewards like someone who is in constant prayer day and night.

Another verse reads, “What I seek is only to set things right so far as I am able. My success in my task depends on God alone. In Him have I put my trust, and to Him do I always turn with all my heart” (11:88).

God also said, “But seek, by means of what God has granted you, the abode of the Hereafter (by spending in alms and other good causes), without forgetting your share (which God has appointed) in this world. Do good to others as God has done good to you (out of His pure grace). Do not seek corruption and mischief in the land, for God does not love those who cause corruption and make mischief" (28:77).

6. Finally, Islamic morals are universal and dynamically alive. They are suitable for all human beings. The benefit of abiding by these morals will return to all humans, irrespective of whether they are Muslim or not. This stems from Islam being a religion which brought about universal and comprehensive systems, rules, and morals. To emphasize further on the universality of Islam, God said, “But it is not other than a Reminder for all beings” (68:52), and, “O humanity, in deed I am a messenger of God sent to all of you.” In the Qur’an, the Prophet is referred to as a “mercy” for all: “We have not sent you (O Muhammad) but as an unequalled mercy for all the worlds” (21:107). It is narrated that the Prophet said, “The Muslim is the one from whose tongue and hand the people are safe, and the believer is the one people trust with their lives and wealth” (Sahih Ibn Hibban). The Prophet (pbuh) also said, “The most beloved people to God are those who are most beneficial to the people” (Tabarani, al-Mu’jam’ul Kabir).

The message of the Prophet is established on the foundations of Islam’s moral system. The concept of the love of God and the love of His Prophet is tied with a person’s adherence to honorable and outstanding ethical and moral values. The Prophet summarized the whole purpose of his messengership as the completion and perfection of good character (Imam Malik, Muwatta). The Prophets before him began the project, and he finished it – or as he (pbuh) described through an analogy, all the Prophets worked together to build a building and only one brick was missing, and he (pbuh) was that missing brick.

It is reported that the Prophet said, “The dearest and nearest among you to me on the Day of Resurrection will be one who is the best of you in manners” (Bukhari, Fadail al-Sahaba). When the Prophet was asked what enables people to enter heaven, he replied, “piety and good manners” (Tirmidhi, Birr and Sila). The Prophet categorized good manners as worship through which a person can gain great spiritual rewards like someone who is in constant prayer day and night: “By his good character a believer will attain the degree of one who prays during the night and fasts during the day.”

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PERSPECTIVES Lawrence Brazier

Do we believe that there is another “state� to be experienced? Are the mystics leading us on with a promise of something wonderful? I think we should try to find out.

ur cause is not the acceptance or rejection of religion, or the debate of Faith against Reason. We wish to make faith a matter of reason because, if the mystics are right, reason is not necessarily a matter of thought.

We are concerned with the claim of the mystic, who would negate mood, which can be the enemy of objectivity. We must at least attempt to achieve the "other" state the mystics have told of, a state independent of mood or feeling or emotion, in which one "sees" with dispassion, but not coldly, for we agree with Jung who told us that coldness is also a passion.

We wish to see things with objectivity, without self-applied coloring. We may consider, methinks wrongly, the mystic state to be something unrelated to logic or the empirical. On the other hand we may wish to consider the "state" a reality, perhaps the way to perceive reality. If we acknowledge the mystics’ claim, we are bound not to ignore it and are thus obliged to investigate it, perhaps for the same reason that Everest was climbed – simply because it is there.

Our aim is not the application of a supposed objectivity, ours is the aim of first “being” objective.

Our investigation should be undertaken empirically. It may be possible that reason will result from the empirical endeavor. A philosopher may first need to be in the right state for philosophy. Could this be the reason to be? If, as Goethe maintains in Faust, "...round and round we go, our teachers lead us by the nose" – could it be that both teacher and pupil haven't a hope of arriving at any verifiable answer? Must we unlearn rather than learn?

We may well be concerned, here, with demystifying the mystic, which we hope will not irritate them.

On the other hand, how could it?

We consider infinity. But we can’t define it. We are only able to use the word figuratively. Infinity is the stuff of the hypothetical, a word and little else. It was invented primarily for the use of poets, dreamers, thinkers and even scientists (not to mention mathematicians), in fact all of those who wrestle with a supposed meaning of life. But infinity cannot be pointed to in the accepted sense. It may be full of import as a word but it remains elusive as a fact. We have, therefore, given a name to something that may well not exist, or at best, something we can never know anything about. If God is infinite, we are left with what is nothing more than a concept, an idea claimed to have been made a fact by only a few of those sharing our worldly existence. It means, of course, that God is indeed unknowable.

A mystic thus requires no morality. Quite obviously, morality is only required because we who are dissociated from God lack it. How wonderful would be a world not requiring morality. One hardly needs philosophy to tell us that immorality doesn’t make sense. Morality, at best, indicates making the best of things. We make mistakes and attempt to correct them.

We consider time. Time is easier to define, mostly because we invented it, and that through our ability to recognize change. We have correspondingly chopped up our days into time, making the invention of the clock a forgone conclusion.

To our utter detriment we are bound by time, physically, intellectually and above all else “emotionally.” We are able to think in terms of time and we imagine infinity, which in the slovenly thought of humans has somehow become associated with time, albeit as a vaguely assumed related element, somewhat in the way that opposites are related. Therein lies the rub.

The mystic would maintain (if so disposed) that time is engendered by thought.

One would not suggest that God did not make the world in six days, as given in the Qur'an and the Bible, but it did give us a concept of time laid down in Holy Writ. We could, however, rightly suggest that our metaphysical makeup is created on a different plane of existence, perhaps even to the extent of timelessness. Our counted hours and days can be used in everyday life but one could also suggest that for the mystic the knowledge of time, as given in the stories of the Creation, is assimilated but nevertheless tucked away safely in some remote recess of the mind.

We have been given the notion of the Beginning as something necessary for the telling of a story, something to hang our emotional hats on. Just as our scientific thinkers send their minds spiraling into space, religious thinkers send their minds spiraling to a point where there is also nowhere left to go – which must please God no end. Our thinkers, both religious and scientific, are apparently trying to arrive at the same thing.

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Although the concept of infinity in the limited time and space of our material existence is the product of our imagination, somehow serving a literary need, it appears to be alien to our natures. “In the Beginning” sounds like writing off infinity thus binding us to time in a single stroke. Our lack of satisfaction, or equanimity, comes from the emotional goulash we call the Human Condition. This, put bluntly, is the "state" we are in. It is a state that requires comfort, pacification, assurance, a sense of safety and wellbeing. The root of the Human Condition, it seems, is Existenzangst. Meaning that which we engendered by being, and continue to be, disobedient to God. It means that all humans, to one degree or another, however deeply but not without reason, are emotionally insecure. The result has been struggle, poverty, war and all the rest that makes up our appalling history. At best it is a wrestle with matters of the mind.

To accept infinity we would have to stop thinking about it.

It could well be that we are not sufficiently emotionally mature to simply believe that there was no beginning in a secular sense and that there is no end. Psychologists would tell us that our ideas find no parallel in our feeling. Our feelings, or our emotions, balk at infinity. We recoil at the notion. We can't "picture" it. Thought is often a mundane rehash of past events, the result of experience.

But how to arrive at what for many is a mystic state? The process of simple acceptance may well be something akin, at an emotional level, to the situation described by the American drawing teacher, Betty Edwards, in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Ms. Edwards claims that a switch from one side of the brain to the other is required for achieving the inner focus enjoyed by those able to draw well. The switch is achieved, apparently, by simply “looking” patiently and waiting for the magic to take place. At some point during the switchover process a certain limbo situation occurs through which a mild panic can arise. This suggests a brief loss of control and is surely akin to the need for faith. The limbo period is beyond all that we can categorize. It can add to our sense of insecurity but could well lead to the need for a leap in the dark as an act of faith.

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The world is ungovernable without feeling, and that “feeling,” again, is not to be confused with emotion – it could perhaps be translated as the purest form of reason.

If we can accept that all of the universes have always existed we may have achieved an advance in the human condition. The acceptance, of course, is beyond a state of emotion and although there is bound to be a struggle, a certain degree of bravery is required, similar to the aforementioned leap in the dark.

Before the Fall, irrespective of whether one considers it a metaphor or fact, there was no religion. Before the Fall there was no need to “know.” Why did we need to know?

Were we bored?

We have considered reason, the reason why and the reason, period. Firstly, we should remember that the very first command given to us was not to approach the “tree.” The question is what was this tree?

While in Christian tradition it has been understood as “knowledge,” in the Islamic tradition it is understood as an awareness of some of their human potentials which, when primed by faith, are meant to serve higher purposes, but with no such training may lead humans to evil. One possible answer why God gave this command is the fact of duality implied by an Adam and an Eve. Duality, unlike the Oneness of God, obviously offered the possibility of variance. God, therefore, attempted to cover all the angles and said that duality (the entire reason for debate, methinks) should not be investigated. In investigating duality our heroes were bound to realize the possibilities of the same. We then took a downhill path, which has turned our lives into an uphill struggle.

There is another explanation for God making error or sin “possible” in the first place. We read that God made the heavens and the earth and the various animals and fishes and the day and night and, well, all the rest. This enormous output of many different things means, of course, that God differentiated. Differentiation implies duality and choice because God so chose.

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choice. To ask why one may make a wrong choice is about as sensible as asking why God didn’t give fishes the capacity to live out of water. In other words, God wasn’t really aiming at “perfection”, He simply saw it as being good and also maintained that the suitable element for His creations was not always the same. And just as fishes do well to remain in their own element, Adam and Eve would, apparently, have done just as well to remain in their own, God-created, element.

One is reminded of the Old Testament fathers who ruled over the tribes and gave them hundreds of rules and regulations by which the people were to govern their lives. They had, it would seem, literally an answer for everything. Everything of this world, that is. The rules and regulations laid down were as good as a manual for living. One could see that the Old Testament people would need good memories or lots of scrolls and tablets at home, or access to a priest who was able to receive advice clearly from God. But memory is illusive, not to be trusted, it even goes haywire when we go to sleep. Moreover, we rarely have time to stop in any given situation and start thumbing through our manuals with a sort of “Wait, before you punch my nose, I should like to point out that on page 2356, chapter 700...”

But how to return to common sense, mentioned above as Logic, and is it the same as the true gut feeling, as our American colleagues may put it? Must we return to a reason that is not dependent on mind?

Must we return to a common sense that is so common that we need not learn anything?

Could we come to realize that forgetting is possibly more useful than remembering?

Of course we couldn't. The realization itself would require remembering. Attentive readers will have a nagging feeling about “common sense”, especially since I have offered no explanation, and I offer here only analogy. Some years ago I was translating from the German Heinrich Harrer's Das Buch vom Eiger, which was to be combined with his

The White Spider, to make a new edition. At one point Harrer asked me, a non-mountaineer, “How can you write about mountaineering if you are not a mountaineer yourself?” I am afraid my answer was rather glib, and I was only able to offer, “I do not need to get shot to know that a bullet hurts.”

