It is worth contemplating that humans are in need of microorganisms to survive and that living things as insignificant (!) as bacteria are necessary to synthesize B12 vitamin. Why our so-called bacteria ancestors (!) from which we evolved – as some claim – lost this ability to synthesize B12 vitamin which was, and still is, vital for survival, is a challenging question for those scientists who support the theory of evolution.

The journey of B₁₂ in our body

Cobalamin, which is taken in with food, is absorbed by the final section (ileum) of the small intestine and transported into the blood by receptors on the cell membrane. For B12 to be absorbed into the blood, it is necessary to have an “intrinsic factor” bound to this vitamin. The intrinsic factor is a glycoprotein produced in parietal cells that secrete gastric acid. After the absorption, the vitamin binds to transcobalamin, a carrier protein found in the blood, and it is then being bound with transcobalamin II so that it can penetrate the cells. B12 can be stored in the liver to meet the needs of our body for a long time. A deficiency in cobalamin due to a poor diet (e.g., vegetarians) or a failure to produce the intrinsic factor in the stomach may result in pernicious anemia, which is fatal. Cobalamin deficiency negatively affects DNA synthesis, which is necessary for production of new cells, particularly in the division of the stem cells that are assigned to construct new red blood cells. This is followed by the circulation of cells that will generate underdeveloped red blood cells; these cells will not be able to function properly and will have larger diameters.

The training of parietal cells

If the stomach is removed or cannot produce the intrinsic factor, it is impossible for B12 to be absorbed. It is worth reflecting on the wisdom of why an organ like the stomach, the main duty of which is to partially digest food and convey it to the intestines, synthesizes intrinsic factor. How can the stomach know that our body is in need of this protein? How did it become able to synthesize this very special composition of glucose and protein which is so necessary to absorb intrinsic factor through the gastrointestinal tract? Why doesn’t our body produce the vitamin in the first place, instead of binding it to such a complex molecule? And how do the parietal cells know what is necessary to bind this vitamin, the use of which they cannot understand, although they have never been trained in bio-chemistry, physiology, or pharmacology? In which laboratory did these cells synthesize and test this compound?

The intrinsic factor

In order to decompose proteins into amino acids, the stomach secretes hydrochloric acid and an enzyme called pepsinogen. Parietal cells that secrete acid also produce a protein (intrinsic factor) which is not damaged by the acid or the pepsinogen enzyme. How were these cells able to develop a synthesis in which proteins do not decompose, which can protect them from the acid in the stomach, and bind themselves to a vitamin like B12, which is absorbed only in very small quantities?

The hydrochloric acid secreted in the stomach is like bleach and it irritates anywhere that it goes other than the stomach. Should even the slightest quantity of this acid pass into esophagus (reflux, diaphragm boiling) it can cause severe burning. It is amazing that B12 is found and bound in a cauldron like the stomach, but is not damaged by the acid produced when the stomach is filled with food and drink.

The intrinsic factor bound with the vitamin goes on its journey and it reaches the absorption region in the last section of the small intestines. During absorption, the gates on the cell membrane of the intestines open up only to allow the B12 intrinsic factor compound. Maintained in the intestinal cell for a while, the B12 vitamin binds to the transporter transcobalamin and is conveyed to the cells through the blood. After reaching a cell, the vitamin, needed by the entire body, is bound to another transporter: transcobalamin II.

Some components, although they appear to be very simple, must be supplied from outside our bodies if we are to survive. B12 vitamin is one such component, and it certainly deserves to be studied well.

Dennis Wholey (1986) interviewed experts from the perspective of the pessimists; the conclusion was that perhaps only 20% of all Americans are happy. Father John Powell (1989) agrees: “One-third of all Americans wake up depressed every day. Professionals estimate also that only 10 to 15 percent of Americans think of themselves as truly happy and ‘Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children and by children to adults.’” (Thomas Szasz 1987). On the other hand, there is a sharp contrast in the responses of optimists. For example, in Western Europe and North America in total 8 out of 10 people rate themselves as more satisfied than dissatisfied. Less than 1 in 10 rate themselves as more dissatisfied than satisfied. Likewise, some three-fourths of people say yes, they have felt excited, proud, or pleased at some point during the past few weeks, while no more than a third say they have felt lonely, bored, or depressed. Across languages, these self-reports seem to retain the same meaning.

“If you fell happy you are happy, that is all; although we define happiness as consisting of something deeper and more lasting than a momentary good mood, our working definition is simply whatever people mean when describing their lives as happy” (Freedman 1978). Happy people are less self-focused, less hostile or abusive, and less vulnerable to disease in comparison to depressed people. They are also more loving, forgiving, trusting, energetic, decisive, creative, sociable, reliable, helpful, and religious (Myers 1993; Veenhoven 1988).

Sources of happiness

1. Age and gender: Men more often act antisocial or have a tendency to alcoholism, while women more often think deeply and have a greater tendency for depression or anxiety, however, men and women are equally likely to declare themselves as “very happy” or “satisfied” with their lives. This conclusion is based on surveys of 170,000 adults in 16 countries (Inglehart 1990), on surveys of 18,000 university students in 39 countries (Michalos 1991), and on a meta-analysis of 146 other studies (Haring, Stock, & Okun 1984). The results are the same, irrespective of age, with age not being significantly related to the level of happiness a person might have.

2. Culture: Some cultures are favorable to an increased satisfaction with life, if not more positive emotions, in particular affluent cultures marked by political freedom (Diener 2000). Open cultures encourage more individual satisfaction, and therefore garner more happiness in comparison to closed cultures. But the relationship between culture and happiness is not well documented yet.

3. Genetics: Certain characteristics and temperaments also appear to predispose one to experience happiness. Some of these characteristics, for example extraversion, are known to be genetically influenced, which helps explain Lykken and Tellegen’s (1996) finding that about 50% of the variation in current happiness is inheritable. Like cholesterol levels, happiness is genetically influenced but not genetically fixed. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 1999) has observed an increased quality of life when work and leisure engage a person’s skills.

4. Wealth: Most people deny that money buys happiness, but a significant portion supports the idea that wealthy people are happy people. There may be some connection between wealth and well-being. People were asked how satisfied they were with 13 aspects of their lives, including friends, house, and schooling, and Americans expressed the least satisfaction with “the amount of money they have to live on” (Roper Organization, 1984). In particular the question “What would improve your quality of life?” most often received “the answer “More money” according to the University of Michigan national survey (Campbell, 1981, p. 41), and the more the better. In one Gallup Poll (Gallup & Newport, 1990), one in two women, two in three men, and four in five people earning more than $75,000 reported that they would like to be rich. Thus, the modern American dream seems to have become life, liberty, and the purchase of happiness.

The annual UCLA and American Council on Education surveyed nearly a quarter million students entering college; when asked why they were going to college the reason “to make more money” was listed as a “very important” reason “”for one in two in 1971, rising to three in four in 1998 (Astin, Green, & Korn 1987; Sax, Astin, Korn, & Mahoney 1998). The proportion who consider it “very important or essential” that they become “very well off financially” rose from 39% in 1970 to 74% in 1998. As Diener (2000) reports, there is some tendency for wealthy nations to have more satisfied people.

In poor countries, such as India, where low incomes prevent the ability to satisfy basic human needs, being relatively well off does predict greater well-being (Argyle 1999). Psychologically as well as materially, it is better to be high caste than low. However, in affluent countries, where most can afford the necessities of life, affluence matters surprisingly little. In the United States, Canada, and Europe, the correlation between income and personal happiness, “is surprisingly weak (indeed, virtually negligible)” Ronald Inglehart (1990). Happiness tends to be lower among the very poor. Once a person is comfortably off money begins to provide diminishing returns on happiness. All these findings support the idea that wealth or richness may help with being happy in some sense but it is not enough on its own.

5. Friends: People report happier feelings when with others (Pavot, Diener, & Fujita 1990). When asked by the National Opinion Research Center, “How many close friends would you say you have?” (excluding family members), 26% of those reporting fewer than five friends and 38% of those reporting five or more friends said they were “very happy.

6. Marriage: Most people are happier when in a relationship than when not. Repeated surveys in Europe and North America have produced a consistent result: Compared with those who never marry, and in particular compared with those who have been separated or divorced, married people report that they are happier and more satisfied with life. For example, among the 35,024 Americans surveyed by the National Opinion Research Center between 1972 and 1996, 40% of married adults declared themselves to be very happy. Happy people are more appealing marriage partners, because they are more good-natured, more outgoing, and more focused on others (Veenhoven 1988), and therefore they are generally socially attractive. Unhappy people are more often socially rejected; at the same time, positive, happy people more readily form happy relationships.

