Humanity has come up with many beautiful things, and has made great inventions up to now. In a way, it is thanks to these efforts that the people of our time are enjoying a life of comfort, never equaled in any period of history; at least, this is potentially so. Even though it would not be correct to speculate today on the days to come, those who predict the future of the world say that it will, in a way, become so attractive for the people of physicality and carnal pleasures that it will make them forget Paradise. With a feeling and passion that gives priority to immediate pleasures and delights, they will say like Omar Khayyam, “The past and future are all but tales; enjoy yourself, do not spoil your life.” Thus, they will see life as only eating, drinking, and lying down, constantly making their choices in favor of worldly ease and comfort.

Actually, we can see this even now in many developed countries, and a great number of people around the world are enviously trying to imitate them. Almost everybody speaks about “material welfare and comfort,” without seeing other values than these, or rather without wanting to see them. However, in spite of the dizzying developments brought by science, the new opportunities offered by technology, and so many means promising us welfare and happiness, the people of our time do not seem so happy. Let alone seeming happy, they are seized by unease and depression more than ever. Though it could not be expected to be any other way, mere worldly opportunities, which are not supported by their relation to faith or knowledge of God, not deepened and given meaning, would obviously not mean much. In this respect, what we need in this modern age is nothing but to choose the best stature as suggested by the truth of having been created as “the perfect pattern of creation” (Tin 95:5), and to read the essence of being human accordingly. We can call this human beings’ realization of their difference with respect to spirituality and heart, reviewing their relation with the Creator, and finding their own orbit as befits the purpose of their creation. It seems that until they learn to read their essence correctly, it will not be possible for human beings to put their affairs in order and attain the happiness they expect. And particularly so if they are trying to suppress their spiritual appetite through luxury, comfort, and seeking to satisfy their physical pleasures due to not being able to know their real problems.

Even though the gravity of problems varies according to the country and society, almost all of humanity today faces serious dead ends. Almost everywhere, in every society, the masses experiencing a void in the name of faith and knowledge of God are pushed-consciously or not-into a disordered life, their animal desires are constantly triggered, and they are intoxicated into oblivion. Obviously, there cannot be sound spirit, sound thoughts, and sound judgment in such carefree, lawless, and immoderate masses. Masses of this sort have no aim or activity other than satisfying their carnal senses and consoling themselves with alcohol and drugs. Such a society can be considered to be spiritually dead, or to have entered the grave before dying. For such miserable souls who have lost their feeling of being human to some extent, it is just ordinary to have perverted habits, nervous problems, stress, and depression. Unfortunately, along with the entire world today, Muslim countries are also afflicted with the same diseases, and they are going through their most unfortunate days in desperation. In this world, individuals are diseased and shaken, the home is miserable and messed up, the masses are delirious and aggressive, and the representatives of brute power are cruel and merciless; nobody knows where it will lead and what kind of an end awaits humanity…

Due to such intermingled uncertainties and misery, most are unaware of what they are doing, what purpose they are serving, and what kind of disintegration they are heading toward. Most are completely unaware of the background of these dreadful problems, the real reasons for the total degeneration of societies, and the spiritual deformation of masses. The cause or causes of disease are not known exactly, and therefore the remedies offered are mistaken to a great extent. The question of how many people have been able to diagnose the problem is always arguable. And God knows how many of them are even given the right to speak.

It is for these reasons that in spite of all means of welfare, humanity is unhappy, weary, worn, delirious, and bent under the burden of bad conscience. Individuals and the masses are in an intimidating void-the void of conflicting with our primordial nature-generated by not knowing one’s Master. This is the void of being ignorant of faith and wisdom and the void of having been dragged into the pitfalls of the carnal self. Therefore, people are in constant anxiety as if journeying through the corridors of Hell and are extremely uneasy. Neither leading their life in luxurious buildings, nor their fantastic clothing mean anything in the face of this void in them. Sometimes the delirium of intoxication is resorted to, and sometimes contentment is sought within material and carnal desires… but to no avail. None of these suffices to fill the void inside, and the generations of today, who are deprived of spiritual support, keep drifting from one delirious state to another.

Because of mad crowds detached from their past, with no connection with their future, and vulnerable to committing crime, almost everywhere human life and property are under threat, those who care about chastity are anxious, and those responsible for security are ashamed of being unable to cope with the different illegal organizations they face every day. Those who see these on television or in the newspapers wonder, “Is it the end of humanity?” and they shake with the fear of being dealt a divine blow. We cannot consider them wrong, since Sodom and Gomorrah were smashed to the ground in chastisement for such spiritual disintegration and debasement. The people of Noah was destroyed for a quarter of today’s present immorality. If the destroyed peoples of Ad, Thamud, and Ayka were to witness what is happening today, they would probably be deeply ashamed. As the poet Mehmed Akif expressed it:

Modesty has been raised, shamelessness all around,
What ugly faces that thin veil proves to have disguised!
No fidelity, no loyalty to promise, not a sign of the word “trust,”
Lies are favored, betrayal required, right is out of sight.
Let virtues be ignored, let consciences fall into silence.
If this moral corruption lasts, there will remain no independence.

In the face of such realities, the only way to be saved from the present dangers and from being caught in the torrents of misguidance is faith in God, the belief in resurrection and the afterlife, consciousness of the final judgment, and a new call to a total revival toward being ourselves. On the other hand, other cures which have been resorted to so far are obviously of no use at all.

The entire society is afflicted and faith is the treatment,

For souls starving for faith, other ways are torment.

We will wait and see; maybe one day God Almighty will open our eyes too.

Human life in this world is a composite of two distinct powers, the spirit and the flesh. Although it is sometimes the case that these two powers act in harmony, conflict between them is more usual, conflict of a kind in which the victory of one results in the defeat of the other. In an individual who vigorously indulges bodily lusts, the spirit grows more powerless as it becomes more obedient to those lusts; however, in another individual, one who has given the spirit dominance over the flesh, in whom the heart (the seat of spiritual intellect) has power over reason, and who vigorously opposes the bodily lusts, it attains eternity.

The secret of attaining the eternal life of the spirit

Every part of a spiritually bankrupt country can be likened to a graveyard, no matter how many hundreds of triumphal arches and statues adorn its thoroughfares. The mass of people living in such a country are in reality blind and unfortunate, and a world not built on the breath of the spirit is nothing but the plaything of human violence. A culture which has not developed an ethos that encourages virtue is like an evil sorceress who has ambushed humanity. However, it may never be possible to persuade coarse, insensitive people of this, people who pay no attention to anything except their own pleasures, who have become incapable of considering their lives as connected with the well-being and happiness of others. If only such people had some perception of the mystery of their own deaths, they might yet attain the eternal life of the spirit.

Only those who have filled their hearts with the most sublime ideals and love of humanity will lead a spiritual life so as to attain eternity in their very selves. These fortunate people transcend their carnal desires, grow spiritually alert and attain victory over the commands of the self.

Only the person who overcomes his or her self can rightly be called powerful and victorious. The miserable individuals who have not been able to release themselves from captivity to the self are liable to defeat even if they have conquered the entire world. Moreover, we cannot give to their conquest of the world the name of “victory,” since their permanent presence in the lands they have invaded is an impossibility.

Real heroes

Napoleon was in the madness of esteeming himself sole ruler of the world. I wonder whether he was able to grasp that his real failure was when he slapped a philosopher and this was more bitter and humiliating than his defeat at Waterloo. In the person of that philosopher he actually slapped knowledge and virtue. Mustafa Pasha of Merzifon had been inwardly defeated before his army was put to flight at Vienna. This first defeat in Ottoman history showed itself in the spirit of the commander in chief, then spread far and wide among his forces, and not only caused him to lose his head, but allowed the greatest army of conquest the world had yet known to experience flight. Yildirim Khan, Bayazid I, was not defeated in Cubuk, but on the day when he belittled his opponent and hailed himself as sole ruler of the world. And there have been many others like these…

But we have positive examples too. Tariq ibn Ziyad was victorious, not when he defeated the Visigoths’ army of ninety thousand men with a handful of self-sacrificing valiants, but when he stood before the wealth and treasures of the king and said, “Be careful, Tariq. You were a slave yesterday. Today you are a victorious commander. And tomorrow you will be under the earth.”

Salahuddin Ayyubi’s generous treatment of Richard I astonished and embarrassed the arrogant commander. Alp Arslan conducted himself in peace and mercy towards Romanus IV Diogenes. Likewise, Kilic Arslan released all the crusaders captured during the battle at Antalya Castle. All these examples of humane and noble behavior are in fact the victory of the sublime spirit.

The enormous army of Mehmed II (the Conqueror) owed its success to the power of faith and the spirit. Mehmed II never relied on physical power; rather, he represented spiritual power as well as his military genius. Otherwise, his entry to Istanbul would have been no different than Caesar’s entry into Rome; but Mehmed II entered the capital of Byzantium in a manner of forgiveness, tolerance and justice just like Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, upon the conquest of Mecca.

Selim I regarded the world as too small for two rulers. He was truly victorious, not when he crowned some kings and dethroned others, but when he entered the capital in silence while its people were asleep so as to avoid their enthusiastic welcome and applause for his victories. He was also victorious when he ordered that the robe which had been spattered with mud by the horse of his teacher be draped over his coffin because it had been honored. The Roman commander Cato was victorious and made a place for himself in his people’s memory, not when he defeated the Carthaginians, but when he handed his horse and command over to the Roman Emperor, saying, “I fought to serve my nation. Now my duty is fulfilled, I am going back to my village.” And all the while his army was entering Carthage, the capital city of Rome’s enemy and rival, in triumph.

