Japan’s first diplomatic relations with a Muslim country begin at the end of the 19th century with the arrival of Japanese emissaries to the Ottoman government. The Ottomans sent the battleship Ertugrul to Japan to establish mutual goodwill between the two countries. On its way back to Istanbul the ship met with a typhoon: out of 656 persons on board only 69 survived .These were rescued by nearby villagers who had mobilized in the middle of the night. Two volunteer journalists, TorajiroYamada (1866-1957) and Osotora Noda, came to Istanbul in 1892 to deliver the donations which had been collected in campaigns all over Japan for the relief of families of the victims of the disaster. Sultan Abdul Hamid II asked the two journalists to stay on in Istanbul for two years in order to teach Japanese to some officials of the Turkish army. During this period both of them embraced Islam, and they are therefore celebrated as the first Japanese ever to become Muslim.

In 1902 an Ottoman emissary, Mohammed Ali, came to Japan and negotiated with Japanese government officials to build a mosque in Yokohama Harbour for the thirty or more Muslim traders who had recently settled in Japan. However, this effort did not prove fruitful.

During the Russo-Japanese war (1904-5) almost 5000 Tartar Muslim captives were accommodated in various detention camps in Japan. Japanese officials segregated them from Russians and fixed appropriate places for their prayers. A number of Egyptian army officers said to have served alongside the Japanese army as volunteer observers of the war married Japanese wives, had children and stayed on in Japan.

Rumours of a religious conference to be held in Tokyo in 1906 circulated widely in the Christian and Islamic world. The occasion was billed as the Japanese calling for a conference to compare world religions and choose the one they regarded as the best. Although there was a suspicion that the rumour was originated by Christian missionaries seeking to put Muslims at a disadvantage, many concerned Muslims responded and made ready to travel to Japan. In spite of the fact that some of them arrived in Japan, there is no certain evidence that a Muslim delegation attended the conference.

The first orderly propagation of Islam was started by the Egyptian, Ahmad Fadly, in 1909. He held three conferences to clear the bad image of Islam among the Japanese created by Christian missionary pamphlets attacking the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace. Fadly’s speeches were delivered in English but some were translated and published in Japanese media.

Abdul Rasheed Ibrahim (1852-1944), a Tartar Muslim scholar and traveller who determined during a trip to Japan in 1908 to dedicate his remaining years to the propagation of Islam in Japan, expended great efforts to gather the Muslims in Japan into a formal association. After several months he managed to establish the Japan (Asia Gikai) Assembly. This organization was headed by Abu Bakr Ohara and a piece of land to build a mosque was provided for it. One Mitsutara Omar Yamaoka embraced Islam and went on pilgrimage to Makka in the company of Abdul Rasheed Ibrahim. On his return he and Bumpachiro Ahmad Ariga, a Japanese trader who had accepted Islam in Bombay at about the same time, started to preach Islam together.

Mohammed Barakatullah, a Professor of Urdu, arrived in Japan in 1909 and, with Ahmad Fadly, began to publish a journal called Islamic Fraternity. As Barakatullah attacked British imperial policy in India and the Islamic world, this journal was soon stopped due to British pressure. However, Hasan Hatano who adopted Islam at Barakatullah’s hands, published several journals after that.

Between the World Wars

The first Muslim community in Japan came into being in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution with the arrival of several hundred Turko-Tartar Muslims from Central Asia. By 1923, the number of these Muslim refugees exceeded three thousand and they were given asylum by the strongly anti-Communist Japanese government. Under the leadership of Muhammad Abdul Hai Kurban Ali (1890-1972), who was provided with the job of teaching Turkish and Russian to the Japanese military, the Muslims in Tokyo improved their situation rapidly. They opened a school in 1927 which was later also used as a mosque for Friday and Id congregations until 1937. In 1931 with the support of non- Muslim Japanese an office and an Arabic printing press were set up. With this assistance, a monthly magazine in the Tartar language, and the first Arabic printing in Japan of the Qur’an were realized.

Muslim traders from India reached significant numbers after World War I in Kobe. With the migration to Kobe of Turko-Tartars, the Muslim population there increased to such an extent that it became necessary to have a mosque. The Kobe Mosque was built in October 1935 with donations, a great portion of which was given by Ferozzuddin of Calcutta. For the opening ceremony of the Kobe Mosque Ayas Shaky Bey, president of the Idel-Oural Turko-Tartar Muslims in the Far East, wrote:

At the present time when political conditions in Muslim countries are rather strained, when all the world is giving a secondary place to religion, when Russia makes its fundamental policies on the basis of atheism and anti-religious principals in general, the Muslims here are to be congratulated on having built …. the first historical mosque in Kobe.

Another mosque was built in Tokyo in May 1938 through the active efforts of the same Kurban Ali, with support mainly from Japanese political and business circles, as well as government leaders all of whom were non-Muslims. This mosque was demolished because of irrecoverable damage in 1986, and a new one was projected. Turko-Tartar settlers built another mosque in Nagoya around 1938 but it was destroyed during air raids in 1945 and they too migrated to Kobe.

During and after World War II

During World War II, interest in Islam gathered pace rapidly through organizations and research centres on Islam and Muslim World set up by the military government. It is said that during this period over 100 books and journals on Islam were published in Japan. However, these organizations or research centres were not managed by Muslims nor was their purpose in any way to propagate Islam. Their only purpose was to equip the military with such knowledge about Islam and Muslims as might be useful to them to govern the large Muslim communities in the areas they occupied in China and south-east Asia. Not surprisingly, after the end of the war in 1945, these organizations and research centres disappeared rapidly.

The first Islamic organization recognized in Japanese law as a religious entity in Japan, now called the Japan Muslim Association, was established in 1953 with Sadiq Imazumi (1905-60) elected as its first president. Its membership in 1959 was almost entirely made up of indigenous Japanese Muslims, a characteristic which this association has continued to maintain. Another organization, Islamic Centre- Japan, came into being in 1966 consisting mainly of foreign (i.e. non-Japanese) Muslims. Both associations have gone a long way to propagate the message of Islam in Japan by arranging seminars and publishing books etc. They have also sent many young Japanese Muslims to Muslim countries for Islamic training and education.

Another wave of interest in Islam and the Muslim world was triggered by the so-called ‘oil shock’ of 1973. On realizing the importance of these countries for the Japanese economy, the Japanese mass media gave considerable publicity to the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular. Many Japanese who until then had no idea about Islam got the chance to see scenes of the pilgrimage in Makka, and to hear the call to prayer and recitations from the Qur’an. The number of Japanese Muslims showed a sharp increase during this period, especially after a well-known medical doctor, Dr Shawqi Futaki (1900-94), embraced Islam and, together with some senior staff members of his clinic, established the Japan Islamic Congress. Unfortunately this organization is no longer functioning and its members, most of whom accepted Islam during the ‘oil shock’, have dispersed.

In 1976 a co-ordinating body, the Council of Islamic Organizations in Japan, was formed to unify Muslim organizations in the country (there were over a dozen at that time), and Professor Abdul Kerim Saitoh (b. 1908) was elected as the co-ordinator.

Between 1920 and 1970 five Japanese translations of the Our’an were published. Leaving aside the question of the translators’ competence in Arabic, it is not certain that they were Muslim. It was not until 1972 that the long-cherished desire of all Muslims in Japan for a Muslim Japanese translation of the Qur’an was realized when Umar Ryochi Mita (1892-1 983), a former president of the Japan Muslim Association, published his translation: he had devoted some 13 years of his later life to this task. During the 1970s the number of Japanese Muslims increased and well-prepared leaders emerged among them. The Osaka Mosque, opened in 1977 with Alhaj M. Mustapha Komura (b. 1912) as its leader, was the first mosque to be established and managed by Japanese Muslims alone.

Islam in Japan today

It is an admitted fact that Japan is a hard land for Islam to penetrate, not only on account of its religious culture but also its rushed imitation of Western materialist civilization and the indifference to religious values that is a part of the cultural baggage of that civilization. After World War II the Japanese Constitution was reformed and a clear separation of politics and education from religion was instituted. As a result, ordinary Japanese youngsters nowadays do not know what religion they belong to. On the other side, the abnormal growth of a few new religious cults suggests that Japanese youngsters are in search of a way to satisfy their spiritual needs.

By and large, the Japanese people get their information about Islam mainly from Western! Christian oriented and managed news organizations. Hence they do not have a good impression of Islam. In a recently broadcast television interview, a Japanese stated that Islam was a religion to be afraid of simply because he did not know enough about it to think otherwise. Although several pamphlets and explanatory books have been published in Japanese, the need for reading materials on Islam, particularly on the interpretation of the Qur’an, is still enormous.

Though quite late, a new mosque on the site of the former Tokyo Mosque is about to be built with the sponsorship of the Turkish government. One of the editors of a monthly Islamic Newspaper says that although such a mosque is quite important in the capital, what is more important is that its community should be led by an imam with a very strong character both in faith and morality and competent in the Japanese language.

Until recently Japanese Muslims could not conduct their funerals in accordance with the stipulations of Islam and were obliged to comply with Japanese law which requires cremation. Thanks to the efforts of the Japan Muslim Association, a cemetery was bought in 1968 and made available to any Muslim who wants to be buried there.

Muslims in Japan worry seriously about the education of their young, for the fact is that quite a number of the children of Japanese converts to Islam are also Muslims. A modern boarding school with special arrangements for Islamic education for Muslim children is the long cherished desire of Muslims in Japan.

The number of Muslims of Japanese descent in Japan is roughly 50,000, compared to 150-200,000 Muslims of non-Japanese descent. But the younger generation have aspirations to increase these numbers. Perhaps some day it may be said that Islam is as popular a religion in Japan as it now is in most of the rest of the world.

USEFUL READING

• ABU BAKR MORIMOTO (1980) Islam in Japan, Its Past, Present and Future, Islamic Centre Japan, Tokyo.
• HEE-SOO LEE & IBRAHIM ILHAN (1989) Osmanli-Japon Munasebetleri, Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation, Ankara.
• SALIH M. SAMARRAI (1935) The Relation Between Japan and the Middle East; An Islamic Perspective, A Souvenir booklet issued in commemoration of the opening ceremony of the Kobe Mosque.

While you are in sleep, with your eyes closed, your ear deaf, your tongue mute and your arms and legs motionless, how do you travel your distances meet many people and do many things in so short a period as a few seconds? When you get up in the morning, you feel deeply influenced by that few seconds’ adventure. Although Freud and those following him attempt to attribute dreams to the subconscious self, to thoughts, desires, impulses and past experiences, how can you explain the dreams that bring you news of certain future events which you have no connection with and never thought of before? And how does one have dreams? With what part of one‘s body or being does one have dreams? Why do dreams last only a few seconds? How do we remember in the morning the dreams which we have in sleep at night? All these and many other similar questions are like puzzles waiting to be solved by ‘science’.

It is true that sometimes our thoughts, desires, impulses and past experiences, which constitute our subconscious, come out in sleep unconsciously. Or man may be suffering an illness or hunger or may have a problem he is unable to solve. Or the imagination gives form to the deviations of a bad temper or the mind remembers an exciting event which happened some time ago, and gives it a new, different form. All the dreams a man has in such moods are jumbled dreams, which although they have some meaning, do not deserve interpretation. For example, a man who eats salty things before sleep may see himself in dreams at the side of a pool. Or one who goes to bed in anger may have a dream in which he quarrels with others.

However, if one does not know how to interpret dreams, true dreams, which will be explained below, may be confused with or taken for such kind of dreams. For example, although the dream which the king of Egypt at the time of the Prophet Joseph, upon him be peace, had was a true one, his men described it a jumbled one. (See, the Qur’an, 12.43-4.)

True dreams

There is a kind of dream which has nothing to do with the subconscious self. Those dreams carry important messages: either they are good tidings from God or for encouragement to do good things and guidance to them or for warning one because of some evil one has done. Those dreams, which we call true dreams, are very clear and the one who has them does not forget them.

Among true dreams there is a kind through which some people obtain news of impending events. In order to understand the nature and mechanism of such dreams, we need to first explain another matter.