Unfortunately, not common sense but common sensory is what our world is probably all about. One might suggest that perception felt is better than perception thought. The Qur'anic and Biblical texts run parallel and the story of the fall of Adam, the first prophet, is persistently similar. Adam and Eve acquired sensory knowledge by disobeying God, the ultimate provider.

They didn’t actually need sensory capacity. Knowledge (read mind) and the flesh together can lead to an altered state that is a matter of imagination and what comes after. Knowledge is learning, thus the stuff of memory. Life, we would be pleased to believe, is innate, the stuff of pure energy, again to be seen separate from emotion, which is reliant on memory.

God has been called many things throughout human history: The One, The All, The Creator. But nobody has ever called God “The One Almighty Common Sense”. Common sense is what everybody claims to be aware of, but we often do not listen to it, even when it is nagging away at the back of our minds.

A key moment, therefore, is when we decide on an action. Do we obey or go, again, our own way and not His? The mystic is receptive by getting out of the way. The channel remains open.

A mystic thus requires no morality. Quite obviously, morality is only required because we who are dissociated from God lack it. How wonderful would be a world not requiring morality. One hardly needs philosophy to tell us that immorality doesn’t make sense. Morality, at best, indicates making the best of things. We make mistakes and attempt to correct them.

This writer does not believe that humans are innately evil, but does believe that the world is ungovernable without feeling, and that “feeling,” again, is not to be confused with emotion – it could perhaps be translated as the purest form of reason.

It just isn’t expressed mentally, that’s all. On these terms one may contend that believing in God is not unreasonable. Let us embrace science, academe, philosophy, and all that would advance us in this world. After all, for the time being it is the only world we have.

In conclusion, one may return to Schopenhauer’s “Before we think – we live.” This is hard to refute and we must conclude that “life itself,” not the way we express it in our everyday world, but the Spirit must be the clue. Moreover, Schopenhauer’s claim makes slight work of the notion offered by Descartes: “I think, therefore I am.” And when Nietzsche informed us that “God is dead” we may assume that he was simply having a bad day.

But what of our investigation of the mystic state mentioned at the beginning. The mystic state of no-mind is apparently received and not acquired through effort. It is apparently acquired by stepping aside! Getting out of the way, as Krishnamurti would have it! Thus to seek God is difficult and not to seek God is wrong, which leaves us with patience, trust and sincere submission, for somewhere out there, or in there, is a thing called grace.

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ZOOLOGY Adam Alliosn

Have you ever thought about a shark’s skin?

Probably not.

But scientists have, and they’ve designed some truly extraordinary things based on the fearsome predators of the sea.

H

ave you ever thought about a shark’s skin?

Probably not. But scientists have, and they’ve designed some truly extraordinary things based on the fearsome predators of the sea There are more than 500 species of sharks that have been identified. They can live both in the sea and in fresh water. According to the fossil records obtained to date, sharks have been around for about 400 million years. The average life span of sharks is 20-30 years, although there are species living up to 100 years. The whale shark (Rhincodon typus), which is not predatory and feeds on plankton, is the largest shark, with a length of 17-18 meters and a weight of approximately 36 tons.

The white shark is the largest predatory shark, with a length reaching 6 meters. The egg of sharks is also a record holder: the size of the largest egg, found in 1953, was 30.5 centimeters, while the size of the embryo was measured at 35 centimeters. The smallest shark observed so far is only 14 centimeters long, and it was found on the shores of Louisiana in 2010.

The unique design of their skin is part of what makes sharks such effective predators. In fact, suits made to imitate shark skin are banned at international swimming competitions.

Sharks are categorized in three groups according to their feeding style: those that feed on 1) plankton, 2) floating creatures, and 3) creatures on the sea floor. Although sharks are known as the best hunters in the sea, one out of two of their hunts ends with success. The prey is very unlikely to escape when caught by a shark. The great white shark has about 300 sharp teeth that bite with a force predicted to be as powerful as 18,000 Newtons, whereas a human bite can be as much as 1,300 N. Sharks use a sonar system (sound waves) to locate prey. The absence of swim bladders and the fact that their skeletons are cartilaginous rather than bony allow them to move quickly and swiftly underwater. Sharks also have an acute sense of smell. Their nostrils are only for smelling, not for breathing.

The unique design of their skin is part of what makes sharks such effective predators. In fact, suits made to imitate shark skin are banned at international swimming competitions.

If you touch shark skin from front to back, it has a silky texture; but if you touch it from back to front, the texture is like sandpaper.

The surface of the skin is covered with geometric shapes similar to tiny teeth – or like roof tiles. There’s almost no gap between these shapes. These tiny, hard, and smooth structures have roots tightly attached to the skin. The denticles (microscopic scales) provide a hydrodynamic advantage to sharks when swimming by reducing the friction between water and skin.

The German paleontologist, Wolf-Ernst Reif examined the denticles of 46 shark species and researched on their features that enable them with hydrodynamism. Reif showed that the grooves and canals on the denticles are what reduce the friction with water. The hundreds of thousands of denticles 26

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The work of human beings inspired by examining the skin of the shark is wonderful, but when we think of the number of all living beings, it is like a drop in the sea. There are millions of animal and plant species waiting for scientific study and perhaps hiding great inspirations.

come together to form a common flow path, reducing the turbulence caused by friction, preventing speed loss. These denticles allow sharks to swim 12% faster.

Swimmers wearing apparel using this technology swim about 7% faster. The denticles not only reduce friction, but they also increase repelling force. It was discovered that during the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, 23 of the 25 world record-breaking swimmers wore apparel made from the aforementioned fabrics. Thus, the garments were banned.

The swimming pool isn’t the only place where we can see the influence of shark skin. Hospitals, perhaps unexpectedly, have also been improved by the design of shark skin. Most exposed surfaces in hospitals are germ magnets. And because of the environment, hospital germs are resistant to antibiotics and disinfectants. The use of copper and silver coatings with anti-microbial structures is quite costly.

Researchers designed a material called Sharklet. According to a study published on September 17, 2014, in the journal Antimicrobial Desistance and Infection Control, researchers found it is pos-

sible to almost permanently disinfect surfaces using special coatings inspired by shark skin.

Simulating the grooves and canals of shark skin denticles results in 94% fewer germs. Sharklet coating material outdoes its competitors in applicability not only for wares, but also for medical devices.

Of course there are different coating materials made in the same way. Another material made from silica, and also based on shark skin, solved one of the biggest problems facing ships. Water algae and lice adhere to the surface of ships and accelerate corrosion. In experiments conducted in the North Sea, it was found that the vessels with the shark-skin inspired coating saw 67% fewer mussels and 85% less algae adhering to them.

The work of human beings inspired by examining the skin of the shark is wonderful, but when we think of the number of all living beings, it is like a drop in the sea. There are millions of animal and plant species waiting for scientific study and perhaps hiding great inspirations. The keys to our discoveries and inventions are revealed when studies are done. Perhaps the creatures we know as useless today will show that they are the wonders of creation in the future.

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LITERATURE Mubina Muftic

Emerson is one of the most renowned naturalists and poets, but he took his inspiration from an unexpected place.

Tomb of Saadi in Shiraz, Iran

o Baron von Hammer Purgstall, who died in Vienna in 1856, we owe our best knowledge of the Persians,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson (d. 1882) in his essay “Persian Poetry.” Thus, it was an Austrian Orientalist who introduced Saadi (d. 1292) and his poetry to Emerson in the mid-1840s [1]. Although Emerson read only a translation (which is inevitably deficient in comparison to the original), the intricate poetry of this 13th-century Persian became one of the major oriental influences on Emerson’s work [2].

Even though the dominant figure in “Persian Poetry” is Hafiz (Saadi is mentioned only once), Emerson showed quite clearly his admiration for Saadi in the Preface he wrote for the American edition of Gulistan (1865).

In addition to this, he also wrote a poem entitled “Saadi” (1899) in which we can read the poetic similarities between Emerson and Saadi, or what was the distinguishing quality of the latter that proved such a powerful inspiration for Emerson.

Emerson seems to appreciate Saadi’s “wit, practical sense, and just moral judgments,” [3] which are shown throughout his most famous work Gulistan, a collection of stories in prose and verse combined whereby each story appears to stand on its own; however, each chapter has its own topic, which also provides a connection between the given stories. In Sufi poetry, gul (or the rose) is one of the central motifs. Every rose represents the glory of God, and every rose is perfect in its own sense.

The stories are mostly comprised of Saadi’s personal experiences on his numerous travels, and this is one of the aspects of Saadi’s poetry which could have been attractive to Emerson, especially because it is congruent with Emerson’s own philosophy, “Only so much do I know as I have lived”[4].

Saadi frequently uses natural images to describe a situation or to wrap up a story. He wrote, for example: A flower is sometimes blooming and sometimes withering.

A tree is at times nude and at times clothed.

Saadi is able to interpret the natural facts and extract their essence which opens the door of the world of Ideas, as Plato would call it, or Nature, as Emerson would call it. We are closer to ourselves if we observe the other constituents of the physical world, because we are all essentially connected.

Saadi uses these images to portray the “wheel of destiny,” and these two verses (bayts) are also a magnificently concise summary of the preceding story about a beggar turned emperor. Natural images of this kind are the core of Emerson’s poetic theory as he considered nature to be “the symbol of spirit.” Therefore, he praises Saadi as the great observer of nature: In his every syllable Lurketh Nature veritable.

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That is, Saadi is able to interpret the natural facts and extract their essence which opens the door of the world of Ideas, as Plato would call it, or Nature, as Emerson would call it. Therefore, we are closer to ourselves, and the understanding of ourselves, if we observe the other constituents of the physical world, because we are all essentially connected.

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The aim of a poet is not a radical change in society, but rather a change in a man’s heart. The poet should compose verses based on his knowledge and experience, hoping to be of use to men; but only certain individuals among the group will be able to understand and learn from it.

The poem “Saadi” by Emerson begins with a list of natural facts and among the birds and sheep are also men; however, the poet is in a way above them all, because he is endowed with the poetic gift (“the lyre”) and instructed by God to “sit aloof” in order to observe. A poet, although part of nature, still has an additional responsibility to interpret what he sees and use it for his own advancement and the advancement of “his folk.” The poet should be a “Man Thinking,”[1] as Emerson calls the upgraded version of a man, who is able to decode the natural facts; he should refer to the “mind of the past” and undertake action in an attempt to “guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances” – and Saadi is exactly that. He learned from what he had seen and experienced, and he composed a guide of a sort for everyone who reads it, implying, however, that this guide is not universal and that it is written by a life experience and literary experience of only one man. It is very difficult to bear in mind all the wise words from Gulistan, unless a previous experience is triggered by them.