To transcend selfishness

Sacrificing one’s enjoyment of worldly pleasures has the same significance for human progress as the roots of a tree have for its growth. Just as a tree grows sound and strong in direct relation to the soundness and strength of its roots, so too a human being grows to perfection while striving to free himself or herself from selfishness and instead to live only for others.

We must look at history in order to find examples of real heroes since it is full of stories of great individuals. For instance, history tells us of the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, whom it finds carrying a sack of flour in public as soon as he felt a little pride in his heart. We have such heroes who effectively conducted armies and ruled countries during the day while they spent the night in remembrance of God. Those fortunate ones able to maintain a spiritual life no matter what their duties always appeared within the same tradition.

It is essential for an individual to overcome the carnal self. The idea of the “greater jihad” or “struggle against the carnal self” is the starting point of this struggle which gradually affects all the conduct of human beings. This idea also teaches the person how to become invincible against the self. Only those who have attained a victorious spirit can dominate all types of materialistic power in the Universe. In contrast, those who are captured by the self are liable to defeat and regarded as miserable even if they conquer the world. Therefore, the heroes we have mentioned here are different than others. Indeed, real heroes and victorious commanders attained triumph because of the victory of the spirit in their very selves.

To conclude, those who are deprived of sublime ideals and who cannot overcome their personal pleasures cannot be called victorious even if they conquer the entire world. In this case, their temporary success unfortunately results in their everlasting defeat. The only way to transform possible defeats into eternal victories is to attain the victory of the spirit. The crowned heads of the future will be those fortunate ones who have attained felicity through victories of the spirit.

If I had not actually seen them I would have said, it is mere fantasy, idle talk or imagination-a luminous shadow of the generation of the noble companions of the Prophet. Although it is understood of course, that the merit of the Companions cannot be surpassed, in these men were combined two of their great qualities-migration (hijra) and support (nusra). However, they were not divided into migrants and helpers but rather were migrants who help.

Migration to God and His Messenger (upon him be blessings and peace) are words often pronounced on tongues but rarely heeded by hearts. It is when a person leaves behind a life of comfort and rest, and the alluring bright lights of the city. He sets off journeying through the land to penetrate into foreign and remote territory. Carrying a lantern in his hand he searches out the needy throughout the land in order to nourish them with a sip of the nectar of life. On this path he has to endure self-sacrifice, self-annihilation and the abandonment of his worldly interests. That is a spiritual experience that nobody can truly comprehend except the one who has endured it. This is indeed an obstacle besides which are more obstacles, which count among the various degrees of striving.

Their sun rises in the land of Anatolia, and its rays effuse throughout the world in clear radiant beams. By this light old ties of kinship are bonded and the warmth of compassion is imparted to the wounded. They are migrants who left everything behind them and set forth like unsaddled, unshod horses. They open the doors and windows of the besieged in every land and teach them how to breathe again, breathe in the open air after having lost their ability to sense life centuries ago.

They are migrants (muhajirun) who have abandoned that before which dead-hearted people debase themselves: the pleasures of this life and its adornment, even though these flowed toward them in abundance from every direction. They set out towards God, distributing words of light, giving the world the good tidings of security and peace, and transmitting to the hearts of the poor great hope. Their legions are dispersed over deserts, mountains, jungles, and oceans. A horse may buckle here or there but the vanguard ever reaches its goal and raises its banner of light on the highest and loftiest peaks. True faith in God is elevated and honored through them.

A shadow of the generation of the Companions or a new copy, I know not. I have certainly seen them and my eyes did not deceive me. Among them are those who have passed on and among them are those who await their turn. They have not changed. It is for God to reward them! What men they are!

They are helpers (ansar) for they have supported the good, becoming thereby the helpers of the modern age. Each time they see the light of a candle faltering in a stormy wind, wherever it may be, they rush forth without a care for hardships and shield it with a niche of clear glass. Then it becomes like a shining star emanating beauty and splendor.

They went hungry so that others could eat, and they gave the clothes of their backs so that their poor could be clothed. They went short so that their needy could have possessions, and they wept so that their brothers could laugh. Truly, they preferred others over themselves even though they were themselves needy.

They are helpers who have acquired their state of support (nusra) by drawing from the light of Medina Al Munawwarra in the period just after the emigration of the Messenger (upon him be blessings and peace) there, when the joy of the people of Yathrib was still fresh and expressed in outbursts of song. It is from there that they have received the essence of their support, fresh and moist as a supple green branch sprinkling dew and bearing delicious fruit.

They migrated, and they gave their support. Furthermore, they have given themselves fully to the quest of migration and given themselves fully to the task of offering support. On this earth there remains nothing for them! However, in the world of the spirits they own everything through their dependence on God, the Rich beyond need, Owner of Praise.

They are crazy in their love of serving in foreign lands, from the cold of Siberia to the heat of South Africa. There is no island, cave, plain, or mountain, in all the continents of the world where they have not reached and there transmitted the rays of light effused by the approaching dawn. They smile in the face of painful afflictions, and they are happy to cross thorn-ridden fields which cause blood to flow from their feet and tears to flow from their eyes while their hearts rejoice in God!

They are truly men; men about whom if an ancient book had spoken, we would have called it an exaggeration like the exaggerations encountered in stories, histories and biographies. However, they are living now in the present and in the future. There they are, in front of you-living examples of burning longing and great dynamism. How commendable they are these youths and mature folk. They have revived in us hope in life, and given us certainty of a new dawn. They are a testimony to the verity of the prophetic words that God will make true faith in Him triumph universally such that there will not remain a house of wool or mud to which it will not have entered, bringing to it either humiliation or honor.

I have beheld the lights of the beautiful divine names reflected in their eyes. Those lights pour out before them and they follow their guidance, drawn by their force, to realize the will of God, the Tremendous, to revive the earth after its death, with prosperity, generosity and munificence. You would see one of them as a nation embodied in a man or a man as if he were a whole nation. If your eyes set upon one of them, they would be dazzled, and you would say, “Goodness! Surely, he can have no equal.” But when you see another, his beauty would make you forget the magnificence of the first. They have united within themselves all the best qualities associated with goodness and virtue. One gaze upon them would rid you of the need to read any books on philosophy and morality, and imaginary ideas on the “city of virtue.”

They do not speak about good character; rather they are in themselves the embodiment of good character walking on earth in an age when noble character is a neglected object consigned to the museum of history.

Would you like to be one of them? Think, and think again before saying yes, for it is just a word that you pronounce but a truly great proclamation that you make, before which lies the obstacle that you must overcome. But what will explain to you what that obstacle is? It is that you should sell your soul to God completely. There should not remain anything of yourself belonging to you; nothing whatsoever. Then you should submit to God’s will and accept whatever comes to you by His decree such that when your whole self is buried away in some corner of the world far, far away from your familiar home country, family folk or loved ones, your only provision and your sole source of nourishment will be the remembrance of God and dependence on His magnificent light.

To be one of them means that everyone will forget you and only God will remember you. It means leaving this world while you are still living, eating its food and walking its streets. You do not see anything in yourself or anything that is yours. You observe among the contemporaries with whom you are acquainted those who have a high opinion of themselves. The latter have not been able to free themselves from earthly yokes or escape from the snares of the realm of causes. They climb in the ranks of worldly delusion and look down on you from their high towers, proud of their posts and titles.

As for you, you walk on the earth barefoot, poor in everything except for the support of God Almighty.

But we have made some of you a means of testing others-will you stand fast? (Furqan 25:20)

Do you really want to be one of them?

“Yes.” That is a word that is easy on the tongue, but it involves a bitter experience. Whoever says that fire does not have the quality of burning; let him test it with his hand. Are you prepared to be burned to the extent that your body becomes dust-dust which the wind then disperses throughout the continents of the world, scattering particles here and there? Whenever one of these particles falls on barren ground, it becomes verdant and sprouting…

These are the giants of our time, examples of the true human being whose appearance has been awaited by the world for a long time. Has not the time come to return to the earth the security that was established there by the liege of creation, Muhammad (upon him be blessings and peace)?!

They have surrounded the oppression of guns and defenses with institutes and schools and put out the fire of discord and wars with words and letters. Every school that they build, wherever it may be, becomes a green tree which continues to sprout palm shoots around it that grow and grow until the region becomes full of trees. Thus does a forest of goodness stifle the loathsome sound of bullets and rid it of the rotten stink of gunpowder.

They are teachers who have spread everywhere; teaching the children of the world the language of birds and the song of sparrows. They draw on their green boards in front of them dreams of a beautiful future and the outlines of the path leading to Paradise. The children who graduate leaving the custody of these teachers, throughout the continents of the earth, come out singing one hymn-giving tidings of goodness and peace to the world.

The angels of remembrance love them, for often do they listen to their heart rending songs. The angels of knowledge know them, for often do they carry their vanguard under their wings while it is journeying through the land towards the forests of Australia, the deserts of Asia, the jungles of Africa, or the foggy lands of the far west.

They shoot rays of light over skyscrapers. They are teachers, unarmed except with the weapons of education and edification. They are prepared to venture into dangerous situations wherever they may be. They advance bare-chested, smiling in the face of abysses of discomfort.

Extending before them, they have a far reaching vision which never strays from its goal. Behind them is solid instruction which provides them with guided inspirations received from God. The burning core of their teacher’s heart makes them steadfast through works of wisdom. These works are outpourings of light which gush forth via streams whose support could scarcely be cut off, God permitting!

