Man, with respect to action and bodily endeavors, is no more than a weak animal, a helpless creature. So limited a circle is the realm at his disposal in this respect that his fingers can touch its circumference, and such are the weakness, impotence and indolence of man that even the domestic animals are influenced by them. If, for example, domesticated goats and asses are compared with their wild counterparts, great differences will be observed between them.

But as a passive, recipient being who needs to pray and petition, man is a worthy traveller allowed to stay for some time in the guest-house of this world. He is the guest of a Generous One, Who has put the treasures of His infinite Compassion at his disposal, and subjugated to him His peerless works of creative power which are his servants. Also, He has prepared for the use and pleasure of His guest such a vast area of spectacle that its radius is as far as sight or even imagination can reach.

Now then, if man, by relying on his physical capacity and innate abilities takes the worldly life as his goal and concentrates on the pleasures of this life, he will suffocate within a very narrow circle. Furthermore, the parts of his body and his senses and faculties will bring suit and witness against him in the Hereafter. But if he knows himself to be a guest and spends his life within the limits approved by his generous Host, he will lead a happy and peaceful life and attain to the highest rank among the creation. In the Hereafter, he will be rewarded with an everlasting life of bliss, and the members of his body and all his faculties will bear witness in his favour.

All the wonderful faculties of man have not been given him so that he might use them in this trivial worldly life, but they have been given for an important life of eternity. When compared to animals, man is seen to have many more faculties and senses whereas the pleasure he can take from merely physical life is much less than that of an animal. Every single pleasure of the worldly life bears the traces of thousands of pains, and is spoiled with the sorrows left from the past, the fears of the future, and the disappearance of the pleasure itself. But this is not the case with an animal. Its pleasures are free from pains and its enjoyments are without anxiety. Neither is it affected by the sorrows of the past, nor can anxieties for the future prevent it from the enjoyment of its life. It leads a comfortable life, and praises its Creator.

To conclude, if man, who has been created on the best pattern, concentrates on the worldly life, he is reduced to a rank a hundred times lower than a sparrow, although he has a hundred times as many and developed faculties as an animal. In another treatise, I explained this fact in the form of a parable. I will now repeat it, as it is related to the subject.

A man gives one of his servants ten gold lira and orders him to have a suit made for himself of some particular type of cloth. He gives a thousand gold lira to another servant of his and sends him to the bazaar with a shopping list. The former has an excellent suit made for himself of cloth of finest quality. The latter acts foolishly. He does not notice how much money was given to him, nor reads the shopping list, but thinks he should imitate his friend. Therefore, he goes to a shop, and gives all of the thousand gold lira in exchange for a suit. That unfortunate servant then returns to his lord and recieves a severe punishment and a terrible torment.

Anyone with a bit of intelligence perceives that the thousand gold lira were not given to the servant to buy a suit, but for a very important transaction.

Similarly, the spiritual faculties and the feelings and senses with which man has been endowed, are much more developed than those of animals. For example, his eye can identify all degrees of beauty; his sense of taste, his tongue, can distinguish the various tastes of all kinds of food, his intelligence can penetrate into the many details of visible realities; his heart yearns for all ranks of perfection, and so on. Whereas, the faculties of animals (with the exception of some one particular faculty which greatly develops in each animal according to its particular duty) can realize only a very little development, if any.

The reason why man has so many faculties is that man’s senses and feelings have developed very far owing to his mind and intellect. The large variety of his needs has caused him to evolve different types of feelings, and to become very sensitive to all kinds of things. Also, due to his comprehensive nature he has been given such desires as are turned to several aims and objectives. Because of the diversity of his essential (natural) duties, his senses and faculties have greatly expanded. Furthermore, since he has an inclination and capacity to perform all types of worship, he has the potential to realize all kinds of perfection.

Obviously, this kind of richness in faculties and abundance of potentialities can by no means have been given to him for an insignificant, temporary, worldly life. They exist in man because his essential duty is to perceive his obligations that are directed to endless aims, to affirm his impotence, poverty and insufficiency in the form of worship, to study by his far-reaching sight and penetrating understanding and to bear witness to the glorification of Allah by all creation, to discern and be grateful for the aid of the All-Gracious One sent in the form of bounties, and to gaze and, reflect upon, and draw warning from, the miracles of the Power of the Lord manifested in His works of creation.

O world-worshipping man, who are charmed by the worldly life and ignorant of the meaning of your nature as the best pattern of creation! Once I saw the true nature of this worldly life in an imaginary vision, as follows:

I happened to be on a long journey. My Lord had caused me to set out on this journey, and had assigned to me sixty gold lira, which would be given to me in instalments on different occasions. This went on for some time and after a while I arrived at an inn where an entertainment was going on. I gambled away my last ten gold lira there in one night of entertainment and notoriety. When it was morning, I had no money to buy the provisions that I would need at my destination. All that remained to me of my allowance was pains and sorrows and regrets left by sins and illicit pleasures.

I was in that wretched state, when a man turned up and said to me: ‘You have lost all you had, and hence you have deserved punishment. Moreover, you will go on to your destination with no money. But the door of repentance is not closed, if you use your mind. Save the half of the fifteen gold lira which will be given to you as the rest of your allowance, and buy with that the (necessary) provisions you will need at your destination.’

My selfhood was not content with putting aside half, so the man said, ‘Save a third of it then.’ But with this also my seltbood was not content. The man insisted ‘then a quarter.’ I realized my selfhood would not be able to abandon it addictions, so the man turned away in some indignation and disappeared.

At just this moment, I found myself on a train speeding down a vertical tunnel. I was alarmed, but there was no way to escape. To my curious surprise, I saw that there were very attractive flowers and tasty-looking fruits alongside the track, hanging out from the sides of the tunnel. I foolishly attempted to pick some of them. But all around them were thoms which hurt and cut my hands as I touched them; what I tried to hold slipped from me because of the speed of the train. I could take hold of only a few and not for long. An attendant came beside me and said: ‘Give me five pence, and in return I will give you as many flowers and fruits as you want. Otherwise with your hands all cut up, you will lose a hundred instead of five. Besides, there is a punishment for picking them without permission.’

Depressed by this condition, I looked out from the window to see when the tunnel would end. But there was no end in sight. I observed many openings in the walls of the tunnel into which passengers from the train were being thrown. Suddenly I caught sight of an opening just opposite me with a gravestone on either side. When I peered out I made out my name, SA’ID written in capital letters on the gravestones. I gave a cry of bewilderment and repentance. Unexpectedly, I heard the voice of the man who had given me advice at the door of the inn, saying to me:

– Have you come to your senses?

– Yes, I have. But I am in despair and there is nothing I can do.

– Repent, and trust in Allah.

– I do.

Then I woke up and I found myself transformed into New Sa’id; the Old Sa’id had gone away.

I will now interpret some aspects of this imaginary vision:

The journey is man”s life, which is, in fact a journey from the incorporeal world of eternity, passing through the stages of mother”s womb, youth, old age, the grave, the intermediate world, resurrection and the Bridge. The sixty golden lira are the sixty years of an average lifetime. I was forty-five years old when I saw that imaginary vision. Only Allah knows when I will die. A sincere student of the Holy Qur’an showed me the true path so that I might spend half of the remaining fifteen years for the Hereafter. The inn, as I came to understand, was Istanbul for me. The train represents time, and each wagon, a year. The tunnel is the worldly life; the thorny flowers and fruits stand for illicit pleasures and forbidden amusements that make the heart bleed with the idea of seperation at the very moment you reach out for them. Disappearance of pleasures increases sorrow, and besides, being unlawful, they cause one to suffer punishment. The attendant on the train had said: “Give me five pence, and in return, I will give you as many flowers and fruits as you wish.” This means that the permissible tastes and pleasures, obtained in lawful ways, are enough for one”s satisfaction; they leave no need to have recourse to unlawful ways. You can interpret for yourself the remaining details of the vision.