7. Faith: An active religiosity is associated with several mental health criteria. First, actively religious people are much less likely than irreligious people to get into trouble with the law, to abuse drugs or alcohol, to divorce, or to commit suicide (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis 1993; Colasanto & Shriver 1989). Religiously active people even tend to be physically healthier and to live longer (Koenig 1997; Matthews & Larson 1997). For example, compared with religiously inactive widows, recently widowed women who worship regularly reported more joy in their lives. (Harvey, Barnes, & Greenwood 1987; McGloshen & O’Bryant 1988; Siegel & Kuykendall 1990). Among mothers of developmentally challenged children, those with a deep religious faith are less vulnerable to depression (Friedrich, Cohen, & Wilturner 1988). People of faith also tend to retain or recover greater happiness after suffering divorce, unemployment, serious illness, or bereavement (Ellison 1991; McIntosh, Silver, & Wortman 1993). For people later in life the two best predictors of life satisfaction are health and religiousness (Okun & Stock 1987).

Religiously active people also report somewhat higher levels of happiness (Inglehart 1990). The highest scores on a spiritual commitment scale (by agreeing, e. g., that “My religious faith is the most important influence in my life”) were twice as likely to declare themselves as “very happy” as those who were low in spiritual commitment. The National Opinion Research Center surveys reveal higher levels of “very happy” people among those who feel “extremely close to God” (41%) rather than “somewhat close” (29%) or not close or unbelieving (23%). Self-rated spirituality and happiness may be both socially desirable responses (US Gallup Organization survey, 1984).

Seeking to explain these associations between faith and happiness, researchers have considered several possibilities. A partial explanation seems to be that faith communities provide social support (Ellison, Gay, & Glass 1989). Religion is usually practiced communally, involving “the fellowship of kindred spirits,” “the bearing of one another’s burdens,” “the ties of love that bind.” This was the vision of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who declared, “We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, celebrate together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our community as members of the same body.”

Another possible explanation for the faith and happiness correlation is the sense of meaning and purpose that many people derive from their faith. Seligman (1988) has contended that a loss of meaning feeds today’s high depression rate, and that finding meaning requires an attachment to something larger than the lonely self. For Rabbi Harold Kushner (1987), religion satisfies “the most fundamental human need of all. That is the need to know that somehow we matter, that our lives mean something, count as something more than just a momentary blip in the universe. Said Nursi, a leading Muslim scholar of the twentieth century, asserts that true happiness can only be achieved through establishing and strengthening our connection with God. Through the intellect and imagination, the human being is a unique creature who is concerned with every part of creation. Human happiness encompasses not only individual happiness, but also the happiness of our beloved ones, our neighbors and relatives, our fellow countrymen and even the people of the Earth. This can be extended to animals and plants as well. Again through the intellect, our desires and fears are endless. God is the only one capable of answering all of our prayers, satisfying all of our needs, granting all of our desires and protecting us from all our fears. Only in submission to such a Lord can a human heart find satisfaction. A Qur’anic verse indicates the same principle: “It is in the remembrance of and whole-hearted devotion to God that hearts find rest and contentment” (Rad 13:28).

Many religious worldviews not only propose answers to some of life’s deepest questions, they also encourage hope when confronting what Sheldon Solomon, Jeffery Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski (1991) call “the terror that results from our awareness of vulnerability and death.” Religion offers a hope that in the end, the very end, “all shall be well, and all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well” (Julian of Norwich, 1373/1901). In Islamic faith, death is not an end, but rather a door to a new life. Just as the death of a seed leads to the life of a plant, the death of a human leads to an eternal life (Nursi, 10^th Word).

Conclusion

Happiness is an expression of a mood which has many meanings for different interest groups. For example, optimists may find different ways in their life to be happy and they are usually happy. Pessimists have more reasons in life to be unhappy. There are many factors that may influence happiness. These are age and gender, culture, genetics, wealth, friends, marriage and faith. Age, gender, and income give little clue to someone’s happiness. Having a supportive network of close relationships and having a faith that encompasses social support, purpose, and hope have the strongest correlation with feelings of happiness. Therefore, faith is significant source of happiness that an individual must pay attention to. All belief systems support being optimistic, having friends, and finding the right path if one follows certain rules. These rules are universal virtues that anyone can obtain, such as honesty, being helpful, love, hard work, patience, forgiveness, submission, and etc. All these embrace and furnish the people’s life, providing infinite happiness for human beings. And as Said Nursi stresses that true happiness can only be achieved through establishing and strengthening our connection with God, and by remembering that it is He Who always satisfies our all needs.

Salih Uslu is an academician and freelance writer. He lives in Boston and teaches at local universities. He can be reached at saluslu@gmail.com.

References

1. Argyle, M. (1986). The psychology of happiness. London: Methuen.

2. Astin, A. W., Green, K. C. & Korn, W. S. (1987). The American freshman: Twenty year trends. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Los Angeles.

3. Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P. A. & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social psychological perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.

4. Campbell, A. (1981). The sense of well-being in America. New York: McGraw-Hill.

5. Colasanto, D. & Shriver, J. (1989, May). Mirror of America: Middle-aged face marital crisis. Gallup Report, No. 284, 34-38.

6. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row.

7. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy? American Psychologist, 54, 821-827.

8. Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a

9. Ellison, C. G. (1991). Religious involvement and subjective well-being. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 32, 80-99.

10. Ellison, C. G., Gay, D. A. & Glass, T. A. (1989). Does religious commitment contribute to individual life satisfaction? Social Forces, 68, 100-123.

11. Freedman, J. (1978). Happy people. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

37. Friedrich, W. N., Cohen, D. S. & Wilturner, L. T. (1988). Specific beliefs as moderator variables in maternal coping with mental retardation. Children’s Health Care, 17, 40-44.

12. Gallup, G. G. (1984,March). Commentary on the state of religion in the U. S. today. Religion in America: The Gallup Report, 222

13. Gallup, G. G. & Newport, F. (1990,July). Americans widely disagree on what constitutes rich. Gallup Poll Monthly, 28-36.

14. Haring, M. J., Stock, W. A. & Okun, M. A. (1984). A research synthesis of gender and social class as correlates of subjective well-being. Human Relations, 37, 645-657.

15. Hart, A. (1988). 15 principles for achieving happiness. Dallas, TX: Word.

16. Harvey, C. D., Barnes, G. E. & Greenwood, L. (1987). Correlates of morale among Canadian widowed persons. Social Psychiatry, 22, 65-72.

17. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

18. Koenig, H. G. (1997). Is religion good for your health? The effects of religion on physical and mental health. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.

19. Kushner, H. (1987,December). You’ve got to believe in something. Redbook, 92-94.

20. Lykken, D. & Tellegan, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7, 186-189.

21. Matthews, D. A. & Larson, D. B. (1997). The faith factor: An annotated bibliography of clinical research on spiritual subjects(Vols. I-IV). Rockville, MD: National Institute for Healthcare Research and Georgetown University Press.

22. McGloshen, T. H. & O’Bryant, S. L. (1988). The psychological well-being of older, recent widows. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 12, 99-116.

23. McIntosh, D. N., Silver, R. C. & Wortman, C. B. (1993). Religion’s role in adjustment to a negative life event: Coping with the loss of a child. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 812-821.

24. Michalos, A. (1991). Global report on student well-being: Life satisfaction and happiness. Vol. 1. New York: Springer-Verlag.

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27. Powell, J. (1989). Happiness is an inside job. Valencia, CA: Tabor.

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30. Seligman, M. E. P. (1988,October). Boomer blues. Psychology Today, 50-55.

31. Siegel, J. M. & Kuykendall, D. H. (1990). Loss, widowhood, and psychological distress among the elderly. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 58, 519-524.

32. Veenhoven, R. (1988). The utility of happiness. Social Indicators Research, 20, 333-354.

33. Wholey, D. (1986). Are you happy? Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

34. Winokur, J. (1987). The portable curmudgeon. New York: New American Library.

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2008/issue-64-july-august-2008/suffering-and-mercy/ Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2008/issue-64-july-august-2008/suffering-and-mercy/ Last month marked a great loss in world literature; on June 10 Chingiz Aytmatov died. This author, who had earned worldwide fame, surrendered to his fate and left behind a long list of remarkable works that have been translated into almost every language, and which have won a popular readership. This exceptional man of letters voiced the grievances of millions who had suffered unimaginable atrocities, and for many decades he inspired hope and stamina in many generations. Readers who are familiar with Aytmatov’s works will find that the Lead Article in this issue echoes his cry even though his name is not mentioned (this article was written before he died). Starting with the title “Longing for Love,” the article is filled with depictions of our time which are very reminiscent of the 1930s–40s, even if not in the same manner. “It seems that we have forgotten how to act like human beings . . . One party carves out the eye of another or murders them; the other responds by running into crowds as suicide bombers or driving a car filled with explosives through them. Violence is everywhere, as savage as, or perhaps even more atrocious than that caused by any barbarian.” Gulen portrays our times painfully. Cut this description, carry it back in time seventy years and paste it in the context of Central Asia – it is a perfect match. Chingiz saw his father last when he was only nine, just before he was taken away. He never heard of him again until DNA tests revealed that a corpse buried in a collective grave, discovered fifty-six years later in the south of Bishkek, was that of his father; he was murdered in a massacre like many leading figures of his nation. It is certain that Aytmatov will remain as one who engraved images in our memory for a long time. We offer our condolences to the Kyrgyz nation and to all his readers.