O my beloveds! You are the true guardians of love, and upon you may God send His greetings of peace!

Farid al-Ansari is a professor of Philosophy of Islamic Law at Mawlay Ismail University, Morocco.

However, space and time are relative according to the theories of Special and General Relativity which were developed by Einstein. A time period which is two hours long with respect to an observer may be one and a half hours or three hours long with respect to another observer. Let us suppose that two events are happening in different places (say New York and Istanbul) but simultenously with respect to an observer who is in between. The same events, however, will not be simultenous with respect to an observer who is in motion. If the observer moves towards the event happening on his right, that is, he diverges from the one on his left, then he will perceive the one on his right as happening earlier than the one on his left. Contrariwise, if he moves towards his left, that is, diverges from his right, then he will perceive the one on his left as happening earlier than the one on his right. Distances in space are thus relative and varying with respect to observers’ positions.

Matter has a certain amount of influence over time and space according to Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (which he described as the theory he most enjoyed). Proportional to its mass, an object may cause changes in the geometry of space or in the acceleration of time. The curvature of space, for instance, is infinite near a black hole, which is regarded as a highly dense substance. Time is, however, constant and does not accelerate. This theory, with such peculiar outcomes, is mathematically perfect and coincides with observations conducted until now. Whether the universe is finite or infinite depends on the density of the material it contains, according to this theory.

Einstein’s theories, though they seem flawless, cannot explain how the universe started all by itself. All laws of physics lose their validity at the time of the Big Bang (the explosion at the creation of the universe) and all the questions relevant to that moment and its precedents remain unanswered. How come the Big Explosion happened? How did it happen? What was there before the explosion? We need to rely on quantum physics in order to answer these questions or at least to deal with their paradoxes and be able to say something about the formation of the universe.

Newton’s clock model or the deterministic model (that everything is realized in strict accordance with certain rules) is still influential in Einstein’s theories, whereas quantum physics (which explains the activities of atomic and subatomic particles) is a more revolutionary approach to matter, actively engaging the observer in processes and tying events to probabilities. It seems that developing consistent theories about the beginning of the universe may only be achieved by using quantum physics, which might also have something to say about the macrocosm. However, the issue of how the theory of relativity and quantum physics can be reconciled is not yet solved. Here, it seems that the theory of multiple or parallel universes may be an alternative solution, and hence, many issues have been hitherto paradoxical and unsolvable are now being explained within a rational and logical frame of reference.

What are multiple universes?

In the Many Universes Interpretation (MUI) developed by physicists like Everett in the 1950s, the paradoxes caused by quantum physics in our modes of thinking are being eliminated and the issue of how the universe functions is being reviewed by an all-new approach. A parallel universe is a realm that carries features identical to those of ours and comprises space, time, matter, galaxies, stars and human beings all identical to those of ours. It can even be said that these two universes are sharing the very same space and that they are positioned to coexist. The substances in these parallel universes are interrelated according to the laws of quantum physics. That is, there are a great many universes like ours. You may, for instance, be taking a walk in a forest in a parallel universe while you are reading this article in this one.

Alternative histories can help us to understand parallel universes. How would the world have been shaped if the Ottoman sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Istanbul, had also succeeded in conquering Rome? Or, what would be happening now if Hitler had won World War II? Each of these probabilities has been realized in a parallel universe. Any world which is imaginably different and any history which is conceivably alternative is present and available somewhere out there. We can understand these multiple universes when we also consider our preferences. A person who chose to study medicine, for instance, would later become a medical doctor. If he or she had chosen biology, they might later have become a research scientist. Or, a man who chose to marry a woman merely due to her physical beauty but did not have a happy family life with her might have enjoyed a happy family life if he had married a pious woman who was his social equal and compatible with him. Thus, different universes, that is, differing probabilities become available according to our preferences.

Parallel universes are often a theme in science fiction novels and films. In the popular television serial Star Trek, for instance, during a routine beaming up process from a planet to their starship “Enterprise,” Captain Kirk and his crew suddenly and accidentally find themselves in an ionized gas cloud. They find themselves inside an “Enterprise” that is almost identical to but surprisingly different from their own Enterprise. But, interestingly, the Mr. Spock in the new “Enterprise,” is an extremely cruel person. In fact, all of the crew are cruel in this alternative starship. Meanwhile, the cruel Captain Kirk and his cruel crew have been beamed up to the other (good) “Enterprise” and these bad men have been imprisoned by the good Mr. Spock there. Both Mr. Spocks understand, after a short while, what the problem is. The Enterprise, due to an ionized gas storm, has been directed to a parallel universe in which an identical “Enterprise” and its identical crew exists. The duplication is almost perfect except that good is bad and vice versa. Had the ion storm not formed a space-time interconnection, the two (parallel) universes would have never become aware of one another. The good and bad versions of the parallel Captain Kirks have replaced each other; while the bad Captain Kirk is being held prisoner inside the good Enterprise, the good Captain Kirk has found himself inside the bad “Enterprise” and soon noticed that he can covertly correct some errors without being noticed and by acting as if he was one of the bad character.

In the television series The Twilight Zone a woman meets her (parallel) double while waiting at the bus stop. Her double has apparently left her own universe and entered this one. This double wants to replace her and succeeds in doing this. The genuine woman is meanwhile sectioned to a mental hospital.

In the story “August 2002, Night Meeting” from The Mars Chronicles, a terrestrial person named Thomas Gomez who has settled on the planet Mars happens to meet a parallel universe there. He hears an elderly man as he is about to depart after taking gasoline for his vehicle: “You may return to your world if you will not accept Mars as it is. Everything is different here: soil, air, canals, aborigines (though I have not yet seen any of them, but heard their voices) and watches. Even my watch functions peculiarly and even the time is different here.”

Thomas then meets a Martian with gold-color eyes being carried by a machine that looks like a preying mantis peculiarly painted in bluish-green colors and greets him. The Martian greets Thomas in his own language. But neither understands the other. The Martian approaches and touches him, but Thomas does not feel him. They somehow start speaking the same language. As they try to shake hands, each one’s hand passes through the other’s as if they did not have hands at all. They can see each other, but cannot touch each other. They realize that they are in intersecting parallel universes. Each can sense his own body, but sees the other one as a ghost. They try to understand why they cannot touch each other while their universes mutually counter-influence. But they cannot find the answer. As he looks at his environment, the Martian sees a beautiful city full of marvelous things, while Thomas sees only desolate, unpopulated, ancient urban ruins. He shouts at the Martian, “All of these canals are empty!” The Martian replies,”The canals are full of violet-colored flowers.” They finally understand that what they are experiencing is something related to time. However, they cannot discern who is in the past and who is in the future. Each of them thinks that his own world is the real one and the other one’s is a realm of fancy.

Such peculiar-sounding tales contain some reality in the light of new physics.

New Physics: How do we know multiple universes exist?

One of the best explanations of quantum physics is the “double slit” experiment. In this experiment, a coherent light source which is emitting particles (photons and electrons for instance) illuminates a thin plate with two parallel slits cut in it, and the light passing through the slits strikes a screen behind them. When both slits of the thin plate are open, an interference pattern of alternating bright and dark bands is observed on the screen. However, a periodic pattern does not result as the pattern that forms when one slit is blocked is directed over the pattern that forms when the other slit is blocked. Or, when a measuring is conducted in order to determine the slit through which a particle has passed, the particle is behaving as if it is certainly passing through one of the slits, but this is distorting the pattern.

We can deduce, from this experiment, that the tendency of the particle changes when either one or both slits are open. Quantum physics explains this peculiar incident as the mutually-influencing of the probability of particle’s passing through one slit with the probability of the same particle’s passing through the other slit. That is, the particle, though being a single one, is behaving as if it is passing through both slits. The only logical way of developing a reasonable postulate is to consider that the particle passes through one slit in one world (i.e., universe) and through the other one in another world. So, these are the parallel universes which we have been trying to explain since the beginning. When the particle hits the screen, these universes unite again and become a single universe.

Another striking example which discloses the existence of parallel universes is the “thought experience” known as “Schrödinger’s cat.” The Austrian physicist Schrödinger devised this clever thought experiment: A cat sits in a steel chamber with a flask that contains a poisonous substance. There is also a small amount of a radioactive substance with a 50 % probability of decaying and thereby triggering a mechanism which will smash the flask, release the poison and so kill the cat. On the other hand there is also the 50 % probability that the radioactive substance will not decay, the poison will not be released and the cat will not die. Now, according to quantum physics, the cat will be 50% dead and 50% alive, that is, there is a superposition of states (the cat is both dead and alive) until the sealed chamber is opened and the cat observed. Naturally, such a thing is against logic and incomprehensible. The multiple universes (multiverse) model, however, explains this complicated situation more easily by saying that the cat is alive in one universe and dead in another.

Black holes and cosmology

Black holes, which came to the attention of science because of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, are space-time structures that absorb everything including light. They form as a result of the collapse of stars which are three to four times bigger than the sun and which have fully consumed their energy. The structures of space and time become distorted due to the terrifying magnitude of a black hole’s gravity as it is approached. Some physicists argue that black holes are passages between parallel universes and we would find ourselves in another universe if we could pass through one.