Fourth remark

Man, among the creatures, is much like a tender child. His strength originates in his weakness and his power in his impotence. It is on account of this want of strength and power that the whole of creation has been subjugated to him. If, therefore, man perceives his weakness and becomes a humble servant to Allah through his prayer, his words and actions, if he recognizes his impotence and seeks Allah”s help, he will then have fulfilled the obligation of gratitude for the subjugation of nature to him. Besides, Allah will enable him to reach his goal and realize his aims in such a way that if it were left to his own powers he could not succeed in one hundredth of it. Sometimes, he mistakenly attributes to his own achievement what he gets through his active prayer, that is, through acting in accordance with the Divine laws of life and nature. Consider how great a source of power is the weakness of a chick, on account of which the mother hen will attack even a lion. Or how the weakness of a lion cub subjugates to itself so great a beast as the lioness which itself suffers hunger to feed its baby. How remarkable is the powerful appeal inherent in weakness, and what a spectacular manifestation of Compassion for importunate beings! In the same way, a loved child obtains his goal through weeping, or simply wishing, or making a sad face, and can cause mighty person to serve him. If, otherwise he relies upon his own strength, he could never realize even one thousandth of this. On account of his weakness and powerlessness, in fact, feelings of affection and protection are so motivated in his favour that a single gesture of his hand may suffice for him to subjugate powerful persons to himself. If a child like this becomes so arrogant as to deny the care and affection that is being shown to him and says, in accusation of the protection over him, “I do all this with my own power”, he will certainly deserve a slap. Similarly, man will also, deservedly, receive a punishment if he denies the mercy of His Creator towards him and accusing Allah”s wisdom in ingratitude for what Divine Mercy has bestowed upon him, attributes all of his achievements to his own power and knowledge like Korah who said: “I have been given it (that is, my wealth) on account of knowledge I have” (Qur’an, 28.78). This shows that man”s observed dominion in nature, his advancement and progress in civilization and technology have not been realized solely through his own power, effort, and success. He largely owes them to his essential weakness and helplessness which attract Divine aid; his poverty is the source of Divine provision, his ignorance is made up for by Divine inspiration; his need draws Divine favours. Also, it is Divine mercy and affection, and Divine wisdom, but not his own power and knowledge, which has empowered him with dominion over the rest of the creation, and has put things at his disposal. It is again the Divine authority and compassion which, alone, enable man, so weak as to be defeated by a blind scorpion and a footless snake, to dress in silk through a worm and to eat the honey of a poisonous insect. Since this is the truth, o man, renounce arrogance and do not put your trust in your self! Rather, affirm your impotence and weakness in the high presence of Allah by asking for His help, and by praying and entreating Him. Declare your poverty and insufficiency, and show that you are His true servant. Then say, “Allah is sufficient for us. Most sublime is He in whom we trust” (Qur’an 3:173) and, in saying so, ascend to the higher ranks. Don not say, “I am nothing; what significance do I have that the All-Wise Creator should intertionally put the whole of the creation at my disposal and demand from me universal gratitude?” You are indeed almost nothing with respect to your physical being, but concerning your duty or rank, you are an attentive observer of this magnificent universe, an eloquent tongue of beings declaring the Divine wisdom, a perceptive student of this book of creation, an admiring overseer of the creatures that glorify Allah”s praise, and a respected master of worshipping beings. You are, o man, indeed an insignificant particle; a poor creature and a weak animal as far as your physical being and incarnate soul are counted and, therefore, you are being carried away by the huge waves of all creation. But if you are trained by Islam toward human perfection, that is, being a slave to Allah alone, you will find a kingliness in your being a slave, a comprehensivness in your particularity, a world in your small entity, and a very high rank in your insignificance. Also, the realm of your supervision of the rest of the creation will be so broad that you can say, “My Compassionate Lord has made the world a home for me. He has given me the sun and the moon as lamps, spring as a bunch of roses, summer as a banquet of favours, and the animals as obedient servants. He has put the plants and vegetation at my disposal also, as ornaments and provisions to my home.” In conclusion, if you obey your evil-commanding selfhood and Satan, you will fall to the lowest of the low. If you follow the truth and the Qur’an, you will ascend to the highest of the high and become a perfect pattern of creation.

R. Nur Collection (23rd Word)

For that reason, the region constitutes a vast, natural pharmacopoeia. Plant and animal tissues obtained from the rain forest are used in the production of chemicals of known medicinal potency. (The ingredients for the best known drugs are extracted from the tropical plants.) So far less than one percent of the Amazon’s plant species have been studied for their possible curative properties (McGee, 1990, pp.516-17).

In contrast to the wealth of its flora and fauna, the soil of the Amazon is poor, so poor that, when large areas are cleared up, the regeneration process may take as long as 300, in some places even 1000 years (Giamo, 1988, p.539). But, the forest is rich in various natural resources: deposits of manganese, aluminium, copper, tin, nickel, iron, gold and natural gas have been found. Annual production of these minerals is worth about 1.5 billion dollars (McGee, 1990, p.515).

The region as a whole is vital to the maintenance of the world ecological order; it is an important factor in world weather patterns; nearly half of the world’s oxygen atmosphere is released from its vegetation; and approximately two-thirds of the world’s fresh water is stored in the Amazon basin.

DEFORESTATION OF THE AMAZON

Today, one of the most serious problems facing the international community is the uncontrolled destruction of this unique environment. Deforestation of the Amazon region is being done by all nine states sharing the region, though Brazil, 59% of whose territory is located in the Amazon basin, is the most active. Over the last three decades, the scale of destruction has become intolerable. There are no precise figures; the estimate is a loss of 13.000 sq. km. of forest annually. The total destruction of the Brazilian Amazon so far amounts to 415.000 sq. km., an area about the size of Iraq (Cerrill, 1992, p.44). Pessimists expect the Brazilian rainforest to have been largely destroyed by the first decades of the next century, despite a fall in the rate of destruction (ibid).

In a global perspective, the destruction of the earth’s lungs (for that is what the rainforests are) raises two problems. First, the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into the atmosphere. In 1988 an estimated 12,000 sq. miles of Brazilian forest, an area larger than Belgium, was set alight to clear land for agricultural use. Excessive CO2 emission from such fires is among the main causes of the so-called greenhouse effect: Amazon deforestation contributes nearly five percent of the total CO2 emissions worldwide; the region as a whole stores in its flora 0.75 billion tons of carbon (Linden, 1989, p.46). The increase in the temperature of the earth’s surface will bring about climatic chaos, threatening the future of the global ecosystem including mankind. Second, deforestation goes hand in hand with the destruction of fauna and flora. It is estimated that every day one species becomes extinct (Goldenberg and Durham, 1990, p.26). If the Amazon rainforests vanish, more than a million species, a significant portion of the earth’s biological diversity and genetic heritage, will become extinct (Linden, 1989, p.45). The scale of the danger can be simply illustrated: 900 species of fig provide essential nutrition for spider monkeys, peccaries (a variety of pig) and toucans, for over three months of every year; the figs themselves depend on pollination by wasps–if the wasps go, all species higher up on the food chain go also: the monkeys and jaguars would disappear.

The well-being of the generations to come is dependent upon the preservation of biological diversity. Failure means that our children will be deprived of the opportunity to discover or modify pharmaceutical compounds from the genetic diversity that is now available but would then not be. And that lack would be felt also in the agricultural sector where genes taken from wild species are used to interbreed with domesticated varieties to enrich and strengthen them. For example, the California barley crop, with an estimated annual value of $160 million, was rendered immune to the lethal yellow dwarf virus by a gene from a barley plant found in Ethiopia (Dobson, 1992, p.282). That is why even Westerners agree that ‘Brazil is very important to the international community because of its biological diversity’ (Cerrill, 1992, p.46).

The Brazilians are accused of constructing highways, colonizing the region through large-scale migration, ranching, mining and lumbering. In fact, all the Latin American countries who share it also share in the destruction of the rainforest. In some of these countries, the forest is cleared to grow coca for cocaine production. Many endangered plants and animal species are caught for export to the West’s pet shops. The local governments are unable or reluctant to enforce international agreements to protect the fauna and flora threatened with extinction.

The principal excuse for the ongoing destruction is widespread poverty, even hunger, in the countries concerned. One Brazilian president said ‘we cannot discuss the environment issue without taking into account the situation of poverty and misery in which three-quarters of humanity lives’ (Cerrill, 1992, p.46). We should ask ourselves why such poverty arises in a region which Allah has endowed with so much natural wealth and beauty.

ISLAMIC APPROACH TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL TRAGEDY

We should seek the reason for the tragedy of the Amazon region in the brutality of the international economic order, based on the crudest laissez-faire economic attitudes and a usurious financial system. Without doubt, it is the foreign debts of Brazil and other Latin American countries that are the immediate reason for the deforestation policy. Brazil is now staggering under a foreign debt of $120 billion.

As Umar Vadillo rightly says: ‘the problems of the usurious economy are becoming day by day more apparent and more pressing since they are connected to the very survival of man and the ecological equilibrium of the planet. Today no one has any doubts that the reasons for starvation in the world and the serious deforestation of the tropical forests lie primarily in the debts of those countries’ (Vadillo, 1991).

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have financed enormous highway and hydroelectric plants and other construction projects with the specific aim of exploiting the revenues from the destruction of the Amazon (Goldenberg and Durham, 1990, p.31). The policies of such institutions are meant to divert the natural resources of developing countries from serving the needs of their populations to financing usurious loans taken out for projects that benefit only particular groups (Mc Clearly, 1991, p.707). The loans do not help the mass of the people to develop sustainable economic projects. Instead, they oblige them to set aside their best lands to grow crops for exports (where prices are beyond their control) in order to earn the foreign currency to service the national debt. It is a vicious circle systematically used by the world’s financiers to grind down the poor so that they continue to be forced to invest, through Western banks, in the affluence of the West: for every one dollar invested by the Western countries in the Third World (whether as aid or as loans) ten dollars are repaid in interest.

The cost of this debt slavery is horrific. In Brazil, for example, three-quarters of the population are living in the cities, more than half of them without adequate water supplies or sewage systems (Cerrill, 1992, p.47). Even some Westerners are coming to accept that the developed world cannot continue its exploitation of underdeveloped countries with the cruel intensity of the past half century–such an attitude is unsustainable, as well as being morally repulsive (Mc Clearly, 1991, p.707).

As long as the Western banks press the Brazilian governments to repay loans and interests, the Brazilian people will be forced to exploit the rainforest to barely survive as debt-slaves: but this has repercussions on the global climate and eco-system we all share. One cannot help agree with a Brazilian Congressman who said: ‘The green area of Amazonia should be totally devastated … because the forest represents the paralyzation of the country’s development’ [quoted from O Globo (Oct. 19, 1977) in Giamo, 1988, p.537]. Recently, Western banks have come to understand the consequences of their policies and the danger they put themselves in: one official tries to clear himself of blame in this way: ‘Deforestation may be with our money, but it is very much against our philosophy’ (Timberlake, 1987, p.23). It is beginning to dawn on the decision-makers that the agony imposed on the South by the North will lead to a catastrophe that will certainly engulf the North too. This confession arises from the understanding, in the aftermath of the catastrophic events of the 1980s, that due to the delicate ecological balance of the global environment, the South and the North share the same destiny. One’s loss will certainly be the other’s.

The Qur’an categorically prohibits usury; for example, in al-Baqarah: O you who believe! Have fear of Allah and give up what is still due from usury. If you do not, then be warned of war from Allah and His Messenger (2.278). Also, the Qur’an reiterates many times the interdependence of the creation, its fundamental interconnectedness and unity. As a single example of this, consider the following verse from al-An’am: No creature is there crawling on the earth, no bird flying with its wings, but they are nations like yourselves (6.38).