Another man of letters discussed in this issue is from a neighboring literary nation to that of Aytmatov’s: Dostoyevsky. From his masterpiece Crime and Punishment, Alice Bolton produces a thought-provoking analysis of nineteenth-century “human-centered theories and movements that would be implemented later in the twentieth century.” This piece sheds a bright light on why we continue to have violence at all levels of human existence and how such bloody atrocities, which most of us cannot even stand to hear of, can easily be perpetrated by some people. For those of our readers who would rather focus on the spiritual than the criminal, Bolton’s conclusion offers a comforting solution: “The repair of the human soul is possible only through a return to the Absolute Being.”

Another heart-expanding analysis comes from Mesut Sahin who discusses how we can come to an understanding of suffering in the world that is in agreement with God’s Mercy. He shares with us the glad tidings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, who said, “Never is a believer stricken with a discomfort, an illness, an anxiety, a grief or mental worry or even the pricking of a thorn but God will expiate his sins on account of his patience.”

Fallacy one: Literalism

A critical fallacy in the arguments of “scientific crusaders” is that their understanding of religions relies on the most primitive way of approaching a text: literalism. Any serious and “scientific” inquiry into a text requires asking certain questions such as “Who wrote this text?” “To whom was it written?” “In which context was it written?” and “Why was it written?” Yet we rarely see the aforementioned scientists using this method when they approach religious texts. Samuel Harris, for example, simply takes certain verses in the Qur’an about killing certain non-Muslims at face value and pays no attention either to the context in which these verses were revealed or to the gigantic Islamic literature on the exegesis of these verses. As such, he simply turns a blind eye to all developments in hermeneutics and uses the most primitive method of text-reading.

Samuel Harris might not be interested in finding out what Muslim scholars have thought about killing innocent people; however, he has to be aware of the fact that it is not the individuals’ own interpretations but mostly scholars’ interpretations that have shaped Muslims’ opinions on any issue. An interesting point is that there is no precedent whatsoever for suicidal terrorism in traditional Islam before the late twentieth century. There has been a solid consensus among Muslim scholars for fourteen centuries on the sanctity of human life, because the Qur’an declares unequivocally that killing an innocent person unjustly is like killing all of mankind (Maidah 5:32). Thus, the critical question becomes: if something (such as terrorism) is “inherent” in a religion (such as Islam), why did that religion not encourage that thing for fourteen centuries but suddenly started to encourage it later? Unfortunately, scientific crusaders do not seem to be very interested in this kind of question.

Fallacy two: Crime against empirics

A second fallacy of scientist crusaders is that their understanding of religion’s influence on society is highly impressionistic and lacks any credible scientific inquiry or understanding. Samuel Harris’ argument about the violent nature of European Muslim youth and Richard Dawkins’ argument regarding oppression of women in Islamic societies are purely impressionistic inferences because they totally ignore other potential factors that can also influence juvenile violence and gender discrimination. The fact that Muslim youth in Europe are also disproportionately poorer and less educated than many other groups does not seem to undermine Harris’ sense of cognitive comfort. Yet any scientist with a basic knowledge of quantitative methods knows that we cannot analyze the influence of one factor on a dependent variable independent of other related factors. Statistics tells us that we will have nothing but biased results in such control-free analysis. Indeed, Scott Atran reports a study that reveals that “religious education is a negative predictor of Muslims entering European prisons.” ⁴ If a Muslim’s becoming more religious decreases the likelihood of his or her involvement in violence, then religion is a peaceful element. If this is the case, then the root causes of violence may be a combination of the very things which Harris avoids studying.

Dawkins’ argument about oppression of women in Muslim societies suffers from the same problem. He commits the same methodological error as Harris by excluding other potential explanatory factors from his analysis. Thus, his study cannot tell us whether it is Islam or something else (such as tradition, poverty, education, etc.) that distinguishes Muslim societies from the Western Christian societies regarding the oppression of women. Fortunately, we have some other (and more scientific) studies to examine the issue. A report by UNICEF in 2000 revealed that average domestic violence is essentially no different in Christian and Muslim societies. Below is the table from this report that gives the details about domestic violence rates in different Christian and Muslim countries. According to these survey results, average domestic violence against women was 25.5% in Western Christian societies (Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States); 30% in Muslim societies (Egypt, Israeli Arabs, and Tajikistan); and 38.3% in African Christian societies (Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe). The survey results indicate that domestic violence rates in Muslim societies were higher than they were in certain Christian societies but lower than they were in other Christian societies. As such, these figures solidly refute Dawkins’ impressionistic argument and rather suggest that something other than Islam is the root cause of domestic violence in Muslim societies.

Here, Dawkins can respond, “These data do not refute my arguments entirely, only the argument that Islam encourages more domestic violence than Christianity. But the argument that both of these religions encourage domestic violence remains valid and sound.” Yet, is this really the case? If one accepts Dawkins’ argument, one must also argue that increasing religiosity of a married Muslim or Christian man should increase domestic violence in his home. It is easy to check this. We can simply ask a random sample of large numbers of married Muslim and Christian women first to grade the religiosity of their husbands on a scale of 0–10, and then ask them how often their husbands behave violently at home. Although we do not have such a study on Muslims yet, to our surprise (and to Dawkins’ shame), we already have one study on Christians, which used exactly this method. In a study of nearly 1,000 New Zealand families, Fergusson et al. (1986) found that the self-reported religious attendance of parents (both fathers and mothers) is inversely related to their self-reported perpetration of domestic assaults. They reported a graded pattern: men and women who attend services once a month or more are least likely to report being involved in domestic violence, followed by those who attend less than monthly. On the other hand, men and women who never attend religious services are much more likely than their more religious counterparts to be involved in domestic violence.⁵The findings of this earlier study were later supported by another one, which employed a more objective measure of religiosity, on American couples as well. ⁶ (Although we have yet to prove it, this relationship between religiosity and domestic violence is very likely to hold for Muslim men as well. After all, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, “The best of you is the one who treats his wife in the best manner.” ⁷) Once again, contrary to Dawkins and Harris, we find that religion is an element of peace, not violence.

It is also worth mentioning that much less crime has been reported in religious schools (imam-hatip) than in secular schools in Turkey. Naci Akay, former Istanbul Head of National Education, said there have never been any activities reported in these schools that pose a threat to public safety. Likewise, Ibrahim Solmaz and Ahmet Gundogdu, chairmen of ONDER and Egitim-Bir-Sen respectively (two civil educational organizations) said parents prefer these schools mainly because they do not have high crime rates and students are much less likely to develop bad habits like drug abuse, alcoholism, or gambling. ⁸

The holy month of Ramadan in which Muslims observe day-long fast and additional devotion, is also a time of security for the entire Muslim world: crime rates plummet in this month, and sometimes fall to zero.

Fallacy three: Avoiding the literature

Another major problem for the crusaders of science is that they completely ignore the literature on the root causes of conflict and violence. None of the major theories on domestic or international conflict emphasize religion as a central factor, let alone singling it out as the root cause of violence. The major theories explain violence as resulting from peoples’ ambition for power, from liberalism with its inevitable conflict of interests and peoples’ inability to solve them in cooperative ways, and from class conflicts. To the subscribers to any of these theories, the argument that we could minimize or eliminate violence in this world if we could substitute scientific inquiry for religious faith is simply laughable. For them, religion is at most a secondary factor and therefore its elimination does not help to address the root causes of violence. As such, scientific crusaders’ emphasis on religion as a cause of violence is misleading and unhelpful because it moves our attention away from other more influential factors which could be more successfully addressed. In this respect, the anti-religion arguments of Harris, Dawkins, and the like resemble the wishful thinking of the nineteenth-century positivists. Ironically, ignoring the real forces at work neither makes the world more peaceful nor serves these scientists’ very goal of converting people to “scientism”. The new rise of religious faith since the second half of the twentieth century indicates that science and reason alone have failed to provide sufficient answers to peoples’ metaphysical questions or solutions to their moral problems. Hence, the return to religion!

Fallacy four: Imbalanced sheet

Last but not least, we have been taught since elementary school that we should never come to a judgment on any issue without first evaluating its pros and cons. What we see in the books of Dawkins and Harris, however, are only questionably negative aspects of religions and religious people. We see no appreciation whatsoever of the virtues of religions and their positive influences on their adherents. To start with one of the most obvious, is it not intriguing enough a question for Darwinian Dawkins to ask what prevented the Muslim Moors of Spain from following the “survival of the fittest” rule and simply annihilating the Jews and Christians of the Iberian Peninsula? How rational or scientific is it to simply avoid studies that have found that “teens from intact families with frequent religious attendance were the least likely to have ever shoplifted,” ⁹ “adolescents’ religiosity was related to a decreased likelihood of delinquent behavior,” ¹⁰ “increasing individual religiosity decreased tax fraud acceptability,” ¹¹ and “regular religious attendance was inversely associated with the perpetration of domestic violence,” ¹² to name but a few? Interestingly, the books of scientific crusaders have no place for such virtuous consequences of believing in God. It seems not only religious people have dogmas!