Belief in the existence of such a great number of universes also sheds light on cosmology, the science dealing with the creation of the universe and its structure. Possibly the most vital of the subjects that cosmology rarely touches on is the fact that the structure and composition of the universe are so delicately devised that it enables living species and conscious creatures to exist and survive in it. Only a single one among the many possible universes has been selected and made inhabitable for living and conscious species. If the universe had had rather different characteristics, these species would not have been able to live in it. The gravitational energy in the universe, for instance, is almost identical with the expansion energy of the Big Bang, and very delicate balances are observable in the constants of the laws of physics. By thorough observation, we can deduce that everything has been devised and prepared for our existence.

The multiple universes (multiverse) theory asserts that all possible universes exist. According to this assertion, there are universes in which no conscious species exist. The reason why we perceive that everything has been devised in this way in our universe is because we believe that we cannot survive in another one which is not devised with the delicate balances that enable the survival of living species. In fact, all this reminds us that there may exist unseen realms and worlds different than ours. The existence of beings like angels and jinns which cannot be observed by worldly eyes and the fact that the believers are those who believe in the unseen are mentioned in the Holy Qur’an. The existence of people like Khidhr who lived in realms of life different than ours, various prophetic miracles, saintly powers and the true prophetic dreams (ru’ya-i sadiqah) that give true prophesies all inform us that there are other realms beyond the visible one. Thanks to the new physics, the life in the grave, the life in the realm of barzakh (the intermediary life between the mundane and eternal worlds), the dimensions of paradise and of hell and their levels which we cannot explain in concrete terms, the realms in which we will either be punished or rewarded at existential co-ordinates beyond our imagination all seem more easily comprehensible today.

In fact, the principles of faith such as fate, death, the hereafter, the resurrection and doomsday do not need support from the cold and positivistic viewpoints of the physics with which we are familiar today. However, the fact that the idea of parallel universes was initially used in science-fiction works and only later dealt with in quantum physics might lead us to an important conclusion: We are witnessing today that many events which we could hardly imagine in the past (for instance, saving audio-visual recordings in huge computers and later presenting them as witnesses) are becoming quite common and ordinarily achievable in the real world. Likewise, the possibility that all our deeds which we perform throughout our lifetime might be saved by recorders in unknown metaphysical universes has become more easily acceptable and comprehensible. Today’s imaginings might be the realities of one day in the future. Everything conceivable or inconceivable to us may be possible, for the One who created things is God, Who is Omnipotent and All-Knowing. Additionally, as He has informed us about all these phenomena in His Divine Revelation the Qur’an, of which even not a single word has been changed, we do not feel the least doubt. We shall experience how smoothly our souls transcend from this realm to another (as if passing from one room to another) when death knocks on our door one day. Certainly, we should never forget that the ease or difficulty of these experiences and the sights that we shall encounter in other realms will all depend on and be created out of our deeds in this mundane life. And, as we say “all praise and thanks be to God” in return for an apple that we eat here, we will witness, only when we face the reality, how this gratitude of ours will turn out to be a heavenly reward (a tree or a palace) in a different universe.

Salih Adem studied Biophysics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until 2001 and philosophy at the University of Maryland at College Park until 2004. Adem is now freelance writer on physics and philosophy.

Upon their death, the victims found themselves in another world. Now, they tried to understand what had happened to them. First, they realized that they had been terribly deceived by the murderer. As a lesson from this unfortunate experience, they also realized that their inherent love for eternity had been abused by the murderer. Days passed, but they did not receive any word from their Lord. The burden of being away from the abode where they were in touch with Him became unbearable. They understood that where they came from was actually the land of eternity.

In later times, they would recall those past days, and they would feel an expansion and serenity in their hearts, feeling apart from the passage of time. So, they started to associate the things of this world with things from their homeland. Thus, they cherished their memories of when they were in the eternal land. Most of all, they each recognized the other as a mirror to remind them of the Eternal Beloved. So, everything they loved in this new place gained a sort of eternity with their longing for the eternal homeland and the Eternal Beloved.

Sometime later, they had children. As the children grew up, the parents related their stories to them, and talked about the homeland with their voices longing for return. The children also took on this behavior from their parents. Just like when their parents expressed their yearning for the homeland, whenever the children talked about loved things or whenever they were with people they loved, time would pass like lightning, and they would wish that those moments would not finish. As new generations followed, the expectation of eternity from the transient beloveds of this world evolved into a subconscious associating of eternity with them.

We do not know exactly how many years have passed since the time of Adam and Eve. Today, in spite of diversity in the definitions of love and the literature about it, there is a certain aspect of it which is the same for everybody who loves. Love changes our experience of time because we subconsciously associate it with eternity. Through this association, love motivates our actions. The limited time spent with the beloved seems very small compared to the human heart’s hunger for eternity. So, we strive to extend those moments-the lengthy phone calls and the long eye-to-eye gazes stretch out between lovers.

Eternity in the realm of the heart reflects itself in the form of continuity with the material world. Similar to the desire for the eternity of the beloved, we would like the continued existence of our loved ones. For example, the first experience of love each one of us feels in this world is the affection of our mothers. The initial manifestation of this love is breast milk. It not only provides the nourishment we need, but also contains the materials and the live cells that supplement our immune system. Thus, breast milk serves the continuity of our life in this world. Later on, our mothers provide intense protection and give us our first education. Both of these form the basis of our continuity in this life. And similar to our mother’s care, when we grow up, we too try to meet the needs of our loved ones in order to ensure their continuity.

In effect, we humans try to bestow continuity and eternity as a manifestation of love in accordance with the powers we are given. The love we feel is a projection of the infinite love that God has for His creation. Just as we strive for the continuity of our loved ones, God endows continuity on His creation by feeding and protecting us in this world, and granting us eternity by opening the hereafter to us. Since our existence is a temporary and dependent one, the continuity we ourselves give is also transient. However, God’s existence is eternal and He is the Self-Subsistent; therefore, the eternity He gives will be an actual one.

In this life, we realize that love bears a seed of continuity in it. We feel the beauty of eternity hidden in the lovely memories of our very first ancestors. Our visions fill with the fruits of the tree of love that fosters such long-lasting relations. However, the conditions we live in today are not coherent with those delightful sensations. When we look around, we see love affairs that last only a very short time. Many people conduct their love life by changing their partners periodically instead of remaining faithful to their spouses for all their lives. The meaning of contemporary love is being reduced to “temporary mutual interest,” obliterating the important notion of a “fellowship on the way to the Eternal Beloved.” This drastic change points to the fact that, along with the passage of time, we have forgotten the heavenly stories told by our common parents.

What is it that we need in order to re-discover the seed of eternity in our hearts? It may be that we all need to retreat to our childhood to find the pure love depicted by the naivety of children. Maybe we need to forget the turmoil of daily life, and focus on the lesson that comes at the end of virtually every one of the bedtime stories told by our beloved mothers, “And they lived happily ever after…”

Seth Mette has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at West Virginia University. He has a special interest in psychological fiction.

Notes

1. Based on the story of Adam and Eve according to the Qur’an (2:35–37, 7:19–24)
2. The reason for the choice of the word “murderer” for Satan is as follows: Death is in essence a change of residence (Nursi, S., Letters, First Letter, Second Question). One who dies in this world goes to the heavens. Similarly, one who dies in the heavens comes to this world. According to the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), death will be brought in the form of a sheep on the Day of Judgment, and will be slaughtered, which will mean that death is dead (Bukhari, Tafsir, 1, 19). This will render the people of hell totally hopeless; because until then, they will be crying for another chance in this world. The death of death will imply that return to this world is no longer possible. This explanation supports the idea that death in the heavens may be understood as coming to this world. Accordingly, since Satan is the one who is the apparent cause of the death of Adam and Eve in the heavens, hence the start of their story in this world, he is their murderer.
3. Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, The Gleams, Third Gleam.
4. Karabuga, Veli, “How Are Babies Protected?” The Fountain, Vol. 50, Apr–June, 2005.

Mathematics, or “the queen of the sciences” as Carl Friedrich Gauss called it, plays an important role in our lives. A world without mathematics is unimaginable. Throughout history, many scholars have made important contributions to this science, among them a great number of Muslims. It is beyond the scope of a short article like this one to mention all the contributions of Muslim scholars to mathematics; therefore, I will concentrate on only four aspects: translations of earlier works, and contributions to algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. In order to understand fully how great were the works of scholars in the past, one needs to look at them with the eye of a person of the same era, since things that are well-known facts today might not have been known at all in the past.

There has never been a conflict between science and Islam. Muslims understand everything in the universe as a letter from God Almighty inviting us to study it to have knowledge of Him. In fact, the first verse of the Qur’an to be revealed was:

Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who created… (Alaq 96:1).

Besides commanding us to read the Qur’an, by mentioning the creation the verse also draws our attention to the universe. There are many verses which ask Muslims to think, to know, to learn and so on. Moreover, there are various sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, encouraging Muslims to seek knowledge. One hadith says, “A believer never stops seeking knowledge until they enter Paradise” (al-Tirmidhi).

In another hadith, the Prophet said, “Seeking knowledge is a duty on every Muslim” (Bukhari). Hence it is no surprise to see early Muslim scholars who were dealing with different sciences.