The respect for other creatures required by this verse (Hamid, 1989, p.159) is well-illustrated in the report that the Prophet, upon him be peace, following his own reasoning, once ordered dogs to be killed, but then changed his position to harmonize with the verse. He explained: ‘If the dogs were not nations in themselves I would command them to be killed’ (Sahin, 1992, p.7). The care and compassion of this attitude, its patient refusal to exercise the power human beings do have, is surely an example of a sensitivity to the hidden purposes of Allah’s creation, its as-yet unrealized potential, that we find echoed in the pleas, now growing desperate in their urgency, that we respect and save ‘the bio-diversity’ of our planet.

Certainly, the All-Merciful and All-Powerful created this universe with a harmony and balance among its many, different elements: And the firmament He raised up high and, He set up the balance in order that ye may not transgress (due) balance (7.9).

It is an aspect of human civilization, gravely neglected in the West, that human beings should learn to hear that harmony, to feel that balance, and to seek to live in tune with the Creator’s purpose rather than in arrogant disregard of it. Man’s dominion is conditional on his being a steward of nature, not a ruthless, self-indulgent tyrant. To prefer the role of tyrant to that of steward is in reality, to prefer our self-destruction biological as well as moral. 

REFERENCES

• CERRILL, M. (1992) ‘Brazil’s two faces’, Time (June 8), pp.44. ft.
• DICKENSON. J. ‘ Too many trees: not enough wood? A review of recent Literature on Brezilian Aniazonia’ Journal of Latin American Studies, 18, pp.409-23.
• DOBSON, T. (1992) ‘Loss of biodiversily: an international environmental perspective’ North Carolina J int’l & Commercial Reg, 17. pp.277-309.
• ECOLOGIST, THE (1989) ‘Amazon Special Issue’,19(6).
• GIAMO, M.S. (1988) ‘Deforestation in Brazil: domestic political imperative-global ecological disaster’ Envilonmental Law 18, pp 537-70.
• GOLDEMBERG, J. & DURHAM. E. (1990)‘Amazonia and national sovereignty’ Journal of international Environmental Affairs, 2(1) pp.22-39.
• HAMID, A. (1989) ‘Islam: the Natural Way’, MELS PubI, Lcndon.
• LINDEN, E. (1989) ‘Playing with fire: destruction of the Amazon is one of the great tragedies of hislory’, Time (September 18) pp 44.50. (Based on research for US National Academy of sciences, 1982.)
• MC CLEARLY, R. M. (1991) ‘The inlernational community’s claim to rights in Brazilian Amazonia’ Political Studies, 39, pp.691-707.
• MC GEE, H. W. (1990) ‘The deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon: law, politics and international cooperation’, inter-American Law Review 21(3), pp.513-50.
• SAHIN.M. F. (1992) ‘Ãnsanligin iftihar tablosu’, Akademi No.73., Zaman. TIBERLAKE. L. (1987) ‘From Washington to Panama: buying destruction’ in Only One Earth:Living for Nature, Sterling Publ. Co. Inc., New York.
• VADILLO, U. (1991) The End of Economics, Madina Press, Granada.

It is an aspect of the Divine Mercy that everyone of those actions which a practising Muslim is required to do in a particular way and with a particular intention combines a moral-spiritual value with a utilitarian value. For example, it has been objectively demonstrated that, if done properly and regularly, wudu contributes to having clean, healthy skin (see Fountain, 1, pp.33-6). Of course, that is not the point of doing wudu. The point of doing wudu is to get oneself in a state of readiness for worship–for the explicit occasions such as doing the prayer or reading the Qur’an, or, more generally, for initiating any action which the Muslim hopes may be acceptable as worship. The practical benefit of doing the prescribed acts in the prescribed manner is not what makes them acceptable or worthy as acts of worship. If a non-Muslim does the same actions, copying every detail with exact care, or if a Muslim does them but without the proper intention, only the practical benefits are to be hoped for: it is the intention that earns the moral reward. The practical benefit can then be understood as the additional (and not the essential) merit of the prescribed actions–a part of the rationality, the universality, the sheer ease of Islam.

It is in this general perspective that we can best grasp the benefits of slaughtering animals according to the manner prescribed to Muslims. The four conditions of it, after the condition that the animal be one lawful for Muslims to eat, are: 1) that the person doing the slaughtering is a Muslim of sound mind (not mad, not drunk, not legally a minor); 2) that the name of Allah is pronounced before any incision is made; 3) that the instrument used is extremely sharp; 4) that the incision is made in the neck just below the glottis, cutting the throat and oesophagus, the jugular vein and the carotid artery, but (and this is most important) without cutting the spinal cord or severing the head from the body. We should add that it is improper to interfere with the carcass (for example, to begin skinning or dismembering the animal) before convulsions have ceased and its life fully departed.

Plainly, the first and second conditions have to do with the intention, the state of mind, of the person doing the slaughtering. The subsequent conditions have to do with the practical details of carrying out the intention. Studied objectively (that is, without the prejudice of anti-Muslim sentiment), the practical details are found to be the most reliable way of producing wholesome meat without causing undue distress or pain to the animal.

The sharpness of the instrument guarantees the speed of the incision. The speed ensures that, just as when a man cuts himself shaving with a razor, the incision itself is painless (even if, much later, the wound may not be). The particular incision, the cutting of the major blood vessels in the neck, produces an immediate stunning effect: it causes the most massive possible haemorrhaging of blood which, by straightaway cutting the supply of blood to the brain, renders the animal unconscious. However, because the spinal cord is not (must not) be cut, the brain continues to send its electrical impulses to the heart, urgent messages demanding the supply of blood: that is why the animal convulses violently, pumping blood ever more vigorously and so speeding up the haemorrhaging process, until life leaves the body. Certainly, these violent convulsions (the result of rapid muscle contraction) look distressing, but in fact they are painless to the animal which, as we have noted, is unconscious during this process. The body’s own mechanism is thus used to rapidly drain the carcass of blood. Not until the draining of blood is finished is it permissible to proceed with skinning or dismembering the carcass. Why?Blood carries nutrients round the body to feed its tissue cells and carries away the waste product left after the nutrients have been extracted; after processing in the kidneys the blood is purified of these wastes and again circulated. The same blood also carries organisms which are responsible for disease but which in a healthy living body do not present as clinical symptoms. Separated from the body, these disease-carrying organisms are indeed harmful and it is for that reason (among others) that the consumption of blood is forbidden. Moreover, blood in a carcass is the principal breeding- ground for all kinds of bacteria. The failure to drain a carcass adequately renders it liable to rapid putrefaction, making the meat unfit for consumption. The convulsions of the slaughtered animal are the most efficient and (despite appearances) the most painless method of pumping the carcass free of blood.

It is obvious that the methods used for animal slaughter in the industrialized countries are designed for maximum ‘productivity’. That is why various mechanical techniques are used to ‘stun’ the animals in order to speed up the mechanical handling of them. The argument that these techniques are more humane is, frankly, dishonest propaganda put about by the meat trade. There is a great difference between paralysis and unconsciousness: the stunning techniques used, unless very precisely calculated and very accurately administered to each individual animal, may cause paralysis rather than unconsciousness. This means that the animal is motionless (paralysed) and so easy to harness and hoist up, and it looks as if it is not suffering; in fact, it may be quite conscious and in terrible pain. Further, because it is paralysed, the animal’s nervous system is largely disabled so that drainage of blood has to be achieved by rapid, total dismemberment of the carcass by machines–blood is lost by gravity, not by the natural pumping action described above. However, drainage is not as thorough by this method which severely affects the wholesomeness, colour and taste of the meat. Readers of the Qur’an (5.4) will know that (as well as blood and carrion) the meat of animals harassed or strangled or clubbed to death is haram the reason (among others) is that, in a condition of terror, hormones and chemicals are released into the body and bloodstream which distress the tissues and render them unfit for consumption. The Western techniques of stunning before slaughter, because they do not guarantee unconsciousness and do not minimize the terror suffered by the animal, are not acceptable under Islamic rules of slaughter. (Details of the legislation in a number of Western countries–following controlled experiments and government surveys of stunning and slaughtering techniques with different animals–may be consulted in Karodia, 1988.)Let us turn to the two first conditions for lawful slaughtering–namely, that the person be a Muslim of sound mind, that the name of Allah be pronounced. The person must be conscious of what he or she is doing and do it, as it were, in the full awareness that Allah has permitted it and witnessed it. It does not take much imagination to work out that the act of slaughtering an animal is, by this means, individualized: the mechanized, assembly-line taking of life is not acceptable. It may well be that the further preparation of the meat for sale and consumption can (perhaps should) be mechanized so as to increase efficiency and reduce waste. But the act of taking of sentient life, allowed for the purposes of food, must be done mindfully, and may not be handed over to a machine. The moral purpose of these conditions is that human beings do not become arrogant in the dominion they are granted over the animals they farm or hunt for food. That purpose becomes clearer when we recall that there are further stipulations in the Sunna the knife must not be sharpened in front of the animal; one animal should not be slaughtered in sight of another; the animal should be (as a vet does when examining an animal) lain on its side, soothed, and held still before the knife is applied.