As the essence of a piece of writing, which is its meaning, has a form prior to its written, visible form, everything has an essential form of existence in God’s Knowledge before it appears in the world. In the language of Islamic philosophy, we call those essential forms of things in God’s Knowledge ‘archetypes’. When God wills to send them to the material world, through the manifestation of His Wisdom and Power and Names such as the All- Fashioner, the All-Colouring, the All-Determining, the Creator, etc., He clothes them in material bodies.Between the world of archetypes, where God’s Knowledge has primary manifestation, and the material world, there is another world, which we call the world of immaterial forms or symbols, where things exist in ideal forms or as symbols and the concept and measure of time are completely different from in this world. Also, one who has dreams finds or receives those symbols all differently according to time, place and cultures and even according to one’s national and individual characteristics. Thus, when the body goes to sleep, the spirit travels ‘up’ to this world of ideal forms without breaking off its connection with its body completely. During dreams, the spirit continues this connection through a cord. It enters a different dimension of existence in the world of ideal forms or symbols, where parts of time-past, present and future-are combined. Therefore, while sometimes it may find itself experiencing a past event, it may sometimes witness a future one. However, since in the world of ideal forms or symbols things exist in ideal forms or symbols, the spirit usually receives symbols, which should be interpreted. For example, the clear water you see in that world may correspond to knowledge in this material world. Or if you see in your dream waste matter belonging to you, it may be interpreted that you will earn money in lawful ways; if the waste matter belongs to others, its meaning may be that the money will come to you in unlawful ways. A fat cow may mean a year of abundance in crops while a lean one, a year of severity. The metaphors, similes and parables in the Qur’an and the Prophetic sayings and proverbs in circulation among people, may provide significant keys to interpret dreams. Some of true dreams are so clear that they do not require interpretation.

As has just been pointed out above, in the world of ideal forms the measures of time are completely different from the material world. Also, since in dreams the spirit is free to a great degree from the confinement of body, it can do in a few seconds as many things as it can in, for example, one year in the material world. This also explains how great saints, who have been able to make their spirits to some degree free of the restrictions of their bodies, can travel long distances in much shorter time than normal people.

Examples of true dreams

The dream which Abraham Lincoln had on the night of his assassination is famous. In his dream, Lincoln saw that the servants of the White House were hastening to and fro and telling one another that Lincoln had been killed. Lincoln woke up from his sleep in great excitement and spent an uneasy day. Despite the warnings of his men, he went to a theatre the next evening and was killed there.

The dream which Eisenhower had just before he had made landing on Normandy in June 1944 during the Second World War, changed the course of the war. A few days before the date on which he had decided to make the landing, Eisenhower saw in his dream that a big storm broke out and overturned all the landing crafts. That dream caused him to make the landing earlier than the appointed time. As Eisenhower had seen in his dream, a big storm broke out some days after he had launched the landing.

The mother of Anne Ostrovosky, a Russian writer, had seen in her dream many scenes of the German-Russian battles five years before the Second World War broke out. Her dream had been published in newspapers.

Several scientific or technological discoveries have been realized as a result of dreams. For example, while studying how to put the thread through a sewing machine, Elias Howe had in dream in which he was kept as a prisoner by savage natives in Africa. They wanted him to put the thread through a sewing machine. In mortal fear and puzzled, Elias Howe suddenly caught sight of the holes at the ends of the spears which the natives were holding. He woke up and made a little ‘spear’ with a hole at one end.

At the beginning of this century, Niels Bohr, who was studying the structure of atoms, had a dream in which he saw planets connected to the sun with threads and turning around it. When he woke up, he had conceived of resemblance between what he had seen and the structure of atoms.

There are numerous other examples of true dreams which either have brought news of certain future events or caused certain scientific or technological discoveries. But the examples we have just cited must suffice to understand the true nature of dreams-that is, they are the result of the spirit’s journeying in inner dimensions of existence-the world of immaterial forms or symbols- and getting signals therein.

Finally, dreams provide a strong proof for the existence of immaterial worlds as well as for Divine Knowledge and Destiny. If God Almighty had not pre-determined all events and recorded them in what we call ‘the Supreme Guarded Tablet’, we could not have had any news of impending events. Also, dreams show that the measures of time greatly differ according to the features of each world.

He lived in a hamlet, one of several a mile or two apart on the same road, stretched over a fertile area at the centre of which was a small market town. On this day, a Friday, Amjad had walked into the town early. He had entered the mosque before midday, and settled into a state of earnest petitioning of God, begging to be relieved of his hardship. He had remained in that state of earnest pleading before his Creator right through the prayer service and then stayed on in the mosque, still petitioning, until, otter the mid-afternoon prayer, he emerged and joined the throngs in the market-place. He needed a job and had prayed for the same, and had been, while praying, full of hope. Yet he did not find his prayer answered. He asked shop-keepers and waiters in restaurants if they could help him to get work. But no-one was able to offer him a job. The hope he had felt quickly evaporated. At that point, he had turned homeward, disconsolate, not wishing to go home, but with nowhere else to go.

The people he had asked for help had looked at him (he felt) without sufficient concern or respect. He was sure, likewise, that his parents (and especially his father) thought him a shiftless, good-for-nothing. Whereas, in his own heart, he knew himself to be as diligent and willing to do work, any work, as any of his friends who had found jobs. Who will offer to measure the depth of indignation a young man feels who can find no place to put his own feet and stand on his independence, and from that place make his own way forward in the world? The anxiety that Amjad felt is, quite probably, a good quality in a young man, but he had became impatient, and in his impatience was falling into a bad mood. In that bad mood, he made a bad decision. He said to himself as he approached his home: This is the last day I will spend in a house where I cannot pay anything towards the cost of my food and lodging. This sentiment would have shocked his parents, who loved him and cared nothing for the cost of having him with live with them.

After the sunset prayer, which he did hastily and inattentively, he went into his room and changed out of his best Friday clothes. He made a bundle of some other things and put them in a canvas bag which he hung over his shoulder. He then stole out of the house without greeting or informing his parents. He walked briskly out of the hamlet and into the night, its gathering darkness softened by a bright half-moon.

He passed through the next cluster of houses, still walking briskly and ignoring the call to prayer. He could not hold together in his mind the intention of prayer to God and the other intention which he had formed but which he had yet to put into effect. Thinking of it made him sweat and tremble, partly with excitement, partly with fear. By the time he reached the next hamlet, he was ready, and the conditions were right, to carry out this other intention. The main street was quite empty of people, and there were no lights on in any of the houses. He turned off into the side lanes where the houses cluttered against each other. He counted the left and right turns and memorized them: if he failed to remember accurately, he would not easily find his way out.

He approached the door of one house and pushed it gently. It was not locked. It opened onto a small mud courtyard, smelling strongly of goat. However, there was no goat there on this night. He knew the lay-out of houses like this — he had been to many as a child when his family visited relatives. He quickly walked across to the opening which led up a step to the main living area. Beyond it, there would be the kitchen. Out of habit, Amjad slipped off his sandals before stepping up, then walked softly towards the kitchen. It was lit from a high window. He knew almost exactly where to look: it was as if he was robbing his own house. (Are not Muslims brothers of one another?) He searched for the little pot in which a family such as this would keep any cash available to them. He was shocked to find that the woman who ran this household folded her paper- money exactly as his own mother did. He took it out and counted it: it was very little, less than in his mother’s kitchen. He began to sweat and tremble again, not out of fear or excitement, nor out of shame or guilt, but out of a kind of wild, indignant pity. He felt sorry for all the poor of the world, most especially himself. He put back the money. He went over to a little, low table in the corner. He took the cup which served as a lid for the pitcher and poured himself a drink. He had hoped it might be milk. It was water. He drank it, as he had been taught to do since early childhood, gratefully and in three, separate gulps. Then he re-covered the pitcher with the cup. He took the cloth off a bowl which he was sure would have dates in it. It did. He took a large handful, then changed his mind, counted out oven dates and put back the rest, replacing the cloth.

Amjad made his way quietly out of the house, retraced his steps to the main street, and then walked away from the village. The feeling that he had done the right thing changed into the feeling that he had been a coward, that he had lacked the courage to be a thief, He determined that he would not fail again. He picked up a heavy stick, readying himself to use violence if need be.

Some distance away he saw the figure of a man, bending down, picking up something, looking around, again bending down, picking something up, and so again many times. He approached nearer, taking care not to be seen. He was able to make out a mule lightly tethered to a bush, saddle-bags beside it on the ground. The man had obviously been travelling and was going to rest for what remained of the night. The young man now understood what the traveller had been doing: he had been collecting little pebbles and puffing them in a bag to serve as a pillow. After a while the man carried this pillow to the bush, took a blanket from one of the saddle-bags, lay down, covered himself, then put the pillow under his head and settled himself to sleep.

The young man too lay down, but stayed awake. He waited until he was sure the traveller was asleep. While he waited, he ate the seven dates he had taken. They tasted strange, even unpleasant, and did not satisfy his hunger. He walked over to the mule, holding his stick ready in case the man should wake. The mule made no sound. The traveller did not stir. The young man began to rummage inside the saddle-bags. The mule watched while he did so. He could find no money, nor any valuables. There was a book, some clothes, a small bag of, probably, dates, a canister of water. Again, he took a drink and, opening the small bag, helped himself to a handful of dates. If the traveller had any money, he must have it on his own person. The young man gripped his stick, wondering if he had the stomach to strike a sleeping man and steal from him. Then he thought: ‘What wealth can a man have who sleeps under the open sky with a bag of pebbles for a pillow? Shall I shed blood for a few pence?’ He patted the mule and went on his way. The mule made no sound but turned its head and watched him leave.

Only the last third of the night remained by the time Amjad reached the next sizeable hamlet. He was now tired, bewildered by his failure to get started on his career as a thief. ‘The very first house,’ he promised himself, ‘I shall take something, however little it may be, however poor the occupants.’ He entered the house as easily as the first time, since the door was not locked. The house seemed more than quiet, it felt empty. This was an error of judgement of a kind often made. Amjad had mistaken the simplicity and cleanliness, the peace and serenity, in this house for emptiness. Unknown to the young thief. an elderly widower, now living alone since the death of his only son, was doing the night prayer in the yard. When Amjad crossed in front of him, the old man was disturbed and rose from his prayer-mat. He was not angry, nor, after he observed that Amjad took off his sandals before stepping in, was he even alarmed or afraid. He stood and watched without comment as Amjad moved about in the kitchen, looking for something.

After a time, he deliberately shuffled his feet so as not to startle the intruder and then greeted him:

‘As-salamu ‘alaykum. What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help?’

Amjad froze, unable to answer.

The old man said comfortingly: ‘I am old and my sight is weak. Please help us both by lighting the candle for me. It is somewhere there by your right hand.’

Amjad answered: ‘Wa ‘alaykum assalam’, and then did as the man asked. He held up the candle and looked into the old man’s face. He had spent since the late afternoon convinced that he hated the world and mankind, and wanting to belong neither to the world, nor to any of the people in it. Suddenly, his mood was overturned: the old mans face was, Amjad could find no other word, beautiful. He longed to belong to this old man, to have a share in whatever he shared.

‘You are a traveller. And most welcome.’ The old man pointed to a cushion on the floor and to a table with the familiar pitcher-and-cup and the cloth-covered bowl. Amjad duly sat down, lowering his bundle from his shoulder, and drank and ate water and dates.

The old man too sat down and after Amjad had finished eating asked him: ‘What were you looking for? I was praying and did not hear you call before you entered. I am glad you came in.’

Amjad could not quite lie, nor yet tell the whole truth. He felt deeply ashamed, as one who has behaved with the most awful vulgarity toward one incapable of any action so ugly as to enter a private dwelling uninvited: ‘I am looking for work, O Shaykh. I am unemployed, and have left my village So and So in my quest.

The old man smiled. Amjad also, when he realized how ridiculous was what he had said, ‘A strange time and place for such a quest’, the Shaykh observed, but someone as strong and as well-mannered as yourself must soon succeed in finding work. Yet, permit me to say that a Muslim is not ever unemployed. We always have our work to do for God, and He is One who pays a most generous rate for the labour He asks of us. We are fortunate in this respect, for otherwise in times of difficulty we would find ourselves driven into all kinds of self-abandonment, hopelessness and indignity. There is a bucket and a jug behind the door. If there is not enough water in it, please draw some from the well around the corner from the next house. After you have prayed, sleep wherever you are comfortable, I am alone in the house.’