To conclude, certain scientists’ arguments against religions in general and Islam in particular lack scientific basis and thus do not merit much scholarly attention. There might be some valid grounds to criticize religions and their adherents as they are, but, believers or not, we all deserve more holistic, more scientific, and less hostile evaluations of religions. If atheist scientists want to wage a crusade against dogma, their own would be a good place to start.

Kaan Kerem has a PhD in political science. He is a freelance writer on philosophy and scientific thought.

Notes

1. Author of The God Delusion, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

2. Author of The End of Faith, W.W. Norton & Company, 2004.

3. http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#harris.

4. http://www.edge.org/discourse/bb.html#atran.

5. Ferguson, David M., L. John Horwood, Kathryn L. Kershaw and Frederick T. Shannon (1986). “Factors Associated with Reports of Wife Assault in New Zealand.” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 46: 663–70.

6. Ellison, Christopher G. and Kristin L. Anderson (2001). “Religious Involvement and Domestic Violence among U.S. Couples.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 40(2):269–86.

7. Ibn Maja, Section: Marriage, Hadith # 50.

8. http://www.yenisafak.com.tr/arsiv/2004/mayis/31/g01.html

9. Fagan, Patrick (2006). A Portrait of Family and Religion in America: Key Outcomes for the Common Good. Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation.

10. Regnerus, Mark D. (2003). “Linked Lives, Faith and Behavior: Intergenerational Religious Influence on Adolescent Delinquency.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(2): 189–203.

11. Steven Stack and Augustine Kposowa (2006). “The Effect of Religiosity on Tax Fraud Acceptability: A Cross-National Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45(3):325–51.

12. See note 7.

We are frenzied by facing the numerous challenges of oppositional thought and their representatives, all generated by our selfishness. We easily become enraged and filled with hatred; we crush others if we are powerful enough. If we are not, then we do not hesitate to defame them, damaging their dignity with all the power of the media and the facilities at our disposal, causing more grievous harm than death can possibly cause. In the face of all these inauspicious facts, all that can be heard in the world is either the joyous laughter of the tyrants or the screams of the wronged. There are so many countries that have been suppressed for decades, their victimized peoples engulfed. Minds are pacified, emotions and enthusiasm are extinguished, and people becoming alienated from their own values, and thus find that they approach one another with enmity. In such societies, differing thoughts and approaches have become a cause for contention and conflict, painful fights are endless, and mischief is spread between individuals. One party carves out the eye of another or murders them; the other responds by running into crowds as suicide bombers or driving a car filled with explosives through them. Violence is everywhere, as savage as, or perhaps even more atrocious than that caused by any barbarian.

Many are devoid of any trace of the human soul, their consciences paralyzed: The human freewill chases tyrannical plans; the mind, which is supposed to be an observatory for the knowledge of the Divine, surrenders to contaminated desires; the world of feelings, that purest source of love, becomes a pit full of treachery and danger; the heart, potentially an aperture for witnessing the Truth, becomes a pitch-dark tunnel in a blackout; contradicting the human purpose of existence all human systems are in an exile of waywardness.

As a matter of fact, the world has suffered from similar unpleasant recurrences many times in history; nevertheless, partially due to globalization and the substantial advance in technology, the level of destruction and evil is more tragic and terrifying now than it has ever been before.

Every single day we are terrorized by a different scene of horror on the television, internet, or the pages of the press, and many times we avert our gaze, looking in another direction. Even though we close our eyes and ears, whatever can infiltrate our memories, beyond our control, pierces through our chests, leaving incurable wounds in our hearts and spirits. At times, masses of evil are felt all at once, and we find ourselves bent in pain with the victims in blood and tears; we feel beaten as the worlds of so many people are destroyed. It is like autumn everywhere; people are like dry leaves breaking off from the trees. In the words of Akif, “Cities in ruin, homes devastated, wayward communities / Bridges destroyed, canals smashed, roads without travelers / the pitiful faithful killing coreligionists in the name of a ‘holy war’ / desolate residences, deserted villages, roofs collapsed / days deprived of sweat, evenings wasted without any future plans . . .” The malice that fills us to the throat bursts out in screams, and unable to do anything more, we moan regretfully.

Everything and every one expect a helping hand from us; however, responding with indifference and poverty in most cases, we aggravate their desolation. With no sign of emotion, indolence pervades, and their cries are not echoed. Those who sympathize with them do not have the power or the means to help. Witnessing all this violence every day is no different than dying over and over with each incident. Frozen, they voice their anguish in the words of Suzi : “Rain does not fall, the tulip does not grow / Will it always be like this? / This is all that comes to this city from the ocean of Mercy / Miserably blow the winds! . . .”

Shaken in despair, we cannot help but say “Then, this is how nations will devour one another; friction will continue between the masses and no one will sincerely love others. People will no longer be concerned for others and no one will extend a hand to the wronged; no mercy will be shown for the victim, people will not welcome one another, no sense of security will remain, mad people, whose thoughts, speeches, and hands are stained with blood, will shape the fate of the world, and once again it will be an era of tyrants . . .” This situation cannot continue; if it does, then the end of humanity and human values is eminent.

Then, why are you hesitating? Having reached a critical intersection in human history, come today and let us lend an ear to the divine calls that are echoed in the voice of Rumi, Yunus, and the like; let us speak out for “love” and “brotherhood and sisterhood”! Come and let us show the entire world the privilege of being human with all the colors and patterns! Come in genuine love and dialogue at a time when hatred and revenge have darkened the face of our world! Come and let us open up the gates of our conscience and welcome all in due proportion to the vastness of divine mercy! Come, and let us be saved from preferring to be like a drop of water standing individually and destined to dry out and vanish; instead let us join with waterfalls to become one with the ocean! We are all humans; this means our genes all come from those of Prophet Adam and our essence is from the Truth of Ahmad. Then, come! Let us rise up against all the evil motives and cry out to all the worlds that we are vicegerents on the earth and that we are racing for the heavens! Let us make angels appreciate the eminence of being human! Come and let us transform all our paths to secure avenues and turn to God, hand in hand, our hearts beating as one.

Notes

1. Mehmet Akif Ersoy (1936), the poet of the Turkish national anthem.
2. Suzi (1524) was a renowned Turkish poet from Prizren, Kosovo.

I have been placed under the cavity of the chest. So that we do not harm each other, the Creator has placed a membrane between me and my neighbors, the heart and lung; I can hear them, but cannot see them. They are further protected by the rib cage, because they are more sensitive than I. Of course that does not mean that I am without protection. Our Lord has placed all of us in the most appropriate way. If I had bones covering me you would have a lot of difficulty eating and drinking and since you could not store what you eat you would need to eat little portions throughout the day. But since I have been placed in the stomach cavity and all the walls are flexible I can easily store all that you eat and drink until you digest them. This means that you are busy with eating only at certain times, allowing you to spend your time with other things.

I look like a kettle and this rather simple-looking shape might make you undermine my skills. It is for this reason that some people speak of me in a rude way, describing me as “a sack-like organ.” To understand how important I am, ask those with stomach ulcers or stomach cancer. God forbid, should I stop functioning; life would become a living hell. Each drop that you drink and each morsel you eat would be like poison and all of the world’s pleasures would vanish.

My walls, which seem like a simple sack, are made of four layers of special tissue. On the outer layer there is a strong tissue, below this are layers of muscle that have been placed vertically and horizontally in a diagonal manner, and under this there is tissue engulfed in a flexible layer and a final lining called the epithelium. Of course, we should not forget the web of blood vessels and nerves that nourish these thick walls. My system of nerves is such a complex system that you would be amazed; it resembles a second brain and it is aware of your whole body without you being aware. When you hurt your foot or you are upset with the slightest thing or laugh because of joy I am affected by this. This nervous system is so sensitive that it affects all my actions and my digestive excretions.

It is through this nervous system that I control my actions and my excretions when the scent of the food comes and you are getting ready to eat, saving you trouble after you have eaten. I can also be easily trained. If you can stick with it you can get me used to a new life after three days. Some stomachs are used to three meals, while others are content with two or one meal a day. My recommendation is that you get me used to two meals a day.

Not a lot of chemical decomposition can occur in the mouth, so all the nourishment you have eaten needs to pass through me before it is digested by the intestines and it becomes part of your body. What happens is that the things you have eaten are broken up mechanically into little pieces by the teeth so that I can accept them. If you hurry and swallow without chewing and do not soften the morsels you tire me out. In addition to this, if the morsels are sharp or too large they can rip the walls of the esophagus and make them bleed. It is best to chew the morsel 30 times, but unfortunately most people do not do this. They send me mouthfuls after having only chewed on it once or twice. They do not realize that they are full and therefore eat too much, disturbing the balance. If you eat slowly I will let the relevant section of the brain know and the feeling of hunger will stop after you have received enough nutrients. In this manner you do not tire me out too much and the nutrients do not go to waste. If you eat too fast I will be full before I get a chance to bring to the surface the molecules that give the sensation of being full and there will be no room for water or air, which allow me to move comfortably.