All these conditions taken together mean an individual and collective mindfulness, a taking of responsibility. Because the laws of Islam are moral laws, they are not required to be applied where they cannot be applied: something that is impossible to do cannot be commanded to be done–except by mad tyrants. Thus it is that, under the direst necessity, without desiring the unlawful, the unlawful is also permitted. How then is it that Muslims will not understand the mercy, the ease, of that which is prescribed for them to do, but will instead –alas too often–fall under the sway of alien persuasions and do what they must only half-heartedly, sometimes even becoming so impudent as to complain of what benefits them? How should such ingratitude be rewarded except by the reward of all moral stupidity–that, in practice, Muslims come to accept that what is good is bad, and what is bad good? The occasion of ‘Id al-Adha, the ‘Id of sacrifice, is an occasion of mercy remembered and celebrated with thanksgiving and repentance. Let it be, also, an occasion to remember our indebtedness to Islam, for the wisdom, the sanity and spirituality, of what by Allah (through the example and teaching of His Messenger, upon him be peace) is prescribed to us to do.

REFERENCE

KARODI,. A.M. (1988) ‘The Muslim methods of animal slaughter and its scientific and social relevance in non-Muslim societies’, Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, 9 (l),pp.173-85.

Examples can be studied in the lives of the Successors of the Companions of the Prophet, upon him be peace, and the Successors of the Successors, of knowledge (‘ilm), virtue, good conduct and courtesy. One of these great individuals was Bishr bin Harith, born in the year 152 after the Hijra, in the village of Bekird or Mabersam in Merve. He was well- known by his patronymic Abu Nasr. Bishr was an alcoholic and incurable frequenter of taverns. One day, while walking, he noticed on the ground a piece of paper which had been trodden upon. He stopped, bent down and saw that the word Allah was written on it. He went to a shop and with his last money bought musk, amber and rosewater with which he cleansed the piece of paper. He then placed the paper away from where people’s feet might go, to express respect for the Name. That night, one of the saints of that time had a dream, in which he heard this: ‘Go and tell Bishr that he cleansed My Name with musk and amber and I cleansed his name and purified him from all. I swear by My Glory that I will make his name loved and ennobled in this world and in the world to come.’ The one who dreamt this had known Bishr very well, and was most surprised because, to the best of his knowledge. Bishr had done nothing so remarkable as to deserve such honour. He meditated a while and made wudu and then went back to sleep. The same event recurred three times, with the saint dreaming the same dream successively three times. He came to the conclusion that his dream must be a truthful one. The following day he set about looking for Bishr, and eventually located him in a tavern. He sent a man to fetch him out of the tavern. Bishr did not want to come out and asked why he should. The man said that the one calling him had a special message for him. Bishr still would not come out, now wanting to know who this special message was from. The man returned to Bishr from the saint with the explanation that the message was from Allah. This time Bishr did not want to come out because he feared that he was about to be rebuked by Allah. However, when the saint sent the assurance that Allah would not rebuke him but, on the contrary, had good news for him, Bishr decided to come out. Bcfore leaving the tavern, Bishr turned to the people in it and bid them farewell with the words: ‘The Friend and His friends have sent me an invitation. I am going and you will never again see me in such places. And yourselves also, I leave to Him.’

No one saw Bishr in such places again. His life of wretchedness was over. From that time on, even though he was thoroughly converted to a decent life and had renounced all bad habits, there was one thing he never left behind him. That was the shame and the feeling of accountability for his former life. He despised worldly pleasures, became most particular and subtle about everything, and vowed never to return to those days. Also, he was never again seen wearing any shoes. Asked why, he said: ‘When I decided to renounce my former life and vowed not to return to it I was barefoot. So, because of (the memory of) that I become ashamed lest I should break my promise and return to my former ways.’ Because he went barefoot, he earned the nickname of al-Hafi.

Later, Bishr moved to Baghdad, settled there and began studying Islamic sciences, attending the talks and lectures of many eminent scholars of the age. He then travelled to Makka, Kufa and Basra to study further and expand his knowledge.

He was extremely particular and sensitive about what is halal (lawful) and haram (forbidden). He avoided eating doubtful things to such an extent that he once drank sea water, in view of the slight chance that the money with which the sultan provided water free for the people might have been earned through injustice, oppression, or other Islamically unlawful ways. He turned a deaf ear to the call of his self (nafs) and suppressed it by contradicting it each time. Even though his nafs desired to eat meat, he did not eat any for forty years. In fact, he did not earn so much as to afford meat. He avoided eating sweets in order not to spoil his nafs. He spent his days in hunger or continual fasting. Against the advice of those who tried to persuade him to eat, he said ‘Hunger purifies the heart, quenches one’s lust and carnal desires. and inspires subtlety of thought and knowledge’. In this way he urged people to mildness of conduct, sweet temper and frugality.

Whatever he did, Bishr wanted to do it just to earn the pleasure of Allah and utterly shunned publicity. He never sought to justify himself or what he did in the eyes of others. On the contrary, in true humility, he considered himself as lower than others. He did not attach much importance to the worldly life and always criticized and disapproved of people who sought the favours of governors and sultans.

Bishr had great intelligence (‘aql) and wisdom. He never gossiped about or slandered people. One of the scholars of his time, Ibrahim Harbi, remarked that ‘Baghdad has not raised a man who was wiser and who defended his tongue from idle talk and slander better than Bishr. People observed him for fifty years and had not witnessed him slander any one. It was as if he had an intelligence for each hair on his head. I never saw a man so virtuous as Bishr’.

Bishr was profound in reflection and reasoning. He held that not to commit sins and not to be disrespectful towards Allah is only possible through reflection and judgement, and that believers should thank Allah profusely for their iman (faith), which is one of the greatest of His blessings. Bishr’s sister, Zubdah, recounted this incident: ‘My brother Bishr visited me one evening. He came up to the gate of the house. He opened it, put one foot inside, suddenly stopped and fell into reflection. He stood still there during the whole night one step in and one step out in deep contemplation. I waited for him to come inside, but he did not. When the dawn was breaking, I could not keep myself from asking what he reflected so seriously and profoundly upon. Bishr replied: “I have been thinking that there are Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians who also have the name Bishr. My name and theirs are the same, but I am a Muslim and enjoy the greatest blessing of belief in Allah while they do not. So what a great blessing it is! And what could befall them in the Hereafter who keep from such a blessing of Allah?”

Abd al-Rahman Abu Hatim narrates this from Bishr himself: ‘I saw the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in my dream. He asked me, O Bishr! Do you know why Allah raised you to such a high rank among your equals? I said, I don’t know, O Messenger of Allah. And he said, Because you follow my Sunna, serve the cause of righteousness, give good counsel to your Muslim brethren, and love my Companions and Family.’

Bishr bin Harith passed away in Baghdad in the year 227 after the Hijra. Many eminent scholars have recorded that people set out to bury his body after the morning prayer but only reached the place of burial at the time of the night prayer (isha) because of the sheer numbers who came to pay their last respects to so sincere a brother of theirs. May the blessing of Allah be upon him and his equals!

Sufyan bin Muhammad al-Masisi narrates: ‘I saw Bishr in a dream after his death. I asked Bishr how Allah had treated him, He said, ‘Allah forgave me and made the half of Paradise halal (permissible) to me.’

Surely every person at some time looks up at the sun and moon and the brilliant stars and asks, who positioned all these so perfectly on the face of the sky’?

People have always marvelled at the stars and planets. But they have not always realized that there is a harmony in their positions and movements, a law and order, as indeed in the whole universe. For example, seen from the perspective of the ancient Greek astronomers, celestial bodies in the universe are aimless objects. That seems to be the implication of the term ‘planet’ which means ‘wandering’. The Greeks may have thought the ‘wandering stars’ or ‘planets’ moved in unstable orbits, more or less randomly.

The ancient astronomers’ judgement was not founded upon the Oneness of the Creator Who orders everything in the universe. Inevitably they did not have a clear grasp of the orderliness of the macro-cosmos and did not seek it.

The Qur’an revealed many centuries ago that it is Allah who created the heavenly bodies and put them into their peculiar orbits. There is nothing in the Islamic teachings that argues the view that phenomena or events are random.

Do they not look at the sky above them, how We have built it and adorned , and there are no flaws in it. (50.6)

We have built above you seven strong (heavens) and placed therein a blazing lamp. (78.12)

The ‘blazing lamp’ referred to is the sun.

People have always been fascinated by the thousands of gleaming lights sprinkled across the night sky. Today many enjoy looking into the heavens and learning about the patterns and positions of the stars, and discovering what stars can tell us about our universe as a whole. From our planet, if very high buildings and city lights permit, we can see about 6,000 stars with the naked eye. They change in colour, size, and brilliance.

We are near enough to one particular star, the sun, to find out many details about what these celestial bodies are made of and how they function. A star is composed of gases and other substances compressed together under the force of gravity. The pressure at the core of a forming star is sufficiently intense to initiate nuclear reactions that begin generating energy. During this process, matter is converted into energy, releasing large quantities of heat and light.

The sun may not catch up the moon, nor may the night outstrip the day. Each one is moving smoothly in its own orbit ( 36.40). Here an essential fact is clearly stated, namely the existence of the solar and lunar orbits. At the time of the Revelation, it was generally believed that the sun orbited a motionless earth. This, the geocentric system, had held sway from the early second century (the time of Ptolemy). It continued to do so until the sixteenth century. Fourteen centuries ago, the Qur’an directed the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula and, through them, all of mankind, towards the truth. The demonstration of the existence and details of the solar and lunar orbits is one of the recent achievements of modern astronomy.

Those who do not believe in One Creator maintain that everything comes about by chance. They do not realize that every creature in motion, from minute particles to the planets, displays on itself the stamp of the Eternal and of His Unity. Also, by reason of its movement, each of them, in some sense, takes possession of all the places in which it travels in the name of Unity, thus including them in the property of its Owner. As for those creatures not in motion, each of them, from plants to the fixed stars, is like a seal of Unity that shows the place in which it is situated to be the letter of its Maker. That is to say, each flower and fruit is a stamp and seal of unity that demonstrates, in the name of Unity, that its habitat and native place is the letter of its Maker. What all that inter-connectednes means is that one who does not have all the stars within his command does not have command over a single small particle either.