The Shaykh then became pensive and retired. Amjad, delighted to have something to do and no explanations to make, duly took the bucket and jug. He filled it from the well and then went some way from the houses to do what was necessary before he could wash in preparation for prayer. He reentered the Shaykh’s house, and did the prayer he had neglected earlier, and then continued in prayer, asking no more of God than to be forgiven and joined in the company of men whose faces in old age became beautiful like the Shaykh’s.

Amjad and the Shaykh did the dawn prayer together and shared a breakfast of bread and honey with some tea. The Shaykh studied Amjad’s face as he told his story; Amjad was aware of this and it did not trouble him. The Shaykh then explained his circumstances and offered Amjad a deal: ‘Work my small farm. Live in this house, share my table. After harvest, divide the crops into five portions, three for me, one for you, and one for the farm itself and to maintain the house. Do you accept?’

Before the young man could say yes or no, there was a knock at the door. The Shaykh asked Amjad to answer it. It was the traveller Amjad had failed to rob the night before. The traveller’s mule pushed its head into the doorway and nuzzled Amjad. ‘It seems to know you’, said the traveller. The Shaykh asked Amjad if he would kindly take the mule to the well and give it water. Amjad did so. When he returned he found the Shaykh and the traveller at the door; the latter, having concluded his business. was ready to resume his journey. The traveller looked straight into Amjad’s face so that Amjad had no doubt that the Shaykh had told him how he came to be in the house.

Do you know this mule of mine? asked the traveller. He certainly seems very comfortable with you:

Amjad was stunned with shame. He might easily have said No. But he could not. ‘I will explain, he said. He went inside and from his bag took out the handful of dates he had stolen. He came back with them and showed them to the traveller: ‘It is not me that the mule knows, it is these dates which I took from your bags last night, while you slept by the road. Can you forgive me?’

The Shaykh and the traveller both laughed and both ignored his question. The traveller took the dates with a formal bow, and said: ‘I recognize these goods and am glad to have them back unharmed, though I had not even noticed their absence. I wish for you some reward for not disturbing my sleep. But no matter, Now I must be off.’ So saying, the traveller bid farewell to them both and left.

The Shaykh took Amjad in and sat him down. The young man was trembling: he had been discovered and knew it. He feared that the opportunity opened to him would be closed now, he deserved no less.

But the Shaykh made no allusion to the incident he had just witnessed. He proceeded instead to relate to Amjad the reason for the traveller’s visit.

‘This traveller was a stranger to me, though I knew his father many years ago. I did that man some service which I have long since forgotten, but to repay me he has sent by his son this bag of money. It contains 50 silver dinars. As I never helped that man’s father in the expectation of any reward, I refused the gift. But the son insisted that I should take it – if not for myself, then to use in the way of God. I have since understood that these dinars were not meant for me, but are the wages for your night’s work from the One who employed you for that work. Take them.’

Amjad took the bag. his hands shaking. ‘What shall I do with this?’

The Shaykh said: ‘It is yours; your responsibility. Learn from this how God rewards those who labour for Him. By the kind courtesy of the mule, you were able to make amends with the traveller, If you have other amends to make, do it promptly. Then, come back and work for me. You know the terms. Are they acceptable?’

‘Wholly acceptable,’ said Amjad. He rose and shook the Shaykh’s hand, though he would gladly have kissed it, had this been permitted, he was so overwhelmed with gratitude.

‘Al-hamdu li-llah! That is all settled. Go now and do what you have to do.’

Amjad returned to the hamlet in which he had stolen seven dotes but he could not now recognize the house he had entered. He therefore went to the local trader and bought a sack of dates, took it to the mosque and asked the people to distribute the dates in the way of God, as he wished to thank God for his good fortune. This act of charity did not exactly make amends for what Amjad had done, but over the years he was glad that it did not, for it meant that he had an incentive to more acts of giving, in the hope, without the certainty, of expiation and forgiveness.

He returned to his parents’ house, to seek their pardon for his sudden, rude absence. It was no sooner asked than given. He told them his good news and they rejoiced with him. Briefly in danger of being alienated. Amjad accepted that he belonged to his faith, to his people and their customs and practices, and to his life. He remembered the beautiful face of the Shaykh and reflected how true was God’s promise in His Book, that he will remove all rancour from the hearts of His believing servants.

The Quran calls the attention of human beings to the Divine manifestations on creatures such as the honeybee, ant, gnat and spider and invites them to reflect on and study phenomena like the movements of air, the alternation of day and night and the seasons, and the movements of heavenly bodies. The importance the Qur’an gives to the study of natural events inspired Muslim scientists to undertake investigations using observation and the experimental method – long before these came into use in Europe.

Science passed to Europe through the two centuries of the Crusades, through the universities in al-Andalus and Sicily and the translations made there from Arabic. This was the main factor behind the Renaissance in Europe. Building on (without ever openly acknowledging) the works of Muslim scientists, Western scientists led the way to the birth of modern science. Until correct conclusions were reached about phenomena through observation and experimental methods, the assertions of the ancient Greek philosophers had been accepted as the basic laws of nature. For example, it had been asserted as true without question from the time of Aristotle that the speed of an object’s falling is proportionate to its weight. However, the experiments done by Galileo and Newton proved this to be false. Those experiments showed that- so long as the resistance of air is negligible in proportion to the weight of the object and its vertical cross sectional area – the unhindered movement of an object on the earth is not dependent on its mass. This means that objects of different weight dropped from the same point reach earth at the same time. Such developments in physics led scientists to app rove observation and experiment as a basic rule in establishing natural facts. It was the job of scientists to try to discover the laws and basic truths prevalent in the universe through observation and experiment – empirical methods – while it was the task of philosophers to reflect on and comment on them, in other words, in order to have true conclusions about the universe and the events taking place in it we had to discard all of our preconceptions about them and study nature through empirical methods and then comment on the natural events and the relations between them.

In order to have a clearer understanding of modern science and what it can give us of truth about the universe, let us consider the law of general gravity, which is an undeniably established scientific fact:

Various observations and experiments have shown that any two objects attract each other or exert force upon each other proportionately to their masses and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them.

The force of attraction or gravity is the force which is in effect in events such as the falling of an object and the revolving of the earth around the sun. Science presents gravity as if it were the cause of such events. However, what we call the force of gravitation is only a notion which we use to explain those events. That is, there is an attraction observed between objects. In order to explain this attraction, we give it a name like the law or force of gravitation and then think that we have explained the event of attraction.

Science does not know the nature of what it calls the force of gravitation but, starting from the assertion that we have already successfully explained many events whose causes were unknown in the past, claims that it will be explained in the future. Nevertheless, science is unable to explain the real cause of all the events in the universe. What science in fact does is, starting from the recurrence of an event under the same conditions, to make a generalization and call it a law. Then it proceeds to assert that the same event will take place again and again under the same conditions. For example, after observing the falling of objects thrown into the air, it makes a generalization that all objects thrown into the air fall, and expresses this event of falling by a mathematical formula.

It can serve as a simple example to see how science works to calculate and state beforehand how long it takes for an object thrown into the air with a certain force and at a certain angle to fall and at what distance it falls. Since events take place in a cause-and- effect series, knowing what effect or event will take place in the next step does not require understanding why it takes place in that way. Therefore, although we suppose that the law of gravity will be understood as, say, dependent on an exchange between certain particles or the obliquity of spatial time, it will nevertheless remain unexplained through scientific methods why such an exchange takes place or why the spatial time becomes oblique and why that exchange or obliquity occurs according to certain mathematical formulations and thereby objects attract each other. In addition to the fact that why objects attract each other remains unknown, it is also a mystery (and a wonder) that this event of attraction takes place according to a mathematical formula. Because of our familiarity with the events taking place in nature, we ignore the important fact that every thing, every event in nature is a miracle. In order to see why the event of gravitation is a dazzling miracle, we should consider it more closely:

As an example to understand the law of gravity, let us consider the falling of a stone dropped (and then allowed to fall unhindered) from a certain high point. Left unhindered, that stone will realize a certain trajectory as the result of gravity affecting it. It will move faster and faster and finally hit the ground. How the stone will accelerate, how long it will take it to reach the ground and how it will move at every second of its trajectory depends on the stones distance from the centre of the earth, the mass of the earth and the constant of gravity. This means that the stone does not move at random, rather each of its movements during its fall is determined through mathematical formulas. This is an extremely regular movement. From this we inevitably conclude that if the stone does this movement of falling by itself, without an agent directing or determining its trajectory, then the stone must know accurately the constant of gravity, the mass of the earth and its distance from the centre of the earth at each moment of its trajectory, and then move in conformity with that knowledge. Whoever has a bit of intelligence will not attribute to the stone itself such a trajectory, simple in appearance but extremely complex in reality. Indeed, the falling of a stone is so complex a movement that during it all the objects in the universe, every thing with a certain mass, exerts on it certain force of attraction and the stone moves under the influence of all those forces. (Here we do not consider other essential forces such as the electro-magnetic and nuclear ones, which have determining effect on the movement of things. Expressed, again, with certain mathematical formulas, these forces make the movements in the universe even more complex.) That is, in order to determine its trajectory, the stone must know the exact distance between itself and each of about 1080 particles in the universe, calculate accurately at each moment of its trajectory the force of the attraction exerted on it by each of those particles according to the mathematical formula of gravity – a force which changes every moment – and focus all those forces to a single point in consideration of the direction of each. Let alone a stone, even the most advanced computer the size of the universe could not accomplish that. For the position of each of the particles with respect to the stone changes at every moment during its fall. Thus, the simplest-seeming movement in the universe like the falling of a stone requires comprehensive knowledge and mastery of an infinite number of interrelated processes.

Since any event taking place in any part of the universe has connection with each of the particles in the universe and the whole of the universe itself, only one who has perfect knowledge of each of those particles and the universe as a whole, one who sees the whole of the universe with each particle in it, can determine and direct all the movements in the universe. Also, since the law of gravity and all the other physical laws are the same and have the same uniformity throughout the whole of the universe, the one who makes these laws operative in the whole of the universe must be an absolutely powerful one, who dominates each and every thing in the universe. Otherwise, each atom in the universe must have an eye seeing the whole of the universe at the same time, know the position, mass, electrical charge, in short, all the physical features, of each particle in the universe, be aware of all the physical laws and obey the laws itself originated.

Every event and every thing in the universe is interrelated to every other and whatever takes place in the universe takes place according to certain laws. Therefore, it is impossible for even the smallest, most insignificant-seeming event to take place without one with an absolute, perfect knowledge of the universe with all its particles and an absolute power governing it. Said Nursi expresses this fact as follows:

If the existence and operation of the universe is not attributed to God Almighty, then it requires admitting that each particle has the attributes of the Necessarily Existent Being, and that each particle should both dominate and be dominated by all other particles. Again, each particle should have an all-encompassing will and knowledge, for the existence of a single thing is dependent on all things and one who does not own the universe cannot rule a single particle.

After explaining how complex a phenomenon gravitation is, we can go a little further to see the real cause of that phenomenon. The relation sensed between the fall of a stone and the rotation of the moon around the world in a fixed orbit led Newton to discover the law of gravity. Ever since this law received a general welcome, the cause of the falling down of an object thrown into the air has unquestionably been accepted as gravity. However, it is not necessary that the real cause of this movement is the force of the attraction of the earth or the existence of another material cause.

Consider this:

Let us imagine some animate beings living on a two- dimensional table. These living beings are aware of only the table on which they live and completely unaware of the three- dimensional world around them. Someone from the three- dimensional world fires at the table in equal frequencies and makes holes at equal distance from each other. Seeing the holes at equal distances, the animate beings living completely unaware of the three-dimensional world will inevitably conclude that each hole causes another one to be made. Whereas it is some other firing from the outside world who made the holes.