There are three different types of cells on the mucous layer that lines the inner layer of my walls and which is in contact with the food. One of these excretions is hydrochloric acid (HCl). This acid, which can dissolve even a piece of rock, is used not only to digest all the meat and proteins, but it also kills any bacteria that may come with the food and beverage. Without this acid the pepsinogen enzyme, which breaks down the protein, cannot be activated. The pepsinogen enzyme also synthesizes some other cells. This enzyme cannot function on its own and cannot be excreted if I do not have food in me. It starts to be excreted together with the hydrochloric acid as soon as I start to be filled with food. So how is it that such a strong acid and protein digesting enzyme do not harm my walls? My Creator has provided my lining with a temporary protective layer. The goblet cells that excrete this protective mucous are so sensitive that they excrete a protective liquid that coats it. Every day I sacrifice one and a half million cells to these enzyme and acids. In other words, every three days my inner layer is destroyed by these corrosive enzymes and acids. But thank God, I have been given me such a revitalizing strength that each day this lining is renewed with new cells.

Sometimes, if there is a problem with the excretion of this protective liquid, the acid and enzyme can start to eat at the stomach walls, leading to blood leaking from the arteries that are in the outer layer; this is known as an ulcer, a wound on my walls. Nervousness and tension affect the excretions in me, and therefore people who have a nervous character can develop ulcers more easily than relaxed people. The best thing to do is to live a life where one faces things with patience, neither being too panicky nor too happy, but living in a balanced and mature way. If you try to live in a balanced way then you will maintain order in the stomach and I will be happy.

You cannot move the muscles of my walls like you can your arm or leg muscles. The muscles are commanded and start working according to orders from an autonomous nervous system that you are not even aware of. An important feature of these muscles is that they work slowly, but take a long time to get tired. At the same time, they are very susceptible to growing if you do not take care of yourself properly; if you are not careful I can swell up quickly like a balloon. The evil side of human character has a very close connection with me; so you have to be very careful not to eat and drink too much and consume unlawful food. Otherwise, you might become weak and be easily misled and consequently this makes me nothing more than a waste container and then I become a pest.

Let me tell you some of the things that I do not like. At the top of the list is very hot or very cold food or beverages. Both ruin the enzymes and make them dysfunctional. The best condition for enzymes to work is at your body temperature-that is 36-37 degrees. There are more scientists today than before who think that overly hot or burnt food can cause my cells to turn cancerous. If you heat very cold items in your mouth and then swallow you protect me from getting cold – because if I get cold I contract and my working balance becomes dysfunctional so that I am no longer able to do my job.

When I finish my job of extracting the nutrients and treating them with the enzymes the food takes on a liquid form. When the food has achieved the desired texture I send it through to the intestines that are right below me. In this regard, I am like this transitory worldly life, which is nothing more than a two-door guesthouse-one door for entrance and the other door for exit. I never retain anything in me-I receive from one end and send it out the other. There is no door between myself and the esophagus, so I can take out what is in me if I have to by vomiting. At first, this vomiting reflex might seem a bad thing and you might wonder why there is nothing to prevent this? But let me remind you of something, what if you mistakenly eat something poisonous or something that has gone off, what would you do if you could not vomit? You would have to be taken to hospital so that you do not die of food poisoning and an incision would have to be made in the stomach; I would have to be cleansed out, but by this time you might have died. However, if I feel that something you have eaten is bad I can remove it. But with the gateway that is placed between myself and the intestines I am able to stop the food in the intestines from coming back to ruin the acidic atmosphere in me, as the enzymes in the intestines work under more neutral conditions. My acidic structure would disrupt the intestine’s enzymes. In particular, if the bile salts excreted from the liver and the pancreas enzymes should spill into me the situation would be very chaotic.

Another important piece of advice I can offer to you Peter is not to play any sports when I am full and not to strain yourself. The thick muscle lining on the walls requires a lot of blood to move. After eating a significant amount of blood is withdrawn from other parts of the body and sent to me. If you try to be active in this state you will suffer, as the rest of your organs will not be nourished properly and stress will be put on your heart.

Here’s another secret I’m going to let you in on: the more you fill me up without thinking about whether it is necessary and lawful or not, the more likely it is that you will make spiritual mistakes. Your spiritual well-being and health are inversely proportional to a full stomach. If you make me grow too much all your veins, starting with your heart, will start to gather fat and therefore their functions will slow down. Also your spiritual side will be dulled. Actually it is enough for a person to eat only what they need to survive. Serving your senses of taste and eating within the allowed parameters by remembering the Giver will not only give me peace but will also take you to spiritual horizons. After the food passes through your mouth it does not make much of a difference to me whether it is sweet or salty. Therefore, if you can take charge of your mouth, which acts as a gatekeeper, you can protect yourself from waste and from putting on extra kilos.

Some time ago some people would laugh at my above advice, and they would say, “Good food is the backbone of life and one should feed well.” But now modern medicine and dieticians have started to give the same advice I have been giving for years and they state that eating enough for sustenance is adequate. Most illnesses arise from over-eating; good food may be the backbone of life, but too much of it is a prescription for an early death.

In particular, with the dietary change that you make during the month of Ramadan, I and my team are able to renew ourselves; it is like a fitness camp that prepares us for a new term. This is an important need for us to start the new season. The time for this is approaching. I expect you will use your will power and allow me to rest as commanded. To continue with your life you need me to provide you the nutrients and energy, because without me even your heart could not function. At the root of all biological sustenance there is a need for food intake. Accordingly, I am like a double bladed sword. You should neither neglect me nor indulge me too much. I hope that you will display this balanced outlook and behavior.

The sun radiates an enormous amount of energy-at a rate of 3.9×1026 Joule per second. This is roughly equivalent to the energy of a 10 billion megaton TNT bomb every second. This huge amount of energy has been maintained for several billion years and will continue for several more. The fusion reaction of the Sun is a process in which hydrogen burns, transforming into helium, which is then followed by thermonuclear explosions. Isotopes of hydrogen, such as deuterium and tritium, are fused to form heavier helium. During this process the released energy can be as high as 17.6 MeV. The energy released from a 17 lbs deuterium fusion is equal to 1,000 kilotons of TNT. Every second the Sun fuses 675,000,000 tons of hydrogen into 653,000,000 tons of helium.

Scientists have attempted to make fusion work on the earth to make larger amounts of energy, thus solving our energy problems for the future. The first nuclear fusion trials were carried out for nuclear weapons. The released energy from the fusion trials was 500 times higher than that from the fission reactions of nuclear weapons¹. The energy released was equal to that of approximately 12 million tons of TNT. The civilian applications for energy production began in the early 1950s, and we are still trying to solve how to control this amount of energy in reactors.

In nuclear fusion, the negative and positive ions of hydrogen, called plasma, reach temperatures of 100 million degrees. To achieve the plasma parameters of the Sun, for example, the same temperature and density, the plasma must be heated to 100 million degrees Celsius and be kept dense and confined for at least 1 second.

Plasmas are mostly heated by Ohmic (resistive) heating, beam injection, or radio frequency heating. Ohmic heating is the result of an induced current being passed through the plasmas. This mechanism is also used to make electric bulbs and heaters work. Ohmic heating cannot attain plasma temperatures; such heating does not rise above 20-30 million degrees Celsius. When the temperature increases, the resistivity of the plasma decreases. Natural beam injection is one of the mechanisms used to obtain higher energy temperatures. Injecting a high-energy beam of neutral atoms into the plasma causes more collisions and increases the plasma temperature by transferring the atoms’ energy to the plasma. Radio frequency heating is another collision mechanism that increases the plasma temperature. Radio waves generated by oscillators transfer their energy at appropriate frequencies to ions or electrons, thus increasing the plasma temperature. Scientists have managed to get to high enough temperatures; however, these plasmas cannot be contained by the reactor walls easily and the reactions cannot be sustained. To prevent a loss of reaction control and to make the plasmas denser, magnetic confinement mechanisms have been developed such as TOKAMAK, Z-PINCH and ICF.

The TOKAMAK (Toroidal Chamber) device was invented in the late 1950s by the Russian physicists Igor Tam and Andrei Sakharov. In this system, mixtures of deuterium and tritium plasmas, confined by doughnut-shaped magnetic fields, are produced by the toroidal coils, which are then heated to very high temperatures. The temperature achieved by the Princeton Labs is 510 million degrees-almost 30 times greater than the temperature of the Sun. One of the major problems in TOKAMAK is that superconducting magnetic coils are needed for the electricity demand, but the superconducting magnets only operate at cold temperatures. So, a space between the plasma and coils must be maintained to avoid the plasma reaching the coils and damaging them. This mechanism is still assumed to be the best for the confinement of plasmas².