Translations

Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) said, “Knowledge is the lost property of a Muslim; whoever finds it must take it” [1]; hence Muslims started seeking knowledge. One way they did this was to start translating all kinds of knowledge that they thought to be useful. There were two main sources from which Muslim scholars made translations in order to develop the field of science, the Hindus and the Greeks. The Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (804–832) had a university built and ordered its scholars to translate into Arabic many works of Greek scholarship. Between 771 and 773 CE the Hindu numerals were introduced into the Muslim world as a result of the translation of Sithanta from Sanskrit into Arabic by Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibrahim al-Fazari. Another great mathematician, Thabit ibn Qurra, not only translated works written by Euclid, Archimedes, Apollonius, Ptolemy and Eutocius, but he also founded a school of translation and supervised many other translations of books from Greek into Arabic. While Hajjaj bin Yusuf translated Euclid’s Elements into Arabic, al-Jayyani wrote an important commentary on it which appears in the Fihrist (Index), a work compiled by the bookseller Ibn an-Nadim in 988. A simplified version of Ptolemy’s Almagest appears in Abul-Wafa’s book of Tahir al-Majisty and Kitab al-Kamil. Abu’l Wafa Al-Buzjani commented on and simplified the works of Euclid, Ptolemy and Diophantus. The sons of Musa bin Shakir also organized translations of Greek works.

These translations played an important role in the development of mathematics in the Muslim world. Moreover, the ancient Greek texts have survived thanks to these translations.

Algebra and geometry

The word “algebra” comes from “Al-Jabr”, which is taken from the title of the book Hisab Al-Jabr wal Muqabala by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (780–850). Al-Khwarizmi, after whom the “algorithm” is named, was one of the great mathematicians of all times. Europe was first introduced to algebra as a result of the translation of Khwarizmi’s book into Latin by Robert Chester in 1143. The book has three parts. The first part deals with six different types of equations:

(ax² = bx) ; (ax² = b) ; (ax = b) ; (ax² + bx = c) ; (ax² + c = bx) ; (bx + c = ax²)

Khwarizmi gives both arithmetic and geometric methods to solve these six types of problems [2]. He also introduces algebraic multiplication and division. The second part of Hisab Al-Jabr deals with mensuration. Here he describes the rules of computing areas and volumes. Since Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, “Learn the laws of inheritance and teach them to people, for that is half of knowledge,”[3] the last and the largest part of this section concerns legacies, which requires a good understanding of the Islamic laws of inheritance. Khwarizmi develops Hindu numerals and introduces the concept of zero, or “sifr” in Arabic, to Europe. The word “zero” actually comes from Latin “zephirum,” which is derived from the Arabic word “sifr.”

The three sons of Musa bin Shakir (about 800–860) were perhaps the first Muslim mathematicians to study Greek works. They wrote a great book on geometry, Kitab Marifat Masakhat Al-Ashkal (The Book of the Measurement of Plane and Spherical Figures), which was later translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. In the book, although they used similar methods to those of Archimedes, they move a step further than the Greeks to consider volumes and areas as numbers, and hence they developed a new approach to mathematics. For example, they described the constant number pi as “the magnitude which, when multiplied by the diameter of a circle, yields the circumference.”[4]

A well-known poet, philosopher and astronomer Omar Khayyam (1048–1122) was at the same time a great mathematician. His most famous book on algebra is Treatise on the Demonstration of Problems of Algebra. In his book besides giving both arithmetic and geometric solutions to second degree equations he also describes geometric solutions to third degree equations by the method of intersecting conic sections. He also discovered binomial expansion [26]. His work later helped develop both algebra and geometry.

Thabit bin Qurra (836–901) was an important mathematician who made many discoveries in his time. As mentioned in the Dictionary of Scientific Biography [5] he “played an important role in preparing the way for such important mathematical discoveries as the extension of the concept of number to (positive) real numbers, integral calculus, theorems in spherical trigonometry, analytic geometry, and non-Euclidean geometry. In astronomy Thabit was one of the first reformers of the Ptolemaic system, and in mechanics he was a founder of statics.”

To give an idea of his importance, we will just give here, without details, one of his theorems on amicable numbers. Two natural numbers m and n are called “amicable” if each is equal to the sum of the proper divisors of the other:

for n > 1, let pn=3.2^2n–1 and qn=9.2^2n–1–1. If p_n–1 , p_n and q_n are prime numbers, then a=2n p_n–1 p_n and b=2ⁿq_n are amicable. [6]

Abu Kamil (about 850–930), an Egyptian mathematician, wrote the Book on Algebra which consists of three parts:

(1) Solutions of quadratic equations,

(2) Application of algebra to geometry,

(3) Diophantine equations.[7],[8]

He improved the work of Khwarizmi and applied algebraic methods to geometry. His research was on quadratic equations, multiplication and division of algebraic quantities. His work also includes addition and subtraction of radicals. He found the following formulas:

ax.bx=abx²; a(bx)=(ab)x; (10–x)(10–x)=100+x²–20x

Abu Kamil also wrote the Book On Surveying and Geometry, which was intended for government land surveyors. There, he stated the nontrivial rules for calculating areas, volumes, perimeters, and diagonals of different objects in geometry.[9]

Ibrahim ibn Sinan (908–946), a grandson of Thabit bin Qurra, was both an astronomer and a mathematician. Fuat Sezgin writes, “He was one of the most important mathematicians in the medieval Islamic world.” [10] He studied geometry, and his work on calculation of the area under the graph of a parabola is especially appreciated. Going further than Archimedes, he introduced a more general method of integration. [11]

Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Karaji (953–1029), also known as al-Karkhi, is regarded as the first person to have developed algebraic operations without using geometry. One of his major works was Al-Fakhri fi’l-jabr wa’l-muqabala (Glorious on algebra). Historian Woepcke recognizes Al-Fakhri as the beginning of the theory of algebraic calculus. [12] Here, al-Karkhi introduced the monomials x, x², x³, … and 1/x, 1/x², 1/x³, … and explained product rules among them. Moreover, he was the first to find the solutions of the equations ax²ⁿ+bxⁿ=c. [13] Al-Karkhi proved the sum formula for integral cubes by using the method of proof by induction, and hence became the first to use this method. [14]

Abu’l Hasan ibn Ali al-Qalasadi (1412–1486) was an Andalusian Muslim mathematician. His main contribution was to introduce algebraic symbolism, and he used short Arabic words for his symbols. For example, he used the symbol for the sound “sh” from the Arabic word meaning “thing” to represent what we call x, the unknown. [15]

Trigonometry

Khwarizmi also contributed to trigonometry. He established accurate trigonometric tables for sine and cosine, and he was the first to introduce tangent tables. [16] In 1126, these works were translated into Latin by Adelard of Bath.

Al-Battani or Albetagnius (about 850–929) was a Muslim astronomer and mathematician. In his research on astronomy he used trigonometric methods which were a lot more advanced than the geometric methods used by Ptolemy. [17] He introduced trigonometric ratios. For example, for a right triangle with adjacent sides a and b, he gives the formula b sin(A) = a sin(90⁰ – A), which is equivalent to tan A = a/b. He was the first to introduce the cotangent function. [18]

Muhammad Abu’l Wafa (940–998), born at Buzjan in Khorasan, introduced the use of secant, cosecant and tangent functions. He gave a new method of constructing sine tables. He calculated sin(30^0) with an accuracy of up to eight decimal digits. He improved spherical trigonometry and proved the law of sines for general spherical triangles. [19] In particular, he developed the half/double angle formulas:

2 sin² (x/2)=1–cos x; sin 2x=2sin x cos x

He was the first to introduce the notion of secant and cosecant, and hence completed the list of all six trigonometric functions. [20]

Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muadh Al-Jayyani (989–1079) was an Arab mathematician from Andalus. He was the author of The Book of Unknown Arcs of a Sphere which was “the first treatise on spherical trigonometry.” [21] Here he mentioned formulas for right handed triangles and law of sines. He also stated the formula for the solution of a spherical triangle in terms of the polar triangle. [21] He had a strong influence on the West.

Another outstanding mathematician Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201–1274) wrote Treatise On The Quadrilateral, considered the best book on trigonometry written in medieval times, [25] later translated into French by Alexandre Carathéodory Pasha in 1891. In his book al-Tusi made enormous advances in plane and spherical trigonometry. The Dictionary of Scientific Biography [22] states, “This work is really the first in history on trigonometry as an independent branch of pure mathematics and the first in which all six cases for a right-angled spherical triangle are set forth.” The well-known sine law is also stated in this work: a/sin A = b/sin B = c/sin C.

Ghiyath al-Din al-Kashi (1393–1449) produces sine tables of up to eight decimal places. In 1424, he computed 2π to an accuracy of sixteen decimal digits. He wrote a very impressive book on mathematics: Miftah al-Hussab (Key to Arithmetic). His main purpose in this book is to provide sufficient knowledge of mathematics for those who are working on astronomy,surveying, architecture, accounting and trading. [23] He also describes how to find the fifth root of any number. [24]

Unfortunately, the contributions of Muslims often go unrecognized. Muslim scholars contributed to science in many aspects such as mathematics, astronomy, geography, philosophy, medicine, art, architecture and so on. However, today few realize that in that era Islam played an important role in all aspects of life. Europe faced losing the works of major scholars, but as a result of their translations into Arabic most of this scholarship not only survived, but was further developed. Inspired by the Qur’an and hadiths, Muslims sought knowledge for the benefit of humankind. As the Qur’an says, “Are those who know equal to those who know not?”(Zumar 39:9). We should appreciate the scholars of all eras for their contributions to science.

Shirali Kadyrov is a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University, Mathematics Department.

References

1. Tirmidhi, `Ilm, 19.

2. B.L. van der Waerden, A History of Algebra.

3. Ibn Maja, Hadith No: 2719.

4. D. El-Dabbah, The geometrical treatise of the ninth-century Baghdad mathematicians Banu Musa (Russian), in History Methodology Natur. Sci., No. V, Math. Izdat. (Moscow, 1966), 131–139.