This is how the scientists attributing every thing and event in the universe to the law of causality think about the working of the universe. It is questionable whether the attraction of an object toward another near it (for example, the attraction of a falling stone toward the ground) is because of the objects themselves or there is some other source forcing the objects to such a movement. (The event of attraction is the simplest of the events occurring in the universe. You may consider how a honeybee makes honey or a cow gives milk, events which contain a much greater number of physical interactions, chemical reactions and cause and effect.) In short, since the movement of an object according to the law of gravity is one each moment of which is mathematically described and requires as many masses and distances as the articles in the universe and the distances among them to be known in their mutual, complex relations, there must be One Who is the All-Knowing. This One must also have an absolute will to choose and assign for each event a law out of innumerable ones. The uniformity of the law, that is, all the laws being prevalent throughout the universe calls for the unity of that All-Knowing and All-Willing One, and the obedience of all things, small or great, to those laws demonstrate that that One is also the All- Powerful. Again, the unchangeability or stability of the laws and the magnificent, unchanging order and harmony of the universe show that that One is Self- Subsistent and the All-Subsisting. That means it is that All-Knowing, All-Willing, All-Powerful, Self-Subsistent and All-Subsisting, Single One Who causes a stone to fall. For no one and nothing in the universe has the knowledge, will and power absolutely necessary for the falling of a stone. Every thing and event in the universe is too complex and magnificent for any material cause to bring it about. There is then no way for man other than to admit and recognize the Existence and Unity of God.

As this simple example shows, the existence of something has different stages or degrees. The stages through which a book passes might be called ‘worlds’: the ‘world’ of knowledge or meaning, the world of arranging and organizing, the world of matter or material forms. In the same way the universe has different kinds of existence in different ‘worlds. In oriental philosophy generally and in Islamic philosophy particularly, these worlds are usually referred to as the high empyrean heaven, the world of unconditioned existence, the world of the spirits, the world of the immaterial forms or symbols the visible or material world and the eternal world. And there are still other worlds between these.

Creation passes through these worlds and in the material world takes on a completely new, different form. In this world, the one in which we presently live, meaning or knowledge needs matter to come into material existence in order to be seen or known. Since the earth is a place where all of the Creator’s Names are manifested and His Works exhibited, it has a very important place in existence and, despite its small size, it is mentioned in the Qur’an together with heavens. Earthly existence is commonly divided into three or four ‘kingdoms’: the kingdom of elements, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom and the human kingdom. These ‘kingdoms’ are obviously interconnected: man’s body is made up of elements and has some features in common with vegetable and animal forms. With regard to the worldly aspect of his being, as Ali, the fourth Caliph, said, man is the child of the earth.

The materialistic point of view restricts man’s existence to his physical aspect only and regards all the metaphysical aspects of his existence as derivative from his physical aspect. However, it is plainly seen that man is so complex a being with such comprehensive faculties, desires and feelings, that it is impossible to attribute the metaphysical dimension of his existence to deaf, blind, ignorant, unconscious and inert matter. In imagination he can traverse in a few seconds the whole realm of material existence and go beyond it. His feelings and desires are not restricted to the physical world; they extend beyond it. He loves and hates, pities and cherishes enmity and vengeance, is pleased and dissatisfied, rejoices and is grieved, etc. These and other similar feelings which encompass the whole of existence all have different and lasting effects on him. The pains coming from past misfortunes and the anxieties he feels about his future never leave him. His needs are infinite, so are his desires and ambitions. So, it is impossible that this basic dimension of man’s existence which distinguishes him from all other creatures and which gives each individual human being a particular character, potential, countenance and temperament, originates in matter. It comes from the worlds far beyond the material world. God Almighty directly ‘breathes’ it into man, thus making him a mainly metaphysical being in the physical world. Thus, man has two dimensions in his being, one the worldly dimension composed of his physical structure, and vegetable and animal aspects, the other, the heavenly, metaphysical dimension comprising his inner faculties such as intellect, memory, imagination and ‘heart’, etc. and his metaphysical needs and desires, morality, spiritual questing and lofty ideals. This complexity in the essential being and character of man is the origin of certain general consequences, among which are:

a. Man has a special relation with his environment, his relatives, other human beings, animals and the whole of nature. Just as the whole life-history and features of a tree end or are included in its fruit, so too man, as the fruit of the tree of creation, contains in his being all the principal aspects or features of existence. This essential feature of his being must be considered in man’s relations with his natural environment; the neglect of it in modem times is the basic reason for modern environmental problems.

b. Since man is endowed with free will and great potentialities which can be continually expanded through learning and practice, the Creator did not restrict his drives or faculties. For example, the Creator put no limits upon man’s powers of anger, lust and reason. The power of anger is the origin of his instincts of defence: the power of lust is the source of his animal appetites, among them the urge to have relations wýth the opposite sex; the power of reason is the centre of his activities of intelligence and intellect. We may note also that man carries in his being the main characteristics of every animal. For example, he can be as rapacious as a wolf, and as cunning and deceiving as a fox. ‘Decked out for mankind is the passionate love of desires for the opposite sex and offspring, for hoarded treasures of gold and silver, for branded horses, cattle and plantations, for all kinds of worldly things.’

If man lets his powers drive him and obeys their demands, and if he does not discipline his animal characteristics, then these powers and characteristics can become the source of innumerable vices. If undisciplined, his power of anger can cause great crimes such as murder, all kinds of injustices and violations of others’ rights; the power of lust can lead man to consume whatever he finds, to earn in any way he finds convenient, to commit many crimes such as theft, usurpation, to have illicit sexual relations and seek to hide the consequences with abortion and infanticide. The power of reason, if it is not used according to certain standards, can be a means for such deceitful practices as demagogy, lying and sophistry. This power which has enabled man to realize admirable scientific and technological successes and developments in recent centuries, has also brought to mankind many disasters unparalleled in human history such as continual wars, machines for killing and destruction on an unbelievable scale, and increasing environmental pollution. In short, because of his unrestricted powers, man, if undisciplined, can be an agent of destruction and make life and the world into a dungeon for himself.

Man is a social being, compelled to live together with his fellow-beings. Harmonious social life requires justice and mutual helping which is only possible by man’s conformity to certain rules or standards of conduct. Necessarily, these rules restrict his powers. Since man’s essential needs and character have remained stable since his appearance on the earth, these rules and standards must be universal and stable and applicable to all men in all times and places. It is highly questionable whether man can know what and of what character these rules and standards must be. It is a plain fact that it is almost impossible for even two men to agree on all points. If the task of establishing the rules and standards were given to one individual or to one family or to one class or to one nation or to those with enough power to put them into effect (i.e. force others to obey), the consequence must inevitably be injustice and inequality among people. Therefore, a universal or transcendent intellect is necessary. Such an intellect can only be derived from God, as manifested in religion revealed by the Creator of all existence, Who knows all things, internally and externally, from the largest to the smallest, and all their interconnections from before to after time. However, since it is impossible for every human being individually to receive Divine revelation, God choose some persons among human beings (the Prophets and Messengers) and charged them to convey His religion to people. After the Last Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, no one and no institution has the right to be an intermediary between God and human beings. Only those who are well-versed in religious sciences can offer authoritative guidance for others concerning the problems people may encounter. By obeying God-established rules or standards, a man can restrict his powers in a way that results in justice and equity among people.

Man’s powers, desires and faculties are given to him so that he should channel them into virtues. For example, he is not expected to annihilate his lust, but to satisfy it in lawful ways and use it as a means of reproduction. Thus, the happiness of man lies in his restricting his power of lust within the lawful bounds of decency and chastity, without indulgence in debauchery and dissipation. Similarly, his power of anger is given to man so that he may use it in defence of his sacred values – religion, life and property, nation – against attacks. That is, he must not use it unlawfully to exploit and oppress, or injure and kill, others. He must restrict it within the bounds of valour and chivalry and exercise it for the promotion of a sacred value. Again, the virtuous direction in the exercise of reason is understanding, wisdom and truthfulness. Reason must not be used to deceive others for selfish advantage.

Man also has certain feelings which are intrinsic to his nature, such as jealousy, hatred, enmity, hypocrisy and ostentation. If such feelings are not trained and directed to virtue, they consume man. For example, jealousy must be channelled into emulation free of rancour, which inspires man to imitate those who excel him in goodness and good deeds. Hatred and enmity should be directed primarily against his own carnal self and the bad aspects of his character. As for hypocrisy and ostentation, he must try to be rid of them. If that is impossible for him, he should at least try to make show of only the better sides of his character and compete with others in virtuous deeds, rather than virtuous words or gestures.

There is another point to emphasize concerning the happiness or perfectibility of man: Man is not a being composed of only body and intellect. He has also a spirit which requires satisfaction, without which he can never find true happiness. Spiritual satisfaction is possible only through belief in God Almighty and aspiration to ‘reach’ Him and gain eternal happiness in the other world. The physical world, man’s carnal self, time and place are the thick walls of his worldly dungeon. Confined within the walls of this dungeon, man can by no means find happiness or lead a happy life. He can escape or be freed from this dungeon by means of belief and regular worship, and by refraining from all kinds of sins. In short, as Said Nursi writes (The Letters 2, 1995, p.2) the highest aim of creation and its most sublime result is belief in God. The most exalted rank of humanity is the knowledge of God. The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for mankind is the love of God issuing from the knowledge of God. The purest joy for the human spirit and the purest delight for mans heart is the spiritual ecstasy contained within the love of God. Indeed, all true happiness, pure joy, sweet bounties and unclouded pleasures are undoubtedly contained within the knowledge and love of God. The one who knows and loves God is either potentially or actually able to receive endless happiness, favours, enlightenment and understanding. While the one who does not truly know and love Him is afflicted spiritually and materially by endless misery, pain and fear. Indeed, even if a man, powerless and miserable, and unprotected amid other purposeless human beings in a world filled with wretchedness, were made the ruler of the whole world, what is this really worth for him? Everyone can understand how miserable and bewildered a condition man endures, if he does not recognize his Owner, discover his Master. If, however, he discovers his Owner and recognizes his Master, then he will seek refuge in His Mercy and rely on His Power, and that desolate world will become for him, a place of rest and felicity, and a place of exchange for the Hereafter.

In sum, man’s real happiness lies in his being a servant to God. This servanthood never reduces man. By contrast, a man who rebels against God relying on himself or the power of science and technology may be a Pharaoh-like tyrant, but he is one who abuses himself so far as to worship before the meanest thing to serve his interest. That man may also be stubborn, misled and misleading: unyielding but so wretched as to accept endless degradation for the sake of a single pleasure:unbending but so mean as to kiss the feet of devilish people for the sake of some base advantage. That man may, again, be conceited and domineering, but since he can lind no point of support in his heart, he reduces himself to an impotent vainglorious tyrant. He may also be a self-centered egoist, who strives to gratify his material, carnal desires and pursues his personal interests after certain national or rational interests. As for a sincere servant of God, he is a worshipping servant, but one who does not degrade himself to bow in adoration or humiliation even before the greatest of the created. He is a dignified servant who does not regard as the goal of worship a thing of even the greatest benefit like Paradise. Also, he is modest, mild and gentle, but he does not lower himself voluntarily before anybody other than his Creator beyond what He has permitted. He may also be weak and in want, and be aware of his weakness and neediness. Yet he is independent of others, owing to the spiritual wealth which his Munificent Owner has provided for him, and he is powerful as he relies on the infinite Power of his Master. He acts and strives purely for Gods sake, for God’s good pleasure, and to be equipped with virtues.

To be a good, virtuous servant of God Almighty and thereby find true happiness, a man must oppose his carnal self and fight against it so as to always use his will in the correct way. Life, which is the arena of this fighting or holy struggle, find its true meaning through this struggle, evolves and is perfected. The pleasure of this struggle lies in itself. It is like climbing an upward path. Walking on levelled surfaces does not give man any pleasure, but when one who continuously climbs hills or walks an uphill road reaches the summit and wipes the sweat from his forehead, he experiences the great pleasure of achievement. But for winter, spring would not be so beautiful. So, man’s true happiness and the real pleasure of life lie in his struggle against the temptations of his carnal self and Satan and becoming victorious against both. This is how a man can rise along the path of perfectibility toward the heavens, toward endless and eternal happiness and pleasures, toward being truly human and recovering his primordial or original state as the best pattern of creation and eternal inhabitant of Paradise.