However, for Emerson, the individual is the one who can improve and not the society: he says that he “like[s] man, but not men” and that “[s]ociety never advances.” He was in love with the unbound possibilities of an individual, not with a rather fragile sense of belonging to a particular group. But does this make the notion of social action superfluous? We can make use of one of Saadi’s stories to answer this question. In the section “The Morals of Dervishes,” Saadi talks of his experience in a mosque where he was giving a lecture to a group of people “whose hearts were withered and dead.” However, one man was passing by and he caught some of Saadi’s words, which left a deep impression on him. Thus, Saadi said:

When the hearer understands not the meaning of words Do not look for the effect of the orator’s force But raise an extensive field of desire That the eloquent man may strike the ball of effect.

The aim of a poet is not a radical change in society, but rather a change in a man’s heart. Therefore, in the light of these words, Emerson’s statements seem reconciled: the poet should compose verses based on his knowledge and experience, hoping to be of use to men; but only certain individuals among the group will be able to understand and learn from it.

Having all this in mind, we can see how close two poets can be irrespective of the time gap and distance between them. Emerson states in the Preface to Gulistan: But the Sheik’s mantle sits loosely on Saadi’s shoulders, and I find in him pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous soul.[3] Emerson had a lot in common with Saadi on an intellectual level, and what truly attracted his attention and admiration was the humanity in Saadi’s poetry. Throughout Gulistan we encounter all sorts of people, but Saadi tries to understand the state of each and every one of them, be they poor or rich, ingenious or stupid, benevolent or malevolent – in the words of Emerson: Yet Saadi loved the race of men, — No churl, immured in cave or den; In bower and hall He wants them all.

Notes

1. Tharaud, Barry. 2010. Emerson for the Twenty-first Century: Global Perspectives on an American Icon. Newark: University of Delaware, p. 109.

2. Radeljkovi, Zvonimir. 2005. American Topics, Sarajevo: Buybook, p. 68.

3. Tharaud, Emerson for the Twenty-first Century, p. 12.

4. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar," last modified April 9, 2009, http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar. htm.

4. Ibid.

5. Radeljkovi, American Topics, p. 78-79.

6. Musle-Huddeen Saadi of Shiraz. 1865. The Gulistan or the Rose Garden, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, p. 10.

References

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The American Scholar“, last modified April 9, 2009, http://www.emersoncentral.com/amscholar.htm.

Radeljković, Zvonimir. American Topics. Sarajevo: Buybook, 2005.

Saadi of Shiraz, Musle-Huddeen. The Gulistan or the Rose Garden. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1865.

Tharaud, Barry. Emerson for the Twenty-first Century: Global Perspectives on an American Icon. Newark: University of Delaware, 2010.

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Emerald Hills of the Heart

ABSENCE (GHAYBA)

Travelers to the Ultimate Truth experiencing absence no longer have any interest in the laws that are in force in the life of existent beings and the conditions in which they find themselves. They have completely freed themselves from the states that belong to the carnal soul under the dazzling shower of the Divine gifts which have come uninterrupted to invade their hearts.

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iterally meaning disappearance and no longer being existent, ghayba (absence) denotes that the heart has cut its relationship with the corporeal world in order to give itself to exclusive devotion to God. Although derived from the word ghayba, which means being not present, ghayba (absence) signifies self-annihilation and no longer having a relationship with the surrounding world, despite being present.

Travelers to the Ultimate Truth experiencing absence no longer have any interest in the laws that are in force in the life of existent beings and the conditions in which they find themselves. They have completely freed themselves from the states that belong to the carnal soul under the dazzling shower of the Divine gifts which have come uninterrupted to invade their hearts. In this state they are unaware of how and where they are or even of their own existence. Because of the intensity of the Divine manifestations that they experience, they no longer can see although they look, they can no longer hear although they listen, and they are lost in feelings of wonder while thinking. For them, there is no difference between presence and absence. This can be partly explained by the analogy of the women who, when they saw Prophet Joseph, were so struck by his beauty that they cut their hands. Joseph’s beauty could only be a shadow of the shadow of the Divine Beauty, reflected from beyond many veils. If seeing Joseph’s face caused presence to change into some degree of absence, it does not require much explanation how the burning manifestations of the Divine Beauty can dazzle the eyes and bewilder minds.

Presence and absence change places, one turning into the other, only when initiates separate themselves from everything else other than the lights of His Essence. In this state, they feel and think of Him only and restrict their eyes to observing His manifestations exclusively. By so doing, they feel enveloped in His Presence completely and no longer see or hear whatever takes place and whatever is said. If, under the influence of some attributes of human nature, initiates come to see and hear things and happenings—which is called a “return”—all things other than God come into view and their hearts suffer an eclipse, without receiving light from the real Owner of light. They can free themselves from this eclipse by perfect love of and yearning for Him and by perfect resolution.

Like contraction and expansion, there can be long or short tides between feeling enveloped by God’s Holy Presence and feeling eclipsed from Him. Feeling enveloped by His Presence is sometimes understood

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Literally meaning disappearance and no longer being existent, ghayba (absence) denotes that the heart has cut its relationship with the corporeal world in order to give itself to exclusive devotion to God. Although derived from the word ghayb, which means being not present, ghayba (absence) signifies self-annihilation and no longer having a relationship with the surrounding world, despite being present.

Travelers to the Ultimate Truth experiencing absence no longer have any interest in the laws that are in force in the life of existent beings and the conditions in which they find themselves. They have completely freed themselves from the states that belong to the carnal soul under the dazzling shower of the Divine gifts which have come uninterrupted to invade their hearts. In this state they are unaware of how and where they are or even of their own existence. Because of the intensity of the Divine manifestations that they experience, they no longer can see although they look, they can no longer hear although they listen, and they are lost in feelings of wonder while thinking.

For them, there is no difference between presence and absence. This can be partly explained by the analogy of the women who, when they saw Prophet Joseph, were so struck by his beauty that they cut their hands. Joseph’s beauty could only be a shadow of the shadow of the Divine Beauty, reflected from beyond many veils. If seeing Joseph’s face caused presence to change into some degree of absence, it does not require much explanation how the burning manifestations of the Divine Beauty can dazzle the eyes and bewilder minds.

Presence and absence change places, one turning into the other, only when initiates separate themselves from everything else other than the lights of His Essence. In this state, they feel and think of Him only and restrict their eyes to observing His manifestations exclusively. By so doing, they feel enveloped in His Presence completely and no longer see or hear whatever takes place and whatever is said. If, under the influence of some attributes of human nature, initiates come to see and hear things and happenings—which is called a “return”—all things other than God come into view and their hearts suffer an eclipse, without receiving light from the real Owner of light. They can free themselves from this eclipse by perfect love of and yearning for Him and by perfect resolution.

Like contraction and expansion, there can be long or short tides between feeling enveloped by God’s Holy Presence and feeling eclipsed from Him. Feeling enveloped by His Presence is sometimes understood as being synonymous with witnessing Him in His manifestations, sometimes as witnessing or vision of Him, and sometimes as watching Him. This station may cause an initiate to slip from the straight path because of the intensity of God’s manifestation of Himself with all His Names throughout the universe (Vahidi) or because of the concentrated manifestation of some of His Names on the initiate him or herself or another individual thing or being in particular (Ahadi). Therefore, both this station and the manifestations received in it must be viewed in the light of the Prophetic way. Otherwise, initiates who feel pervaded by these manifestations may go so far as to claim that they have seen the Divine Being Himself. Provided that one does not confuse the Essence of the Divine Being with His invading manifestations and utter words of pride, feeling enveloped by the Presence of the Divine Being means living in the shadow of the Realm of the Holy Presence, and is pure spirituality that has almost nothing to do 34

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Having been saved from the error of entanglement in knowledge that is mere information (i.e. has not yet become a state), and from the heedlessness arising from a state not based on knowledge, the initiate is favored with absence from the created and with the presence of the Creator.

anymore with the physical or animal dimension of our existence. Hafiz ash-Shirazi (d. 1291) says: If you, O Hafiz, desire to always feel enveloped by His Holy Presence; never be heedless or unmindful of Him. If you desire meeting with your Beloved, renounce the world and the worldly people.

These words of Hafiz are also important in expressing our understanding of austerity. “Shaykhu’lAkbar” Muhyi’d-Din ibnu’l-‘Arabi shares the same consideration: “A heart’s feeling enveloped by God’s Presence depends on its distance from people.”

The state which is called absence in respect to ourselves and presence in respect to God, the Ultimate Truth, has degrees according to the level of an initiate: • A lover of God leaves no room in the heart for anybody other than Him; fixes the gaze on Him only and continues normal relations with other things or beings only because of Him; feels, sees, and hears something of Him in whatever is encountered during the spiritual journeying.

• An initiate mindful of the rules of the way feels knowledge and state combined in the depths of his or her spirit. In other words, at the horizon reached, knowledge has become for the person second nature or a state. Having been saved from the error of entanglement in knowledge that is mere information (i.e. has not yet become a state), and from the heedlessness arising from a state not based on knowledge, the initiate is favored with absence from the created and with the presence of the Creator.

• A friend of God who has risen to the station in which everything is seen as annihilated in the Divine Being, not only feels the state and station attained, but is also so immersed in the manifestations of the Essence of the Divine Being that even His Names and Attributes are no longer discerned as

such. The person may unburden him or herself with words that sometimes suggest the transcendent Unity of Being, sometimes the Unity of the Witnessed.

Sometimes it may even occur that the uttered words imply a sort of pantheism or monism. It should not be forgotten that this arises from a confusion of the truth with something that is a total experience and that is tasted by the spirit. ‘Abdu’n-Nafi‘ expresses his feelings belonging to the station where one can easily fall into wonder and utmost astonishment, as follows: Look on, what is this amazing state!

I wonder whether it is absence.

Reason cannot perceive this ocean-like state; It is not possible to resist its waves.

This station is also that in which one knows the Divine Being with Himself, beyond knowing Him with His Names and Attributes. In this station, one knows the Divine Being with Himself, infers His Existence from Himself, and reaches Himself by Himself. One considers Him as the First and the Last, the All-Outward and the All-Inward; not as a spirit or a body, not as an essence or an accident, but rather as being absolutely free from occupying a place, from eating and drinking, being contained by time, changing and transforming, having form and color.

In this station, which is one of the highest stations and where one is at risk of lapsing and falling, one considers the All-Holy Being beyond all concepts of modality and hopes to view Him with the wonderstricken eyes of the heart.

Our Lord, do not let our hearts swerve after You have guided us, and bestow upon us mercy from Your Presence. Surely You, only You, are the All-Bestowing.

And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, ever-turning to God in contrition, and on his Family and Companions, the noble, honorable and godly ones.

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MEDICINE Rafiq Ebrahim

A Breakthrough in Medical Science Of all the extraordinary medical breakthroughs attributed to modern science, none may be more important – or revolutionary – than stem cell therapy.

