The root of the word Islam, silm, refers to “making peace, being in a mutually peaceful environment, greetings, rescue, safety, being secure, finding peace, reaching salvation and well being or being far from danger, attaining goodness, comfort and favor, keeping away from troubles and disasters, submitting the self and obeying, respect, being far from wrong.” The “submitting the self and obeying” here means “submitting to justice and righteousness in order to reach peace and safety and being in a peaceful environment by one’s free will.” In fact, salaam and salaamat, mean “to reach salvation,” and their rubai form (with four radical letters) aslama means “submitted, became Muslim, and made peace.” “Islam” as either a noun or a verb with these meanings is mentioned in many verses in the Qur’an.1

From this perspective, Islam is “submission to God, accepting His authority as well as obeying His orders”; “one’s total submission to God and serving only Him”; “embracing the messages of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and abiding by them.” In this sense, a Muslim is one who is under the peaceful and safe shade of Islam. God wants a Muslim to live in a safe and peaceful environment and to make efforts for the spread and continuity of peace.

Since Islam means living in a peaceful environment that emerges as a result of submission to God, the Qur’an asks that all humanity should embrace silm, that is, peace, and reminds us to avoid following Satan. As stated in the verse, O you who believe! Come in full submission to God, all of you, (without allowing any discord among you due to worldly reasons), and do not follow in the footsteps of Satan, for indeed he is a manifest enemy to you (seeking to seduce you to rebel against God, with glittering promises) (Qur’an, 2:208), Satan is the enemy of peace. This verse is followed by a reminder of God’s All-Glorious with irresistible might if believers “stumble and fall back” from following God’s way to realize peace and agreement.

The purpose of Islam

In order to be able portray a fair image of Islam, we have to consider its divinely inspired purposes, which yield, as a result, a just worldly order. By applying preventive measures to ensure security of wealth, life, mind, religion, and reproduction, Islam aims to build a society in peace, serenity, friendship, collaboration, altruism, justice, and virtue.

According to the Qur’an, all Muslims are brothers and sisters to each other and if a disagreement appears among them they make peace and correct it (Qur’an, 49:10). They help each other to avoid what God forbids and to observe their religious awareness at every stage in their life (Qur’an, 5:2); they carry out important tasks after shura, that is, consultation (Qur’an, 3:159; 42:38); and they always witness truthfully and are just even if it is against their close relatives (Qur’an, 4:135).

Again, as mentioned in the Qur’an, a true Muslim follows the straight path. That means that he or she is faithful, honest, and just, is calm, lives to perfectly observe his or her religion and in guidance of reason.2 Pursuing the straight path can be understood as being absolutely truthful and honest in all circumstances, as well as embracing a moderate way of life that encourages good relations with everyone.

Living on the straight path is the most significant desire for any Muslim. Upon the revelation of the verse, Pursue, then, what is exactly right (in every matter of the Religion), as you are commanded (by God), and those who, along with you, have turned (to God with faith, repenting their former ways, let them do likewise); and do not rebel against the bounds of the Straight Path (O believers)! He indeed sees well all that you do (Qur’an, 11:112), the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “The chapter Hud has made me older.”3 In this sense, the Companions commented on the verse, “There was no verse revealed to the Prophet Muhammad that is more powerful than this.” Such a verse that so powerfully enjoins “what is right” should have the power to eradicate all kinds of violence and oppression, which are obviously not the right path to follow in social relations.

Mercy and forgiveness

Divine compassion and Prophetic mercy assign special importance to forgiveness and tolerance. As God the Most Gracious is merciful to all people, His Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is merciful and compassionate to all believers (Qur’an, 9:128). God’s clear order to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is to embrace forgiveness. The verse Adopt the way of forbearance and tolerance, and enjoin what is good and right, and withdraw from the ignorant ones (Qur’an, 7:199) indicates this.

By the blessing of God, the Prophet succeeded in establishing unity among people by acting with compassion and mercy. If he had treated the people around him severely and rudely, they would have left him and their unity would have collapsed (Qur’an, 3:159).

Since God and the Messenger of God are merciful and compassionate to believers, those who take the divinely prescribed ethics and the prophetic character as their example should obviously treat one another with mercy and compassion. Therefore, those who have received the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) message can never be severe, arrogant, antagonistic, or hostile.

Furthermore, God Almighty advises His Messenger to be forgiving and to consult people by asking for their ideas (Qur’an, 3:159; 42:38) since exchanging ideas increases feelings of unity and cooperation while reducing tension between people. As a result, a desire for change that transforms hatred into peace and serenity appears in society.

According to the Messenger of God, people are equal before God as the teeth of a comb are equal. Characteristics like language, ancestry, race, wealth, and poverty are not signs of superiority.4 In the thirteenth verse of the chapter Al-Hujurat, the creation of humankind from a female and a male, the division of humanity into ethnic groups or nations and tribes in order to know one another, and the importance of fearing God in order to become valued in God’s view are pointed out.

The verse approves having an identity and being known by an identity; nonetheless, it rejects the abuse of affiliation (to different gender, social or ethnic groups) as a means of superiority. Thus, it assesses a person’s honor and value in terms of universal values that he or she gains through his or her own will and effort, and not in terms of gender or ethnic ties, which are not obtained through free will.5

In Islam, the individual is considered as a person that gains value within the society, as someone who is responsible to the community in a social context.

According to Islam, the life of a human being is a trust from God, irrespective of his or her ancestry, color, or language, and hence should be protected meticulously. The main idea in Islam is to praise God the Almighty (Qur’an, 1:1; 6:45), to show compassion to creation. Humankind is the best of all creations (Qur’an, 17:70) and is created of the best stature (Qur’an, 95:4). So, every human deserves respect by nature; approaching them with lenience, tolerance, and humility is certainly virtuous. Hence, staying away from hatred and having a tolerant attitude is essential for humanity.

God the Almighty asks from the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) in particular and from all Muslims in general to be forgiving (Qur’an, 42:37; 3:134). Thus, God loves good attitudes such as spending and serving for the sake of humankind at all times under all circumstances, forgiving people, and avoiding doing something wrong when we become angry.

Even if one has the right to retaliate in response to an evil action, forgiveness is more appropriate for those who are more pious. The Qur’an enlightens all humanity on this issue: The recompense of an evil deed can only be an evil equal to it; but whoever pardons and makes reconciliation, his reward is due from God. Surely He does not love the wrongdoers (Qur’an, 42:40; see also Qur’an, 42:43).