For every normal human being, there is awareness of himself and of a world outside. Through a learning process a child recognizes the existence of different types of colours and shapes around him. Example: there are some red apples which his mother has just washed and put on the table; he recognizes their likeness to the ball his father bought him to play with: the likeness is one of outward form, roundness and some degree of firmness or solidity. His sight and touch of the objects in question suffice for him to attain the general concepts of a colour called ‘red’ and a shape called ‘sphere’. But is there ‘red’ for a child who is blind? And if the blind child also has an impaired sense of touch, what is the meaning of ‘red’ or ‘round’ or ‘solid’? Few of us who do not ourselves suffer, or have direct contact with, such disability spend much time reflecting on its consequences for perception and understanding.

If the child in our example could understand what it means to be blind or to have impaired sense of touch, he would be inclined to ask: Is the red that I see inside or outside me? Is the roundness that I see and touch inside or outside me?

At school most of us are taught that a red apple is made of atoms which have neither the quality of redness nor of roundness. We are also learning from recent developments in studies of the brain that neither light nor sound reaches our brain: what the brain receives is certain electrical quantities produced by our eyes, ears or other senses. [1] It, the brain, then processes these electrical quantities into meaningful sense-impressions like colour and shape. If we stimulate the brain with an artificial electrical source, it soon becomes apparent that the brain cannot distinguish between a real or artificial stimulus. Using this technique we can make the brain ‘see’ wholly imaginary pictures which it processes and responds to as if they were wholly real. During brain surgery some patients can be excited by artificial impulses and ‘see’ quite unreal pictures (something like what we see in dreams) and even, having seen, giggle at them. To return to the child of whom we said, he sees red apples. What, in fact, does he see? What is the meaning of the reality of the red apples? Are they there outside him, or do his senses play a trick on him, or is the world presented to him in some other way?

Throughout history most scientists and philosophers have started from the assumption that space and time are absolutes, as defined by Aristotle [2] and formulized by Newton [3]. According to this assumption, the space we inhabit existed before us and will continue to exist after us, and time flows over and through it at a uniform rate. However, developments over the last hundred years, particularly Einstein’s relativity theory [4], have undermined that assumption. Time and space are not absolute; they exist with us, in part because we ourselves invest them with reality and meaning.

Now, with the latest developments in computer and multimedia technology, we are able to understand the relativity of time and space much better. We are able to make a human brain believe that it is experiencing the real world by exciting the five senses attached to it. The excitement to the brain is provided by a computer of the latest techniques of simulation and modelling can almost handle all five of our human senses. How is this done? And what are its implications?

It is done, essentially, by applying advanced forms of imaging familiar from 3D virtual reality games like DOOM and Heretic. In order to train F16 pilots, LCD-masks or helmets have been designed that show the pilot a three-dimensional picture of the aircraft such that, as he moves his head up and down, it feels to him as if he were really in the aircraft. With the addition of a perfect sound system and a seat that moves in sensitive accord to what is represented through the LCD-helmet, all the thrills and sensations of flying can be ‘experienced’ by the trainee pilot. [4,5]

A current PhD project in Manchester is experimenting with virtual reality imaging using a robot 40 miles away from the laboratory [6]. The robot’s ‘hand’ is equipped with sensors to read temperature, pressure and humidity. It is wired to send, via a fast communication net, the data it obtains to a glove worn by a technician/operator in the lab. The operator wearing the glove ‘feels’ what the robot ‘feels’. The system is communicative both ways: the operator can send commands to the robot and cause the robot ‘hand to move by moving the glove. Also, through two video cameras positioned in the robot’s ‘eyes’, the operator can see whatever the robot ‘sees’. So, when the operator wants to touch an object near the robot, he needs only to move the glove to the image of the object: this movement sends a command to the robot’s ‘hand’ which grabs the object. As before, the operator really feels the object as the robot-hand’s sensors pass on the relevant data in real time. Once the robot touched a hot object and the operator’s hand felt the burn.

This robot-hand, cameras and glove combination is being developed for medical applications. When the technique is perfected, it is hoped that a surgeon in Houston will be able to operate on a patient in St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. In this research project there is a real robot obtaining and relaying data about a real patient or other real objects around the patient. The operator receives that data and the associated images and sensations thanks to a computer programme. But it is entirely possible for the computer programme to generate the data, images and sensations without reference to a real robot or real objects. In other words, if the computer sends to the glove temperature, pressure and humidity data (just as the robot ‘hand’ did), the operator wearing the glove will be none the wiser. He or she will operate as if there were a real robot at a certain location communicating real data through its real hand’. In fact, everything would be not real at all, but only ‘virtual’: the surgeon in Houston could thus be made to perform a life-saving operation in Manchester, to undergo all the tension and drama thereof, whereas in fact only a virtual life, not a real one, would be saved if the operation was successful.

In the Manchester research project, only the hand communicates a virtual world through the glove worn by the operator. Scientists are now studying the feasibility of extending the idea to a garment that would cover the whole body. Suppose that I put on such a garment, with the attached LCD-helmet and a perfect sound system, and go to a place (underwater, for example) where there is no gravitational force. Since every part of my body is covered by the garment, every part of it will feel the virtual world as generated and managed by the computer. For example, when the LCD-helmet shows me that there is a nail sticking up on the ground and I tread on it, the sensor worn under my foot will actually feel pain. I will start responding to and behaving in my virtual world as my helmet commands me to: any outsider seeing me underwater will think me crazy, as I will be making strange movements that make no sense. However, within the virtual world, all my movements are perfectly sensible and rational.

Let us now suppose two such garments. I wear one, and my friend the other. If the programmes running in our helmets communicate, we can speak to each other, even shake hands. Although I cannot really see my real friend underwater, I can, while wearing that special garment see him virtually, as my helmet shows him to me: the programme running in the helmet communicates to me what my friend is wearing and what he is saying and how, and the conditions and changes in our environment, etc. But the computer could also introduce me to other, imaginary friends in the helmet-run world. If it did so, it would not be easy for me to distinguish the real from the virtual beings. Actually, it would be impossible. Let us take the example further. Imagine a shepherd who is asleep on a mountainside near his flocks. Let us go to him and, without waking him up, dress him in that special garment. Then, let us simulate every person and object the shepherd has a relationship with in his real world of the sun, the mountains, his flocks, family, friends, and so on. Our programme starts by waking the shepherd up. When he wakes, he looks around and is seeing his flocks, the mountain side, the sun, etc. all virtually. Everything seems to him quite normal. In fact, of course, the flocks, the mountain-side, the sun, etc. have all been produced by our computer, the shepherd is nowhere near his flocks, he is in our underwater laboratory, wearing the special garment. And in that virtual world, he duly goes home, sees his virtual wife, and lives his life normally, as before. It is assumed that a normal brain stores at least 1018 bits and processes information at about 1015 bits per second [7].

This is how the shepherd”s brain can easily handle a time adjustment done by the programme running in the helmet. The shepherd, let us say, spends one our in the lab but thinks in his virtual world that he has lived a year. He truly believes he has aged whereas he has hardly been absent long enough for even his sheep to notice. We simply simulate a world for him, and if we do it well enough, he must think it real. He sees his sheep, touches them, smells the odour coming from them, hears them bleat, even tastes their milk — all virtually. He looks up and sees the sun simulated by the helmet and thinks it real. He sees the shadows of the trees shrink or lengthen and he thinks the sun makes them do so. As the programmers of the computer running in his helmet, we know that in fact the shadows of trees and the sun are drawn quite independently of each other, but the programme displays them according to the familiar cause-effect rules so that the shepherd will not be worried. Otherwise, if in designing the programme we had forgotten those familiar rules, if we had forgotten the sun-shadow relationship we are used to, the shepherd would start to think he was growing crazy, seeing trees without shadows, or shadows without trees, etc. Here, a particularly relevant Qur’anic verse (25.45) comes to mind: Have you not seen how your Lord spread the shadow — if He willed He could have made it still — thus We have made the sun its guide. The meaning of the verse is that as the sun rises towards midday, the shadow shrinks, then begins to lengthen again as the sun declines. Here, it leads us to affirm that the whole of our real world in all its complexity and fullness and actuality is created, not by itself, but by One hidden from it, outside of it and other than it.

As long as, in the shepherd”s virtual world, the virtual sun and the virtual shadows of trees are designed perfectly, the shepherd will believe that he is living in a real world. Of course we do not, perhaps cannot ever, design our simulation perfectly or completely — the shepherd”s body has its internal mechanisms and, to put it bluntly, the shepherd could not live very long on virtual food (the only kind we could supply him within the virtual world) even if we could make his brain believe that he had really eaten. If our shepherd said that the sun in his world created the shadows of the trees, causing them to shrink or lengthen, we would know for certain that the shepherd was wrong. Because we know that the trees and the sun are merely images drawn by our computer. The shepherd”s statement is as incorrect as if he had said the shadows created the sun or the mountians created his flocks of sheep. It is only the perfection of our designing into the programme the rules of light and shadow that lead the shepherd to believe that it is the sun that creates the shadow. We can make the shepherd understand the meaning of the light-and-shadow rules written into the programme by ordering the programme to stop generating shadows. Underwater, the shepherd has only the capability of willing. He can want something to happen or not happen according to the terms and within the limits of the computer programme. For example, if he wants to throw a stone at the mountain, he only wills it and the computer generates the necessary images and sensations: he thinks and feels as if he sees and picks up and then throws a stone.

Of course, he in fact only throws virtually: all he really does is to make some strange-looking movements underwater. Again, a verse of the Qur’an (8.17) comes to mind for its striking relevance to our discussion: You killed them not, but God killed them. And you threw them not when you did throw, but God threw — that He might test the believers by a fair trial from Him. Surely God is All-Hearing, All-Knowing. While the shepherd is still under the control of our programme, let us apply a test to him. Let us design a virtual person and send him into the shepherd”s virtual world with this mission: to explain to the shepherd that he is not really living his real life now but, instead, living a virtual life in a laboratory; that the programmer who designed the virtual world he is living in desires him to conduct his life according to certain rules — for example, the shepherd must not commit any crimes such as theft — and if he transgresses these rules, he will be punished directly there and then or, after the programme is stopped, at the discretion of the programmer. Clearly. it would be a major mistake on the shepherd”s part to deny the virtual messenger we have sent to him: if he denies the possibility of any such event as the whole programme terminating, or denies the existence of a programmer who could or would take him to task for transgressing the programmers rules, none could rescue the shepherd from any punishment we may decide for him. We may have powerful, irresistible guards obedient to our commands, ready to lay hold of the shepherd, should we command it. Or we might so amend the programme that the virtual sun will not rise on another virtual morning, and the shepherd is left in the darkness of a perpetual virtual night.

It is reasonable to imagine that, after the programme is shut down, we can explain and demonstrate to the shepherd that he has been living in a virtual world which we projected for him. Then, no doubt, he would accept that the virtual messenger we sent to him was telling him nothing except the truth, that, behind the virtual world that seemed so real to him, there really was a programmer with a will who could, at his choice, invite or compel the shepherd”s obedience. Finally, two verses from the Qur’an (6.71; 2.28) which show that our speculations on virtual reality have led us to the conclusion that our experiences of the reality of this real world are not so different from the shepherd”s in the virtual world underwater: Say: “Tell me, if God made night perpetual for you until the Day of Resurrection, who is a god beside God who could bring you light? Will you not then pay heed? How can you reject faith in God? Seeing that you were without life and He gave you life; then He will cause you to die and will bring you again to life; and to Him you will return?

References

1. The Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada. http://oncolink.upenn.edu/disease/brain/btfc/pchp3.html
2. Aristotle, METAPHYSICS, 350 BC, translated by W. D. Ross, http://paul.spu.edu/—hawk/aristotle.html
3. Isaac Newton, http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/–history/ Mathematicians/Newton.html
4. The Virtual Reality Store, http://www.thevrstore.com/ main.htm
5. Information about 3D-MAX, http://www.threed-max.udac.se/Info/infoindex.html
6. Kocak, Osman Ph.D Project, 1996, Salford University.
7. Adam, J. A., Bert Kasko., IEEE Spectrum, February 1996.