Another confinement system is the Z-pinch (Zeta-Pinch) pulse power device. The current flow of experimental devices is in the Z-axis, so the device was called the Z-pinch by the British scientists in the late 1950s. In this mechanism, very tiny wires, thinner than a human hair, are positioned in different configurations, such as cylindrical or nested geometries, and are then placed in an anode cathode gap.

Applying high voltage on the system causes the energetic plasmas to compress and heat the deuterium or tritium fuel in small pellets. The current flows through these wires axially, generating magnetic fields that confine the plasma. The temperature achieved is about 1.6 billion degrees; this result, reported by the Sandia National Labs, is almost 250 times higher than the interior of the Sun. Z-pinches produce the most powerful plasmas, but the generated plasmas are very unstable³.

Lasers were invented in 1962, and have been applied in many areas. Lasers were used in infusion research to confine the plasma in the late 1960s by scientists at Lawrence Livermore. This laser-based process is called ICF (Inertial Confinement Fusion). In this mechanism, laser light is used to compress and heat the pellet. The temperature achieved is about 100 million degrees Celsius and the plasma is compressed almost 1,000 times its liquid density. However, this confinement occurs in less than in a microsecond, which is not enough time to allow the ions to build on the energy of their own inertia.

Today, many countries have invested millions of dollars in confinement and ignition systems to create fusion power. ITER is an International TOKAMAK fusion project that will be built in France (for more information: http://www.iter.org/). Its participants have agreed to provide funding of $13.1 billion. When it is completed, the ITER will be one of the most expensive scientific projects in the world. However, despite the high cost, there are good reasons why scientists insist on the use of fusion. One of these is that no CO2 is produced during the process. Everyone is aware that CO2 has negative effects; for example, it leads to increased pollution and global warming. Another reason is the abundance of hydrogen available for fusion in seawater and on the earth’s crust. Another important reason is that fusion is safer than fission or other energy sources: There are no nuclear accidents, and in case of malfunction, the plasma is absorbed and cooled by the reactor walls. Also, the generated amount of radioactive particles is fewer than those generated by fission.

If everything goes well, scientists expect that fusion will be used as a source of energy in a couple of decades. If fusion is successful, it can provide clean, safe, reliable, sustainable, and widely applicable energy.

M. Fatih Yilmaz is a graduate researcher at Physics Department, University of Nevada.

Notes

1. Frisch O. R.: “The Discovery of Fission – How It All Began.” Physics Today 20 (1967), 11, pp. 43-48; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokamak; http://www.ppdl.gov.

3. James Glanz, Science 18 July 1997:Vol. 277. no. 5324, p. 306 DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5324.306.

We can say that just as earth, air, water, and their constituents have an influence on the development of a plant, so do thoughts and intentions have an influence on the development of the ethical conduct and character in a person. As flowers flourish from seeds and birds hatch from eggs, lofty souls and perfect characters are nurtured by beautiful thoughts and pure intentions. Moreover, those who live as if they constantly breathe a heavenly atmosphere thanks to their noble thoughts and sincere intentions begin to send out the fragrance of the same climate around them in time. They turn their surroundings and other people’s hearts into gardens of Paradise. As for those possessed by ugly thoughts or evil intentions, they virtually cause people to drink poison even in heavenly atmospheres.

Good Opinion is a Form of Worship

Being constantly filled with considerations that are welcomed by the conscience and cherishing positive views about another person is termed as having a “good opinion” (husnu dhan) in religion. As a religious term, good opinion denotes good intention, positive thinking, and perception of the beautiful; this reflects a person’s inner purity and faithfulness. It is most becoming for a righteous believer to maintain good intentions and take everything from the positive when making evaluations about persons or events.

Holding negative thoughts about someone is called having an “ill-opinion” (sui dhan), and this is based on suspicion. God Almighty reveals the evil of suspicion about other people in the following verse:

O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion, for some suspicion is a grave sin (liable to God’s punishment); and do not spy (on one another), nor backbite (against one another). Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his dead brother? You would abhor it! Keep from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety. Surely God is One Who truly returns repentance with liberal forgiveness and additional reward, All-Compassionate (particularly towards His believing servants).

Likewise, God’s Messenger counseled against suspicion, since suspicion is the worst of lies. He also warned us against prying into others’ affairs, eavesdropping, feelings of rivalry or jealousy, rancor and turning our back against others; he counseled God’s servants to be brothers and sisters. He warned us against suspicion and all behavior that might harm brotherhood. In addition, God’s Messenger stated that a person’s having a good opinion of others is because that person is a good servant of God. The Prophet Muhammad considered sincere intentions, positive thoughts, and beautiful perspectives to be a sign of maturity in Islam, a deepening in faith, and soundness brought by living with the awareness of constantly being seen by God. The Prophet not only took an oath of allegiance from his Companions, he also received their promises about having good intentions toward all believers.

Said Nursi listed the four great spiritual handicaps, and he also mentioned the possession of an ill-opinion of others alongside hopelessness, self-pride, and vanity. He emphasized the importance of having good opinions. A person should not see all other people as superior to themselves, nor should they project the weakness or ugliness that is in their own person on others through suspicion or make the mistake of criticizing certain attitudes and acts of others without knowing the underlying reasons. At this point, I would like to mention a serious mistake related to the subject. Disapproving of certain attitudes of the early generations of Muslims who followed the Companions (salaf al-salihin) without knowing the wisdom behind is also an ill opinion. Ill opinion is one of the devil’s traps that harms society in terms of both material and spiritual life.

It is our duty to cherish good opinions and we must always think positively, particularly about believers. Imam Khadimi, the author of Bariqa, says that “even if you see a believer committing adultery, do not rush to make a judgment about him, wipe your eyes and say ‘My God, that person does not commit such an ugly deed, I must have seen wrong.’ Turn back and look again to make sure. If that is really him, then say ‘I have probably seen mistakenly again.’ One more time disbelieve your eyes, wipe them and look again. If you become certain that the person you have seen is the same person you thought, then say ‘There is no strength or power except with God Almighty’ and pray for that person: ‘O God, save him from this ugly state, and save me from falling into such a sin also’ and move away from there.” Although I do love Imam Khadimi and have deep respect for him, I find some excess in these words; we do not need to wipe our eyes and look back time and again and inquire into that deed. Because, we still have some doubt after the first look and that doubt can be the means for dismissing any negative thoughts about the other person. Inquiring into the matter further might serve to verify the negative possibility. Therefore, when we witness ugliness, we should immediately walk away without spying into the affair, identifying, or verifying it, before the unpleasant sights flow into our heart and take the form of a judgment. We should say “O God, grant guidance to your sinning servants, and forgive me,” and then forget what we have seen.

The person who has committed that sin may have fallen once but they may have then repented instantly, washing away his sins with tears, and he may have been forgiven. However, the person who witnessed the case and verified it through spying into it cannot help thinking about that ugly deed every time he remembers it and therefore cannot get rid of their mental contamination, unable to free themselves from the damage of ill-opinion.

Moreover, even though legal witnesses play a role in maintaining law and order in a society, there is no duty to reveal people’s vices in Islam. There is no such ethical rule that requires us to investigate the faults of others, to divulge them, or to embarrass these people. On the contrary, searching out faults and mistakes, divulging sins, and humiliating others are considered to be immoral in Islam. In this respect, even if a person has ten attributes of unbelief and only one sign of faith, we must keep as good an opinion of them as we can. That person is supposed to fear for himself and worry about his afterlife. However, we must never see him as a hypocrite. We need to remember the principle that being wrong in a good opinion is better than proving right an ill opinion, and we must act according to this. Naturally, we can be more cautious about whether we should give certain duties or responsibilities to people who have attributes of unbelief for the good of servitude on the way of God. We should remember the principle Said Nursi teaches us to adhere to when dealing with such people: “good opinion, non-reliance.” In order to let them have a share in the blessings of serving the faith, we can give them certain duties, but refrain from entrusting them with critical responsibilities. Thus, we will avoid serious mistakes and we will carry out the requirement of holding a positive opinion, thus allowing these people to rid themselves of ugly traits and to become sincere believers. Nevertheless, we should not forget that good opinion and trust are among the essential components of those who are devoted to the same cause and we should never fail to trust one another because of some piece of information that is not based on certain facts, or be misled by trivial reasons, suspicions, or the devil’s whisperings. We need to avoid over-generalizing the principle of “non-reliance.”

Avoid raising suspicion!

In addition, in the same way that it is essential to hold a good opinion of others, it is also a very important principle to refrain from behavior that might raise suspicion. Some people fail to avoid acts and conditions that might possibly lead to ugly thoughts about themselves arising in the minds of other people. They might sometimes present behavior that can be open to criticism in terms of their personal lives, businesses, or social relations. Thereby, these people trigger negative feelings and ugly considerations in some people who are prone to suspicion or ill-opinion. However, everybody should review their own condition and refrain from raising suspicion, while constantly maintaining a good opinion of others.