There are two other verses in the Qur’an about the sun and the moon and their usefulness to human beings, not only as light, but also as points of reference for space and time:

Allah subjected the night and the day for you, the sun and the moon. The stars are in subjection to His Command. Verily in this are signs for people who are wise. (16.12)

Allah is the One Who made the sun a lamp and the moon a light and ordained for it mansions, so that you might know the number of years and the reckoning (of the time).

Allah created this in truth. He explains the signs in detail for people who know (10.5)

The solar system comprises the sun and the nine planets that orbit it. The closest to the sun is the planet Mercury, at an average distance of 58 million km; the farthest, Pluto, is 5,900 million km from the sun. The closer a planet is to the sun, the shorter the time taken to complete its orbit. Thus, Mercury takes only 88 earth days to go round it, while Pluto orbits the sun only once in 248 earth years. Absolute time and distance are nowadays both measured in terms of light speed–a metre, for example, can be defined as the distance the light travels in a certain ‘space’ of time, in fact, 0.000000003335640952 seconds.

It is hard to think of the sun as a passing event. Nevertheless, its ‘term’ is fixed–the Qur’an is explicit on this point: And the sun runs its course for a period fixed for it (36.38). So, how long has the sun left to run? Astronomers nowadays calculate about 4.5 billion more years in its present state. It will still have nearly the same surface temperature (6.000 °C) and yellowish colour that it has now but it will appear about twice as bright because it will be about 60 percent bigger. Its next 4.5 billion years will have begun to take their toll on the sun’s nuclear fuel supply. What then? We don’t really know. Any calculations we make can only be made on the basis of theory.

The sun is full of gases composed of two thousand trillion tons (2×103 kg) of matter,

with the remains of other elements. For every million atoms of hydrogen there are about 85,000 helium atoms and only about 1,000 of any other kind. Pressure from all that mass compressing into the centre of the sun is high enough for the hydrogen atoms to fuse in the core to form helium. This simultaneously creates new energy which keeps the sun from collapsing further and provides the energy that allows it to (or makes it) shine. A series of nuclear fusion reactions, whose end result is the conversion of hydrogen to helium, happen on a vast scale and release very great amounts of energy in the form of heat, light, X-rays and so on. A part of this reaction must be the release of so-called neutrinos. Neutrinos are particles that interact so little with other matter that they can probably float through entire galaxies without being affected. They exist but have no mass nor any other physical property, which is like saying that they simultaneously exist and do not exist: we know they must be around by the way the movement of other (‘real’) particles is affected. If the theory about the way that the sun shines is correct, the sun should be producing about 180×1036 neutrinos each second. Obviously, only a small portion of these neutrinos will come in the earth’s direction.

The sun generates magnetic fields deep in its interior. Through mechanisms not yet fully understood, some of these fields erupt periodically through the sun’s surface, the photosphere. The high temperature and structure of the corona are produced by energy pumped from the photosphere up into the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere along these magnetic fields.

The sun has been fusing hydrogen into helium throughout its present lifetime of 4.5 billion years, using up less than half of the available hydrogen in its core. By another 4.5 billion years, 90 percent of the available hydrogen in the core will have been converted into helium. Serious questions about the fusion rate in the sun still remain, but according to one theory, the humans of the future will face a sun that is running out of core hydrogen.

When that happens, the gas temperature and pressure will drop and the interior of the sun will collapse under the weight of the surrounding mass. The pressure in the collapsing gas will build up sufficiently for a rind of hydrogen to start burning around the core, now helium. This fusion will provide an outward force on the outermost layers of the sun, pushing them farther out than they are now. The surface of the sun will expand outward until it reaches the orbit of Venus.

Finally, this hydrogen outside the core will run out. The core of the sun will continue to contract, trying to replace the heat no longer generated by hydrogen burning. When the internal temperatures reach 100 million Kelvins, the helium (generated by the hydrogen burning) will itself start to burn. This will happen quickly, forming a carbon-rich core. Around this burned-out core, helium burning will start, and then the rind of hydrogen also will start to burn. The vast energy released by both rinds will push the sun’s outer layers further out until they reach the orbit of Jupiter. Earth will then be ‘inside’ the sun. The temperature on the surface of earth, around 6.5 billion years from now, will be around 30,000 Kelvins, and everything organic will be burned to a crisp.

Intelligent beings on earth 5 or 6 billion years from now, if any, would face the pressure to leave earth and, indeed, the solar system. They would need to have colonized planets around younger (therefore more stable) stars in order to survive. It is likely that humans in the near future will move off the earth in search of mineralogical and economic gain, whereas the future beings of our speculation will move off in order to save the species. The ageing sun will give future life a focus and a goal. And then, if we may be permitted to use the expression, a sort of Doomsday will have happened: certainly, the sun will have run to the end of its appointed (muslaqarr) time.

SOURCES

• ASIMOV, I. (1993) Explorig the Earth and the Cosmos, Allen Lane.
• Astronomy January 1992: March 1993.
• BUCAILLE,M.(1987) TheBible, The Qur’an and Science. Taj Company, Delhi.
• GRIBBIN, M. & Gribbin J. (1992) Too Hot to Handle? Corgi, UK.
• JONES, B. (1991) Planets, Brian Trodd Publishing House Ltd.
• JONES, B. (1992) The Night Sky, Salamander Books Ltd.
• MATTHEWS, R. (1993) The Mind of God, Virgin Books.
• NURSI, S. (1987) The Thirty-Second Word from the Risale-Nur Collection.
• NURBAKI, H. (1989) Verses from the Glorious Qur’an and the Facts of Science T.D.V.. Ankara

What does it mean for people?

Did all the prophets appear in the Arabian Peninsula?

Were there any people among whom a prophet was not raised?

If so, can those to whom prophets were not sent be held responsible for their beliefs and actions?

Prophethood is the highest rank, the highest honour, possible. It proves the superiority of a man’s inner being to that of others. A prophet is like a branch which arches out from the Divine to the human realm. He is the very heart and tongue of creation. He may not possess what in a worldly sense, we call a supreme intellect, nor a particular skill or talent such as some geniuses have shown. Rather, he is an ideal being, all of whose faculties are harmoniously excellent and active, and who strives and progresses steadily towards heaven; one who awaits Divine inspiration for the solutions to the problems he meets, and who is considered to be the connecting point between the things and beings here and the Beyond. His body is subject to and follows his heart, figuratively, the seat of spiritual intellect; his mind likewise is subject to and follows his heart. His perceptions and reflections are always directed to the Names and Attributes of Allah. He goes to what he perceives; he arrives at the destination he aims for.

A prophet’s perception, developed to the full surpasses that of ordinary people. Nor can his power of perception or understanding be expressed or explained in terms of different wavelengths of light or sound, or in some other such way. It is not within an ordinary man’s power and means to acquire a prophet’s knowledge, which goes beyond the limits of ordinary human nature. However intently deployed, our human powers of analysis and synthesis can never attain to a prophet’s knowledge.

Through the prophets, man has been able to gain an insight into creation, and thus to find out and to know the meaning of it. But for the prophets and their teachings, man would neither have seen nor understood the true nature and meaning of things and events, nor, therefore, could he have entered into and coped with what is in and around him.

In addition to conveying the Divine message and guidance, the prophets have also taught man something of Allah and His Names and Attributes. Their first mission was to teach the reality of this life, its true purpose and meaning. Since Allah is beyond man’s perception and comprehension, it fell to the prophets to be the most obedient, careful, conscious, self-disciplined of people whilst they were performing their tasks. If there had not been any clear utterances by the prophets about the Creator, the All-Mighty, the All- Knowing, who governs and sustains and cherishes the whole creation, from the smallest atom to the largest nebula, it would never have been possible for man to think or know or say anything right and proper about Allah.

Everything in the universe tries to, as it were, exhibit the Names and Attributes of the All-Mighty, All-Encompassing Creator. In the same way, the prophets have taken note of, affirmed and been faithful to, the subtle, mysterious relation between Allah and His Names and Attributes. Their first duty was to know and speak about Allah. Therefore, they entered into the true meaning of things and events, and conveyed it directly and sincerely to their fellow human beings.

Just as, even in the smallest exhibitions, public fairs and the like events, we benefit from a guide or usher, who directs our steps and prepares our attention, so also with the magnificent exhibition of this creation, we are in need of guides who draw attention to the reality of it, direct us towards its purpose and meaning, and show us our way in it.

Is it possible that the One Who ordered this creation, opened to us His works, for our wonder and awe, Who desires to make Himself known through His creation, Who chose distinguished servants to guide our attention-is it possible that He would not, through these distinguished servants, reveal His names and Attributes to those who long to know Him? If this were so, would it not make His creation a vain work? The Supreme Being Who made everything like a tongue and a letter and Who revealed His Wisdom and Blessings through such things is absolutely free from vanity and absurdity. Thus, it seems to us, most unlikely that any people in one or other part of the world has been deprived of Allah’s revelation through His prophets. The Qur’an, indeed, is explicit on this point:

For We assuredly send amongst every people an Apostle (with the command), ‘Serve Allah and eschew evil. ’(al-NahI, 16.36)

However, mankind forgot the teachings brought by those appointed servants and over time went astray, sometimes deifying the very men who preached against it, and sank into idolatry.

Throughout the earth there are examples of what man’s imagination has idolized-like the mountain of the gods in ancient Greece or, to this day, the River Ganges in India. Even accepting that there must be a tremendous difference between their first appearance and the actual position now, it is quite impossible to understand the conditions that raised Confucius in China and Brahman and Buddha in India. It is equally difficult to guess what they originally taught, or to know how far time and human degeneration have corrupted the first message.