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Since the pioneering research by Dr. Till and Dr. McCullach in 1960s,scientists have discovered new ways to derive stem cells from human embryos and grow them in labs. In 1998, Thomson et.al, from the University of Wisconsin, developed the first batch of human embryonic cells for use in medicine.

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here have been certain moments in human history that have stunned humanity and changed the way we thought. Some have even altered the very course of civilization.

The late twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have seen the realization of the fantastic dreams of scientists, researchers, and technological gurus. These dreams have changed how humans have lived and made us see and experience things we never believed to be possible. Humanity has crossed frontiers that were unknown before, enjoying the benefits of a myriad of advancements in technology. We have even found the cures for once incurable diseases.

We have seen tremendous transformations in every field of human scientific study including artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robots, animal cloning, computers, innovative internet devices, and thousands of other gadgets. Researchers and scientists constantly discover new technologies for the benefit of mankind. One of the most revolutionary breakthroughs has been the discovery and usage of stem cells.

Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can be differentiated into specialized cells and can divide, through mitosis, to produce more stem cells. These new cells can be used to treat diseased human organs. They destroy the diseased cells and grow healthy cells within the organ until the organ becomes disease-free.

The discovery of stem cells From 1961 to 1963, Doctor James Till and Doctor Ernest McCullach did pioneering research on hematopoietic (production of blood cells in the bone marrow) stem cells. Though they are called the discoverers of stem cells, some scientists are of the opinion that researchers were working on stem cells as early as 1918. Soon after Till and McCullach “discovered” stem cells, other scientists discovered ways to derive stem cells from mouse embryos. Scientists are now able to derive the cells from human embryos and grow them in labs. In 1998, a team led by James Thomson and Jeffrey Jones, from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, developed the first batch of human embryonic cells for use in medicine.

Sources of stem cells Embryos: Stem cells were initially obtained from umbilical cord blood just after birth, though there were strong protests in opposition to this practice by the leaders of many faiths. This movement somewhat restrained the procedure. Scientists later on learned how to extract stem cells from embryos that had been fertilized through in-vitro fertilization and donated for research. These embryonic cells can mature into any kind of human cell.

The brain and spinal cord: Some types of neural stem cells produce fatty insulation that protects nerves.

Skin: Cells obtained from skin can be genetically manipulated to behave like stem cells.

Bone marrow: These stem cells can transform into bone, fat, tendon, or cartilage cells.

Extraction of stem cells A patient is given local anesthesia to numb the body part. A doctor then performs a liposuction to remove fat tissue from the hip, waist, or other part of the body.

The fat tissue is spun in a centrifuge to separate stem cells from the tissue. These stem cells are reinjected into the patient’s body, directly into the joints, tendons, or ligaments – a procedure called Regenerative Stem Cell Therapy.

Regenerative therapy clinics There are currently hundreds of such clinics operating in many countries including United States, Canada, and Mexico. They offer cutting-edge technology to help restore patients’ health. However, some of these clinics are not approved by the FDA and are likely to jeopardize the patient’s health. The FDA has approved stem cell treatment for blood and immune disorders, certain types of cancer, and skin grafts for burns. There are doctors and clinics that offer stem cell treatment for all sorts of ailments with costs running in the thousands for therapies that the FDA has not approved. The FDA does not take action against these clinics because their usage is considered part of a medical procedure without the use of any drug.

The cosmetic industry also makes use of stem cells.

Cells that have been mixed with fat can be injected during a face-lift to make the skin appear shiny and youthful.

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Thousands of people benefit from stem therapy. However, certain cases document potential harmful effects on patients, especially those patients who go to clinics not approved by the FDA. Medical staff in such clinics are generally inexperienced in stem cell therapy.

Thousands of people benefit from stem therapy.

However, certain cases document potential harmful effects on patients, especially those patients who go to clinics not approved by the FDA. Medical staff in such clinics are generally inexperienced in stem cell therapy.

Linda Marsa’s article in the 2017 July and August issue of AARP Bulletin reports on some patients who either lost their lives or were seriously harmed after stem cell therapies. Two of them were from Florida.

They died after receiving stem cell injections. A third person in California developed bone fragments in her eyelids after a stem cell face-lift. In another incident, three older women lost their vision after they participated in a so-called clinical trial, for which they had paid in South Florida. They were injected with stem cells to treat their macular degeneration. Before the injection, they had functional vision, they could move without any assistance and they could watch TV. But there was the prospect of further deterioration, which basically meant that they could potentially lose their driver’s licenses. The content in the clinic website was too convincing that they agreed to pay $5,000 for injections in both eyes. In about thirty minutes, the tissue was harvested, and stems cells were injected into the vitreous cavity of both eyes. The injection was done by a nurse and no doctor supervised the procedure.

Unfortunately, only a few days after the injection, they felt severe pain and vision loss. Thomas Albini, an ophthalmologist at the University of Miami, thinks when the stem cells started dividing, they caused the retina to detach. “There was nothing we could do to bring their vision back,” Albini said. “All three are now legally blind and unable to live independently.”

The stem cell industry is rife with fraud, dishonest practitioners and malpractice. One should beware of such clinics and go to only those which have been approved by the authorities and where doctors are thoroughly conversant with new therapies.

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that work strictly as per the approval of FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) procedures. The Stem Cell Institute of America has centers in Illinois and is reputed to be a genuine place where patients are generally satisfied with the results of their procedures. The SCIA offers stem cell injections for arthritis and other degenerative conditions found in the knees, hips, shoulders, neck, and lower back. Doctors and nurses are highly trained to administer these treatments.

Other reputable clinics include the Stemedix Medical Clinic and the U.S. Stem Cell Clinic, both in Florida, along with a chain called the Cell Surgical Network which is based in California.

Dr. Mark Berman, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California, established Cell Therapy Centers in 2002. He claims that he and other physicians in his network have performed more than 5,000 stem cell treatments including on himself and his wife.

Sally Temple, a stem cell researcher at the Neural Stem Institute in Rensselaer, NY, and President of the International Society of Stem Cell Research, says: "We are going to see many treatments for diseases that are currently incurable. The results researchers are so excited about are only possible because of decades of tedious work to establish safety protocols, test concepts, and (to) learn how to grow, produce and manipulate stem cells. It is hard to have people understand how long this whole process takes. You would not believe what we have to do in my lab to prepare cells properly."

Stem cell treatment helps in many cases, but it is not yet approved for very serious conditions like strokes, heart ailments, or spinal cord injuries. Research is still ongoing and it may take decades to fully discover how stem cells can be utilized for such conditions.

Reference Angela Nice. “Dr. Mark Berman, and his innovative stem cell surgery,” Feb 12, 2016. New Skin Beverly Hills Posts.

REFLECTIONS

The torches of hope that promise revival on behalf of the future, and in different dimensions, are burning brightly.

Those enlightened spirits who interpret everything according to love and respect are continuing on their journey. They move towards reviving our exalted human values without getting caught up in anger, hatred, and assault, and they do not falter. God has never forsaken servants faithful to His door, as opposed to oppressive tyrants and despots – may His grace upon these servants never diminish!

***

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BIOLOGY Omer Yildiz

Our body is a miracle – and the functioning of our arteries and veins is evidence of our miraculous creation.

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male vascular system

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he human body is an ideal example of the perfect harmony between structure and function; every part serves a purpose.

Arteries and veins differ in many ways, including diameter, strength, durability, and valves. Arteries have thick walls that can withstand high pressure. When the heart pumps blood, there is high pressure in the arteries, which we call blood pressure. High blood pressure is necessary for the heart to pump the blood to parts of the body, especially to the brain. In fact, in order to send enough blood to the brain, the sympathetic nerves press against the muscles around the walls of the arteries, by which the pressure is raised further and blood carried to every part of the body. The walls of arteries are thus created thick and strong so that they can resist such high pressure. When the system breaks down and the pressure is higher than necessary, the arteries may tear, resulting in bleeding in the brain, paralysis, or even death.

The walls of the veins, in contrast, are created thin. The arteries are vessels that feed us, while the veins shuttle used blood back to the heart. The arteries do not expand much, nor do they store much blood. No more than 15% of the blood in the body is found in the arteries.

The veins can expand due to their thin walls and store more blood. A total of 65% of the blood is found in the veins. While the arteries are equipped with features to function with little blood and high pressure, the veins are built to hold more blood, but at a lower pressure. The veins function as a blood tank that is tapped immediately in times of bleeding, especially to delay the death of the brain. In case of bleeding when the brain cannot get oxygen, the body declares a state of emergency. The sympathetic nerves convey messages to the arteries and veins. The muscles in the arteries constrict and stop unnecessary flow into organs and tissues other than the brain and the heart. The aim is to send more blood to the brain. The veins constrict simultaneously, and the blood in their store is pumped first to the heart and then to the brain.

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It is dangerous when an artery bleeds. It may lead to excessive bleeding because of the high blood pressure, and death could ensue. Conversely, a person does not lose much blood when a vein bleeds, for blood pressure is virtually non-existent in the veins. Surgeons are especially careful about puncturing an artery during an operation because it is hard to stop the blood that spurts out of the arteries.

The arteries are not found close to the skin; but are located deep under the skin. The arteries, especially those in the arms and legs, pass from among the muscles so that they cannot be easily harmed. The veins are created immediately beneath the skin. Bleeding of a vein does not pose a huge threat as bleeding of arteries.

A question may tug at your mind at this point: why aren’t both vessels created deeper and thus protected?

Nurses cannot use the arteries when they administer medicine, blood, or serum because the arteries refuse blood from outside due to the high pressure. Therefore, only the veins accept serum or blood externally. As the veins are in plain sight right under the skin, the job of nurses is made easier. The jobs of surgeons also becomes easier because the arteries lie deep within and the veins lie along the surface.

The arteries do not have valves to stop the reverse flow of blood because the blood is already pumped with high pressure. There are valves only between the heart and the arteries. If it weren’t for these valves, the blood pumped from the heart would flow back, causing heart failure, and the brain would not receive blood. The veins by contrast are equipped with valves to stop blood from flowing back.

When we move our legs, the blood is jammed in the veins. The closing direction of the valves are placed so as to lead to the upward movement of the blood. When we move, the blood in our legs moves upward and when we stop moving the blood does not flow back down because the valves close with the end of the movement. The valves in our veins are present only in those that are below the heart. There is no valve in the vessels above the heart, as they would be rendered useless due to gravity.

We rarely think about our veins and arteries, but they have been perfectly created to serve our body.

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If it weren’t for these valves in the arteries, the blood pumped from the heart would flow back, causing heart failure, and the brain would not receive blood.

The veins by contrast are equipped with valves to stop blood from flowing back.

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CULTURE&SOCIETY Zara Khan

Can American Muslims generate and produce more holistic, nuanced, and embodied forms of celebration, culture, and sanctified expression?