5. Y. Dold-Samplonius, A. T. Grigorian, B. A. Rosenfeld, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970–1990).

6. For more, see S. Brentjes and J. P. Hogendijk, Notes on Thabit ibn Qurra and his rule for amicable numbers, Historia Math. 16 (4) (1989), 373–378.

7. R. Lorch, Abu Kamil on the pentagon and decagon, Vestigia mathematica (1993), 215–252.

8. J. Sesiano, La version latine medievale de ‘l’Algebre d’Abu Kamil, in Vestigia mathematica (Amsterdam, 1993), 315–452.

9.J. Sesiano, Le Kitab al-Misaha d’Abu Kamil, Centaurus 38 (1996), 1–21.

10. F. Sezgin, History of Arabic literature (German) Vol. 5 (Leiden, 1974), 292–295.

11. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Ibrahim.html

12. F. Woepcke, Extrait du Fakhri, traite d’Algebre par Abou Bekr Mohammed Ben Alhacan Alkarkhi (Paris, 1853).

13. Boyer, Carl B. (1991). “The Arabic Hegemony”, A History of Mathematics, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 239. ISBN 0471543977.

14. Victor J. Katz (1998). History of Mathematics: An Introduction, p. 255–259. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0321016181.

15. J. Samso, Las ciencias de los antiguos en al-Andalus (Madrid, 1992).

16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_trigonometry

17. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Al-Battani.html

18. http://www.unhas.ac.id/~rhiza/saintis/battani.html

19. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/2127/Abul-Wafa

20. http://www.bhatkallys.com/article/article.asp?aid=3442

21. O’Connor, John J. & Robertson, Edmund F., Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muadh Al-Jayyani.

22. S. H. Nasr, Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970–1990).

23. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Al-Kashi.html

24. http://www.bhatkallys.com/article/article.asp?aid=3442

25. http://members.tripod.com/worldupdates/newupdates10/id142.htm

26. Heinrich Dorrie, David Antin (1965). 100 Great Problems of Elementary Mathematics: Their History and Solution, p.34–36. ISBN 0486613488.

Day 1: I have finally decided to make some changes in myself. For a long time, I have been troubled about my social and spiritual life. I have been losing sincerity in my relationship with God and my relationships with other people because of the same problem-gossiping. I have spent, actually wasted, too much time talking behind people’s backs. What is more, after doing that, I feel obliged to act “nice” to those people about whom I gossiped. This double-dealing lifestyle has lowered my self-esteem day by day. But, to me, the worst result of this habit has been its damage to the relationship between me and God. In the Qur’an, God asks backbiters, “Would any of you love to eat the flesh of his dead brother?” Then He warns us, “Keep from disobedience to God in reverence for Him and piety” (49:12). Nevertheless, I have been gossiping at the expense of incurring the Wrath of God! Clearly, I need to do something to avoid reaping all these negative consequences in my life.

Day 2: Even though I have decided to eliminate my gossiping behavior, still I need to define “gossiping” as clearly and specifically as I can. In other words, I need to have an operational definition for the behavior; then I will know its limits, which acts or words constitute gossiping; and I will be able to observe and measure it. Here is my definition of “gossiping”: when a person is not present, saying, mimicking or listening to anything about him or her which would make him or her sad, angry or offended if he or she were to hear it, even if what is said is true. My goal is to eliminate gossiping by decreasing the time and frequency of my gossiping. In order to know whether or not I have accomplished my goal, I need to collect baseline data, that means, how long and how frequently I am presently gossiping when I do not take any action to stop myself. If I know this, then I can measure the effectiveness of my remedies. For this reason, I made a timetable to collect my data each day, by recording my gossiping time in minutes and my gossiping frequency as the number of times I gossiped.

Day 3: Today I decided to use the ABC model as a behavioral modification method because this model has been used to change various negative behaviors, such as anxiety and weight gain, and because its effectiveness has been demonstrated in many studies. In this model, A refers to antecedents, which mean everything that triggers the behavior; B refers to behavior, which means the behavior that is to be changed; and C refers to consequence, which means the results of the behavior, be they positive or negative. These three components directly influence our behaviors; therefore, if I intend to modify one of them, I will need to take all three into account, and shape my plan and determine my steps accordingly. Hence, while I am observing myself, I am also going to observe my ABCs and record them.

Day 4: Today I thought about the short- and long-term advantages and disadvantages of my decision. In the short term, since I will feel more honest in my relations with others, I will be more comfortable when interacting with them; however, since I won’t be able to tell them what I am really thinking at the time, I will probably feel tense, and it will be hard for me to keep what I think inside me. In the long term, since my main reason for stopping gossiping is to be a better person, a “vessel of love,” just as God wants a good believer to become, I will be progressing on a road on which servants become worthy of forgiveness and mercy. Besides this, my self-esteem, which has been lowered due to my two-facedness, will be reinstated. When I think about the consequences of behavior modification this way, I realize that success in my goal will be a very lucrative trade.

Day 7: I am still keeping records of my gossiping behavior and its antecedents and consequences. When I checked my baseline data, I was absolutely shocked. I had not known that I had been wasting so much time gossiping. I realized that whenever my friends and I get together for any kind of reason, or when people do or say something to me that makes me sad or angry, or when I see somebody whom I really do not like, I begin to judge or criticize those people and talk about them behind their backs. Now I have decided I need to block the antecedents to gossiping, so that I can reduce the length and frequency of my undesirable behavior.

Day 8: I have identified two important antecedents that trigger my undesirable behavior. First, whenever I become sad or angry at somebody, I look for somebody else, usually my friends, to talk to about the situation that has made me feel bad. By the end of the conversation, we always find ourselves gossiping. Since it is not always possible to avoid gossiping once in a conversation, only one thing remains in my hands: to refrain from looking for somebody to talk to. Keeping this in mind, I have asked all of my friends to warn me when I begin to gossip; also I have decided to distract myself when I am angry by leaving our home, walking along the bayou or doing any kind of diversionary activity until I calm down and can control what I tell my friends. In this way, I hope to break the chain of antecedents which directly leads me to talk behind people’s backs.

Day 11: Today I woefully admit that this preventative measure has not been helpful enough so far, even though it seems to work a little bit at first. I need to use some new antecedents to reduce my gossiping behavior. First of all, I will eliminate negative self-statements, such as, “It is beyond my power. I cannot stop it.” Instead, I will start giving myself positive instructions which remind me of my long-term goal and how capable I am of achieving it. In addition, I will try to replace my negative thoughts about other people with positive ones, so that I can lessen my anger, which is the first ring in my chain of antecedents. I hope that these measures will work.

Day 15: It seems that I am getting the show on the road at last, even though I still have not been able reach my goal, the zero point. I think I need to do something about my Bs. According to scholars, it is best to develop a new desirable behavior, rather than to merely suppress an old one. Hence, I need to choose a new behavior which corresponds to my initial goal. This new behavior should be incompatible with my undesirable behavior. To combat my bad habit, I have decided now to state at least three positive things about the people about whom I gossip-per gossiping session. In addition to this, I am going to try to stop my friends as well when they begin to gossip.

Day 17: Before I set to work on this, I knew that changing my habits would be difficult and stressful; however, I had no idea how nerve-wracking it would really be. These days, I am always trying to keep myself under control, to distract myself, and to clamp the lid on talking as I desire. By the end of the day, I find that I become really exhausted and tense. While I was looking for a solution to this situation, I realized that I already have the key: meditation, which is a great way of combating physical and mental stress. Actually, my regular, daily prayers, which come five times a day, provide golden opportunities for me to meditate and relax. When praying, I can both concentrate fully on my prayers, gaining strength in my relationship with my Lord, and also, I hope, decrease my stress level.

Day 19: As I guessed, my prayers are really helping me to feel calmer and more peaceful. Today I decided to try an additional relaxation method called “imagined rehearsal.” Basically, it is a combination of breathing, muscular relaxation and desensitization techniques. First, I tried to control the muscles of my body, from my head to my toe, by tensing and relaxing them intentionally. The next step was to do imaginary rehearsals of the situations that tempt me to gossip. I imagined a situation in my daily life in which somebody was acting in a way that drives me crazy; and I imagined my behavior in complete, minute detail-that I was controlling myself so I kept my mouth shut and even saying something positive about her. This simulation made me really tense and nervous, but then, I relaxed by using the relaxation method that I practiced before. Then I did the same rehearsal again and again until I became desensitized to the situation. Now I feel that if I really face the same situation, I will feel more comfortable and be able to control my reaction easily.

Day 22: Finally, it seems that it is time to harvest my grapes. According to my records, even though sometimes I have some relapses, my gossiping frequency and time is lessening. At least, I have never returned to my baseline level. I never expected to wave a magic wand and have my bad habit disappear immediately. Still, I need to reach a more stable condition and, of course, zero point, if it is possible. Even though two hopes-gaining the pleasure of God and lightening the burden of my transgressions against the rights of others-have motivated me to quit my undesirable behavior, I feel I need some more immediate, tangible motivators. I have decided to introduce some positive reinforcements into my environment, to be had whenever I do something worthy. But I have not defined the procedure yet.