Besides, each of us lives on the path that God has ordained for him or her. For this reason, it is important to emphasize serving rather than fighting. God says in the Qur’an (5:48), Strive then together as if competing in good works, and also, Say: Every one acts according to his own character (made up of his creed, worldview and disposition), and your Lord knows best who is guided in his way (17:84). Therefore, individuals should not dispute and fight over their different ideas to satisfy their ambitions and self-interests. Rather, on the contrary, they should compete to show good character and to serve in the best way; they should support each other not in wrongdoing, but in doing good.

Trustworthiness

An important dimension of being a Muslim is trustworthiness. Every Prophet is introduced in the Qur’an with the attribute of trustworthiness.6 First and foremost, the Prophet Muhammad, the most trustworthy of the heavens and earth, and all the prophets preceding him, made efforts to promote trustworthiness in their societies.

In a place where trust does not exist, love, respect and solidarity are also absent. The lack of trust destroys family, as well as social, cultural, and economic life. For this reason, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) states that trustworthiness and treachery cannot exist together7 and asserts, “One, who betrays, harms, or deceives a Muslim, is not of us.”8 He describes the ideal Muslim as thus: “A Muslim is one from whose hand and tongue people are safe. A believer is one from whom people know that their wealth and lives are safe.”9

In one hadith, the Messenger of God describes those who are good and those who are bad: “The good amongst you is the one from whom good things are expected and by whom people are sure that they will not be harmed. The bad amongst you is the one from whom good things are not expected and from whose evil people do not feel safe.”10 From this, it can be understood that a believer is one who is trustworthy, and therefore, no one would fear any danger from him or her under any circumstances.

In Islam, good morals, love and respect for God and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) are expected from believers. Appropriate love, mercy and compassion are to be shown, not only to people but also to every creature in nature since, according to Islam’s core understanding, every creation is a blessing from God and the protection of a blessing is the most fitting behavior for a human being.

Social peace

In Islam, the right to life is an absolute value: He who kills a soul unless it be (in legal punishment) for murder or for causing disorder and corruption on the earth will be as if he had killed all humankind; and he who saves a life will be as if he had saved the lives of all humankind (Qur’an 5:32).

When the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) explained Islam’s potential to contribute to safety and peace in society, he specified one goal in his time as the following: “A rider will travel from Sana’a (a city in Yemen) to Hadhramaut (a region in the southwest of the Arabian peninsula) fearing none but God, or a wolf as regards his sheep.”11

If we consider the troubles due to the extreme violence Muslims were exposed to both in the Medinan and Meccan periods, we can understand how meaningful was this message expressed by the Prophet. It does not include any desire for revenge against any person or any group; instead, it only expresses an ardent desire for a violence-free world for all.

The Prophet commanded us to maintain social solidarity and cooperation, to open our hearts to our fellows, and to help one another at all times. He said, “Do not cut relations between each other! Do not turn your backs on each other! Do not grow hatred between each other! O God’s servants! Become brothers and sisters!”12

Peace, reform, and virtuous deeds

The Arabic terms islah (reform) and sulh (peace) are from the same root. Islah means one’s reach of peace and serenity while leaving conflicts and deviations; in other words, it refers to leaving confusion by settling a dispute between two people or two sides.

Good deeds are actions that are beneficial for people and society, as well as actions that are taken to establish peace and serenity. This concept not only includes offering worship and spending in a good cause but also smiling, behaving warmly to others, establishing friendships, pleasing people by kind words, exchanging greetings, having warm conversation, and controlling bad feelings such as pride, arrogance, anger, envy, animosity, hypocrisy, rancor, and burning ambition. Thus, essentially, virtuous deeds are acts that purify humankind of aggression and bring them to peace.

In the Qur’an, it is recommended to cease disagreements by peace and not to commence further disputes, fights, confusion, and discord; in addition, people are asked to take a balanced approach and seek justice (Qur’an, 8:1; 49:9–10). It is forbidden to spoil peace and tranquility by corruption; there are penalties for those who do.13 It is possible to apply the verse, Peace is better (Qur’an, 4:128) which was specifically revealed to eradicate disagreements between couples, to all kinds of human relations. Islam recommends a united and mutually helpful society, and this vision does not only refer to the level of nation, but includes international relations, too. In this sense, from an Islamic perspective, international law should take the establishment of peace as a foundation.14

Conclusion

The Qur’an emphasizes peace and reconciliation as basic to all social and even international relations. As mentioned in the Qur’an, Paradise, which is the reward for the pious, is a place of serenity. One of the ninety-nine names of God is Salaam, which means peace. Throughout history, Muslims have made every effort to establish peace and serenity everywhere in all divergent fields, only taking military measures when their enemies tried to hinder these efforts for humankind. Over the course of history, the general approach of Muslims has been supportive of maintaining peace, spreading an environment of serenity and trust, and constructing a civilization of love, compassion, and mercy to share with other people in peace.

Professor Huseyin Algul is a Faculty member, specializing in Islamic History, in the Department of Theology at Uludag University, Bursa, Turkey.

Notes

1. See Mustafa Sinanoglu, “Islam-Giris”, DIA, XXIII, 1-2; Hamdi Donduren, “Islam”, SIA (Samil Islam Ansiklopedisi), III, 179-191.
2. See Qur’an, 1:6-7; 11:112.
3. Tirmidhi, Tafsir, 58.
4. See Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 73; Abu Dawud, Adab, 111; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, V, 411.
5. Karaman Hayrettin, et al (edited by). Kur’an Yolu, Turkce Meal ve Tefsir, Ankara: Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi Yayınları, 2006, V, 97–98.
6. See Qur’an, 7:68; 26:107, 125, 143, 178; 44:18.
7. Musnad, II, 349.
8. Muslim, Iman, 101,102.
9. Bukhari, Iman, 3, 5; Muslim, Iman, 64, 65; Nasai, Iman, 8, 104, 105.
10. Tirmidhi, Fitan, 62; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, II, 368.
11. Bukhari, Manaqib, 25, Ikrah, 1; Abu Dawud, Jihad, 97; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, V, 110-111.
12. Muslim, Birr, 23.
13. See Al Baqarah, 2/27, 205; Al Ma’idah 5/32-33; Al A’raf, 7/56, 85; Ar-Ra’d 13/25; Ash-Shu’ara’ 26/183
14. For a scientific research and detailed information on this issue, see Ahmet Yaman, Islam Devletler Hukukunda Savas, Beyan Yayınları, Istanbul 1988.

Though tremendous technical efforts are being spent on solving the problem of privacy concerns in RFID usage, this is only one side of the story. The problems human beings encounter cannot be solved solely by technical means because humans are not products of engineering. They have hearts, minds, and consciences, which constitute their metaphysical dimension.