The Battle of Badr was the first major confrontation of the Muslims with the enemy forces. Although outnumbered, the believers won a great victory. Until then – if we do not accept the opinions of some interpreters of the Qur’an that sura Muhammad, which contains regulations about how to treat prisoners of war, was revealed before sura al-Anfal – no Divine commandment had been revealed about how the captives should be treated. The Muslims did not even know whether they were to kill the enemy on the battlefield or take them as prisoners. After the battle the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, consulted, as he always did where there was no specific Divine commandment, with his Companions on this question. Abu Bakr said:

‘O God’s Messenger! They are your people. Even though they did you and the believers great wrong, you will win their hearts and cause their guidance if you forgive them and please them.’

However, ‘Umar gave this opinion: O Gods Messenger! The prisoners of war are the leading figures of Makka. If we kill them, unbelief will no longer be able to recover to encounter us. So, hand over to each of the Muslims his kin among them. Hand over to ‘Ali his brother ‘Aqil to kill. Let Abu Bakr kill his son, Abd al-Rahman, and ….[so on].’

Gods Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, turned to Abu Bakr and said:

You are, 0 Abu Bakr, like the Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, who said: ‘He who follows me is of me, and he who disobeys me- but You are indeed Oft- Forgiving, Most Compassionate (Qur’an, 14.36). You are also like Jesus, who said: ‘If You punish them, they are Your servants. If You forgive them, You are the All- Mighty, the All-Wise’ (Qur’an, 5.118).

Then he turned to ‘Umar and said:

O Umar! You are like Noah, who said: ‘0 my Lord! Leave not even a single unbeliever on earth!’ (Qur’an, 71.26). You are also like Moses, who said [of Pharaoh and his chieftains]: ‘Our Lord, destroy their riches and harden their hearts so that they will not believe until they see the painful chastisement’ (Qur’an, 10. 88).

MAN AND RELIGION

The episode just mentioned above from the early history of Islam illustrates an important aspect of the nature of man in relation to the mission of Prophethood and religion in man’s life.

Man is a ‘tripartite’ being composed of the spirit, the carnal self and the body. These three elements are so closely interrelated that neglecting one results in failure to achieve perfection. Man has accordingly been endowed with three essential faculties, namely the spiritual intellect, reason and will. During his life-time, man experiences a continual inner struggle to choose between good and evil, right and wrong. The motor of this struggle is the will, as directed by the reason. However, human reason can be swayed by carnal desires, personal feelings, interests and such emotions as anger and rancour, so it needs as its guide the spiritual intellect. The spiritual intellect, including conscience, is the source of moral values and virtues. Historically, it is the Divinely revealed religions that have determined what is right and wrong on the authority of their Revealer, namely God, and of the character of the Prophets who conveyed His revelation.

Because of his worldly nature, man can be too obedient a servant of his lusts. When such men as are captive to their lusts gain enough power to rule over their fellows, they light fires of oppression on the earth and reduce the poor and the weak to slaves or servants. Human history is full of such instances. However, as God is All-Just and never approves oppression, He sent His Prophets in certain phases of that history in order to guide and correct the individual and collective life of mankind.

All of the Prophets came with the same doctrine, the fundamentals of which are believing in One God, Prophethood, the Resurrection, Angels, Divine Scriptures and Divine Destiny, and worshipping God. All of the Prophets also conveyed the same moral principles. In this sense, all the Divine religions are one and the same, but the flow of history through some epochs varying in cultural, geographical, social and economic conditions required different Prophets to be sent to each nation and certain differences to be made in the acts and forms of worship and in the subdivisions of the law – until such time as these conditions allowed that the Seal of the Prophets, the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, could be sent and the religion completed so that, in its essentials, it sufficed thenceforth to solve all the problems humankind will encounter until the end of time and be applicable in all conditions. (There is an important point to be added in this connection. When a Prophet passed away, his nation over time altered some of the principles of his religion, borrowed some polytheistic elements from pagan practices, and went astray, thus corrupting the Divine religion. This historical fact was another reason for the Prophets being sent one after the other over the (course of time).

MOSES, JESUS AND MUHAMMAD

Islam, as the last, universal form of the Divine religion, orders its followers to believe in all of the Prophets. Being a Muslim also means being a follower of Jesus and Moses and of all the other Prophets at the same time. The Qur’an declares:

The Messenger (Muhammad) believes in what has been revealed to him by his Lord, and so do the believers. They all believe in God and His angels, His Scriptures and His Messengers: ‘We make no distinction between any of His Messengers’-and they say: ‘We hear and obey. Grant us Your forgiveness, our Lord; to You is the journeying’ (2.285).

Since, due to their historical conditions, the messages of all the previous Prophets were restricted to a certain people and period, certain principles had prominence in those messages. Also, God bestowed some special favours on each Prophet and community according to the dictates of the time. For example, Adam was favoured with knowledge of the names’, that is, the keys to all branches of knowledge. Noah was endowed with steadfastness and perseverance. Abraham was honoured with intimate friendship with God and being the father of numerous Prophets. Moses was given the capability of administration and exalted through being the direct addressee of God, and Jesus was distinguished with patience, tolerance and compassion. All the Prophets have, however, some share in the praiseworthy qualities mentioned, but each of them surpasses, on account of his mission, the others in one or more than one of those qualities.

When the Prophet Moses was raised as a Prophet, the Israelites were leading a wretched existence under the rule of the Pharaohs in Egypt. Because of the despotic rule and oppression of the Pharaohs, slavery was ingrained in the souls of the Israelites and had become a part of their character. In order to reform them, to equip them with such lofty feelings and values as freedom and independence, and to re-build their character and free them from subservience to the Pharaohs, the Prophet Moses came with a message containing stern and rigid rules and measures. This is why the Book given to Moses was called the Law. Again, as a requirement of his mission, the Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, was a reformer and educator of somewhat unyielding and stern character. Therefore, it was quite natural for him to pray, in reference to Pharaoh and his chieftains: ‘Our Lord, destroy their riches and harden their hearts so that they will not believe until they see the painful chastisement.’

In the time when Jesus came, the Israelites had abandoned themselves to worldly pleasures and led a materialistic life. The Qur’an (9.34) states that not only the common people but also, and more so, the rabbis and scribes consumed the goods of others in vanity and barred people from God’s way. They exploited religion for worldly advantage:

You see many of them vying in sin and enmity and how they consume the unlawful; evil is the thing they have been doing. Why do the masters and rabbis not forbid them to utter sin, and consume the unlawful. Evil is the thing they have been doing (5.62-3).

A similar sentiment is to be found in the Gospels, attributed to Jesus:

You snakes-how can you say good things when you are evil. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good person brings good things out of his treasure of good things; a bad person brings bad things out of his treasure of bad things (Matthew, 12.34-5).

Take care: be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees are the authorized interpreters of Moses Law. So you must obey and follow everything they tell you to do; do not, however, imitate their actions, because they don’t practise what they preach. They tie onto people’s backs loads that are heavy and hard to carry, yet they aren’t willing even to lift a finger to help them carry those loads. They do everything so that people will see them… They love the best places at feasts and the reserved seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the market-places and to have people call them Teacher… How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees. You hypocrites… You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty. These you should practise, without neglecting the others (Matthew: Chapters 23, 13, and 12).

When Jesus, upon him be peace, was sent to the Israelites, the spirit of the Religion had been dwindled away and the Religion itself reduced to a device for its exponents to rob the common people. So, before proceeding to put the Law into effect, Jesus concentrated on faith, justice, mercy, humility, peace, love, repentance for one’s sins and begging God’s forgiveness, helping others, purity of heart and intention and sincerity:

Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor: ‘The Kingdom of heaven, belongs to them.

Happy are those who mourn: God will comfort them.

Happy are those who are humble: They will receive what God promised.

Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires: God will satisfy them fully.

Happy are those who are merciful to others: God will be merciful to them.

Happy are the poor in heart: They will see God. (Matthew: 5.3-10). 

As for the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, he has all the qualities mentioned above, except being the father of Prophets, and in addition, he has, because of the universality of his mission, the distinction of being like Moses in that he is a warner and established a Law and fought with his enemies, and like Jesus in that he is a bringer of good news who preached mercy, forgiveness, helping others, altruism, humility, sincerity, purity of intention and moral values of the highest degree. We should remember that the Qur’an declares that God sent the Prophet Muhammad as a mercy for the whole of creation. Again, Islam presents God, before all other Attributes and Names, as the All-Merciful and the All-Compassionate. This means God mainly manifests Himself as the All-Merciful and All-Compassionate and His wrath and punishment are only accidental. That is, it is man himself who attracts God’s wrath because of his sins and wrongdoing. But God is the All-Forgiving and He forgives most of the sins of His servants:

Whatever misfortune befalls you, is for what your own hands have earned and for many (of them) He grants forgive ness (Qur’an 42 30)

The Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, had the mission of both Moses and Jesus. It is evident from the historical episode we mentioned at the beginning of this article that among the leading Companions, while Abu Bakr represented the mission of Jesus’, ‘Umar (may God be pleased with them both) stood for the mission of Moses’. Since Islam must prevail to the end of time, it requires its followers to act, according to circumstances, sometimes as Moses and sometimes as Jesus.

THE MESSIANIC MISSION OF JESUS CHRIST TOWARD THE END OF TIME

We see in the reliable books of Hadith many sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, that the Prophet Jesus will come back to the world before the end of time and practise the law of Islam. Although those Traditions have so far been interpreted in different ways, it cannot be wrong to interpret them as meaning that, before the end of time, Islam must manifest itself mostly in that dimension of it represented by Jesus. That is, the main aspects of the Messengership of Jesus must be given prominence in preaching Islam. These aspects are:

Jesus always travelled. He never stayed in one place, he preached his message on the move. Therefore, in order to preach Islam, the ‘missionaries’ of Islam must travel or emigrate from place to place. They must be ‘the repenters, the worshippers, the travellers (in devotion to the cause of Islam and to convey it), the bowers, the prostraters, the commanders of good and the forbidders of evil, and the observers of God’s limits.’ For them there is good news (Qur’an, 9.112).

Second, mercy, love, and forgiveness had the first place in Jesus’ mission. He was a bringer of good news. Therefore, those who have dedicated themselves to the cause of Islam must give prominence to mercy, love, and forgiveness and, never forgetting that the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, was sent as a mercy for all the worlds, for the whole of existence, they must convey good news to every place and call people to the way of God with wisdom and fair exhortation. They must never be repelling.

The world today needs peace more than at any time in history,

and most of the problems of the modern world arise from excessive worldliness, scientific materialism and the ruthless exploitation of nature. Everyone talks so much today of the danger of war and the pollution of air and water that peace and ecology are the most fashionable words on people’s tongues. But the same people wish to remove those problems through further conquest and domination of nature. The problem lies in rebelling against Heaven and in the destruction of the equilibrium between man and nature as a result of the modern materialistic conception of, and a corrupt attitude toward, man and nature.Most people are reluctant to perceive that peace within human societies and with nature is possible through peace with the spiritual order. To be at peace with the earth one must be at peace with the spiritual dimension of one’s existence and this is possible by being at peace with Heaven.

In the Qur’an, Jesus introduces himself as follows: ‘I am indeed a servant of God… He has commanded me to pray and to give alms as long as I live. And He has made me dutiful to my mother and has not made me oppressive, wicked. (19.31-2)

This means, from the viewpoint of Jesus’ promised mission toward the end of time, children will not be dutiful to their parents. Therefore, the ‘missionaries’ of Islam in our age must, besides performing their prayers accurately and helping the poor and needy, be very careful about showing due respect to their parents and elders. The Qur’an enjoins: ‘Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you show kindness to your parents. If either or both of them attain old age with you, (show no sign of impatience, and) do not even say ‘fie’ to them; nor rebuke them, but speak kind words to them (17.23).

One of Jesus’ miracles was healing diseases and reviving the dead by leave of God, that is, respect for life was very important in his message. The Qur’an attaches the same degree of importance to life and itual dimension of one’s existence and this is possible by being at peace with Heaven.

One of Jesus’ miracles was healing diseases and reviving the dead by leave of God, that is, respect for life was very important in his message. The Qur’an attaches the same degree of importance to life and regards one who kills a man wrongly as if he had killed all mankind, while, on the other hand, one who saves a life is as if he had saved the life of all mankind. So, those who have dedicated themselves to the cause of Islam must attach the utmost importance to life and therefore try to prevent wars, find cures for illnesses and know that reviving a person spiritually is more important than healing diseases. The Quran declares: ‘O you who believe! Obey God and the Messenger, when the Messenger calls you to that which gives you life’ (8.24).