It is not possible to approve of situations which might lead to suspicion, particularly today; at the present time what is prevalent is a collective spiritual identity rather than spiritual individuality. The attitudes and behaviors of every Muslim can be ascribed to this spiritual identity and it can be generalized to all believers. Therefore, one of the prayers I consider to be very important is “My God, do not humiliate our brothers and sisters because of my attitudes and behaviors, do not let them be embarrassed because of my personal mistakes.” Nowadays, an unmannerly act by a single individual might cause all believers to lose credit. A person with inconsistent behavior can lead to negative aspects being attributed to all Muslims. In this respect, it is even more important to act in accordance with the warning of the Prophet and we should avoid those places that might leave us under suspicion. In the same way that we need to avoid such “slippery ground”, places that might leave us under the suspicion of potential sins, and to avoid situations that might trigger feelings that could lead to such sins, we should also keep away from the dangerous territory that might distance us from our essential values through the attraction of a single word, through eavesdropping, or spying on others. Likewise, we should avoid heedless behaviors that might raise suspicions about us and we should not let negative thoughts emerge. The following example will guide us in this issue:

One day, when God’s Messenger was at his habitual retreat in the mosque for the last ten days of Ramadan, his wife Safiyya visited him and asked for permission to go home after having stayed for a while. God’s Messenger, who was a paragon of kindness, came out to see off his respectable wife. At the moment, one or two Companions who were passing by, saw them and walked away. The Prophet Muhammad, the Prince of both worlds, stopped them immediately and said “Look, this is my wife Safiyya,” raising the veil of our mother Safiyya. Upon this, the Companions responded in humility, “God forbid! O Messenger of God, how can one ever expect an evil deed from you?” The Prophet replied as follows: “The devil continues to circulate through the blood vessels of people.”

As the devil does not leave us alone; he can whisper various suspicions and evil thoughts into our ears. He might lead even the most decent people to ill thoughts in various unexpected ways. So, one should try to maintain good opinions and avoid situations that might lead to ill opinion as much as possible.

The good opinion of God Almighty

On the other hand, while believers should always maintain good opinions about others, it is unthinkable for them to express discontentment that denotes an ill opinion of the Creator’s deeds. Above everything and everybody, a believer must hold a good opinion of God Almighty. As expressed in a hadith qudsi by the Prophet, God’s treatment of a servant depends on that person’s opinion of God. This reveals how important it is to cherish a good opinion of God, and how great a means to salvation this is.

As an example of how good opinions about the All-Merciful Lord are turned into a decree of forgiveness in the other world, the Prophet narrated the following event: a certain servant is called to account. Alongside his good deeds there are many sins. When both are weighed, it turns out that the scale of good deeds is lighter and the man deserves punishment. The condemned man is seized and is dragged toward punishment in a wretched condition. He keeps turning and looking back, as if he was expecting something. God orders the angels to ask him why he keeps looking back (this “looking back” should not be taken literally, it is unthinkable for God Almighty to be confined to a place or direction). The poor man says, “O God, my good opinion of You is not like this. Yes, I have brought along sins while others came with good deeds; but I have never lost my faith or trust in Your Mercy. It has been my hopeful expectation that You will treat me with Your Mercy and forgive me also.” These considerations and the man’s good opinion of God Almighty opened a door to his salvation. Consequently, the man gladly heard the divine order to be taken to Paradise. In a similar way, after Abu Sahl had passed away to the realm of eternity, certain people saw him in their dreams, and he told them that he was enjoying indescribable blessings. They asked him, “O master, how have you been able to attain this exalted rank?” Abu Sahl answered “Thanks to the good opinion I cherished about my God.”

As a matter of fact, a believer should always maintain a good opinion about God Almighty in every phase of their life, and they should constantly live with this hope. They should say, “I may be a sinner, and I am hung by a thread to Him. Therefore I might slip and fall at any moment. However, He forgives the sins of His servants, and is All-Compassionate, particularly toward His believing servants (Ghafur and Rahim). I have firm belief that His Immense Forgiveness will include me as well,” and cherish the hope of being forgiven. Nevertheless, this good opinion and hope for forgiveness should not lead one to commit more sins. A sincere believer is supposed to avoid sins like they avoid poisonous creatures. Even if they were to commit a sin, they should immediately take refuge in repentance, and ask forgiveness with the hope of being pardoned. A very delicate balance is concerned in this issue; a fine balance exists between refraining from sins and not giving in to hopelessness after a temporary lapse, since hopelessness is a greater danger in comparison to a sin. Saying “There is no more hope for me” and totally giving up, indulging in the swamp of sins, and finally being seized by pessimism, finally committing suicide is a greater transgression than the sins which lead to such a state. No matter in what condition a person finds themselves in, given that we are servants of the All-Merciful God who reveals His attributes of Mercy and Compassion in the Qur’an, Who even addresses the people who waste their lives as “My” servants, then why should we be hopeless? Actually, one should be able to say “it is unbecoming to commit sins before the great Compassion of my Creator. Then how can I dare to commit transgressions again!” Therefore, one should not give in or become hopeless. Particularly in old age and at the moment of death one should even more enthusiastically take refuge in hope and be filled with beautiful considerations while returning to God. Similarly, God’s Messenger warned us against dying without a good opinion of God Almighty.

Moreover, we should not restrict our understanding of the hadith about our opinion of God and His treatment of us; we need to evaluate this hadith from a broader perspective. It really is an expression of good opinion to say “I have an All-Merciful Lord who makes me happy with His various blessings, guides me to righteousness, Who forgives my lapses, and pardons my sins.” However, there is the belief that everything that happens in our lives has been arranged for our own good (e.g. an illness is seemingly bad, but it can be a means of blessings for our afterlife if we abandon being patient and thankful) and that everything in life is tailor-made just for us. Our good opinion about our Lord depends on the existence of this belief. If God Almighty wills, He exiles us, puts us to another test, puts another person to prison… but no matter what He does, it is always for our benefit. Each case is meant to direct us, to guide us to a certain destination and help us to reach eternal bliss. From the worship for which we are responsible – such as the daily prayers, fasting, Hajj, and alms of zakat-to the apparent troubles and misfortunes, everything we become and everything we are subjected to is planned for our advantage. Having sincere faith in this truth is the peak of our good opinion of God Almighty.

To conclude, good intentions, positive thinking, and perceiving the beautiful are signs of a person’s purity of heart and the immensity of their conscience. If a person starts to judge others, no one will be left behind. If we do not hold on to good opinions from the beginning, we cannot help but judge everybody and everything. Therefore, when an individual is performing self-criticism-given that they do not give in to hopelessness-they should be harsh. But when other people are concerned they should hold on to good opinions. We must remember that it is better to be mistaken in a good opinion than being proven right with a negative opinion.

…

I love my daughter, I really do. When my daughter laughs with me right now, it’s as if that is the definition of happiness. But I came home from work at midnight yesterday and had to run errands this morning. I really wanted to stay home this afternoon and get some rest, but my wife wanted to meet her friends. God, I feel so tired, and I haven’t even been able to read the newspapers today; I wonder what the repercussions of yesterday’s market crisis are. I hope the day I will retire comes soon…

…

My days in this house are rather routine and lonely. I watch the news, eat, walk, read, and once in a while get together with friends in the neighborhood. My wife left me after I retired, which I understand happens often in neglected marriages. My daughter visits me in the summers and stays with me for a few weeks at least, for which I feel blessed. An interesting development has occurred in my psyche: Recently, I have been feeling this growing envy for people who do physical work. All my life, my job entitled making abstract decisions about abstract situations. Not once did I do something that I could step back from and take a look at the outcome of my effort. Just today I was watching a construction worker building a wall. What a great feeling it must be to start in the morning where there is no wall and in the evening to see the result of your daily work, a wall that you have built with your own hands.

…

Being a worker is no great feat. Sure the pay is not bad, I can’t complain about that, but everybody knows it can’t last. I mean, first off, you don’t get much contracts in the winter, then the big companies take up most of the stuff and let’s face it, I can’t earn my money on this when I’m fifty, then you lift boxes in a supermarket, what else? You may find this funny coming from me, but I always wanted to be a musician, a cello player; that’s what I wanted to do. I wish I could be in the shoes of that cello kid in the poster in front of the concert hall.

…

I am a cellist. I have loved the sound of cello for as long as I can remember, I do not know why, and now when people ask me I tell them I love the cello because it is the instrument that most resembles the human voice. That is not why but it sounds better. I have practiced hard for more than fifteen years now, on average four hours a day. This practice may have its rewarding moments, but most of the time it feels like you are trying to achieve something that is in no way achievable. My parents never approved of my choice and I think they never will, unless I reach the level of a Rostropovich, which for me is clearly impossible. Everything set aside, the upsetting thing is that my real passion is composing music, although I am not very good at it. I have been taking classes with an instructor in my college on music composition, and I am in awe at his achievements. I would give up everything I have at any moment to be able to compose like he does.