Technology brings a great many novelties into our lives, but usually at high cost. Driven by the economic expansion resulting from advances in manufacturing, climate change has been one of the biggest threats facing humanity for the last couple of decades. Mass production has led to excessive consumption, which is seen as one reason for obesity around the world. While nuclear energy plants feed hundreds of cities with electricity, weapons of mass destruction threaten human existence. Not only our bodily health and environment are under threat; new technology leaves almost no room for our privacy. Surrounded by wireless networks, computers, and cell phones, it is easy to gain access to the personal information of others. Although some sincere efforts have been made to improve the civil law to protect privacy, there is much confusion, and the boundaries of private life cannot be determined; at this point the prescriptions of the heavenly religions, especially of Islam, are worth consideration.

We usually underestimate these high-tech intrusions into our lives, for we tend to enjoy, and thus are blinded by the countless, fascinating benefits of technology. Imagine the following scenario: let us say you are just about to leave your workplace for home when you receive a message from your kitchen on your cell phone. In the message you find the shopping list that you need to buy from the grocery store. You go to the grocery store, put all the items in your shopping cart, and drive the cart through the checkout without stopping. All the items are scanned simultaneously and the total amount is deducted from your credit account automatically. When you arrive home, on the small LCD screen in your kitchen you see a list of all the food items past their expiry date in the refrigerator, and you throw them out. When you put all your laundry in the washing machine, you do not bother to choose a program; the machine does it automatically by recognizing each item of clothing separately.

This kind of story could be routine for most of us in the near future if Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) becomes part of our daily lives. Many of us already use RFID tags routinely. Examples include the ignitions of many millions of automobiles, proximity cards, automatic toll payments, and payment tokens. So, what is RFID exactly? RFID is technology for the automated identification of objects and people. An RFID device-frequently just called an RFID tag-is a small chip designed for wireless transmission. It is generally attached to an antenna in a package that resembles an ordinary adhesive sticker. An RFID tag transmits data over the air in response to interrogation by an RFID reader. In general, small RFID tags are passive. They have no on-board power source; they derive their transmission power from the signal of an interrogating reader. Some RFID tags contain batteries. There are two such types: semi-passive tags, whose batteries power their circuitry when they are interrogated and active tags, whose batteries power their transmission.¹

Although RFID promises such advances in our lives and there is intensive research going on in both engineering and business management areas as to how and when RFID can be implemented in a broader sense in daily life-medication, business, military, and so on-there are also some concerns being raised by civil rights circles, consumer rights groups, and some individuals about the implementation of RFID. The main issue is potential personal and corporate privacy threats. RFID technology poses unique privacy and security concerns because the human eye cannot detect whether RFID tags are being read, and RFID tags do not hold a history of their past readings. As a result, tags are promiscuous: they can be read by entities other than their owners and without their owners’ knowledge. Further, both tags and readers can be covertly embedded in the environment; short-range readers can be small enough to fit into a cell phone.²

Threats can be put into two groups: threats affecting corporations, and threats affecting individuals. For example, an agent who has an RFID reader capable of interrogating a competitor’s products can walk through the aisles of a store and get information about the inventory level, data about customer preferences, turnover rate of specific products (each item with RFID tag becomes uniquely identifiable), supply chain data, and so on. From the perspective of individuals, their private lives might be investigated without their approval by third parties. Their tastes as to what kind of clothing they choose to buy, what kind of specific medication they are on, what kind of valuable items they possess are susceptible to unauthorized disclosure. Because each tag is uniquely identifiable, when tags move from one person to another, the relations between the individuals can be determined. As an extreme case, if a tag is not removed from an item after purchase is completed (most of the time tags will be kept on items for customer service requirements), a thief with an RFID reader which can transmit signals powerful enough to detect items in houses can easily choose his next victim.

These are all possibilities which can be thought of as a threat for now. As technology advances, some of these threats will be eliminated by novel technical measures, but then new threats will emerge.

As technology adds new and enriching dimensions to our lives, it also introduces new problems for its adopters. Most of the scenarios mentioned above might not become real threats. However, people’s fear of their privacy being violated has increased tremendously with huge developments in telecommunications, the sudden invasion of our lives by the Internet and finally the appearance of RFID on the horizon. Are we going to feel that we are under constant surveillance in our personal lives, at home, at school, in the office, on the road? While numerous researchers are trying to find answers to calm the unease about RFID in the public, they still cannot give satisfactory responses to some of the concerns.

RFID-Privacy and moral issues

Though tremendous technical efforts are being spent on solving the problem of privacy concerns in RFID usage, this is only one side of the story. The problems human beings encounter cannot be solved solely by technical means because humans are not products of engineering. They have hearts, minds, and consciences, which constitute their metaphysical dimension. Anybody who attempts to solve a social problem while ignoring this dimension of the human being is bound to fail in the attempt.

A person cannot be isolated from the rest of society as isolation contradicts human nature. Since human beings need to live within society, it is vital that everybody has an understanding of some basic common moral values which sustain peace and security among people. Most religions try to establish a moral system that advises individuals to be merciful and kind to each other and to refrain from attitudes or actions which disturb others. Islam also promotes such moral values.

Humankind holds a position above all other creations such that it is apparent that God Almighty values humans more than they value themselves or each other. Just as every individual is valuable in the eyes of God, so is his or her honor, character and dignity. No matter what the circumstances, it is strictly forbidden to insult, condemn, investigate or publicize the faults, deficiencies or private state of an individual. The secrecy of the private life is untouchable.

The Qur’an decisively prohibits spying into and disclosing the secrets and private lives of people, and orders keeping secret any detect and sinful act which one has seen in a person: O you believe! Avoid much suspicion, for some suspicion is a grave sin (liable to God’s punishment); and do not spy (on one another) (Qur’an 49:12). Neither can a Muslim government spy on people to see whether they are committing a sin or crime unless there is decisive proof that they are committing something against the public peace. Likewise, spying into homes, opening and reading letters that belong to others, and listening to the conversations of other people are all wrong.³

The second caliph of Islam, Umar ibn al-Khattab, was once walking on the streets of Medina, the capital, at night. Suddenly he heard noise coming from one of the houses, a noise indicating that somebody was drunk and singing loudly. Umar climbed over the wall, entered the house, and witnessed a very disappointing situation. He complained of the situation to the man inside, and said, “Did you think that God would allow you to hide this fault of yours?” The man replied, “O Caliph of the Muslims, stop and don’t rush. I committed one sin in the eyes of God; however, you have made three mistakes here. First of all, God says, Do not spy on one another (Qur’an 49:12), but you spied on me. Second, God says, Come to dwellings (in the normal way) by their doors (Qur’an 2:189), but you climbed over my wall, and finally God says, O you who believe! Do not enter dwellings other than your own until you have ascertained the permission of their residents and have greeted them with peace (Qur’an 24:27), but you entered my house without getting my permission and you did not greet me with peace.”