I imagined you travelling on the hills of my heart.

A mirage, I know, but it sufficed to calm the anguish of my heart.

As I mentioned you again, nothing else remained in my memory.

I wish I could move the whole of time with love of you,

and travel in your horizons, rising high like spirits;

I wish I, finding a way, could fly into your heart.

I wish I could move the whole of time with love of you.

I’ve come to understand that it’s too late to reach you,

I will lament continually for the pangs of separation;

Lamenting, I will wait with ever-fresh hopes of union with you.

I’ve come to understand that it’s too late to reach you.

My heart, like a pigeon’s, trembles following your footprints;

I beg you to give me a feather from your wing,

so that I might continue after you and reach you.

My heart, like a pigeon’s, trembles following your footprints.

O Rose, which changed dry deserts into gardens of Eden,

Come and, with your intoxicating colour, enter my heart!

It’s time that you smiled into my weeping eyes,

O Rose, which changed dry deserts into gardens of Eden!

Let me be your slave who, like Majnun, runs after you,

Spark such embers within me that I catch fire like a furnace,

and come out of this dream, enduringly bitter without you.

Let me be your slave who, like Majnun, runs after you.

I count how many days have passed without you,

and a gloom invades my soul, darkening it;

Let me see your face, as the sun is about to set.

I count how many days have passed without you.

Let my setting, the last moment of my life, be a new rising,

and my heart be invaded by the colours of your climate;

let lutes be played everywhere, and reed flutes heard.

Let my setting, the last moment of my life, be a new rising.

***

Every thing, every being in existence displays God’s Unity as a most manifest truth. For example, of the innumerable arguments for His existence and Unity, consider life: He makes everything out of one thing and makes one thing out of many things. He makes the countless members and systems of the animal body out of fertilizing sperm-bearing fluid and also out of simple water which is drunk. Thus, to make out of one thing everything is surely the work of an Absolutely All-Powerful One. Also, One Who transforms with perfect orderliness numerous substances contained in innumerably diverse kinds of vegetable or animal food into particular bodies, weaving from them a unique skin for each, and various members of the body, is surely an All-Powerful and Absolutely All- Knowing One.

Second argument

If you consider air, you can also see His undeniable Unity. Air is a marvellous conductor: it conducts innumerable sounds, voices, images and other things like lightning, etc. It conducts all at the same instant without the least confusion and one without hindering the other. This explicitly shows that there is One, without any partners whatsoever, Who has created all things according to His Wisdom and controls and administers them.

Third argument

The universe resembles a tree, which has grown from a seed containing the program of the future full form of the tree. So, all things in the universe are closely interrelated with one another. Each particle in the body, for example, a particle in the pupil of the eye, has relations with the eye itself, as well as with the head, and the powers of reproduction, attraction and repulsion, with the veins and arteries, and with other veins, and motor and sensory nerves, which serve the circulation of blood and the working of the body, and with the rest of the body, and it has also duties in relation to each. This evidently shows one who is not blind that the whole of the body, including every particle, is a work of an Eternal, All-Powerful One and operates under His command.

A molecule of air may visit any flower and any fruit. It may also enter into it and work within it. If it were not subjugated to, and working under, the command of an Absolutely All-Powerful One, that wandering molecule of air would have to know all the systems and structures of all flowers and fruits and how they are formed down to their peripheric lines. So that molecule does, therefore, show the rays of a light of Divine Unity like a sun. You may compare light, earth, and water with air.

In any event, the original sources of things which, according to science, are hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen, are the components of earth, air, water, and light.

The seeds of all flowering and fruit-bearing plants are the same in composition: they are all composed of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. They only differ on account of and in respect of the program of their progenitor, deposited in them by Divine Destiny. If we put the seeds of various flowering and fruit-bearing plants one after another in a flower-pot filled with earth, which is composed of particular or certain elements, each plant will appear in the wonderful form and shape, the amazing members, peculiar to it. If those particles were not subjugated to, and under the command of, One Who knows each thing with all its features, structures, and life-cycles, and the conditions of its life, and is capable of endowing everything with a being suitable to it and everything necessary for it, and to Whose Power everything is subjected without the least resistance, then either there would have to be in each particle of the earth ‘immaterial factories’ determining all the future lives of the plants, and workshops to the number of all the flowering and fruit-bearing plants, so that each could be the origin for all those various beings, differing in form, taste, colour, and members, or each of those plants should have an all-encompassing knowledge and a power capable of forming themselves. That means, if the connection of beings with Almighty God is severed, then it becomes necessary to accept gods to the number of the particles in the earth. This is the most inconceivable of superstitions.

Also, in each particle are two further true witnesses to the necessary existence and Unity of the Maker: despite its absolute powerlessness, each particle is able to do a great variety of significant duties, and despite its lifelessness, by acting in conformity with the universal order, each particle displays a universal consciousness. That means, each particle testifies, through its impotence, to the necessary existence of the Absolutely All-Powerful One, and through acting in conformity with the order of the universe, to His Unity.

Fourth argument

Out of the living creatures, a human being, for instance, is plainly a miniature of the universe, and a fruit of the tree of creation or the universe and a seed of this world, such that he comprises samples of most species of beings. It is as if that living being is a drop distilled from the whole universe with the most subtle and sensitive balance. That means, to create this living being and be the Lord over him requires having a free disposal of the whole universe.

Thus, one who is not lost in fancies and delusions will understand that to make, for example, a honeybee, a sort of small index of most things, and to inscribe, for example, in man, most features of the universe, and to include in one point, for example, in a tiny fig seed, the program of the whole fig tree, and to exhibit, for example, in man’s heart, the works of all the Divine Names which are manifest throughout the universe, and to record in the human memory, which is situated in a place the size of a lentil, ‘writings’ enough to fill a library, and to include in it a detailed index of all the events in the cosmos, is most certainly a stamp unique to the Creator of all things and the All-Majestic Lord of the universe.

Fifth argument

Life in the whole of the universe displays a symphony of mutual helping. Just like the members, organs and systems, even cells, of a living animal body, all parts of the universe support and help one another. For example, for a single apple to come into existence, air, water, earth, the sun, even all the parts of the universe, give hand in hand and co-operate. Like the components of a factory or the building blocks of a palace, creatures support one another, come to one another’s aid and co-operate to meet one another’s needs. In a perfect orderliness they all work together. Joining efforts, they serve living beings. Elements in earth come to the aid of plants: they serve their coming into existence and maintaining their lives. Most animals live on plants and man lives on plants and animals. Thus, elements form the basic foundation of the physical constitution of living beings.

Acting in accordance with the rule of mutual assistance which is in force in the whole universe-from the sun and moon, night and day, winter and summer, to plants coming to the aid of needy and hungry animals, and animals hastening to the help of weak, needy men, and even nutritious substances rushing to the help of delicate, helpless infants, and fruits, and particles of food, moving to assist the cells of the body-they demonstrate to anyone who is not altogether blind that they are acting through the power of a single, Most Munificent Upbringer, and at the command of a single, Most Wise Administrator.

Sixth argument

The universal providence and favour included in the universal wisdom which is clearly apparent in the purposeful creation of things, and the comprehensive mercy evident from the providence, and the universal sustenance required by that mercy in order to provide all living beings with the food they need, form a seal of Divine Unity so brilliant that anyone who has not altogether lost his power of sight and reasoning will see and understand it.

Like an individual being in need of sustenance to maintain its life, we see that all the beings in the world, especially the living beings, whether universal or particular, wholes or parts, have many demands and needs, material and otherwise, for their existence, lives, and the maintenance of their lives. They need such things that although they are unable to obtain the least of them, we see that all their requirements, their material and immaterial sustenance, are met for them in a way and from a place unexpected, and with perfect order, at the appropriate time, in a suitable fashion, with perfect wisdom. Does this want and need of creatures and this way of help and assistance from the Unseen not show as clearly as the sun an All-Wise Nurturer of Majesty, an All-Compassionate Provider of Grace?

Seventh argument

Consider the sun: from the planets to drops of water, to fragments of glass and sparkling snow-flakes, a radiant effect particular to the sun is apparent. If you do not accept the tiny suns apparent in these innumerable things to be the manifestations of the sun’s ref lection, then you will have to countenance the absurdity of accepting the actual existence of a sun in each drop of water, and in each fragment of glass and transparent object facing the light of the sun.

If the images or reflections of the sun in drops of water and fragments of glass and various colours in flowers are not attributed to the sun, then it will be necessary to accept the existence of innumerable suns in place of the one sun, which is an utterly inconceivable superstition. In just the same way, if everything in the universe is not attributed to One God, the Absolutely All-Powerful One, it will be necessary to accept, in place of One God, as many gods as the particles in the universe. This will mean falling to the degree of accepting a hundred-fold inconceivability.

Eighth argument

God raises to life in spring and summer hundreds of thousands of species of plants and animals with complete differentiation and specification and perfect orderliness and separation amid infinite intermingling and confusion. He ‘inscribes’ on the face of the earth the individual members of hundreds of thousands of different species all together without fault, forgetting, mistake or deficiency, and in most well-balanced, well-proportioned, well-ordered and perfect fashion. This evidently points to One of Majesty, an All-Powerful One of Perfection, an All-Wise One of Grace and Beauty, One Who has an infinite Power, all-encompassing Knowledge, and a Will capable of governing the whole universe.

Also, consider amazing Divine operations on the face of the earth in spring and summer. For that activity is absolutely extensive, and alongside its extensiveness absolutely speedy, and alongside its speed, absolutely liberal or generous, and alongside its liberality, done in absolute orderliness, a most perfect beauty of art and in a most perfect form of creation. Therefore, it is such a seal that only One with an infinite knowledge and boundless power can own it. That seal certainly belongs to One Who, although He is nowhere, is all-present and all-seeing, everywhere. Nothing is hidden from Him, nor difficult for him. With respect to His Power, particles and stars are equal.

Ninth Argument

Seeds sown in a field show that both the field and the seeds are under the disposal of one who owns both. Likewise, the fundamental elements of life-like air, water and earth-being universal and present everywhere despite their simplicity, and each being of the same nature everywhere, and the plants and animals being found everywhere despite their essentially similar nature vis vis the diverse conditions of life, show that they are under the disposal of a single miracle-displaying Maker in such a fashion that every flower, every fruit, and every animal is a stamp, a seal, a signature of that Maker. Wherever they are found, each proclaims in the tongue of its being: Whoever’s stamp I bear, this location is also of His making. Whoever’s seal I carry, this place is a missive of His also. Whoever’s signature I indicate, this land is also of His weaving.’ That means, only the one who holds all the elements in the grasp of his power can own and sustain the least of creatures, and anyone who is not blind can see that only one who exercises lordship over all plants and animals can own, sustain, and govern the simplest one of them.

Truly, in the tongue of similarity to other individuals, each individual being says: ‘Only one who owns my species can be the owner of me, otherwise not.’ In the tongue of spreading over the face of the earth together with other species, each species says: ‘Only one who owns the whole face of the earth can be our owner, otherwise not.’ In the tongue of being bound to the sun, together with other planets, and of its mutual relations with the heavens, the earth says: ‘Only one who owns all these can be my owner, otherwise not.’ Supposing apples were conscious and someone were to say to one among them, ‘You are my work of art’, that apple would scold him, saying: ‘Be silent! If you are capable of forming all the apples on the earth, rather if you have a free disposal over all the fruit-bearing trees spread over the earth, and all the gifts of the All-Merciful One proceeding from the treasury of Mercy in shiploads, only then can you claim Lordship over me.’

Tenth argument

As explained above, since the countless fruits of a tree depend on one law of growth from one centre, they are as easy and cheap to raise as one single fruit. In other words, the multiplicity of centres requires for a single fruit as much hardship, expenditure, and equipment as for the whole of the tree, as to manufacture the military equipment necessary for a single soldier all the factories required for the whole army are necessary. That means, when a single result related to numerous individuals is dependent on a multiplicity of centres, as many difficulties as the number of the individuals involved arise. Thus, the extraordinary ease clearly seen in all species arises from unity.