If the Qur’an, which eradicates doubts, had not introduced Jesus Christ to us, it would not now be possible to have a true picture of his life and his teaching. For priests have confounded the truth about Jesus Christ with the philosophies and idolatries of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, attributing divinity to man, and anthropomorphizing God. The concept of the Trinity is certainly a priestly, human corruption-insulting as it is to common sense and reason and, still more shameful, impudent towards Allah.

Perhaps it was one of the conditions of the Roman Empire accepting Christianity as the official, state religion, that the festival, holy days, rites and rituals of the church are so obviously and shamelessly derived from, or imitate directly, the idolatrous practices of the ancient Romans and Greeks. For, without the enlightening revelation of the Qur’an, it is very difficult to tell the Jesus Christ worshipped in the Christian church from Adonis or Dionysus.

Considering that Christianity is relatively recent and considering what the Christians did to their prophet and to their Book, we may well wonder how many ‘Christs’ have been treated in the same way by their followers over time? From a reliable Islamic source, there is a hadith which says: ‘a prophet’s disciples will carry out his mission after his death but some of his followers will also upset everything he established’ (Muslim, Fada’il al-Sahaba, 210-12; lbn Hanbal Musnad, 417) This is a most important point. Many of the religions which we now consider false turned to falsehoods, superstitions and legends over time through the deliberate malice of their enemies-despite the fact that, originally, they may have come from the purest, Divine source.

To say that someone is a prophet when he is not is tantamount to kufr (unbelief), just as to refuse to believe in a true prophet is also kufr. On the other hand, if the case of these false religions is similar to that of Christianity, that is, if they were distorted by their followers over time, we should look at those religions with some caution and reserve judgement in some measure. We should consider what Buddhism may have been in its true original; similarly, Brahmanism; or the doctrines attributed to Confucius; or shamanism and other such: it may be that we may find in them some remnant of what they were in their origins.

What they were-whether true or false (we do not know)-is not what they are. Supposing the impossible that their founders returned and saw the religion they originally established, they would not now recognize them.

There have been many religions which have been distorted and altered in the world, and consequently it is essential to accept the purity of their original foundation. The Our’an says:

There never was a people without a Warner having lived among them. (al-Fatir, 35.24)

And We assuredly sent among every people an Apostle. (al-NahI, 16.36)

These revelations universally declare that Allah sent Messengers to every people throughout the world. The names of some of these are known to us through the Qur’an, but there is also a large number whose names have not been made known to us. The names we know are 28 out of 124,000 (or perhaps 224,000); even then we do not know exactly where and when many of them lived.

Essentially we are not bound to know all the past prophets. The Qur’an says:

We did in times past send Apostles before you; of them there are some whose stories We have related to you, and some whose story We have not related to you. (al-Ghafir, 40.78)

In this way, the Qur’an warns us not to deal with some of those whom it does not mention to us.

Recent studies in comparative religion, philosophy and anthropology, have shown how many communities, living at very great distances from each other, share certain concepts and practices. For example, turning from plural to a singular conception of God; in their supplications in times of exceptional stress seeking refuge only in the One Supreme Being and raising their hands and asking something from Him. There are very many such phenomena which indicate a singular source, a single teaching.

If primitive tribes cut off from civilization and the influence of the known prophets, have a sure understanding of the Oneness of Allah, though they may have little understanding of how to live according to that belief, it must be that, as the Qur’an tells us, every people and nation has had its own Message and Messenger:

To every people was sent an Apostle. When their Apostle comes (before them), the matter will be judged between them with justice, and they will not be wronged. (Yunus, 10.47)

No people and no land are excluded from that commandment.

This brings us to the question of whether those who claim they have not been sent a prophet will be held responsible for their beliefs and actions. As we have just explained, there is no reason to believe that any peoples in the world have been deprived altogether of the prophets’ light. There may have been periods in which darkness seemed to prevail. But such were temporary darknesses, after which the Grace and Blessing of Allah again enlightened the people through revelation to His chosen servants. Thus, whether it be less or more, every people, at some point in their history, saw or heard or experienced to the full, the mercy of revelation. Nevertheless, we must allow that, in some instances, the destruction of the beliefs which the prophets established was so absolute, and people introduced so many distortions into the religion and bizarre rites of worship, that the true teachings were generally, if not altogether, lost by the people. In such cases, a long interregnum of darkness may have replaced enlightenment. Though darkness is ever followed by an enlightenment, and an enlightenment by darkness, there may be some peoples who remained in darkness as it were unknowingly and against their own will. For such people there are glad tidings in the Qur’an. These are not punished or blamed for the wrong they may do, until and unless due warning has been conveyed to them: We would never visit our wrath on any community until We had sent an Apostle to give warning (al-Isra’, 17.15). That is, the warning precedes responsibility and then reward or punishment.

As for the details of this matter, the imams of the Islamic schools of thought think differently. For instance, Imam Maturidi and his school argue that no people can be excused given that there is plenty of evidence pointing to the One Creator which leads to belief in Him. By contrast, the Ashari school, referring to the Qur’anic verse quoted above, argue that warning and guidance must precede judgement and people can only be held responsible if they have been sent a prophet. There is a third body of scholars who have combined these two positions. They hold that those who have not been sent any prophet and thus have not wilfully strayed into unbelief or worshipped idols are ahl-i najat (the people who will be excused and so escape the punishment and who, as Allah wills, may be saved). For, in fact, some people cannot analyze the things and events around them, cannot penetrate to their meaning, nor deduce therefrom the right course of belief and action. Such people are first taught the right way, given explanations and directions on how to act and then, in line with their actions thereafter, are answerable and accordingly rewarded or punished. But as for those who wilfully take to unbelief or adopt a hostile, negative attitude to belief and religion, or knowingly defy Allah and His commandments, they will certainly be questioned and punished for their deviation and corruption, even though they live in the farthest, most desolate and deserted region of the world.

To summarize: no region or people has been altogether deprived of Divine enlightenment through Allah’s chosen servants, His prophets. Directly or indirectly, all people of all periods have, at some time in their history, known or been aware of a prophet and of his teaching. A period during which the names of the prophets have been forgotten and their teachings completely eroded, until another prophet is sent, is described as an interregnum. It is accepted that people who live in those periods would not be punished but rather excused, on the condition that they have not knowingly and wilfully deviated into polytheism or atheism.

And Allah, the All-Knowing and All-Encompassing, knows best.

I could hear the voices of children crying in the ward at the other end of the corridor. My own poor child could only say ‘mum’ in fear while he was being examined. A little later, he fell asleep. After the examination the specialist took me aside. He had a look of deep concern and sorrow on his face:

-‘I am very sorry, doctor. It could be polio,’ he said.

I stared at him blankly, not believing what I was hearing. I could believe that some other mother’s child caught polio but I could never imagine that such a disaster would touch my own child. I no longer felt like a doctor but like a mother, waiting at her child’s bedside in an agony of anxiety.

-‘But he has not caught polio yet, has he?’ I asked again.

-‘No, not yet. I hope he will not’, the specialist answered. When he looked at my face, he noticed my worry and went on:

-‘He is sleeping now. You’d better go and get some sleep, too. I’ll call you if there is any change.’

I decided to do as I was advised. It was already very late, past midnight. I had been very busy since five o’clock in the morning, along with the other doctors. Everyone had been working very hard as the epidemic had got worse. I looked at my son’s red lace, longing to help him, to take away his pain, but there was nothing I could do except wait. I wanted to take him in my arms and surround him with all my love. But that was not possible then, so after a time I left his bedside and headed home.

The house was still and quiet when I opened the door. My husband had gone to Chicago on business. I did not tell him about our son’s condition. I did not want him to panic. Besides, if there was no change in his condition overnight, chances of his not getting polio would be very high.

I had to take some pills to help me sleep. I was deep in sleep when I heard the phone ringing. I got out of bed. It was four o’clock. The person on the phone was a woman, obviously very agitated and anxious.

-‘Is that the doctor?’ she asked.

I heaved a sigh of relief as I understood that I was being called out to visit a patient. As the woman described her son’s condition, I realized that it was probably another case of polio. After taking a note of her name and address. I couldn’t help taking a minute to phone the hospital to find out about my son: luckily, there was no change.

I felt utterly alone as I drove through the streets of the silent, sleeping city to the woman’s home. After some time, I noticed that this was the poorest part of town. On reaching the address, I stopped the car and got out. The desperate woman had been waiting and ran out to me, holding a candle. She grabbed my hand and said urgently, almost shouting:

-‘Be quick doctor! Be quick!’

I looked at her face, which was wet with crying. I couldn’t tell in the dark if the woman was young or old. I was quite shocked when I stepped into the cold one-room house. Even though I saw lots of different kinds of patients in my job, I had not seen poverty such as this before. Three thin children with pale, bony faces were sitting around an empty table in the corner of the room dimly lit by the one candle the mother was holding. The rest of the room was quite dark. However, I could just make out a child doubled up in pain at the other end of the room, moaning under a very old, patched blanket. The boy was about five years old, very thin and very weak. I told the woman I must go out to call the hospital. I did so from a telephone box in the market near the house and asked them to send an ambulance at once.

I went back and examined the other children. They were very weak but not in danger of polio. Just then the sick boy started to cry. The mother held my hand pleadingly. She wanted to learn what the illness was and how serious it was. I did not have the courage to tell her the truth.

-‘Your child is very ill, but we will do whatever we can,’ I said.

After lovingly caressing her son’s hair, the woman turned to me and said:

-‘Let’s pray’.

Although I had been visiting patients for years, I had never met one who offered to pray. I felt this woman must know something that I did not, so I agreed. I joined the children and the mother in their prayer. As the woman prayed, her mild soft voice pleading so sincerely touched me to the heart.