Umar was very upset with himself and replied, “If I forgive you, will you forgive me?” The man said, “Yes.” Then Umar said, “I forgive you,” and left the house.⁴

It is possible that only a small fraction of society has suffered violation of its privacy; however, most of us fear being the next in line. Here I have tried to introduce the concerns surrounding the implementation of RFID in daily life. Those concerns are a subset of a bigger problem, which is the misuse of technology and violation of others’ rights by intruding into their privacy. Every technical precaution taken to ease those concerns will no doubt be followed by new technical challenges posed by the violators. It is almost impossible to stop this wave of fears just by adhering to technological advances. Moral values must always be promoted at the individual level and also at societal level. Until the day that our values lead our technical advances, none of us will have the luxury of having a private corner in this life.

Yasin Ceran is a math teacher in Houston, Texas.

Notes

1. Juels, Ari. “RFID Security and Privacy: A Research Survey”, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communication, Vol. 24 , No. 2, February 2006.
2. Garfinkel, Simson L., Ari Juels, Ravi Pappu. “RFID Privacy: An Overview of Problems and Proposed Solutions,” IEEE Security and Privacy published by IEEE Computer Society.
3. Ünal, Ali, The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, New Jersey, Tughra Books, 2007.
4. Kanzu’l-Ummâl, 3/808 hadith number; 8827.

Gulen and those inspired by him have presented a new kind of Islamic intellectualism and altruism coupled with a deeper sense of activism and spirituality that has been missing from many contemporary Muslim movements of the twentieth century. The failure of many politically oriented Muslim movements around the world finds no reflection in the preaching and writing style of Gulen. The revival of other religious groups or non-Islamic religious traditions has not discouraged Gulen in any way from shaping his own ideals of spreading value-based education and people-oriented spirituality and cultural activities.

With the appearance of Muslim nation-states on the political map of the world, different kinds of extreme religious indoctrination have harmed the genuine revival of universal Islamic values. Gulen’s preaching demonstrates that he is quite aware of this intellectual weakness of the political movements of his many predecessors to uphold the moral and ethical values derived from Islamic scriptures and traditions. A good number of Muslim countries have based themselves on the nationalist ideals of the people concerned in order to try to prosper politically and economically. Like many Arabs and Persians, in the early years of the Republic many Turks also seemed to want to build a prosperous modern state based solely on nationalist ideals and thus tended to show a discriminatory attitude toward all kinds of religious traditions and phenomena based on religious beliefs. Many Islamic religious symbols were either misused or attacked disproportionately in the political games of capturing and upholding state power. Gulen’s voice of moderation surfaced at this juncture of dichotomous Muslim polity and the ideological struggles between extreme forces in the Muslim world. Gulen preached the path of moderation, honesty and sincerity to protect the interests of the masses, irrespective of the ethnicity or the religious practice of particular groups of people.

Unlike some religious leaders and clerics in other parts of the world who are his contemporaries, Gulen has never aimed to overthrow a secular government and replace it with a religiously oriented political party. He has never considered this as an option to eliminate corruption within the state and political system. Gulen finds this unacceptable as it contradicts the core principle of the non-compulsory character of Islamic religious practice and no state or society can be truly transformed merely by such partisan politics. Thus, Gulen has always preferred to promote sound education based on universal values in order to generate a virtuous society.

Modern-day Rumi

Many analysts and authors have called Gulen the modern-day Rumi of Turkey, the land where Rumi was put to rest for eternity in the city of Konya. A thirteenth-century poet, philosopher, and mystic, Rumi is celebrated by both Turks and Iranians, but he is also a matter of contestation between the two nations regarding his ethnic identity. But Rumi’s Sufi traditions cut across the lines between nationalistic and sectarian differences, and the truth of the matter is that eight hundred years ago national and ethnic identity played a very insignificant role determining someone’s contribution to Muslim civilization. In practice, Gulen has brought that glorious tradition back to the minds of millions of modern and religious Turks.

Gulen is neither a poet nor a mystic in its traditional or typical sense, but perhaps his series of writings on Sufism has earned him the title of Sufi. Gulen’s preaching is full of compassion for all, and none of his writings ignite any kind of hatred against anyone. That might be one of the reasons why Gulen has been considered seriously as a Sufi. A second reason could be his lifelong personal piety and austere lifestyle.

Muslims would probably not call Gulen a Mahatma Gandhi of Turkey or the Muslim world, though some Westerners have started to call him a Muslim Gandhi.¹ In the substance of his preaching and writing, Gulen is a voice very close to both Rumi and Gandhi; he has always sought truth in bringing people together for the causes of peace and humanity for all, irrespective of race and religion. Like Rumi, Gandhi also never abandoned any of his own religious traditions. However, both of them were disliked, if not hated, by many of their orthodox co-worshipers for their extraordinary humility towards the followers of other religions. Gandhi was killed in 1948 by a Hindu fundamentalist who, like many other orthodox Hindus, believed that Gandhi was betraying the cause of the Hindu religion and that he was influenced by the Muslim intellectuals of British India and the Sufis of South Africa. Away from the persecution of false accusations of igniting religious hatred in Turkey, Gulen lives in the USA where he has proven himself a champion of the cause of inter-faith dialogue and bringing people of all races and religions together to work for peace and harmony between nations and religions.

Spirituality and the Anatolian spirit

Many Muslim authors seem to believe that the modern Western mind is too materialistic to favor the core universal spiritual message of Islam. Thus, many Muslim analysts tend to conclude that it is useless to preach Islamic values to Westerners. Gulen does not accept this simplistic presentation of Western materialism as a barrier to spreading the peaceful message of the Qur’an and Sunnah upon which a compassionate society can be built. He does not believe that Westerners have any inherent problem in appreciating and accepting the spirituality derived from the fundamental sources of Islam; for him the question is how well Muslims can represent Islamic spirituality and the universal message of Islam so as to attract Westerners to build a global society based on genuine equality, tranquility, and humane treatment for all, irrespective of gender, race, and religion.

Gulen advocates a compassionate and brotherly form of Islam that emphasizes inner spirituality rather than an aggressive, outer expression of religious beliefs and coercive propaganda. In rediscovering this fine line of spirituality, Gulen has skillfully avoided the tendency to overemphasize a particular set of characteristics that might be seen as belonging to western or eastern, northern or southern people. He is critical of any kind of nationalistic or ethnic confrontational policies which lead to discriminatory attitudes to others, or dividing people between “us” and “them.”