The correspondence and similarity in basic members between all the individuals of a species, and all the divisions of a genus, proves that they are the works of a single Maker, as they are ‘inscribed’ with the same Pen and the seal on them is also one and the same. Also, the absolute facility observed in their coming into existence, the lack of difficulty, requires, to the degree of being necessary and inevitable, that they are the works of One Maker. Otherwise difficulties to the degree of making their existence impossible would doom that genus and that species to non-existence.

To conclude: When attributed to Almighty God, all things become as easy as a single thing, while if they are ascribed to causes, a single thing becomes as difficult as everything. Since this is so, the extraordinary cheapness and facility observed in the universe and endless abundance before our eyes display the stamp of Unity like the sun. If these fruits which we obtain in such plenty and for so little cost were not the property of the One of Unity, even if we gave the whole world in payment, we would not have a single pomegranate to eat, since it requires the purposeful and conscious cooperation of as many and universal elements as earth, air, water, and the light and heat of the sun, an the seed, which are all unconscious and act at the disposal of a Single Maker, Who is Almighty God. The cost of a single pomegranate or any other fruit is the whole universe.

Eleventh argument

Just as life, which manifests the Divine Grace, is an argument and proof for Divine Unity, indeed even a sort of manifestation of Divine Unity, so too, death, which manifests the Divine Majesty, is an argument and proof for Divine Oneness.

For example-God’s is the highest comparison-by showing the sun’s image and light, and its reflection, the bubbles on a mighty river sparkling in the sun, and transparent objects glistening on the face of the earth, testify to the existence of the sun. Despite the occasional disappearance of the sparkling bubbles on the flowing river (for example when it passes under a bridge), the splendid continuation of the sun’s manifestations and the uninterrupted display of its light on the successive troops of bubbles bears decisive witness that the little images of the sun, the lights that appear and then disappear, sparkle and die away, and then are renewed, are evidence of an enduring, perpetual, single sun, which continues to manifest itself from on high. Therefore, those sparkling bubbles which through their appearance demonstrate the existence of the sun, display its continuation and unity through their disappearance and extinction.

In just the same way, these beings that are in a continuous flux testify through their existence and life to the necessary existence and Oneness of the Necessarily Existent Being. They testify to His Unity, eternity and permanence through their decay and death. Truly, just as the beautiful, delicate creatures that are renewed and recruited along with the alternation of day and night, and summer and winter, and the passage of centuries and ages, certainly show the existence, Unity and permanence of an elevated, everlasting One with a continuous display of beauty, so too, the decay and death of those creatures together with the apparent causes for their lives. demonstrates that the (material or natural) causes are nothing other than a mere veil. This is a fact which decisively proves that these arts, these inscriptions, these manifestations, are the constantly renewed arts, the changing inscriptions, the moving mirrors of an All-Beautiful One of Majesty.

Twelfth argument

For example, the perfect design and adornments of a perfect palace show behind them the perfection of a master-builder’s acts. The perfection of the acts shows the perfection of that eminent builder’s titles, which specify his rank. The perfection of the titles show the perfection of the builder’s attributes which are the origin of his art. The perfection of the art and attributes show the perfection of the abilities and essential capacity of that master. The perfection of those essential abilities and capacity show the perfection of the essential nature of the master.

In just the same way, these faultless works observed in the universe, this art in the well-ordered beings of the universe, point evidently to the perfection of the acts of an Effective, Powerful Agent. The perfection of those acts clearly point to the perfection of that Majestic Agent’s Names. That perfection necessarily points and testifies to the perfection of the Attributes of the Majestic One known by the Names. The perfection of the Attributes certainly points and testifies to the perfection of the essential capacity and qualities of the Perfect One qualified by those attributes. The perfection of the essential capacity and qualities point with such absolute certainty to the perfection of the One having such capacity and qualities that all the types of perfections observed throughout the universe are but the signs of His Perfection, hints of His Majesty, and allusions to His Beauty, in the forms of pale, weak shadows in comparison with His Perfect Reality.

From The 22nd Word by Said Nursi 

We know our bodies to be more than just an assembly of organs and each organ is much more than an assembly of specialized cells. So what makes life so precious and awe-inspiring to those who care to stop and think? Most of the time of our life-span, be it hours, days, weeks, months or many years, we are totally oblivious of the immense complexities which operate within us.

Just as fascinating as the why and how of early embryo development (gastrulation) is the phenomenon of cell death. Even as cells are proliferating and differentiating in the various stages of gastrulation, many individual cells must be sacrificed for the benefit of the whole. Do not be alarmed at this expression – thousands and millions of our cells die and some may be replaced many times during the average adult life. The most common example is that of our skin cells. Up to 90% of household dust consists of dead skin cells. Old blood cells in circulation are constantly removed by the liver and replaced by new cells manufactured in our bone marrow. But there are more subtle forms of cell death of which we were, until recently, quite ignorant.

All cells in multi-cellular organisms are capable of committing suicide in response to signals from other cells. Sometimes the absence of a given signal heralds the onset of programmed cell death. Two distinct forms of cell death have been identified by researchers in the field [1]. These are known as 1) necrotic cell death and 2) apoptotic cell death. The first is quite a common and well-observed phenomenon which occurs when cells die from severe and sudden injury. Also known as accidental death, examples of such events leading to necrosis are ischaemia, sustained hypothermia, and physical or chemical trauma. In necrosis the mitochondria (required for producing energy in cells) undergo changes which are visible as changes in their shape. The plasma membrane is often the major site of damage and homeostatic control of the cell’s environment is lost. As a result the cell first swells then ruptures, spilling its contents into the surrounding tissue space. This provokes an inflammatory response namely the attraction of patrolling white blood cells which clear away the debris by engulfing and ingesting it. Thus the process of repair can begin. Apoptosis, on the other hand, exhibits a completely different set of morphological features and the process is much more refined. It is not observed during accidental cell death but appears to be an integrated part of the normal process of tissue regulation. Let us take a closer look at this fascinating phenomenon and see what it involves:

The main characteristic associated with apoptosis is the distinct set of morphological events which take place (see Figure 1). Whereas necrotic cell death results in cell lysis and a consequent inflammatory response, apoptotic cell death is very much the opposite where the size of the cell decreases (rather than increasing through swelling) and there is no spillage of cell material.

Figure 1:

a) Normal cell with sparse cytoplasm and heterogeneous chromatin;

b) The start of Apoptosis: sonic loss of cell volume, cytoplasmic organelles are tightly packed and the chromatin condenses;

c) ‘Zeiosis’ i.e. ruffling of plasma membrane;

d) Chromatin collapses into crescents along the nuclear envelope, very condensed in appearance;

e) Nucleus collapses into central black hole;

f) Fragmentation of the collapsed nuclear material into small spheres;

g) Formation of apoptotic bodies.

It has been proposed that the sixth step of apoptosis makes it a foolproof method of disposing of cells since once destroyed, DNA (which is the vital blueprint of cells) cannot be re-assembled. This ensures irreversible removal of defective / harmful DNA material so that none of them can resist apoptotic death once it has been initiated.

Why Die? – the functional roles of Apoptosis:

Apoptotic cell death can occur in a number of physiologically acceptable situations. Some well- observed, but still poorly understood, examples are cited below:

a) tissue re-modeling during embryonic development As mentioned earlier, whilst new cells are being generated a significant number of early cells die to make room for others to form the sophisticated multi-cellular organisms that we are: e.g. cells which form the ‘webs’ between the fingers and toes in the early stages of development, thus leaving them free to move.

b) migration of cells into abnormal locations. Tumour cells are prime examples where such migrated cells can cause damage to other cell-functions and are thus, best removed promptly and discreetly.

c) cells which are no longer functional. To refer to a non-human example, the metamorphosis of tadpole to adult frog includes, amongst other changes, the loss of the tail.

d) removal of cells produced in excess – developing sympathetic neurones are always produced in higher numbers than required. These then compete for nerve-growth-factor released by their target cells. In this way the number of neurones innervating target cells is matched to the number of target cells available through competition for the growth-factor.

e) specialized cells need to be selected for specific functions. In the thymocytes of developing embryos, antigen receptors on T-cells are selected for, i.e. T-cell lymphocytes expressing the correct type of receptors are retained whilst those whose receptors have too high or too low affinity for antigens die through apoptosis. If the receptor affinity is too high it will attack the cells of the body, those with insufficient affinity are of no use and thus, meet the same end. As a result the body accumulates a repertoire of lymphocytes which are useful in the fight against foreign matter yet do not harm the self.

Examples a), b) and c) are in opposition to the ‘Theory of Evolution’ i.e. there is no outright competition for survival. The concept of ‘survival of the fittest’ does not apply

Take another striking example: the flatworm, Caernabhditis elegans (C.elegans), has a short lifespan and a simple body plan. It has been well studied and of its developmental stages leading to the adult, the following has been noted: of the 1,090 somatic cells (i.e. all cells except the sex cells) 131 die during development, each with morphological features resembling apoptosis. Each of the 131 cells dies at a precise time and the timing of their death is absolutely reproducible i.e. every one of these 131 cells dies at a time identical in every C.elegans. This is defined as being true programmed cell death by apoptosis. Once again there is no competition between the cells to outlive their counterparts.

Because of its simple body plan it has been possible to map the development of C.elegans in such detail. No doubt, if it were possible for us to do the same for other complex organisms, including ourselves, we would discover greater precision in timing and developmental control. How else do single fertilized eggs become the perfectly-formed animals or humans that roam the wide world?

Unable to grapple with the idea that all living cells in multi-cellular organisms are capable of, and are apparently programmed to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the whole community i.e. the organism itself, Martin Raff [2] has put forward his ‘extreme view’. He claims that cell-suicide occurs by default. In other words, cells are programmed to die and only live if they receive appropriate signals from other cells. As yet, there is insufficient evidence for this ‘extreme view’, a term used by Raff himself to describe his theory. Consequently, his research is aimed at finding evidence of ‘never-lasting life’. This implies that living cells sustain each other and therefore, also implies that organisms are self-sustaining entities. It also incorporates the denial of the need for any external life-giving source. Inevitably, the whole concept is blatantly opposed to the belief in the existence of a Creator and Sustainer of the Worlds.

How did these cells acquire the intelligence behind altruism i.e. this selfless death for the benefit of the whole? One is compelled to ask whether individual cells really comprehend the greatness of their death in relation to the survival of the whole organism? Do they have the far-sighted knowledge which is necessary for such noble suicide or are they just obeying orders from a much greater source of wisdom and knowledge i.e. the All-Knowing Creator of the whole organism and the self-sacrificing cells? Whether it be caused by the presence or absence of sophisticated chemical signals ‘natural programmed cell-death’ is truly an event to marvel at. Because of the absence of inflammation, large-scale ‘normal’ cell death causes no disturbance in the body of the organism and is one of the reasons why it received less attention from researchers than necrosis. Whatever the cellular mechanisms of apoptosis, the ability to die without any fuss is a manifestation of complete submission (meaning of the Arabic word islam) to their final destiny.

Even as you read this, extensive research into apoptosis is being carried out. Without cell death or even death of any living thing, life on earth would be uncontrolled, lacking in organization and endless! The ultimate catastrophe, indeed. Greater understanding of the how and why of cell death may enable us to intervene in preventing or initiating the process. Researchers are most intent on preventing cell death. It seems that their final dream would be to defy death itself. Future revelations of details about the how and why of cell death can only add to our awe before the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, the Creator of all realms within and beyond our comprehension.

References 

1 KERR, J. F. R., WYLLIE, A. H. & CURRIE, A.R. (1972) British Journal of Cancer 26, pp.239-57.

2 RAFF, M. C., (1992) Nature 356, pp.397-9 FURTHER READING:

a) COHEN, J. J. (1993) Immunology Today 14, pp.126-30.

b) COLLINS, M. K. L. & RIVAS, A. L. (1993) TIBS 78, pp. 307-8

c) BUTTKE, T. M. & SANDSTROM, P. A. (1994) Immunology Today 15, (1), pp.7-103.

d) HOCKENBERRY, (1993) Cell 75, pp.241-51.