Day 23: I have thought about my reinforcement procedure, and finally, I have given it shape. First, I am not going to use either positive or negative reinforcements alone. Punishment, in particular, is a temporary solution and only motivates one to avoid a certain behavior. It cannot provide me motivation to gain a new, desirable behavior. Also, punishment can sometimes cause relapses, which are usually worse than the old behavior pattern. Therefore, I am going to utilize a positive reinforcement system; and only if I need it, am I going to apply negative punishment to myself, by withdrawing some desirable things from my environment, (rather than positive punishment, whereby undesirable things are introduced into the environment). I am going to use a token system for my reinforcement process. Each time I make positive statements about others, I will gain 1 token; each time I successfully refrain from talking behind people’s backs, I will gain 2 tokens; and if I gossip, I will lose 2 of the tokens which I have already earned. I have made a list of the things or activities which would be reinforcement for me, and I have given each of them a value. For example, a cup of fruppachino costs 10 tokens, and each minute of my favorite TV show costs a token; so, for a 40 minute show I need to collect 40 tokens.

Day 26: I have finally got used to the token system, and it has started to work. I am really working hard and always keeping my token account in mind, especially since I missed this week’s episode of my favorite show-a miserable situation! Also, my friends have realized how determinedly I have been working on my no-more-gossip project. They have started to help me by warning me as soon as I open my mouth-because they knew what comes next-and by praising me when I put positive thoughts into words despite all my fury at the person involved. Actually, I am being reinforced verbally by my considerate friends; my motivators are doubled right now. Moreover, my friends are now also watching their own attitudes and behaviors to help me in the process, which makes me feel like I am in seventh heaven. In fact, my motivators are tripled.

Day 31: Only one day after I began to thank God that my troubles with gossiping were finally all over, I lapsed and gossiped. Actually, these lapses have occurred throughout the modification process and have sometimes pushed me to the brink of despair, just as the lapse today did. Sometimes other people have discouraged my use of these methods, and sometimes I have even discouraged myself by not believing that the techniques would help me or that I could attain my goal. Also, since I have been trying to resist the temptation to gossip for long time, constant self-control has fatigued me. In times of great fatigue, the only anchor for me has been my prayers and my appeals to God for patience and power. I have always tried to bear in my mind that I am doing this only for the good pleasure of God. I have kept on doing my imagined rehearsal, not only to relax, but also to remind myself of my long-term goal and reward, and to motivate myself when I am burnt out. Also, I have tried to remain in a positive mood in order to avoid hopelessness. I have tried to increase my coping and problem-solving skills, and used them actively whenever I needed to. Thankfully, all these efforts have prevented my lapses from becoming relapses, and it really has worked. When I look back, I see that I have covered ground and that I am almost done. The next goal for me now is to preserve the new behavior pattern as a habit, so that even as time passes, my new habit will be protected.

Day 35: Since I have reached my goal, I am terminating my project today; but it doesn’t mean that I am giving up everything. On the contrary, since I want to maintain the habit of not gossiping for a lifetime, I am going to carry on keeping records for a while, and reinforce the behavior with external motivators until it becomes stable. Then, in order to make my new habit even stronger, I am going to change my reinforcing procedure to intermittent reinforcing by using a variable-ratio schedule, which means that I will gain reinforcements in a variable ratio. For example, sometimes a frappuccino will be worth 7 tokens, and sometimes 10 tokens. After my reactions start occuring automatically, I will no longer need to reward myself or expect external motivation from others. Besides, I think that if I increase my participation in beneficial activities and forms of socializing, I will be so busy I will not even want to waste my time gossiping anymore. I have decided to be a better-organized person and to spend more time participating in beneficial activities, such as voluntary service. Hopefully, I will have a satisfied mind and better fulfill my duty as a servant of God.

Acknowledgment: During the modification process, I benefited from David L. Watson and Roland G. Tharp’s book, Self-Directed Behavior. I greatly appreciate all their helpful information and methods.

Sumeyra Tosun is completing her Master’s degree on criminal psychology in Houston, Texas.

We inherit our hereditary characteristics from our parents. The basic unit responsible for inheritance in our body is the gene. More technically, a gene is a hereditary unit consisting of a sequence of DNA that occupies a specific location on a chromosome and determines a particular characteristic in an organism. Genes are like words on the long string of DNA. The description of the fundamental process of synthesizing proteins from the information on genes is called the “Central Dogma.” According to this dogma, DNA is used to synthesize RNA, and in turn, RNA is used to synthesize proteins. Hence, this dogma dictates the link between genes and proteins. Proteins are actually a translated and three-dimensional version of the linear information stored in genes.

The Structure of DNA

DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) is our repository of genetic information. Although there are organisms such as RNA viruses that possess RNA (ribonucleic acid) as their genetic material, virtually all other living organisms inherit their genes through DNA. Hence, DNA is vital for the existence and perpetuation of life on Earth.

In a simple comparison, DNA can be likened to a sequence of letters where each letter is a single nucleotide, and the alphabet has only four letters: A, T, C and G. Although this alphabet is extremely small compared to those used in human communication today, we are still capable of capturing the vast size of human DNA with this analogy: Our DNA is composed of a sequence of nearly 3 billion (3,000,000,000) of these letters. What this means is that, if you were to type out your genetic code, you would have a 5,000-volume encyclopedia, with each volume containing 400 pages, and each page having 1,500 letters! But then, how do we even fit this formidable size of information in every single cell of our body? The answer lies in the astonishing folding, packaging and wrapping steps DNA goes through upon synthesis. Positioning nucleotides side by side, each DNA molecule would take up about 6 feet (~2 meters) of space. However, after all the packaging steps, DNA becomes compact enough to fit in not only a cell, but also in the microscopic nucleus of each cell.

Genes and the Human Genome Project

Unfortunate for our alphabet analogy above, the 3 billion nucleotides in DNA do not contain any spaces to let us know where each word begins and ends. The Human Genome Project accomplished the task of unraveling what these 3 billion letters are (each one is one of A,T,C and G) and this was a major achievement of humanity. However, it was not until then that we realized the real challenge DNA posed us: Where were the genes in DNA? In other words, how would we understand the words and sentences in this 3-billion string of letters? Apart from efforts to discover the DNA sequences of other organisms, it is not unfair to say that the interest and workforce once focused on the Human Genome Project has now almost completely shifted to this latter “real” challenge of discovering the genes in DNA.

How we wish life could be that easy! Just as completing the human DNA sequence made us realize that we did not know where the genes are, discovering some genes allowed us to understand that we would still be missing a major part of the picture even if we knew exactly where each gene was. Do we not frequently encounter instances in everyday life where one word means different things depending on context? So, is there any good reason to think that genes on our chromosomes will be any less complex? Unfortunately not. Quite to the contrary, the sense is growing that genes are actually far more complex and intricate than we originally thought. For one thing, a single gene may not cause an immediate effect, but may interact with a network of other genes to produce the final effect. Diseases that are caused by individual genes are actually very few, a famous example being cystic fibrosis. But diseases that are affected by the interaction of many genes are far more numerous and prevalent, for example, breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Type 1 diabetes mellitus, multiple sclerosis and obesity.

This latter group of diseases is appropriately called “complex diseases.” Efforts are under way to decipher the intricate genetic and protein networks responsible for such diseases; however, there are so many (known and also unknown) variables that biologists have already called for help. Research problems such as complex diseases that require the interaction of biologists, mathematicians, computer scientists and statisticians alike have led to the advent of the currently very popular field of “Systems Biology.” Viewing the cell as a large factory, this field aims to understand all molecular networks and interactions that make up the very sophisticated machinery in living systems. After deciphering how cells operate flawlessly as a complex system, humans will be better able to discover causes of diseases, and will also be in a much better position to manipulate cells to cure diseases.

The idea of manipulating cells and cell components such as genes and proteins has actually led to “Synthetic Biology,” which is, in essence, the engineering approach to Systems Biology. Synthetic biologists try to engineer gene and protein networks in the cellular machinery to program cells for synthesizing custom-tailored molecules. This can be in the form of redesigning or producing mass amounts of existing molecules, or synthesizing nonexistent molecules that have medical or other potential uses. The overall significance of the field can be well understood by the following quote from one of the pioneers of the field, UC Berkeley professor Jay Keasling: “(Synthetic biology is) doing for biology what electrical engineering did for physics and what chemical engineering has done for chemistry.”

One example of synthetic biology comes from Jay Keasling’s lab. In collaboration with the Gates Foundation and OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical in the US, Dr. Keasling’s lab is engineering a new metabolic pathway in E.coli to produce the precursor to artemisinin, currently the most effective treatment for malaria. The prospects include a drastic drop in cost, from dollars to dimes. Moreover, success in redesigning a metabolic pathway in bacteria holds great promise for reproducibility for other similar pathways important for the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries.

Genomics vs. proteomics

Molecular biologists, today, are inundated with neologies ending with the suffix “-ome” and “-omics.” The consequence is that the expression “–omics” craze has found its place in the everyday language of these scientists. Basically, the suffix “-om-” refers to a totality of some sort. All the genes considered as a whole in an organism’s cell are called the “genome, and similarly all the proteins this genome can synthesize are referred to as the “proteome.” “Genomics” and “proteomics” refer to the study of the relevant “-ome,” as opposed to studying genes and proteins one by one.

Even though there exist so many –omics words in the literature these days, genomics and proteomics remain the most popular and useful ones. Proteomics can be thought of as the natural successor to genomics because it is fundamentally the next level of complexity after genomics. While scientists explore gene networks and their interactions in genomics, proteomics involves the study of all the proteins and their interactions in the cellular machinery of an organism. Unfortunately, the next level of complexity does not mean “linearly more complex” in this case; studying networks of three-dimensional molecules is an immensely more daunting task than studying those of one-dimensional DNA sequences. However, luckily for us, scientists are up to this challenge. Yet again, we observe a shift in focus in the scientific community from genomics to proteomics.