His definition of nation does not compromise one race or ethnic group; Anatolia has always been a land of diverse ethnic groups and forms one united nation today. Free of any chauvinism, he addresses the colorful mosaic of Anatolia as “a crucible for peoples that have come from Central Asia, the Balkans, and Mesopotamia.”² Extrapolation of this notion automatically leads to the principle that the whole of humankind is the offspring of Adam and Eve. Gulen insists on seeing the potential for good in all peoples and religions. He stresses the merit of good deeds, and rejects the empty words of hostile propaganda and ways of terrorizing others.

Gulen believes that all human beings have an urge and need to achieve spiritual salvation expressed in their ability to appreciate the heavenly attributes which surround everybody in this world up to the end of physical existence on this planet. Gulen sees the world and human existence on earth as an open book of God Almighty, and the Qur’an is the glorious reflection of the process of the revelation of truth to the whole of humankind. Reading such thoughts in Gulen’s books or hearing them from him directly, many observers have believed that he is ultimately a Sufi and mystic and therefore his messages will not attract the younger generation of Muslims in secular Turkey and elsewhere whom they assume to be hot-blooded and radical. This assumption has found no ground in reality, however, as most of those inspired by him are young people.

Gulen and politics

Gulen is very active religiously and socially, while apparently very reluctant to play any part in the political moves of particular political parties or forces. As a non-political entity Gulen has become something of a center of gravity for many millions of Turkish people from all walks of life. Thus, even secular political parties have tried to use his style of preaching and argumentation to reach out to the voters. However, in his own life he is quite secluded from all kinds of political activities.

Some Westerners view Gulen’s way of life as monastic in the Eastern style. They may even see him as a Muslim Dalai Lama seeking nirvana throughout his entire life. However, even in his self-imposed exile in the USA he has never aspired to any media attention or publicity or popularity of any kind. He is deeply involved in interfaith activities and devoted to his Islamic duties as a true Muslim sacrificing every moment and everything quietly for the benefit of others.

Not sectarianism, but dialogue and diplomacy

Gulen does not devote much time to explaining the differences between Shi’as or Sunnis, Hanafis or Hanbalis, Malikis or Shafis, whereas many contemporary Muslim scholars give the utmost importance to these differences of sect and madhhab. According to such scholars, focusing on these distinctions is the right way to purify the Muslim nation from shirk (that is, any belief contrary to tawhid, the oneness of God), bida (illegitimate innovation in religious affairs), or just deviation from the siratul mustaqim (the straight path) demonstrated by the Prophet of Islam.

For Gulen, however, the most important thing is to establish a close relation between the human self and the sifats (Attributes) of God Almighty. Only when a great number of people are selflessly and honestly devoted to the higher spiritual cause prescribed by the holy ideals of Islam of making the entire human race preserve and protect its own dignity and surroundings for the benefit of all, can we hope to regain the lost glory of the Muslim civilization and the generosity and liberality of the Muslim nation for which we hope. Gulen does not believe that much can be achieved for these noble causes through military or political means. Dialogue and diplomacy is the better option for all sides in any ongoing conflict. Welfare-oriented governance is the best alternative to the corporate greed for profit and deception of all kinds aimed at making money for a tiny group of people in society.

Unlike most Muslim nations, Turks have never experienced direct foreign colonial rule of any kind. This unique feature of the Turkish nation has made Turks better prepared to accept the universality of Islam that has been expressed or reflected in thousands of Gulen’s sermons and in the numerous speeches delivered to Muslim congregations and interfaith meetings both in Turkey and the USA. Those ideas are crystallized in dozens of books written by Gulen. Alongside his preaching about universal values, Gulen has always been mindful of the troubles afflicting the hearts and minds of Turkish people. Knowing very well the risks of alienating himself from some of his own people, he has nevertheless shown great enthusiasm for reform of the education system in Turkey. In doing this, however, he has never allowed any sect, group, or political party to own or disown him completely. His strategy is very clear: whoever does good and honest work as a Muslim I should be with him, and I must avoid all kinds of bad or wicked works.

Opposition to Gulen

Ultra-secularist forces have tried unsuccessfully to use Gulen for their own political ends in various ways. One attempt was to characterize him as an innovator of religious reforms with little compatibility with the preaching and life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Having failed in that, some anti-Islamic forces inside and outside Turkey are now trying to portray Gulen as the future Khomeini of Turkey. But Khomeini’s year-long stay in the city of Bursa in Turkey, once the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and his exposure to the Sunni communities in Turkey and Iraq did not make him Sunni, and Gulen’s exposure to the USA will not make him a revolutionary or worldly Islamic preacher. Gulen’s beardless face and modern dress do not make him less Islamic, but he is neither a fanatic nor a so-called modernist incapable of appreciating the attributes of God Almighty. Comparing Gulen’s educational and cultural movement with Khomeini’s revolution in Iran is either a reflection of ignorance about the many diverse methods of social reform with wide-ranging ramifications for the revival of Islamic values, or shows a complete lack of knowledge about the many dissimilarities between these two great Muslims nations.

In Gulen’s writing, Islamic revolution and jihad with its detailed rules and regulations are either absent or he limits himself to a clarion call for spiritual jihad that has nothing to do with war, violence, or even aggressive ways of spreading the religious message.

Our interest in our environment and our love for humankind – that is, our ability to embrace creation – depends on knowing and understanding our own essence, our ability to discover ourselves, and to feel a connection with our Creator… Humanism is a doctrine of love and humanity which is articulated recklessly these days, and it has a potential to be easily manipulated through different interpretations. Some circles try to impose an abstract and unbalanced understanding of humanism by confusing people about jihad in Islam and awakening suspicion in their hearts… Jihad can be a matter of self-defense or of removing obstacles between God and human free choice…”³

For many years now, Western commentators have asked why world-renowned Muslim and non-Muslim authors fail to demonstrate any clarity in the complicated issues related to Islam and jihad. In this area, Gulen is a voice of complete clarity and consistency in his presentation of Islamic issues and their correlation with universal humanitarianism. Thus, Gulen has filled, at least to some extent, an intellectual gap between the Muslim world and the West. His message is very clear for any careful reader, not least on matters like terrorism: “Terror can never be used in the name of Islam or for the sake of any Islamic ends. A terrorist cannot be a true Muslim and a true Muslim cannot be a terrorist. A Muslim can only be a representative and symbol of peace, welfare, and prosperity.”⁴

Questioning or challenging the universality of Western concepts of human rights is rather an easy job. However, to present a comprehensive and better alternative to a Western consumption-based society is a gigantic task that has been initiated by the Gulen movement in the areas of educational and cultural exchange between religions and nations.