For a moment the hospital corridor came to mind again, the worried face of the specialist, my own dear son’s lovely face. Though far from the hospital, I felt just as if I was at my son’s bedside. I saw him as if standing in front of me and smiling. I tried to clear my mind of this picture. I watched the woman and the children still praying, now silently. The sincerity of their faith moved me so much that I could not help saying out loud and with utmost sincerity:

-‘Our Lord, do please accept these prayers!’

The mother then went over to the bedside of her sick child. The boy was sleeping peacefully. She straight away turned towards me and said joyfully:

-‘Do you see? Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate, has accepted our prayer.’

I was totally lost for words. The boy did not even wake up while being carried to the ambulance. By the time we got to the hospital, his breathing and pulse had returned to normal. I drove back to the woman’s home with the good news and, before leaving again for my day’s work at hospital, I gave her what money I had.

-‘I’ll call back again tomorrow evening,’ I said.

As I walked to my car, I looked up at the sky. The sun was rising and everything was becoming lit up. I was not worried this time as I drove to the hospital. A voice inside me was saying that my son would meet me smiling when I next saw him.

There is a natural healing power in honey of great benefit to man. This is affirmed in verses 68-9 of sura al-Nahl in the Qur’an: And your Lord inspired the bee: ‘Build your homes in the mountans and in the trees and in the (hives) made by mankihd’ Then (He taught the bee) to feed on every kind of fruit (of the earth) and to follow the ways of your Lord made smooth. There comes from inside their bellies a drink of diverse colours in which is healing for mankind. Surely in this is a sign for those people who reflect (al-Nahl, 16.68-9)

It is extraordinary that the curative properties of honey are documented in the world’s oldest medical literature. The Sumerians, and Egyptian physicians around 2000 BC, used honey to treat internal and external wounds, ulcers, diseases of the eyes, lungs, skin and, in particular, diseases of the stomach and intestines. The Chinese, the Indians, the Greeks and the Romans also recorded similar practices in their traditions. Hippocrates, the so-called ‘father’ of modern medicine (460-377 BC) also used honey to treat a variety of diseases. Honey was also highly regarded as a tonic to preserve youth and prolong healthy life–one Chinese Emperor used it as a drug to obtain immortality. The great Muslim physician, Ibn Sina (980-1037) wrote dozens of prescriptions containing honey in his world-famous medical textbook ‘The Canon of Medicine’. He is reported to have included among the benefits of honey that it makes you feel happy; that it refreshes you; that it assists digestion and gets rid of wind; that it helps when you have a cold; that it increases appetite; that it improves and sharpens memory; that it eases the tongue (the faculty of speech); and that it preserves youthfulness.

THE ANTIBACTERIAL ‘SYSTEM’ IN HONEY

In 1937 H. Dold et al. reported that honey has antibacterial activity and called the active agent an ‘inhibine’. Ever since, a number of scientist have tried in vain to discover the identity of this ‘inhibine’. In 1963 J.W. White et al. suggested that the ‘inbibine’ is the hydrogen peroxide produced by the honey’s glucose-oxidase system. However, results obtained by the author and by other scientists such as O.B.O’L. James et al. in 1972 and S.S. Radwan et al. in 1984 do not agree with the attribution of the ‘inhibine’ to the hydrogen peroxide produced. This author’s researches in the laboratory have shown that the antibacterial activity of honey is owed not to a single factor but to a complex ‘system’ of factors, of which there are at list three:

1- The high sugar concentration (76 g/1OO ml)

2- The acidity (pH=3.6-4.2)

3- The organic antibacterial compounds present in honey

It was observed that undiluted honey clearly exhibits antibacterial activity. The bacterial cells dry out because of the osmotic effect of the high sugar content in the solution and bacterial growth is retarded in the acidic environment which honey provides. In diluted form neither the sugar in the honey nor the acidity in it has an inhibitive effect on bacteria. Is it then the organic compounds which are responsible for inhibiting bacterial growth? It was also observed that most of the common pathogenic bacteria which infect human beings are killed in honey. Honey therefore acts as a bactericide. The researches established that the ‘inhibine’ is not a single agent but a subtle combination of intricately related factors quite unique in their antibacterial action. Further research is necessary, and is currently in progress, to identify the chemical nature of the organic antibacterial factors in honey.

THE BIOCHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF HONEY

The biochemical composition of honey is relevant to its curative properties. Beside the existence of the antibacterial ‘system’, honey is known to contain not less than 181 different compounds. These can be classified as follows:

– Simple and complex sugars

– Organic acids

– Minerals and trace elements (resembling blood composition)

– Vitamins (both water and fat soluble)

– Amino-acids (both essentials and non-essentials)

– Proteins (mainly enzymes)

– Lipids (simple, complex and wax)

– Plant flavours and colouring materials

– Hydrocarbons

– Hormones

– Pollens

– Microorganisms (yeast)

The list above shows just how complex the composition of honey is. It is then less of a wonder that honey contains some combination of elements which have proven so effective in the treatment of wounds and ulcers. Honey not only keeps ruptured cells sterile but also provides all the necessary micronutrients which are the building materials need to assist the cells’ full recovery. Although these micronutrients are present in only small quantities, they are available in the most easily assimilated, soluble forms. In addition, the high energy required for the healing processes to occur is provided by the simple sugars, fructose and glucose, in honey.

CLINICAL USE OF HONEY

To date the scientific and clinical evidences for the miracle of honey are numerous. Doctors and surgeons have used honey in their medical practice and even openly recommended its use. Among recent examples the use of honey for:

Treatment of serious gunshot wounds by Prof. S.A. Simirnov in 1948;

Treatment of breakdown surgical wounds by Dr. D. Cavanagh et al. in 1970;

Treatment of ulcers, surface wounds, cuts and abrasions by Dr. R. Blomfield in 1973;

Treatment of bacterial gastro enteritis (diarrhea) by Dr. I.E. Haffejee and Prof. A. Moosa in 1985;

Treatment of a wide range of serious long-standing wounds and ulcers by Dr. S.E.E. Efem in 1988;

Treatment of infected wounds in vulvectomy, infected perineum, infected abdominal wall wounds and breakdown of abdominal wall scar by Dr. R.J.F. Mclnerney in 1990.

In each of these cases honey was praised for its effectiveness as compared to ‘modern-conventional’ treatment. Honey was observed to kill bacteria at the site of wounds, to debride (clean up) wounds, rapidly replacing sloughs (dead cells) and so enabling granulation (scar) tissues to form. Honey also permitted epithelialization (i.e. growth of healthy cells) and the absorption of oedema (swellings) from around the ulcer margins. Honey reduced further infection, the risk of offensively smelly (seriously infected) wounds and so reduced need for skin graft treatments.

CONCLUSION

The verses of the Our’an which affirm the healing properties of honey affirm for us the mercy of Allah, Creator and Sustainer of the Worlds. It is also by this mercy that we study and research what He has created and made intelligible to us, including this miracle of honey. It is easy then to conclude our work, as Muslim scholars and scientists always used to begin their work, by praising Allah, and by saluting the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, who left us this advice: Whoever licks honey three mornings in a month is saved from serious illnesses. 

REFERENCES

• IOYRICH, N. (1977) Bees and People, Mir Publishers. Moscow.
• CRANE, E. (1978) Honey: A Comprehensive Review Heinemann, London.
• WHITE. J.W., Mary. J.R.. Subers. H. and Schepartz, A. I. (1963) ‘The identification of inhibine, the antibacterial factor in honey as hydrogen peroxide and it s origin in a honey glucose-oxidase system’, Biochem. et Biophys. acta, 73. pp.57-70.
• JAMES. O.B. O’L, Segree. W and Ventura. A.K. (1972) ‘Some antibacterial properties of Jamaican honey’ West Indies Medical Journal, 21(7), pp.7-17.
• RADWAN. S.S.. El-Essawy, A. A. and Sarhan, M.M. (1984) ‘Experimental evidence for the occurrence in honey of specific substances active against micro-organisms’ Zbl. Mikrobiol.. 139. pp.249-55.
• KAMARUDDIN. M.Y., Sivanaesan,L and Hamid, A.H.A. (1989) ‘The existence of antibacterial factors in Malaysian Apis cerana honey’, Proceedings of the 14th. Malaysian Biochemical Society Conference pp.l8l-5
• JAVANAGH. D., Beazler, C. and Ostapowicz, F. (1970) ‘Radical operation for carcinoma of the vulva: a new approach for wound healing’ Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the British Commonwealth, 77, pp 1037-40.
• BLOMFIELD, R. (1973) ‘Honey for decubitus ulcers’ Journal of American Medical Association 224, p-905.
• HAFFEJII, I.E. and Moosa, A. (1985) ‘Honey in a treatment infantile gastroenferitis’ British Medical Journal, 290, pp.1866-7.
• EFEM. S.E. (1988) ‘Clinical observations on the wound healing properties of honey’ British Journal of Surgery, 75, pp.679-81.
• MACINERNEY. R.C.F. (1990) ‘Honey: a remedy rediscovered’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 83, p.127.
• KAMARUDDIN, M.Y (1987-91) ‘Biochemical and Pharmacological study on Malaysian Apis cerena honey’, Beekeeping: The Malaysian Beekeeping Research and Development Team – IDRC. 1987-91 Report.

Western sociologists and criminologists have tried to explain away the gloomy statistics by claiming that the level of crime is much as it was–only the level of reporting of crime has gone up because, among other things, people have telephones! Or they have suggested that because people own more things (more goods in the house, more cars, etc), there is more opportunity to commit crime. And some have tried, without any objective proof, to accuse particular ethnic groups, especially blacks, of criminal tendencies. In the public imagination blacks are associated with mugging, violent theft, burglary, and all other sorts of crime. The implication of this view is that, somehow, non-black Westerners are, by nature, disinclined to commit crime!