…

Some may say that I have contributed some pieces to our musical library. I would say that they are either too kind or they do not know music. I teach music composition in a mediocre music school and until now I have been able to convince my students and colleagues that my compositions are important. Fortunately, I myself do not share that delusion. I say fortunately because I know that I have in me something waiting to be written on score sheets, something sublime, something… that I haven’t been able to get out of me in the last couple of years. I do love the process, even though many nights the candle on my piano burns down and I haven’t been able to write a single note. Am I burned out too? Is my hope for a sublime finale the real delusion? Why cannot I be like the great master Beethoven?

…

I am Beethoven. My music has been hailed as the work of a genius, which still gives me great satisfaction. However, there are two substantial catches with my present situation. First, I am deaf; I went deaf in the last thirteen years of my life. As an ironical twist of fate, I, the great Beethoven, was never able to hear any of my greatest work, my 9th symphony. Second, I am dead; I do not know how long I have been dead, a year or hundreds of years; I have been waiting in this grave in complete silence and in complete darkness. Often, I find myself imagining a scene from my life. No, not the time when the Archduke celebrated my work, not the time when the Eroica was first performed either. It is a much simpler and at the same time, a much more handsome memory. There was a time when I was strolling in the park one afternoon and I was enjoying the gentle touch of sunrays coming through the trees. A flute was playing Bach’s Badinerie in the distance. It was a beautiful day…

Firat Kocol is a freelance writer. He lives in Boston. He can be contacted at firatkocol@gmail.com

More specifically, groundwater represents 98% of the available fresh water on earth. The contamination of groundwater has increased significantly due to industrial developments over the last century. To illustrate how the modern human has had an impact on the environment, let us look at some numbers: In the United States alone, yearly 100 million tons of hazardous waste is generated and 4 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into streams; in addition, 1.2 million tons of toxic waste are emptied into landfills and 1.5 million tons are injected into deep wells for disposal. Again in the United States, of the 2 million underground storage tanks in gas stations, 450,000 are leaking gasoline and petroleum products to the subsurface. If these numbers do not impress you, remediation costs for contaminated sites in Europe are expected to exceed $1.5 trillion in the near future. These are only some of the impacts of heavy industrialization of which we are aware. The contaminants that are released into the environment severely threaten drinking water, agricultural, and surface waters.

The pollution process of the subsurface environment is ironically simple. Leaks from various contamination sources seep into the groundwater from where they travel and infiltrate the soil with which they come in contact. Contaminated soils and sediments slowly release these pollutants, which over long period of time have become a continuous source. Of course, all these contaminants can potentially cause cancer or have detrimental effects on the ecosystem or on human health. To give an example of how these pollutants easily spread around the globe, in a recent study of dairy products that were collected from countries all around the world, the same type of organic contaminant (PCB:

Polychlorinated Biphenyls) was found in those products that, for the most part, originated in the USA, although the usage and production of this contaminant has been banned since 1976. How have these pollutants managed to persist in the environment and travel all the way from USA to the rest of the world, even as far as Australia? There are several ways this can be done; first the released contaminant volatilizes into the air and travels, through atmospheric depositions of large quantities onto the grass that is eaten by the cow. Another way is that a fish swimming in contaminated fresh water is caught and becomes food at a dairy farm. This research exemplifies how the pollution of the environment can affect us, regardless of where we live on this planet.

It seems like a very gloomy picture though, if nobody is going to take any action against the contamination or clean up the toxic chemicals from vulnerable targets like drinking water sources or terrestrial lands. There are, of course, many precautions that have been undertaken to clean up the environment. This article is about one of the interesting ways in which we utilize microorganisms to clean up contaminated groundwater or drinking water.

It sounds a little strange for engineers to be dealing with bacteria that naturally exist and utilize them in cleaning up the environment. But this is what they are doing, using a technique called bioremediation, wherein natural microbes become stewards for destroying the pollutants in the environment. The simple technical description of bioremediation is the intentional use of the biodegradation process to eliminate environmental pollutants that have been intentionally or inadvertently released. The biodegradation used here is the microbial transformation process of toxic chemicals into nontoxic forms and sometimes mineralization into inorganic elements like carbon, oxygen and hydrogen.

This transformation, which is essentially a process of destruction, first requires the presence of microorganisms. These microorganisms almost always exist in nature, unless there are harsh conditions that prevent microbial growth. The microorganisms use inorganic or organic contaminants as their nutritional and growth source in the life cycle. For example, a commonly encountered organic contaminant, benzene, is composed of six carbon atoms and six hydrogen atoms. During the degradation process, the microorganisms synthesize enzymes that stimulate the breaking down of benzene into carbon dioxide and water or sometimes the simple elements of carbon and oxygen. These enzymes ease the reactions that produce cellular energy and the building blocks for the synthesis of new cells. In essence, the contaminant serves as a nutrient – food – so that the microorganism can continue its life.

The electron acceptors

During the process in which the microorganism feeds on the contaminant (the degradation process), the key issue is the electron acceptors, the complementary part of the chemical reaction that occurs during the biodegradation process. During the breaking down of the large organic molecules into small elements, excess electrons are released into the environment and therefore an electron acceptor is required to maintain the chemical equilibrium and continue the reaction mechanism. This necessity for oxygen or iron dioxide resembles the need for oxygen in our liver to break down the complex molecules that occur during energy production and new cell generation. The process is as simple as this: we breathe oxygen to live and so do microorganisms. Oxygen molecules act as convenient electron dumps for bacteria that usually lie near the soil surface. Depending on the electron acceptor types, degradation reactions are categorized as aerobic (using oxygen) or anaerobic (using nitrate, manganese, iron and sulfate as electron acceptors). Humans can only inhale oxygen, but most insects can utilize other molecules, like iron oxide or sulfur as well.

Moreover, in order to have a successful clean up, scientists need to satisfy chemical and nutritional requirements and this is challenging for engineers. As these electron acceptors are not always readily available, engineers supplement the electron acceptors in the contaminated environment by methods like pumping air into the ground. Sometimes the microorganisms that are necessary to degrade the potential pollutant do not exist and the engineers must first inject the bacteria so that they can consume the pollutants as food.

Geobacter

One of the microorganisms most frequently studied for its degradation potential for organic and inorganic contaminants is Geobacter metallireducens, or the geobacter. Since it was first discovered, more than 20 years ago, researchers at the University of Massachusetts have been studying this incredible creature; however, they admit that there are many things that they still do not know about it. The geobacter was the first organism found to oxidize organic compounds to carbon dioxide using iron oxides as the electron acceptor. In other words, the geobacter gains its energy by using iron oxides (a rust-like mineral) in the same way that humans use oxygen. The main nutrient for the geobacter can be organic or inorganic pollutants for, and it breathes iron oxide in the way the human inhales oxygen. The geobacter can consume soil and groundwater contaminants like benzene and the gasoline additive MBTE, even in an oxygen-free environment. The geobacter, which has been found almost everywhere, even living in the dental spit-sinks, also flourishes in uranium-contaminated sites, converting soluble radioactive material to a material that is insoluble in groundwater, therefore making it easier to isolate for cleaning up. At present the geobacter is being put to work in actual clean up projects. As our understanding of the functioning of the species has improved, it has become possible to use this information to modify environmental conditions in order to accelerate the rate of contaminant degradation.

More interestingly, researchers have discovered that the geobacter spits out unwanted electrons into the circuit while consuming contaminants for energy. The geobacter exhales electricity through 20 to 30 hair-like structures, just 3 to 5 nanometers in diameter, to its surroundings. Although there is hardly enough microbe-produced electricity generated to solve the world’s energy problems, a fuel cell measuring a cubic meter would generate 2 kilowatts, and some engineers are talking about powering sewage treatment plants with a type of geobacter that harvests off the sewage itself. Just to give an idea about the direction of future research, researchers are now working on a selected gene of the geobacter. The gene that limits electricity production will be modified so that electricity production can be boosted during the degradation process. Given that, it would not be surprising if there were technology that created energy while cleaning contaminated soil or groundwater.

Clean water is a basic need for every human being, and it is our moral obligation to work as stewards for the environment; the first thing we must do is to stop contaminating the planet. However, we are faced with resources that have been previously contaminated. As one result of an increasing sense of responsibility toward nature, we are at a point where we can use natural microorganisms or plants as clean-up tools. Although mankind harshly contaminates the environment while creating an industrial and technological world, it is quite ironic that we still rely on the marvels of such divinely ordained solutions to sustain life.

References

• Martin Alexander, Biodegradation and Bioremediation, 199, Academic Press, San Diego CA USA
• Pedro J. Alvarez, Walter A. Illman, Bioremediation and Natural Attenuation: Process Fundamentals and Mathematical Models, 2005, Wiley and Sons, NY, USA
• www.geobacter.org Geobacter project, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Environmental Biotechnology Center
• Jana Weiss, Olaf Papke, and Ake Bergman, A Worldwide Survey of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins, Dibenzofurans, and Related Contaminants in Butter, AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment Volume 34, Issue 8 (December 2005), pp. 589–597