Even Gulen himself may not even be able to imagine the impact he is having now on the Turkish public psyche and beyond in formulating a new and completely peaceful strategy to bridge the East and West or the Muslim world and the rest of the world. This is truly a huge intellectual advance wrought almost single-handedly by Gulen and based on his convincing arguments for peace and dignity for the whole of humankind. His emphasis on a value-based educational system without indoctrination is shown clearly in all his books. This emphasis has led to the founding all around the world of hundreds of schools sponsored by Turkish educators and businessmen where teachers are trying to implement Gulen’s ideals.

There is still more to say about the Turkish and Sunni features of the Gulen movement as it has been spearheaded by Sunni Muslims of Turkish origin. One might inquire into how an ultra-secularist state such as Turkey could have produced a social, cultural, and educational reformer like Gulen. However, it seems life-long dedication to the universal causes of Islam and humanity may ultimately produce such a result. Gulen’s followers never indulge in nationalistic, sectarian, or chauvinistic agendas in propagating Islamic values or an educational and cultural system within Muslim communities and beyond. This is the key to the remarkable success of the Gulen movement today. That is what has made him a living legend and, of course, the world’s most influential intellectual of 2008.

Maimul Ahsan Khan is a professor of law (Islam, Human Rights and International Commerce) at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh.

Notes

1. Mark Scheel, “A Communitarian Imperative: Fethullah Gulen’s Model of Modern Turkey,” The Fountain, 61st issue, January–February 2008.
2. Gurkan Celik, Kate Kirk, Yusuf Alan, “Gulen’s Definition of Peace,” in: Dialogue: Asia-Pacific, Issue 15, January – March 2008, p. 8.
3. M. Fethullah Gulen, Toward a Global Civilization of Love & Tolerance, The Light, New Jersey, 2006, pp. 6, 8, 59.
4. Ibid, p.8.

Dancing in the enchantment of Your love,

Like a moth, the world is rushing to meet You,

I wish I could reach You, even if only once it may be.

I await, on the horizon of my hopes, the rise of the moon,

Your hands caressing my anguish-burned face,

You opened to me the sanctuary in Your presence,

May the torment of these painful days conclude soon.

My heart is hungry for Your eternal love,

My life-long palpitations will not ease otherwise,

Nor can my bosom sing in its finest voice.

Would my lips move without You in my heart?

Come and clear the face of my night of sorrow,

Make my troubled bosom happy with Your compliments,

Satisfy with Your love my endlessly searching soul,

Appear in my heart, declaring it Your home…

Wara’ relates to both the inner and outer aspects of a believer’s life and conduct. A traveler on the path of wara’ must reach the peaks of taqwa, or piety; his or her life must reflect a strict observance of the religious commands and prohibitions.

Wara’ is defined as holding oneself back from unbecoming, unnecessary things,¹ as strictly refraining from what is unlawful and forbidden, or abstaining from all doubtful things lest one should commit a forbidden act. The Islamic principle: Abandon what you doubt and prefer what you have no doubt about,² and the Prophetic saying: What is lawful is evident and what is forbidden is also evident, explain the basis of wara’.³

Some Sufis define wara’ as the conviction of the truth of Islamic tenets, being straightforward in one’s beliefs and acts, being steadfast in observing Islamic commandments, and being circumspect in one’s relations with God Almighty. Others define it as not being heedless of God even for one twinkling of the eye, and others as permanently closing themselves to all that is not Him, as not abasing oneself before anyone except Him (for the fulfillment of one’s needs or other reasons), and as advancing until reaching God without getting mired down by one’s ego, carnal self and desires, or the world.

Always refrain from begging from people,
Beg only from your Lord Who is the All-Munificent.
Renounce the pomp and luxuries of the world
Which will certainly go as they have come.

We can also interpret wara’ as basing one’s life on engaging in what is necessary and useful, as acting in consciousness of the real nature of useless, fleeting, and transient things. This is stated in the Tradition: The beauty of being a good Muslim is abandoning what is of no use to him. The writer of the Pandname, Farid al-Din al-Attar, explains this principle very beautifully:

Wara’ gives rise to fear of God,
ne without wara’ is subject to humiliation.
Whoever virtuously follows the way of wara’,
Whatever he does is for the sake of God.
One who desires love and friendship of God,
Without wara’, he is false in his claim of love.

Wara’ relates to both the inner and outer aspects of a believer’s life and conduct. A traveler on the path of wara’ must reach the peaks of taqwa, or piety; his or her life must reflect a strict observance of the religious commands and prohibitions; his or her actions must be for the sake of God; his or her heart and feelings must be purged of whatever is other than God; he or she must always feel the company of the “Hidden Treasure.”

In other words, the traveler abandons those thoughts and conceptions that do not lead to Him, keeps aloof from those scenes that do not remind them of Him, does not listen to speeches that are not about Him, and is not occupied with that which does not please Him. Such a degree of wara’ leads one directly and quickly to God Almighty, Who declared to Prophet Moses: Those who desire to get near to Me have not been able to find a way better than wara’ and zuhd (asceticism).

The abstinence known by humanity during the Age of Happiness4 was perfectly observed by the blessed generations following the Companions, and became an objective of almost every believer. It was during this period that Bishr al-Khafi’s sister asked Ahmad ibn Hanbal:

“O Imam, I usually spin (wool) on the roof of my house at night. At that time, some officials pass by with torches in their hands, and I happen to benefit, even unwillingly, from the light of their torches. Does this mean that I mix into my earnings something gained through a religiously unlawful way?” The great Imam wept bitterly at this question and replied: “Something doubtful even to such a minute degree must not find a way into the house of Bishr al-Khafi.”5

It was also during this period that people shed tears for the rest of their lives because they had cast a single glance at something forbidden, and people who vomited a piece of unlawful food that they had swallowed in ignorance wept for days. As related by ‘Abd Allah ibn Mubarak, a great traditionist and ascetic, a man traveled from Merv (Turkmenistan) to Mecca in order to return to its owner an item that he had put in his pocket by mistake. There were many who gave life-long service to those to whom they thought they owed something, such as Fudayl ibn ‘Iyad. Biographies of saints, such as Hilyat al-Awliya’ (The Necklace of Saints) by Abu Nu‘aym al-Isfahani, and al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (The Greatest Compendium) by Imam al-Sharani, are full of the accounts of such heroes of abstinence.

Notes

1. It is very difficult to define this rather ambiguous phrase, as such “things” must be defined within the context of the time in which one lives and within the conditions with which one is faced.
2. Al-Bukhari, “Buyu‘,” 3; Al-Tirmidhi, “Qiyama,” 60.
3. Al-Tirmidhi, “Zuhd,” 11; Ibn Maja, “Fitan,” 12.
4. In Islamic literature, the Age of Happiness refers to the time when the Prophet lived and led his community.
5. Al-Qushayri, Al-Risala, 111.