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slam in America presents a growing field of research for social scientists who explore Muslim societies and the contentions that arise around them, given the current political and cultural context in the United States. Only around 10% of the new immigrants to the US are Muslims; thus a great majority of those who subscribe to Islam are already the ones who have been here for generations. African American Muslims make up the largest percentage of Muslims in America (around 40%).

Whether immigrants or indigenous, younger generations of Muslim communities in the US are facing challenges of identity formation, just like any other minority group, where values at home, especially as they are understood by earlier generations, do not always go hand in hand with the constantly transforming set of values that are imposed by the dominant culture outside the doorstep and in the palms of their very hands (i.e. personal devices and the universe of social media). With its capacity to nurture personal and communal identity, religion is an important dynamic in this equation in which habits, prejudices, dress codes, entertainment and many other social components have a major role to play.

With an inaugural conference titled “Islam in America: Civic and Religious Youth Identities” on October 21-22, 2017, Respect Graduate School in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has made an important academic contribution to this field.

Respect is an institution of higher education which grants Master’s degree in Islamic Studies. Founded in 2014, Respect has slowly grown indigenous roots in the Lehigh Valley’s various communities of faith and academic and artistic institutions.

The vision with which Respect enthusiastically launched its Inaugural Academic Conference, “Islam in America: Civic and Religious Youth Identities,” was two-fold.

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American Muslims have to turn back to nature with our whole perspectives. Land, language, experiences, and tradition are the soil from which emerge songs and rituals. American Muslims must generate cultural forms that give importance to music, joy, celebration, and community. “Is there an American Muslim song?” was the first to initiate the robust conference with her On the one hand, Respect aims to be an integrative Keynote Address. She was especially struck by the learning platform for Islamic Studies. To this end the emphasis on healthful youth development and civic graduate school develops events and programming roles in the conference call for papers. that serve as host sites for scholarly, professional, Acknowledging that American Muslims are expefaith-communal, and artistic networking. On the othriencing high anxiety and pressures, Mattson at once er hand, Respect would like to develop its own repucaptured her audience and delved into a number of tation for rigorous academic scholarship in Islamic directions that American Muslims must hasten to exStudies. In the thirteen months of planning that preplore and develop. These included: ceded the curtain’s draw on Saturday morning, Octo1. The “need for a sanctified expression,” to make ber 21st, Respect faculty and staff, aided by invaluable our interfaith relations, celebrations, and communal consultation from community allies, brainstormed expression of our human condition more beautiful. and researched ideas of concern to American MusSeveral decades of “cultural genocide” on account lims today. Organizers discussed questions of early of free literature that deems everything haraam (unchildhood and teacher education, diasporic Islam in lawful) has created a vacuum that American Muslims relation to youth culture, mosque cultures, the history must fill with creative, productive, organic, and celof faith communities in the Lehigh Valley, bicultural ebratory cultural expression. competencies, indigenous versus immigrant Muslim 2. The idea of “proprietary knowledge in religious groups, and many more. In the end, Respect decidlearning” should be investigated. Early Islamic legal ed on the civic and religious identities of American literature showed concern about religion becoming a Muslim youth as the Inaugural Academic Conference commodity. theme.

3. Reaffirming that “charity is not a substitute The conference was well-attended and well-refor justice.” American Muslims must be aware of inceived, and the high quality of papers and the salience equalities and the structures and processes that enof the conversations provoked in each of the panels able them, and work toward their reform. Because filled conference participants with a vigorous energy American Muslims’ biases can’t be willed away simply in learning, articulating, and addressing questions by citing the right texts and verses, we need to work of American Muslim youth identities in their civic toward institutional reform. Racism and patriarchy and religious dimensions. While a majority of panelare, after all, structural problems. ists were from different states within the US, some of 4. We must clarify and reorient our embodiment them were from the UK, and Canada. Moderators of Desertinants cover great distances in relation to land. American Muslims have to turn the panels were David Grafton of Hartford Seminary, searchHerran of food, andto yet they back nature with always our whole manage perspectives. Land, Rubie Ghazal of Moravian College, Giovanni of language, experiences, and tradition are the soil from Respect Graduate School and Temple University, Pato find their way home. How do such small which emerge songs and rituals. American Muslims tricia Anton of University of Pennsylvania, and Sheraforms difficult feat? must generatesuch cultural that give importance to rine Eid of the Muslim Association ofcreatures the Lehigh Val-accomplish music, joy, celebration, and community. “Is there an ley.

American Muslim song?” asked Mattson.

Dr. Ingrid Mattson, the London and Windsor Com5. Environmental and social justice must be apmunity Chair in Islamic Studies at Huron University proached with a holistic, integrated Islamic approach.

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Dr. Zara Khan

We must bring back a brotherhood of humanity and created things.

6. We must resist scapegoating and learn better mechanisms for relieving tension. Our community has a “social justice warrior phenomenon” that unhealthily manifests at times by uniting to grind down a person or group.

Dr. Mattson’s insightful prescriptions found intellectually rigorous interlocutors throughout the two-day conference. In the opening panel, “Pedagogy and Praxis: Sharing Best Practices in Spiritual Education,” conference attendees were presented with theoretical and practical problems and models for the spiritual education of American Muslim youth. UNC Chapel Hill graduate student Feyza Teke and Dr. Nuray Yurt presented findings from Peace Islands, a youth academy. They shared the activities that Peace Islands conducted with their youth around Martin Luther King’s legacy of leadership and service, nurturing social justice activism, women’s history month and empowerment, Earth awareness, and much more. In this way, educators were able to instill a value for service for a god-conscious life among youth. Long-time educator and Islamic school principal Bayyinah Muhsin gave a fruitful presentation of the ways in which the Waldorf education paradigm embodies many of the pedagogical practices of the Prophet Muhammad, may God’s peace and blessings be upon him. In Waldorf education, the spiritual

emphasis teaches children from the inside out. Muhsin made a compelling case for further research and practice among American Muslim educators for the spiritual development of our youth. Dr. Ozgur Koca, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Bayan Claremont Islamic Graduate School/Claremont School of Theology, presented a sophisticated argument for the benefits of teaching metaphysics to American Muslim youth. Islamic metaphysics, according to Koca, can serve as a tremendous resource for youth in confronting contemporary challenges, such as “extreme postmodern relativization of all truth claims, post-truth politics, tension between religious and scientific claims on the nature of the world, and reduction of religion into blind-faith or polarizing and violent exclusivism or excessive literalism.” Metaphysics can also serve a common language amongst adherents of different traditions and religions.

The next panel, “Social Transformation,” addressed three vital areas of American Muslim discourse and praxis today: serving those affected by mass incarceration, intellectual honesty with regard to historicity in contemporary debates over religious authority, and the chasm between the Qur’anic vision of women’s empowerment and the real conditions of inequity in Muslim societies. Erol Dincer, Respect student and organizer/volunteer for PA House of Hope, gave a heartfelt presentation of the service to families affected by mass incarceration provided by the organization. Across religious affiliations, PA House of Hope reaches out to families of incarcerated persons and provides visitation trips, gifts during holidays, and mentoring and financial support. Their guiding principle, as articulated by Said Nursi, is that ignorance, poverty, and disunity are three universal social ills that hinder society from becoming virtuous. Relwan Onikoyi, Arabic instructor and graduate student in Religion at Temple University, presented on the extremes of “westoxification” and “reactionary apologetics” among American Muslim debates on traditional authority and textual interpretation. Drawing on the scholarly arguments of Khaled Abou El Fadl, Scott Kugle, and Khaled El-Rouayheb, Onikoyi gave examples of various standpoints vis-à-vis historicity on apostasy and daraba (the Qur’anic verse on disciplining lewd wives). He enjoined American Muslims to keep sight of how reasonableness was historically employed as a criterion in Islamic debates. Dr. Parvez Ahmed of the University of North Florida presented on the inequality index rendered by the Global Gender Gap report. He pointed out the discrepancy between the Qur’anic vision of women’s empowerment and iniquitous indicators from the international statistical finding. Ahmed enjoined American Muslims to create positive pathways to girls’ and women’s success in our institutions and homes.

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American Muslims must accept that conditions are changing. The youth have inquisitive minds and it does not suffice to tell them that something is haraam (unlawful).

There must be dialog, between the generations.

Sunday morning’s opening panel was aptly titled “Separate but Equal? American Islam through the Fulcrum of White Supremacy.” This diverse panel drew on various histories tangential and constitutive of the American Muslim narrative today to highlight concerns of white supremacy. Dr. Mansa Bilal Mark King, Associate Professor of Sociology at Morehouse College, presented a detailed analysis of how the Africana Muslim narrative can resuffuse respect for Muslim youth. American Muslims must learn the robust and rich history of Africana Muslims in America.

Even before the significant invigoration of white supremacy under Donald Trump’s presidency, hip hop, youth culture, and “rock star” ulama (scholars) have connected American Muslim youth to Africana identity in different ways. One of the first ways to combat the tyranny of dark-skin stigma affecting both the American Muslim ummah (community) and the Global ummah is to learn of the existence of Africana Muslims, and highlight their distinctions, challenges, and victories; that is, “to move non-stigmatizing Africana Muslim stories into the center of Muslim perspectives.” Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and the founding Director of the Department of Multifaith Studies and Initiatives at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, presented on the history of American Jews as they moved through waves of racialization, persecution, acceptance, and integration. Kreimer spoke of several critical junctures in this history in a way that is instructive for American Muslims today. Student Heba Qureini of Missouri spoke of her experiences as a Muslim woman wearing a veil (hijab) in a rural, overwhelmingly conservative town. Qureini spoke of her experiences as the alien other in order to speak of the broader implications of observing hijab in an increasingly normalized white supremacist public culture.

Another forceful panel was entitled “Youth Leadership on Campus and in Community Mosques.” Muslim Chaplain and first Muslim president of the National Association of College and University Chaplains Adeel Zeb presented on the histories of the Muslim Students’ Association, Hillel, and Chabad. Zeb provided important lessons from these parallel yet distinct histories. Shi’i imaam and Resident Scholar for the Khoja Muslim community Nuru Mohammed joined the conference from

Heba Qureini of Missouri spoke of her experiences as a Muslim woman wearing a veil (hijab) in a rural, overwhelmingly conservative town.

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Birmingham, UK to provide practical suggestions for cultivating leadership among Muslim youth in interfaith activity. Given that diversity is deeply enshrined in our holy Books, fleeing diversity is fleeing nature. Drawing on the wise words of ‘Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, when he sent Malik to Egypt, Mohammed enjoined American Muslims to encounter either our brothers/sisters in faith, or our equals in creation. Our communities currently suffer a serious disintegration between older people and youth.