Whatever the explanation for it, the crime figures are evidence of a problem that has to be tackled. The two main options address the problem preventatively or correctively. Preventive measures consist of increased security–better doors and windows, more locks and bolts, alarms, video surveillance, and the like. Such measures failed to address the crime figures because the crime was displaced to easier targets–to, for example, the houses of the poor who could neither afford the increased security nor move to ‘safe’ areas of town. On the corrective side, the policy (usually associated with ‘conservatives’)– tougher policing tactics, harsher sentencing, short, sharp shock treatment for young offenders–didn’t work either. Tough, military-style policing in certain urban areas provoked riots, looting, racial conflict and massively expensive disorder, and brought the police into disrepute. Neither longer sentences nor short, sharp shook treatments affected rates of recidivism: 60% of criminals still went back to a life of crime. New prison buildings had to be built at great cost, adding to the already considerable cost of keeping criminals locked up–an average of 2000 per individual per month.

Unable to resolve the problem, governments hastily adopted the ‘nothing works’ principle and handed over some of its responsibilities to local councils. Long sentencing and tough policing had to be abolished due to unpopularity and costs. New sentencing measures, probation and community policing were implemented. However, crime figures have continued to rise. The dilemma remains: long sentences mean unsustainable costs of running overcrowded prison services with a 60% recidivism rate; short or no custodial sentences mean letting the criminals onto the streets albeit with reduced opportunities–the poor being vulnerable whereas the rich buy security and/or insurance. 

The approaches so far tried are bound to fail because they do not attempt to identify the causes of criminality in a way commensurate with the complexity of the problem. They do not identify all the individual factors which, acting together, generate crime. The responses to crime have been simplistic: if the criminals were unemployed, try to get them work; if they were persistent offenders, lock them up; if some people were particularly vulnerable to crime, counsel them to get better security. But neither crime nor criminals act for motives as simple as that. If a criminal mind really wants to commit crime, giving the person a job or money may not be dissuasive. Consider the case of Robert Maxwell who was immensely wealthy but nevertheless stole his own employees’ pensions, or of the political dictators who have robbed their own people of millions each year. If poverty were the sufficient reason for crime, there would not be crimes like tax evasion, bribery, fraud, racketeering, price fixing, etc., which are usually done by the well-off. In fact none of the economic classes (nor any of the ethnic groups) in a society can be singled out as more liable to commit crime.

Existing theories do not adequately address the key questions: why some people commit crime whereas others, in very similar situations, do not; why patterns of crime differ in similar areas; why in the same family one member becomes a criminal but the others do not, or the other way round; and, finally, why some individuals, households, or businesses are more likely to be victims than others.

Conventional approaches look for answers to these questions dissuasire separately but none has ever tried to address them all together. The discipline of criminology is in a severe crisis as regards any competence to explain the causes of the phenomena it offers to deal with. Sadly, since Western society finds it very difficult to question its fundamental structures, it is most unlikely that Western criminologists will be persuaded to ask the right questions in the right way. Success and happiness, in modern Western societies, are defined in terms of individual buying power. Material expectations are constantly being increased with the majority of people having very little opportunity to catch up with them. At the same time, the system lacks the authority of moral norms–normlesness is the norm, individuals being encouraged to define their own norms as they go along. Offenders often say, for example, that property is insured anyway so there is no harm in stealing it. Meanwhile, the sense of insecurity and isolation deepens: in some urban areas, people do not even feel safe in their own homes.

The motivations to crime are diverse and complex. Some individuals, ambitious for success, are nevertheless industrious and law-abiding, others seek illegal short-cuts. Some may find no legal route to change their economic condition and accept it, others do not. And still others may not be ambitious at all and simply conform to the circumstances in which they find themselves. The question, here, is what factors lead particular individuals into several different behavior patterns. The answer is bound to be no less complex than in the case of disease where the susceptibility of a particular individual has many possible causes, not one.

Many conventional crime theories focus on a single cause and generalize the explanation to crime as such. Biologists may identify genetic defects in some criminals then deduce that all criminals are genetically defective (e.g. Lombrosso). But if human actions were all determined by our genes we would be like robots–and we are not. Besides, the latest researches show that brain activities are not controlled by genes. Or psychologists may identify a psychological disturbance among some members of the criminal population and, instead of localizing the results, claim that all criminals must be psychologically disturbed (e.g. Freud). Or sociologists may observe that the children of broken or ‘problem’ families are over-represented amongst criminals and infer a causal connection between poor family background and crime.

As against these approaches, it is essential to acknowledge the multiplicity of causes of crime and to differentiate offender types. A more credible analysis of causes must try to explain differentials in crime rates in different areas and the process by which specific individuals acquire criminal attitudes and/or behavior. The explanation must combine more than one factor on the sociological or psychological side of the question. It must, first, put the person in the centre of the investigation and then ask: How do people become the kind of individuals who commit crimes? What is it about the structure of a social system that determines the kinds of criminal acts that occur in the system and their distribution? What deters people from crime?

The individual must be placed at the centre of the investigation because only individualist theories can explain different patterns of crime in similar conditions. Class or social group theories cannot explain the only criminals in a family, given that all family members are exposed to the same economic, social or environmental conditions. Burglars are statistically expected to be young, school drop-outs and unemployed, but it is evident that not all the unemployed nor all school drop-outs commit crimes. That does not mean that social conditions are irrelevant, only that they are not deterministic. Social conditions of course do affect people and may even predispose some individuals towards crime. However, it remains true that most individual offenders choose to do what they do.

Having accepted that crime is not a product of single causes like poverty or social deprivation but of a complex of causes, any solution we seek must not rely on either preventative locks and bolts or corrective sentences in prison, but take a long term view. The long term solution is to bring up individuals with clear values of what is good and evil, as concerned for others as for themselves; who do not measure happiness in terms of buying power. At the same time we need a social environment in which the have-nots are not alienated from the haves, but all feel as if they belong together and are all cared for and protected by all. Cooperativeness and solidarity must replace individualism and competitiveness at the expense of others. If not, we encourage the cynicism of ‘might is right’, of crime as the clever individuals way of punishing the fool for being foolish.

The intensity and extent of crime in Western societies is an indicator that something is seriously wrong with them. There ought, in conscience, to be no evasion of the responsibility to question the principles and directions on which they are run.

The young, having been deprived of all traditional values, were crushed by the pressures of materialism. They showed no signs of purity or profundity of mind, nor depth of feeling, nor spirituality. Such a thing was not at all unexpected given that the experience and traditions cultivated over a thousand years had been sacrificed to an adulterated, cosmopolitan culture.

The most painful and heart-rending aspect of the situation is that the intelligentsia, those who were expected to guide the community, readily adapted to the new low standards. It is difficult for us to comprehend how they could prefer an adulterated culture to the traditional one so subtly formed over the centuries.

In just such conditions our young confronted the problems of coming to age! They were under great pressures resulting from the neglect of centuries. Their bewildered community had left the traditional ways, and a new force had appeared, but one that, not having suffered pangs of birth, was immature. The poor youth could not decide whom to foIlow. And how could they decide, since they had never been given good examples, and had only seen those who fled from themselves in one way or another.

In a society going astray, which had suffered a serious reverse, some went so far as to consider all ideas and traditions that had elevated their ancestors into a great nation as exhausted values. If only the young who were deprived of all the finer feelings had been able to understand what was happening around them!

That being the situation, what we should do is to uplift a generation who has been turned from their origins, and to inject new life into them.

We have no right merely to complain about them or to criticize them for not reading or thinking. They were until very recently given no help at all, although they would have welcomed such help. We may not deny that some of them show a real desire to do serious researches or to learn. Others express that hunger by reading piles of newspapers or listening to the radio or watching television for hours–to kill time or satisfy trivial desires. Also, although some of them gather around preachers to receive what there is to be received, we have, alas, been unable so far to give them anything worthwhile.

When have we guided the young to do the good and to choose the right? When have we been able to teach them to be virtuous? Do we have the ability to speak to them about a message given to make them think, study and reason? Can we be sure of the altruism of those who claim to lead and guide them to higher levels? How many men are there of stature and high standing that we can look up to, men who have renounced material and spiritual pleasures? They were waiting for a ‘Hercules’ who could say ‘I have known nothing of worldly pleasures in my life of over eighty years’, who would not change his life-style until death. We need to find soldiers of Allah who will take on the sufferings of their generation without even thinking of the pleasures of paradise. Alas, we have yet to find guides who would even give up worldly pleasures for the sake of young.

It is true that we have not been able to help the young. We have not been able to find proper schools for them, nor to teach them the right way to integrate with the universe. They have been ground down by the teeth of events and, inevitably, have stood up in rebellion against those who put them in their state of wretchedness.

As in the picture showing a beheaded Goliath, they stand before those who took away their heads, demanding only the return of their souls. For them, to regain what they have lost is the most important thing.

Who will assume the heavy responsibility of returning to them what they have lost? The home? The society or its educational institutions? Under present circumstances none of these are up to the task, albeit certain individuals deserve to be encouraged. If we fail to provide facilities for the young to enable them to build their own world in accordance with the conditions of the real world, our failure will lead on to their destruction. The present state, notably of our educational institutions, is by no means promising. Neither our system of education, which has been degenerating little by little for centuries, nor our homes which are no more than kitchens and bedrooms, nor the society in general, which has been in chaos, hold out much promise for the young.

The only way out is to develop a new understanding of science and to stimulate determination based on morality and insight, together with the cultivation of godliness. The new generation must be guided by a unity of mind, and take the true path in life, and they must regain their original, true identity. Besides, we must realize that we can only enable the young to reach such heights, and so save them from idleness and indifference, by inspiring them with idealism; by urging them to renounce merry-making in favour of the trials of ‘becoming’; by turning them away from self-indulgence and towards a love of others and of the homeland.

We salute the fortunate ones who will shoulder so heavy a responsibility.