All parents do everything they can to keep their children healthy. The creation of a baby in a mother’s womb still remains a wonder not fully explained by scientists. Birth has been a mystery in the life of human beings since the beginning of history. Religious sources show the phases of a baby’s growth in the mother’s womb, the perfect design of the environment that supports the needy baby with everything it needs, and its birth, all as examples of God’s mercy and power. Although the whole process of pregnancy develops with almost no interference from outside, there are some precautions that parents can take to have a healthier baby.

How to start taking care of a baby even before pregnancy

Science makes it clear that we should not wait until we hold a baby in our arms before we start taking care of him or her. But how can we take care of a baby even before conception? Well, one of the answers is quite simple: by taking folic acid! If women have enough folic acid, vitamin B complex, in their bodies before pregnancy, this vitamin B complex can reduce the risk of neural birth defects by up to 70%. Neural tube defects (NTD) are a group of congenital birth defects that influence the central nervous system. The neural tube forms in the embryo between 4 to 6 weeks after conception and then closes. The neural tube eventually becomes the baby’s spinal cord, spine, brain, and skull. If the neural tube does not close properly, the baby may have neural birth defects, in which case the baby lacks either a developing brain, spinal cord or both. NTDs occur very early in pregnancy, even before most women know that they are pregnant. The most common neural birth defects are anencephaly and spina bifida. In anencephaly, the brain is either not fully developed or is completely absent, while in spina bifida part of the baby’s spinal cord remains outside the body.

Folate deficiency and folic acid

Folate, also called vitamin B9, is a water-soluble vitamin. It is essential to human life and is found naturally in some foods such as liver, citrus fruits and juices, whole grains, and dark green leafy vegetables. Folic acid is the synthetic form of folate. Folic acid can be obtained from supplements and fortified breads and cereals. Both folic acid and folate work for the same purpose, and in this article the terms are used interchangeably.

In folate deficiency, the body is unable to transport folic acid to the brain, resulting in mobility problems, blindness and seizures. Pregnant women in particular can be at great risk of giving birth to low-birthweight, premature babies who may have neural birth defects. In children, folate deficiency can slow general development. In adults, a type of anemia appears in long-term folate deficiency. There are also other signs of folate deficiency such as headaches, loss of appetite, sore tongue, diarrhea, forgetfulness and irritability.

Why folic acid is important

Folic acid plays a very important role in various body processes including cell maintenance and repair, formation of red blood cells (which provide oxygen to tissue), formation of white blood cells (which defend the body against infectious disease), synthesis of DNA (hereditary material) and amino acid metabolism. It also plays a crucial role in preventing human illness. Folic acid supplements cannot prevent stroke or heart disease, but studies have shown that it can reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. Recent research shows that it supports the functioning of blood vessels, which improves the blood flow to the heart. In addition, folic acid helps to protect against the development of some forms of cancer, particularly colon, cervical, esophageal, breast, and stomach cancers.

A number of scientific experiments have shown that people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease have low levels of folic acid in their blood. Thus, it is not surprising that folic acid is crucial for brain function and plays an important role in mental and emotional health.

If you are a married woman and have plans to have a child some day, you should definitely start to take folate because by the time you know you are pregnant, your baby’s brain and spine will already have been formed. This is why it is important for women to maintain sufficient levels of folic acid all through their child-bearing age even if they are not planning a pregnancy.

Should only women take folic acid?

No, not really. Every adult man and woman should consume it every day to reduce their risk of heart disease, colon cancer, and stroke.

If this is a vitamin that could change our life forever, how much should we consume and where can we get it from? You can get your folic acid naturally from foods such as liver, nuts, peanut butter, dried peas and beans, oranges, tomato and pineapple juice, avocados, cantaloupes, asparagus, and leafy green vegetables. Some breakfast cereals with 100% of the recommended daily allowance per serving are Crunchy Nuggets, Multi-Grain Cheerios Plus, Product 19, Whole-Grain Total, Total Corn- Flakes, Total Raisin Bran, and Special K. It can also be obtained from other, less processed grain products such as bread, pasta, and rice. Taking a multivitamin containing the recommended daily allowance of 400 micrograms is another option. The following table suggests a variety of dietary sources of folate.

Table 1: Selected Food Sources of Folate and Folic Acid

* Items marked with an asterisk (*) are fortified with folic acid as part of the Folate Fortification Program.

^ DV = Daily Value. DVs are reference numbers developed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help consumers determine if a food contains a lot or a little of a specific nutrient.

Sehnaz Dogu Ekicikol obtained a master’s degree on Microbiology from Georgia State University.

References

• Zittoun J. Anemias due to disorder of folate, vitamin B12 and transcobalamin metabolism. Rev Prat 1993;43:1358–63.
• Herbert V. Folic Acid. In: Shils M, Olson J, Shike M, Ross AC, ed. Nutrition in Health and Disease. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1999.
• Kamen B. Folate and antifolate pharmacology. Semin Oncol 1997;24:S18-30-S18-39.
• Agriculture’s Nutrient Database Web site: http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/cgi-bin/nut_search.pl.
• http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/folate.asp
• http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/folicacid/

The infinite! No other question has ever moved so profoundly the spirit of man; no other idea has so fruitfully stimulated his intellect; yet no other concept stands in greater need of clarification than that of the infinite. David Hilbert

The concept of infinity has always fascinated humankind. The excitement and awe that are affiliated with the very idea of this concept inspire us. Poets, philosophers, artists, astronomers, mathematicians and ordinary people have pondered the questions related to infinity over the centuries. Is the universe finite or infinite? Is matter or space infinitely divisible? Is there eternal life? Where does a finite being get the idea of infinity from?

In this article, we first consider the concept of infinity from a mathematical point of view and then try to explain how that is connected to Divinity and the Attributes of God. An incorrect understanding of infinity in mathematics leads to seemingly irresolvable paradoxes; likewise, an incorrect understanding of the Attributes of God leads to an incomplete or incorrect understanding of creation.

Mathematical infinity

Any serious consideration of infinity inevitably leads to mathematics, where the concept has its deepest roots. Mathematicians use the symbol ∞ to denote infinity. To many people infinity is a sort of number that is larger than all other numbers. However, that is not an adequate description of infinity. Strange things can happen in the realm of infinity. Many intuitive ideas fail when infinity enters into the picture. This leads to apparent paradoxes. Here is one example that is attributed to David Hilbert (1862–1943), the famous mathematician whose quotation appears above.¹ Consider a hypothetical hotel with infinitely many rooms. On a stormy night all the rooms of the hotel are occupied, and a wet and miserable couple shows up asking for a room. The concierge comes up with this clever idea to make room for these people. He says, “The hotel is full but here is what I can do for you. I can move the guests from room 1 into room 2, the guests from room 2 into room 3, and so on. The guests in room n will move into the room n+1, for each n = 1, 2, 3, …”.