American Muslims must accept that conditions are changing. The youth have inquisitive minds and it does not suffice to tell them that something is haraam. There must be hewar, or dialog, between the generations. We must seek patience through prayer and be motivated by hubbul haqiqi, or true love. Four areas Imaam Mohammed encouraged participants to focus on in youth interfaith dialog were: lived dialog, i.e. practice; dialog of cooperation; dialog of religious experience; and theological dialog. Assistant Dean for Religious Life at Howard University and Muslim Chaplain Nisa Muhammad presented on the experiences of African American Muslim college students in their MSA (Muslim Students Association) encounters across predominantly white institutions and historically black colleges. She highlighted the many layers of challenges that Black Muslim students must face given the endemic and deeply engrained white supremacy that infects access to college, neighborhood policing, and intra-Muslim interactions. Muhammad offered several concrete, researched strategies that Muslim chaplains and other professionals can utilize to allay the micro aggressions and marginalization that Black Muslim students encounter on predominantly white campuses at the hands of fellow Muslim students and faculty. Examples of these include

inviting Black guest speakers to events, having Black khateebs and imaams, and cultivating shared spaces and activities where Black and immigrant Muslim students “grow up together in Islam” and “bonding takes place.”

In Islam in America‘s final panel “Cultural Hybridity in an Identity Politics Paradigm” presenters tackled the messy realia of cultural inter-penetration as it affects American Muslim youth identities. Dr. Liyakat Takim, the Sharjah Chair in Global Islam at McMaster University, Canada, presented a developed and thorough critique of some of the ills of Muslim communities. Aini Firdaus and Muhammad Rahman of Old Dominion University presented a thorough analysis of the various ways Indonesian American youth maintain and reinvent “moderation, inclusiveness, and Islamic manners” alongside the values of “a modern, civil and progressive America.” Firdaus and Muhammad gave several illustrative examples of how youth’s religious education is conducted in Indonesian American families, informal groups and formal institutions like schools and Islamic centers. The presenters focused on three areas: engagement with a capitalist economy, secular democracy and nationalism, and the cultural articulations of modernity and tradition. Recent Respect graduate Shahid Rahman presented on the election responses of South Asian millennials age 18-25, and provided much-needed context from the various personages in the Trump administration.

Overall, the conference was a blessed gathering where much intellectual and spiritual exchange took place. Participants benefitted from Dr. Ingrid Mattson’s thoughtful keynote address and the well-researched scholarship presented in all the panels on a myriad of subjects affecting American Muslim youth.

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A MOMENT FOR REFLECTION Justin Pahl

Life is one long, gradual breaking...

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When was the last time you stopped while taking the stairs two at a time and thought, 'How remarkable'? When did you last give thanks for ease with which you sunk into a chair, or slung a bag over your shoulder?

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1. aving a body is a strange thing – stranger, still, when you think about how rarely we consider our bodies and what goes on inside of them. When was the last time you stopped while taking the stairs two at a time and thought, How remarkable? When did you last give thanks for ease with which you sunk into a chair, or slung a bag over your shoulder? Like with many things, we tend to appreciate our bodies only when they break – forgetting, of course, that life itself is one long, gradual breaking.

On a cold, crisp, sun-kissed day last January, I went with two friends into the mountains outside my home, in Juneau, Alaska. The past week had brought rain in the city valley but snow up in the mountains – perfect conditions for skiing. Many of Juneau’s residents live for such weather: they suffer through long, mild winters when no snow falls just for these brief, glorious periods when the weather cooperates and the slopes are draped in soft, untouched powder.

Having grown up on the flatlands of the Midwest, skiing was still a curiosity to me. I’d only been a half dozen times – most recently on the gentle, eroded hills of the Poconos, in Central Pennsylvania. My knees still wobble when I pick up too much speed; my life still flashes before my eyes. But the speed is exhilarating.

I love the way my eyes water in the cold, and the wind rushes over my ears.

I was excited to finally ski in Alaska, too. And throughout the morning, my excitement was justified.

I picked my way down the mountain, falling occasionally, but generally avoiding disaster. By noon, I was ready to join my friends for some more difficult runs.

It was on one of these runs that my body broke – not seriously, mind you, but enough to recalibrate how I look at myself in the mirror; how casually I treat things like climbing the stairs or putting my shoes on.

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We were going down a steep slope, part black diamond and part blue square. I negotiated the toughest part of the hill when I felt a slight twinge in my left knee. Wanting to avoid injury, I decided to put most of the pressure on my right leg. Unfortunately, the slope ahead called for turning hard on my left edge. I hesitated, picked up too much speed, and with trees looming ahead, panicked: the edge of my right ski dug into the snow and my body hurtled forward once, twice, three times.

Skis are designed to break away when you fall – designed to protect the body. Mine, for some reason, did not break away, and as I tumbled forward, I felt my knee twist and then snap. When I finally came to a rest, covered in snow, I reacted the way knee injuries are portrayed in the movies: by grabbing my right knee and writhing in agony. I knew, immediately, that I’d torn something.

A few days later – after a kindly older gentleman had hitched me to a sled and gracefully skied me down to the lodge; after a visit to my doctor; after two agonizing days of being unable to take off my own shoes – my certainty was confirmed: I’d partially torn my right MCL. In the grand scheme of things, this was a minor injury. It would heal completely with rest and minor rehabilitation. Within two months, I’d be able to ride a bike again; I could run within three. By next winter, I’d be able to ski again. In fact, people in Juneau shrugged their shoulders when they learned about my injury.

Most of them greeted me with stories about the first time they’d blown out their knees. Tearing a knee ligament while skiing, it seemed, was a Juneau rite of passage.

Still: the injury changed how I looked at the world, how I felt about my body. I’ve always been a runner, but I’ve often hated the act of running. Now, barely able to walk, I yearned to spring a few hundred yards.

I’d often grown impatient about the five flights of stairs leading up to my and my wife’s apartment, but after the injury, I found myself dreaming about climbing the stairs just for fun. Even simple, silly things seemed like gifts: for two weeks, all I wanted was to be well enough to put my own shoes on.

Slowly, of course, my knee did heal, just as the doctor promised. The pain lessened. Soon, I could put my own shoes on; shortly after that, I could start taking stairs one at a time. Two months later, I did indeed get back on a bike – and two weeks after that, I found I could take stairs two at a time again.

But I find myself stopping, from time to time, in the midst of seemingly trivial activities. While bolting up the stairs, I’ll catch myself thinking, How cool is this? While jumping effortlessly out of bed in the morning, I’ll break into a big smile. I’m reminded of a lesson that I too often forget – that from suffering and pain, there is often grace to be gained.

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We exist on a body, though I suspect we rarely think of the Earth as one. But if you look closely enough, you’ll be reminded of the similarities between us and our planet. A river delta from above looks a lot like the veins branching off on the insides of our wrists; the bones of the hand resemble the foothills of a mountain range.

It goes without saying that we take this large body for granted, maybe more than we take our own for granted. Not only are we in the process of destroying it, but those of us who are horrified by this have been mostly petrified by a sense of hopelessness: what can one person do against the overwhelming tide of climate change, the oil companies, a stupid, cruel ruler, a populace largely more concerned with carnal desires than the health of the planet, and against my own wants for pleasure and ease?

Some people, of course, haven’t yet given into despair. Leonardo DiCaprio has the privilege and the resources to make a documentary (though he also owns a half dozen homes and jets around the world); Michael Mann, the brilliant Penn State professor, wades into the hostile maw of Congress and stands firm for reason and moderation. But many of us, I think, have accepted that catastrophic climate change is inevitable.

Not my nephew, though. He’s six years old and a kindergartener in Appleton, Wisconsin. The other day, he decided that he wanted to help out mother earth.

So with his father – my brother – he got two trash bags and a flashlight, and he went out and picked up trash until the bags were full. A small gesture, no doubt, but one that he was proud to have done. And it made me think about how many of us could do the same thing with our evenings, but instead choose to moan about the state of the world on Twitter, or update our Instagram photos, or binge the newest Netflix show.

Climate change is inevitable, so we may as well enjoy what time we have left, right?

But maybe we’re just not seeing the Earth – our collective body – with clear eyes. Maybe we’ve gotten too used to this body; we’ve gotten too comfortable to protect it. I don’t want to make too big of a deal out of what my nephew did. Kids picking up trash won’t get rid of the oil companies, won’t make rulers more compassionate, and won’t help people understand basic science. But he still looks at our planet with clear eyes. He still sees it as a wondrous thing – as a body and a gift. And he still believes that this tired, wearied body we call home is worth fighting for.

It’s a lesson that the wearied among us – our own bodies continuing their gradual slide into entropy – would do well to remember.

HEALTH Gunel Mehraliyeva

Teenagers, and especially teenage girls, have a high risk of developing eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia. It’s important to know the causes and symptoms of these disorders.

0u look great. Have you lost weight?”

Most of us enjoy such compliments.

Our culture’s messages maintain the importance of being slim. Dieting, exercising, skipping meals, body dissatisfaction, and a desire to lose weight are the norm for 70 percent of teenagers (Siegel and et al. 5). When these problems become more serious, they can be classified an eating disorder.

Eating disorders are not problems with food.

Eating problems start out when someone wishes to lose weight, and this wish turns into behavior that is out of control. An eating habit becomes an eating disorder when it satisfies the psychological need of that person.

Eating disorders are a combination of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Anorexia nervosa is a purposeful attempt to stop eating. Bulimia nervosa is eating a large amount of food in a short time and then making one’s self ill, “purging” one of the food they just ate. Binge-eating is using food to deal with emotional distress. Eating disorders can be symptoms of other psychological problems; a study in 2003 found that people with anorexia are 56 times more likely to comment suicide than people without anorexia (Polivy and Herman).

Some teenagers develop eating disorders because of familial influences, psychosexual problems, or sociocultural factors.

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Familial influences, such as using food as rewards, parental critical comments, and biological factors, can cause eating disorders in teenagers. Some problematic behaviors can seem innocent. For example, many parents use food to comfort their children after a stressful day. Food can act as a drug and calm a child’s anxiety (Siegel and et al. 32). In this case, the food may become a problem for teenagers who do not know how to deal with stress and painful feelings.

If over-indulgence is a problem, so is total prohibition. If parents try to limit their children’s access to junk food, children may overeat these prohibited foods. This behavior may lead to eating disorders in the future (Polivy and Herman).

Research has shown that parents of teenagers with eating disorders are overprotective. This kind of parent complains and criticizes their children’s appearance.

Appearance-related teasing or critical comments, even in jest, can increase the risk of eating disorders in teenagers. Furthermore, teenagers with a high risk of eating disorders have usually been more criticized and less accepted in their families. On other hand, teenagers who have a good relationship with parents and other family members are at a low risk of developing eating disorders. Emotional support from families can help teenagers develop positive body images and eating behaviors.

Some teenagers’ eating disorders are biologically inherited. Genetic factors are reasons for approximately 56 percent of the risk for developing an eating disorder (Polivy and Herman). In addition, statistics show that teenagers who have a family member with an eating disorder develop anorexia nervosa 12 times more, and bulimia four times more, than other teenagers without this family history (Polivy and Herman). Furthermore, mothers who themselves have an eating disorder have a negative influence on their children’s eating behaviors.