The main motivation for this shift can be roughly understood with an analogy from marketing or another one from military warfare. In the former, if you want a better marketing strategy for your product, you should target end-users first and foremost. Understanding behavioral patterns and preferences of end-users is much more important than understanding likes of your vendors, because eventually it is the end-user who will determine the demand for your product. In the latter analogy, we think of an army of soldiers who receive orders from a general commander; however, these orders can later be modified or completely annulled by orders from other commanders still in the hierarchical order. If you think about how reliable and informative knowing the orders that each soldier has received from the general commander is going to be, you will understand how useful it will be to have information on genes without supplementary information on proteins. Gene products, either RNAs or proteins, may undergo some steps called “post-translational modification” that are not completely understood, and worse yet may not be completely deterministic (implying random factors).

So, with the help of the analogies mentioned above, we can reason that the shift in focus of the scientific community from genomics to proteomics is mainly due to the fact that biological functions are carried out, not by DNA or genes, but by proteins and (although much less frequently than by proteins) by RNA molecules. For medical and other practical purposes, it is more important to acquire information on the proteome rather than the genome. This, of course, is not to suggest underestimating the importance of the genome. The genome preserves its significance as the origin and source of genetic information. It is just not as beneficial to think about the genome without looking at the final product, that is the proteome.

Conclusion

The completion of the rough draft of the Human Genome Project in 2000 marked the end of the Genetic Era and paved the way to the Genomic Era. The breakthroughs that have taken place since this cornerstone event have been breathtaking, awe-inspiring and maybe even hard to catch up with. The Genomic Era had given birth to different fields in a span of few years, and the biological scientific community has had to shift its focus from genomics to proteomics even without having sorted out the puzzles of the genome. The advent of the “-omics craze” was probably a by-product of this shift because suddenly each sub-field of molecular biology had to adapt a holistic approach in its explorations. Investigating a single entity, whether it be a gene or a protein or another molecule, quickly became stigmatized as “obsolete.”

This transition to a holistic approach has resulted in the interaction of biologists with scientists from quantitative fields such as mathematics, statistics and computer science. These interactions gave rise to truly interdisciplinary research fields such as systems biology, synthetic biology and computational biology. More and more scientists today believe that competence in the future will rely on incorporating expertise from these different fields. With each new discovery, realizing the level of complexity and the intricacy in the design of our body leaves us in true awe. Moreover, these discoveries only make it easier for us to grasp how little we know about the miraculous design of biological systems. On the other hand, this awareness makes us even more motivated to delve into scientific efforts because understanding the science behind creation takes us directly to the understanding of our Creator.

Jason Newfoundland is a PhD candidate in Bioinformatics at University of Michigan.

Notes

1. http://www.answers.com/topic/gene?cat=technology
2. This amazing process is demonstrated in this link: http://www.dnai.org/text/mediashowcase/index2.html?id=556
3. Synthetic Biology: Change on the Horizon, Karsten Temme, http://no.oneslistening.com/277
4. A glossary for –omics words exists at http://www.genomicglossaries.com/content/omes.asp

Churning in time, “the process of becoming”

Every particle must sacrifice the ego to mill

Listening to the call, enabling Divine Will

Death in “itself” is the desire to “live”

Eternity is in giving away to rebuild

The mountains squash at the will of self

The meek perceive a mound a hill

Wandering hither and thither the lowly stars

Are but lost in the vastness of heaven,

To realize oneself, one has to part

It is the destiny, for existence, for non-being.

The moon is pale; loosing glamour at the last stretch

All secrets told, is stripped off into void

Soon the demons of dark will engulf the bright.

Why looking for a phantom light…?

Thy lamp is thy heart, O’ forlorn

Leave the sojourn, thee, thyself is the guide.

Thou art real, the only truth in heaven,

On the earth; the whole universe’s might.

Resting in a world of fabricated illusion,

Deserts are but for an infinite exploration

Thorns bear witness to a searching soul

How limited is the effort to grow one Rose

Yet, ye complain scarcity of the resource.

Mercy O benevolent, the most compassionate Lord.

Upon the ignorant, the sinful, and the tyrant

I urge to see an oasis, not an iced spring at a stronghold.

Muhammad Iqbal

Ode No XXX1 from Bang-i-D’rra of Muhammad Iqbal. Translated from Urdu by Seema Arif.

Seema Arif is an assistant professor of Business Administration, University of Central Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

One’s life must be lived in constant awareness of God’s supervision, and one must knock tirelessly on His door with supplication and contrition. If an initiate successfully establishes such a balance between fear and hope, he or she will neither despair (of being a perfect, beloved servant of God) nor become conceited about any personal virtues and thereby neglect his or her responsibilities.

True expectation, possessed by those who are sincerely loyal to the Almighty, means seeking God’s favor by avoiding sins. Such people undertake as many good deeds as possible, and then turn to God in expectation of His mercy. Others, however, have a false expectation. They spend their lives in sin, all the while expecting God’s favor and reward, even though they perform none of the obligatory duties. They seem to believe that God is obligated to admit everyone to Paradise. Not only is this a false expectation, it is a mark of disrespect for the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate, for such an expectation reflects their (misplaced) hope that God would violate His very nature to protect them from the consequences of their sins. To think that one is guaranteed a place in Paradise is a sin; to hope and strive for the same is commendable.

For Sufis, hope or expectation is not the same as a wish. A wish is a desire that may or may not be fulfilled, whereas hope or expectation is an initiate’s active quest, through all lawful means, for the desired destination. In order that God, in His Mercy, will help him or her, the initiate does everything possible, with an almost Prophetic insight and consciousness, to cause all the doors of the Divine shelter to swing open. In other words, hope is the belief that, like His Attributes of Knowledge, Will, and Power, God’s Mercy also encompasses all creation, and the expectation that he or she may be included in His special mercy: My Mercy embraces all things (A’raf 7:156); and in a hadith qudsi, a Prophetic saying whose meaning was directly revealed by God, which reads: God’s Mercy exceeds His Wrath. Indifference to such Mercy, from which even devils hope to benefit in the Hereafter, and despairing of being enveloped by it, which amounts to denying it, is an unforgivable sin.

Hope means that an initiate seeks the ways to reach the Almighty in utmost reliance on His being the All-Munificent and the All-Loving. Muhammad Lutfi Efendi expresses his hope as follows:

Be kind to me, O my Sovereign,
Do not cease favoring the needy and destitute!
Does it befit the All-Kind and Munificent
To stop favoring His slaves?

Those who are honored by such Divine kindness can be considered as having found a limitless treasure-especially at a time when a person has lost whatever he or she has, is exposed to misfortune, or feels in his or her conscience the pain of being unable to do anything good or to be saved from evil. In short, when there are no means left that can be resorted to, and all of the ways out end in the Producer of all causes and means, hope illuminates the way, like a heavenly mount that carries one to peaks normally impossible to reach.

Here I cannot help but recall the hope expressed in the last words of Imam Shafi‘i in Gaza:

When my heart was hardened and my ways were blocked,
I made my hope a ladder to Your forgiveness;
My sins are too great in my sight, but
When I weigh them against Your forgiveness,
Your forgiveness is much greater than my sins.

It is advisable for one to feel fear in order to abandon sin and turn to God. One should cherish hope when falling into the pit of despair and the signs of death appear. Fear removes any feeling of security against God’s punishment, and hope saves the believer from being overwhelmed by despair. For this reason, one may be fearful even when all obligatory duties have been performed perfectly; one may be hopeful although he or she has been less than successful in doing good deeds. This is what is stated in the following supplication of Yahya ibn Mu’adh:

O God! The hope I feel in my heart when I indulge in sin is usually greater than the hope I feel after performing the most perfect deeds. This is because I am impaired” with flaws and imperfections, and never sinless and infallible. When I am stained with sin, I rely on no deeds or actions but Your forgiveness. How should I not rely on Your forgiveness, seeing that You are the Generous One?

According to many, hope is synonymous with cherishing a good opinion of the Divine Being. This is related in the following hadith qudsi: I treat My servant in the way he thinks of Me treating him. A man once dreamed that Abu Sahl was enjoying indescribable bounties and blessings, and asked him how he had attained such a degree of reward. Abu Sahl answered: By means of my good opinion of my Lord. That is why we can say that if hope is a means for God’s manifestation of His infinitely profound Mercy, a believer should never relinquish it. Even if one always performs good deeds and preserves his or her sincerity and altruism, since these are the accomplishments of a finite being with limited capacities, they have little importance when compared with God’s forgiveness.

Fear and hope are two of the greatest gifts of God that He may implant in a believer’s heart. If there is a gift greater than these, it is that one should preserve the balance between fear and hope and then use them as two wings of light with which to reach God.

Notes

1. Al-Bukhari, “Tawhid,” 55; Muslim, “Tawba,” 14-16, Ibn Maja, “Zuhd,” 35.
2. Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Uthman al-Dhahabi, Siyar ‘Alam al-Nubala’, 25 vols. (Beirut, 1992), 1:150.
3. Al-Qushayri, Al-Risala, 133.
4. In other words, one should regard Him as an All-Merciful and All-Forgiving Lord, rather than as an All-Punishing One.
5. Al-Bukhari, “Tawhid”, 15; Muslim, “Tawba,” 1; Al-Tirmidhi, “Dawa‘at,” 132.
6. Al-Qushayri, Al-Risala, 134.