Some parents with eating disorders feed their children irregularly and use less nutritional food.

Psychosexual problems in teenagers can also cause eating disorders. Whenever extreme weight lost occurs, psychological depression might be the cause. Teenagers who are eating disordered, eat because they are psychologically hungry (Siegel and et al. 7). Emotional stability, self-criticism and perfectionism play a large role in the development of eating disorders. The pre-anorexic is the model teenager, never complaining and very helpful. On the other hand, teenagers with anorexia and bulimia are competitive and perfectionists. They are highly critical of themselves and get upset if they fail to meet their goals. This dissatisfaction can drive them toward eating disorders (Polivy and Herman).

Gender identity, such as discomfort with one’s own sex, can cause eating disorders, too. During the developmental period many teenagers face physical changes in their body. Female teenagers want to decrease the overall size of their bodies; however, males want to increase their upper bodies. Research shows that in 2005, 45.6 percent of high school students were trying 54

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to lose weight (Polivy and Herman). Female teenagers displayed a higher risk of eating disorders because young girls are encouraged to pay more attention to others’ opinions about how they should look.

Finally, sociocultural factors, such as social pressure and media influence can cause eating disorders in teenagers. These days, the ideal woman’s body image is much discussed. Society is brainwashing teenagers into believing that when they are thin they are accepted (Polivy and Herman). Sometimes, romantic partner or peer influence can cause eating disorders.

Relationship problems, loneliness, and conflicted connections can lead to destructive behavior. Furthermore, teenagers who have eating disorders seek social approval, and lower peer acceptance is often blamed for an increased risk of eating disorders.

Cultural expectations can contribute to disordered eating. Sometimes, cultural expectations and direct or indirect messages about body image can be cruel. Teenagers are told that if they want to be happy, they should be in good shape and successful in school. Studies show that Hispanic and Asian-American teenage girls have greater body dissatisfaction than Caucasian girls. This can be partly attributed to the kinds of “ideal” bodies portrayed in popular media. Teenagers consume popular media and want to resemble their favorite stars. Media highlights that young, thin, and stylishly dressed actors and models are happy and successful. Teenagers who watch more shows than average tend to view themselves as overweight and unhappy. There have been some national and international attempts to change these unrealistic, photoshopped, and unachievable portrayals of men and women, but the dominant image is still that young and thin are ideal (Ata and et al.).

Familial influences, psychosexual problems, and sociocultural factors can contribute to the development of eating disorders in teenagers. It’s important to educate teenagers about the causes and symptoms of eating disorders, as their understanding of eating disorders can lead them to get professional help.

But it’s also important for teenagers’ families to help them. Developing healthier relationships, establishing responsibilities, and learning to listen effectively can help teenagers’ families communicate with them and help them to cope with an eating disorder.

References Ata, Rheanna N., Alison Bryant Ludden, and Megan M. Lally.

“The Effects of Gender and Family, Friend, and Media Influences on Eating Behaviors and Body Image during Adolescene.” Journal of Youth and Adolescene 36.8 (2007): 1024-37.

ProQuest. Web. 12 July 2014.

Henderson, Eric. The Active Reader. Canada: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.

Polivy, Janet, and C.P. Herman. “Causes of Eating Disorders.” Annual Review of Psychology 53 (2002): 187-213. ProQuest. Web. 12 July 2014.

Siegel, Michele, Judith Brisman, and Margot Weinshel. Surviving an Eating Disorder. 3rd ed. Vol. 274. United States of America: Collins Living, 2009.

Schaefer, Jenni. Goodbye Ed, Hello Me. Vol 219. United States of America: McGraw Companies, 2009.

EDUCATION Esra Akdogan

Prejudice is deeply ingrained in humans.

The social perception of anger has been shown to lead to more stereotypes and prejudices. Anger affects our ability to be rational. Irrationality provides fertile ground for prejudice.

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rejudices are attitudes that may lead to the stereotyping of and discrimination against certain groups, usually minorities. Psychologists have conducted detailed studies on prejudice. In this article, we’ll approach prejudice, especially in education, from a psychological perspective.

What is psychological prejudice and discrimination? How does it occur? What factors are associated

with it?

Prejudice involves, 1) a stereotypical idea that can be defined as an unfounded belief against a group of people; and 2) it is accompanied by strong emotions (Quillian, 2006).

In one of the first psychological studies of prejudice, Allport (1954) said prejudice is “incorrect or based on an inflexible generalization dislike.” Since Allport’s study, the psychological theories of bias have become more sophisticated. The name of the group being discriminated against, the words used against them, and the methods of discrimination may vary, but prejudicial attitudes are the common axis. The most common are nationalism, racism, sexism, and homophobia.

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Classroom communication often suffers when students are bored or unenthusiastic about their schoolwork. Teachers should work hard to develop engaging lessons with interesting, relevant activities. Thoughtprovoking assignments, technology-enhanced lectures, and creative projects spur classroom communication.

Unfortunately, prejudice is deeply ingrained in humans. For example, the social perception of anger has been shown to lead to more stereotypes and prejudices (Bodenhausen, Sheppard & Kramer, 1994).

Anger affects our ability to be rational. Irrationality provides fertile ground for the blossoming of prejudice.

Prejudices are used, in thoughts and behaviors, without realizing it. Most of the time we do not accept that we, ourselves, are prejudiced, even though it is likely we hold, consciously or not, some prejudiced ideas. Becoming conscious of our own prejudices is an important step towards eliminating them.

Among many possible sources of prejudice, the following come forward more prominently than others: Prejudice is learned in childhood: Children often learn prejudice from their parents or other adults in their community.

Prejudice is part of one’s personality: This view argues that prejudice is inherent in people born with authoritarian personalities.

Prejudice as a result of group membership: People tend to create an “us” vs “them” dynamic. When a person is a member of a group, they often stereotype members of other groups.

Prejudice can, unfortunately, exist in education settings. Teachers and students are human, after all, and are therefore influenced by psychological biases, like the fundamental attribution error, when we assume that others who behave in a certain way do so because of their character (a fixed trait) rather than in response to environmental circumstances. In-group bias leads us to assign positive characteristics and motivations to people who are similar to us.

As Bertrand Russell stated, “The good individual is he who ministers to the good of the whole, and the 56

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good of the whole is a pattern made up of the goods of the individuals.” It is on the shoulders of teachers to build bridges between each person and society by making the best of schools, and mobilize the unique potential embedded in personalities for the use of society, and more generally, humanity. To be able to reveal the true potential of every student, it is important to treat each one of them as valuable members of our society. The greatest and most dangerous waste is the waste of human capital. The emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects of human nature offer such a wide spectrum of colors that the ideal teacher will enable their students to discover their own colors within this spectrum.

If neither the teacher nor the student pushes the communication or expresses their expectations, it is very likely that they have developed some sort of a prejudice towards each other. Students sometimes feel they are taking up too much of a teacher’s time with frequent communications. Teachers may assume that a child who does not ask many questions is uninterested or does not have any issues to address. Classroom communication often suffers when students are bored or unenthusiastic about their schoolwork.

I know it is impossible to entertain students all day, but teachers should work hard to develop engaging lessons with interesting, relevant activities. Thoughtprovoking assignments, technology-enhanced lectures, and creative projects spur classroom communication and interaction. On the other hand, outdated and monotonous assignments create communication barriers, and students just want the class to be over.

Occasionally, misunderstandings can result in prejudice. Teacher must disentangle the underlying message in communications from students and avoid making unwanted assumptions. If you are about to give an opinion, it is best to think a bit about it before

moving ahead. As for students, there is nothing wrong in disagreeing with your teacher but the conversation should be constructive. But similarly, there is nothing right about thoughtless opinions.

A good educator should be able to listen to the silent words that pour from their students’ tongues of disposition. Students may not talk to the teacher directly, but their looks, facial expressions, their interactions with their teacher, and their voice levels and tones, all reflect their inner emotions.

Students, being young, do not think about their biases rationally; they think about them emotionally. Biases make students feel mistrustful. "Mistrustful" is just that: a feeling. Our natural response is to avoid its source. If we have prejudices, we hide our feelings. If we get a bad grade, we blame teachers. Academic success does not come from how smart or motivated students are. It comes from how they feel about their biases. Changing students’ perspective on biases is the greatest gift a teacher can give. Imagine having a classroom of students who are engaged and constantly improving; it is every teacher's dream.

Building friendships, empathy, trust, and tolerance are some of the best ways to break down barriers of prejudice. It is suggested that actively trying to take the perspective of another person—as opposed to trying to be “objective”—increases one’s ability to not fall prey to stereotypical views of others. Actively inducing empathy for another person has been tied to a willingness to consider environmental circumstances more closely when dealing with misbehavior. One recent study has found that training teachers in empathy cut student suspension rates in half.

Positive cross-group friendships can have a contagious effect in other people within social groups, turning whole communities into warmer, more receptive spaces for interactions. The success of all of this is related to teachers’ role-modeling the kind of behavior they want to see in their students.

A good friend is the one who points out our mistakes and biases.

Learning from their warnings is important to understand and acknowledge our biases, and the best way to move forward is to improve ourselves by not repeating the same mistakes again.

To be able to reveal the true potential of every student, it is important to treat each one of them as valuable members of our society. The greatest and most dangerous waste is the waste of human capital.

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DIALOGUE

I See No Difference

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do not see color, or culture, or any sort of difference about anyone because that leads to discrimination; everyone is the same anyways.”

My ears picked up on this conversation right before a crowded organic chemistry lecture.

Why students in the organic chemistry section ended up discussing deep ethics, embedded within the complexities of social diversity, is beyond me. Yet, this sentence lingered in my mind, and for longer than I would have anticipated.

I wanted to stop the professor from speaking about aldehydes, and turn everyone’s attention to the sentence I’d heard. I had not seen the person who voiced this opinion; it was a faceless opinion. Yet the urge to address this mentality festered in my whole self, until I was able to let it cook for a while before writing about it.

Do not get me wrong. I am a supporter of equality, and an activist when it comes to human’s rights.

If there is injustice or discrimination anywhere on this Earth, it eats away at my core until I let people know about it and can take action-based steps. However, equality does not equate to the sameness of all people. Ideally, it would be great if the human race The Fountain

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Zuleyha B. Ozturk

believed in one set of morals, with one culture, and everyone was the same; or if no one saw the differences between each culture, race, religion, gender, etc.

Except, hold on a second: this would actually be agonizingly boring! This is the human race, and with it comes the complexities of identity and diversity.

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, diversity has two definitions. One is “the quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.” The second is “the state of having people who are different races or who have different cultures in a group or organization.” Both definitions let us reach the conclusion that people are different. Depending on your location in the world, everything changes, from architecture to communities to family ideals.

Every single meticulous detail that comes with living as a human being depends on the community that surrounds you, the culture you are brought up with; your heritage, your gender, and many other things.

So based on these two definitions, you might be asking: why am I so hung up on a statement made by a stranger in a public university in the ripe hours of the morning?

Imagine a world where every single person thinks, talks, looks, and believes like you.

Sounds like a nightmare, right? Now you understand the importance of diversity.

After all, Rumi always put it best: “Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.

Well, to put it simply, diversity is important. Having the ability to see the differences between cultures, races, genders, religions, etc., provides a new perspective to one’s perception of humanity’s complexities. In addition to a broadened perspective, the ability to understand differences also results in the ability to sympathize with people that are inside and outside of your local community. (Also, diversity means different cultures which results in variations of different and wonderfully tasty foods from many origins – Yum!) All of the positive correlations that come with diversity rely on one important aspect that needs to be implemented in daily life (both private and public) to produce a functioning society. That is acceptance. We must embrace our identities while also accepting difference. Without the acceptance of diversity, its positive results diminish, and we are left with prejudice, which can lead to discrimination and injustice, especially when the wrong people are given the right amount of power.

I could provide a scientific rant to support my claim. Science has already shown that diversity is the best option for survival. However, not everyone is a scientist, and not everyone wants to learn about science. That is why all it takes to realize the importance of diversity is a daydreaming session. Let us start this daydreaming session; stop anything else you might be doing and read closely.

Imagine yourself, with all of your flaws, and everything you believe in, with all of the information stored in your brain. Now imagine every single individual on this earth, all 7.125 billion people, replaced by you. Everyone is you, and you are everyone; therefore, everyone is the same, and you are blatantly blind to any sort of difference, because it does not exist. Nobody objects to anybody because everyone agrees on the same things. Everyone is equal and the same. Yes, you are right! You have just pictured a nightmare, or a perfectly bland horror film.

As an ode to the stranger in my organic chemistry lecture, I encourage each person reading this essay to put on your high-definition color goggles and view the world with all of its ethnicities, cultures, genders, religions, and other differences. Through chaotic diversity, keep your heart open to acceptance. Agree to disagree with people and smile at the fact that their brain is sewn in a different pattern than your own. As a result of this widened perspective of a colorful world, you will see more similarities than differences.

After all, Rumi always put it best: “Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.”

References

"A Quote by Rumi." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 June 2016.

"Simple Definition of Diversity." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 08 June 2016.

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SYSTEM BLINDNESS AND THE LIFESPAN OF A SOCIETY QUESTION: It usually is inevitable to lose motivation in good works, which, like other things, may become ordinary and monotonous in time. Is this a consequence of system blindness? What can be done to prevent such blindness?

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he credit for all of our achievements is first and foremost due to the Divine favors that shower abundantly over those who seriously endeavor for their lofty ideals. For these achievements, which are but the results of Divine favor, to continue, the sincerity of purpose and commitment to the core ideal of this issue must remain. We have no right to ignore these showers of blessings and lay a personal claim to the achievements, nor can we let the means replace the purpose; for then we will also fall like all previous societies did.

For a comparison, there are many who devote themselves to humanity and travel around the world for good work. Although they do not suffer for the good of humanity to the degree of for-

getting their way home, their spouse’s face, or their children’s names, they are welcome in every land they go to, and receive appreciation for the services they fulfill.

However, the endeavors they make in the places they go are becoming a means for good works with worldwide benefit. So, failing to recognize the Divine support, guardianship and protection behind all of these beautiful services, laying personal claim to them or thinking that what has come about as a result of Divine grace and favors will always continue, even without keeping up our spiritual state, is a serious kind of blindness.

Rising to an esteemed position, becoming institutionalized, or establishing a well-built system, might cause a person to become blind to the truth. In addition,

people affected by such blindness might then fail a Divine test or fall for a Divine stratagem by laying personal claim to the graces granted by God. Thus, instead of acknowledging blessings in the face of success and turning to God with thankful praise, they might be overcome by pride and conceit. All of these are factors which will bring about a person’s fall.

As stated by sociologists and social historians as well, after enjoying certain achievements, almost every people and society experienced, to different degrees, a period of blindness as a result of the dizziness of victory. This situation caused societies to disintegrate, and consequently brought about their end.

Gaining insight into the fall of Rome, the Byzantines, the Seljuks, and the Ottomans will reveal that all of them actually shared the same destiny in this sense.

In order to save a society from such blindness and increase its lifespan, it is necessary to constantly focus it on higher targets and give people relevant duties to busy them with good works. With their functioning mind, open spirit and a conscience that embraces the entire universe, they must constantly be engaged in an activity and never lose their metaphysical vigilance. If you do not direct people to high ideals and then occupy them with certain tasks for the sake of realizing these ideals, the devil will find work for their idle hands to do.

On the other hand, it is necessary to take into consideration different cultural environments in the world and make favorable use of common points and correctly determine the common ground. Afterwards, it is necessary to renew the good works you are occupied with and find some new ways and methods according to conjuncture so that you do not develop blindness. Otherwise, it is inevitable that you will become dull, lose your purpose, and rot.

In particular, the people who are at the forefront with the most responsibilities must close their doors to self-indulgence and worldliness. When worldliness beckons temptingly they must answer, “Do not waste your energy in vain, the door is bolted shut!” Let alone worldly expectations, they should not even cherish otherworldly expectations in return for the services they fulfill. Their philosophy of life should be in line with Bediuzzaman (who said): “Neither do I have a passion for Paradise, nor a fear of Hell. Given that I see the faith of my people is saved, I accede to burning in the flames of Hell; for while my body is burning, my heart will be a rose garden.”

Orbit of the heart and mind Those who ascribe issues to themselves will experience—tomorrow if not today, or the day after that—a “fatigue of excitement” and die in spirit. As for self-effacing people however, they will have proven the existence of God in a way and taken refuge in His power and strength. Since such people rely on the Infinite Source of power and strength, they pass mountains and rivers, but never experience fatigue of spirit and lose nothing from their power or strength.

In this respect, people at the forefront of society must constantly keep alert so that they can enliven those around them. People who do not act in the orbit of the heart and spirit cannot serve as a means for others’ revival. Those who have lost their liveliness and enthusiasm, who are spiritually decayed, are no good to themselves, let alone able to kindle vitality, love or excitement in others. In particular, those who give in to fear, comfort, self-indulgence and home-addiction, or who take advantage of their position in order to allocate a personal share from what belongs to the people, definitely cannot breathe life into others.

The factors mentioned so far may not suffice to prevent the death of a society completely, since death is inevitable for societies, as it is for people.

However, by being careful about the points mentioned above, it is possible to delay a seemingly inevitable fall or collapse for a society and lengthen its life span.

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S C I E N C E S Q U A R E // Hıdden Oceans ın Frozen Worlds

Searching for alien life, a new study from NASA suggests that some icy worlds in our outer solar system, including Pluto, Eris and other trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) may harbor liquid water oceans beneath the surface. These frigid worlds are too cold to have liquid water on their surfaces, where temperatures are usually below minus 200 degrees. But new evidence shows that there may have layers of liquid water beneath their icy crusts. Underground oceans have been previously suggested in a number of icy worlds such as the Saturn satellites Titan and Enceladus. It is considered that these subsurface oceans stay liquid as a result of a mechanism called "tidal heating." The powerful gravitational pull of these worlds' giant parent planets result in the stretch and flex of their interiors which heat up because

Saxena P. et al. Relevance of tidal heating on large TNOs. Icarus, December 2017.

of the friction. The NASA team used the equations for tidal heating and calculated its contribution to the “heat budget” for a wide variety of discovered and hypothetical TNO-moon systems. Their analyses revealed that tidal heating can be a tipping point that may have preserved oceans of liquid water beneath the surface of large TNOs like Pluto and Eris to the present day.

Tidal heating is believed to be only a "tipping point" as there's another factor in play: the heat produced by the decay of the objects' radioactive elements. These subsurface oceans are potential reservoirs of water and life, which are two critical elements for extraterrestrial life. This study further supports the idea that our solar system may harbor many more potentially habitable worlds than previously thought.

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Noah D. et al. This time it’s personal: the memory benefit of hearing oneself. Memory, December 2017.

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Readıng Aloud Boosts Memory

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A new study found that the dual effect of both speaking and hearing helps encode the memory more strongly, hence the act of reading and speaking text aloud is a generally more effective way to remember information than reading it silently or just hearing it read aloud.

The study recruited 95 college students, asking them to remember as many words as possible from a list of 160 words. In one session, they read a list of words into a microphone, then returned two weeks later for a follow-up. In some cases, the participants read the words presented to them aloud, while in others, they either heard their own recorded voice played back to them, heard recordings of others reading the words, or read the words silently to themselves. Afterward, they were tested to see how much they remembered from the list. The participants remembered more words if they had read them aloud compared to all other conditions, even the one where people heard their own voices reading the words. Hearing your own voice seem to add a substantial improvement on memory. This could stem from synergistic interactions of two biological processes. First, motor processing cues are activated as a result of the act of speaking aloud because your mouth is physically mouthing the words. Second, your auditory processing is also activated because you’re hearing the words, and in addition to hearing words, you’re hearing them in your own voice. It is also possible that production is more memorable at a higher cognitive level because it includes a distinctive, selfreferential component. These observations emphasize the invaluable role of rehearsals in learning and remembering. In summary, reading aloud in the moment is a very effective memory tool.

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Kelly NJ et al. Hypoxia activates cadherin-22 synthesis via eIF4E2 to drive cancer cell migration, invasion and adhesion. Oncogene, October 2017.

A New Drug to Stop the Cancer Cells

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Scientists found a way to decrease the spread of cancer by hindering a protein that keeps tumor cells together and allows them to invade tissues. Tumors that have outgrown their blood supply, and are therefore deprived of oxygen, are the most difficult to treat, as the cells within are capable of spreading rapidly and doing the most tissue damage. Consequently, higher levels of hypoxia in a tumor are strongly linked to poor survival rates in cancer patients. Analyzing over a hundred breast and brain cancer patient tumor samples, researchers found that the more the tumor was deprived of oxygen (also called hypoxic), the more cadherin-22 gene was expressed in it.

They also found that the more cadherin-22 is expressed in a tumor, the more advanced the cancer stage and the worse the prognosis is estimated for the patients. Cadherin-22 is located on cell surfaces, allowing hypoxic cancer cells to stick together and migrate collectively as a group. When researchers genetically removed cadherin-22 from the cultured cancer cells in the hypoxia conditions in the lab, they found a dramatic reduction in migration and invasion rates of breast and brain cancer cells by up to 90 percent. This study highlights cadherin-22 as a potential new target of cancer therapy and leaves the challenge for cancer biologists to find a treatment or a drug that can block cadherin-22 to potentially prevent cancer cells from moving, invading and metastasizing.

ISBN 9781597849326

On Life, Knowledge, and Belief

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We sent off doves for a lifetime of peace.

We took action with love, and dreamed of embracing all.

Our hearts are broken But we never gave up.