So, if we can have a hotel with infinitely many rooms it is possible to accommodate an incoming guest even if the hotel is totally full. But then we see that by a similar reasoning we can accommodate any number of guests, and in fact infinitely many more guests! Clearly, this is not possible in ordinary hotels with finitely many rooms that we are familiar with.

To get more sense of what might happen in the realm of infinity let us consider a couple of other examples. You would have no trouble accepting that two sets have the same number of elements if there is a one-to-one correspondence between them. For example, the set {Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday} has seven elements because it is in a one-to-one correspondence with the set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7} given by Monday1, Tuesday2,Wednesday3, Thursday4, Friday5, Saturday6, Sunday7. Note that there are other possible ways of setting up a one-to-one correspondence between these two sets but what matters is the existence of one such correspondence.

There is absolutely nothing surprising about this example. We all know that there are seven days in a week. However, if the concept of infinity pops up in a similar situation, counterintuitive conclusions are obtained. You may be surprised to find out that the set of all positive integers {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,…} is in a one-to-one correspondence with the set of even positive integers {2, 4, 6,…}. One way of setting such a correspondence is

1 2 3 4 5

← ← ← ← ←

2 4 6 8 10 …

Therefore, there are as many even (positive) integers as there are of all (positive) integers (this is a mathematically correct statement), even though the set of even integers is a strictly smaller subset of all integers. Such a situation is not possible with finite sets.

There are other well-known examples of “paradoxes” involving infinity such as Zeno’s paradox, and Gabriel’s horn.²

Treating infinity as if it is like other numbers, even with the assumption that it is greater than all other numbers, is a major reason for these “paradoxes.” Their resolutions are obtained with a proper understanding of the nature of infinity and the concept of limit. For example, adding or subtracting one element, or any finite number of elements, from an infinite set does not change its size. In some cases adding or subtracting infinitely many elements from an infinite set does not change its size either!

Even mathematicians struggled with the idea of infinity a great deal before rigorously formulating the concept and the rules about it. The fundamental notion of modern calculus is limit, which is intimately connected to infinity, in terms of either infinitely small quantities referred to as “infinitesimal” or infinitely large quantities. It took mathematicians a long time to formulate the modern rigorous definition of limit, the rules involving infinity and infinite quantities, and sets of infinite size.

Infinity and understanding the Attributes of God

While the concept of infinity is essential in mathematics, it is not the only field where it is so important. Another field in which the concept is very important is theology. The concept of infinity is intimately connected to the concept of Divinity. In mathematics, compared to infinity all numbers are equal, and equally small. This fact is mathematically expressed as a/∞ for any number a, whether it is 7 or 17 million. This is parallel to the theological fact that compared to God we, and the rest of the creation, are infinitely small. Nobody can claim to be greater than any other human being or any other being in the universe, no matter how powerful or wealthy he or she might be. Therefore, we cannot attribute to anybody greatness to the degree of regarding him or her as divine. Nursi expresses this view in the following words:

“O human! It is a Qur’anic principle that you must not consider anything other than God Almighty as greater than you to the degree that you worship it. Nor must you consider yourself greater than anything and thus claim greatness before and dominion over it. For, just as all creatures are equally far from being the Object of Worship, they are also equal in being creatures.”³

We have seen that treating infinity like other numbers (even with the understanding that it is greater than all other numbers) leads to seemingly irresolvable paradoxes. Similarly, treating God like humans leads to an incomplete and incorrect understanding of God and the creation. God is not only greater than all that is created, He is also not bound by the kinds of restrictions that created beings are subject to. With His infinite power, creating one flower is as easy for Him as creating all the creatures on earth every spring. Creating all the trees in the world is no more difficult for God than creating one piece of apple. He can create countless things at the same moment. Creating a trillion things is no more difficult for Him than creating one thing.

Unfortunately, it is all too common to see the evidence of attributing incorrect characteristics and restrictions to the Almighty. For example, some “try to free God from the burden of special acts of creation”4 by attributing the development of species to evolution, natural selection, and random phenomena. They do not seem to understand that it is no “burden” for God to create anything, whether it be a tiny individual or billions of species. He can create a great number of things at once. He is not forgetful or incompetent. Nothing He does interferes with another one of His actions. He continues to create every moment everywhere in the universe and He has power to do so. He is closer to every one of us every moment than we are to ourselves: Assuredly, it is We Who have created human and We know what suggestions his soul makes to him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein (Qaf 50:16). Therefore, there is no burden for God in dealing with special acts of creation.

Since we are subject to many restrictions as humans, we may fall into the error of attributing similar restrictions to God. So, we need to be more careful when we consider the Attributes of God. One of the restrictions by which we are bound is time. Unlike us, God is above and beyond time. Many people have difficulty comprehending the idea of destiny (or qadar, or divine decree in Islamic literature). If we understand that God is not restricted by time, it becomes much easier to understand this concept. Since He is beyond time, He does not need to “wait” to see the consequences of events in the universe. While it is not our purpose to have a full discussion of this important article of faith here, we want to point out one of its connections with the topic. A detailed explanation of divine decree can be found in Said Nursi’s Twenty-sixth Word.5 Those who do not understand that God is not restricted by time ask questions like, “What was God doing before creating the universe?” This question is meaningless with a proper understanding of the Attributes of God.

Attributing to God deficiencies by which we are constrained, such as forgetfulness, tiredness, and incompetence, is a great mistake, one similar to treating ordinary numbers like infinity. It leads to paradoxes that we cannot resolve. It prevents us from having a proper understanding of God and the creation. We can only understand the mystery of the creation by a proper understanding of its Creator, and we need to be very careful when talking about the Attributes of this Creator.

Nuh Aydin is an associate professor of Mathematics at Kenyon College, in Ohio, USA.

Notes

1. Maor, E. To Infinity and Beyond: A Cultural History of Infinity, Birkhauser, 1987. See also http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/davidhilbe181572.html; http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Quotations/Hilbert.html; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert%27s_paradox_of_the_Grand_Hotel
2. Ibid.
3. Nursi, Bediüzzaman Said, The Gleams, Seventeenth Gleam, NJ: Tughra Books, p. 160.
4. Collins, F. S. Language of God, Free Press, 2006, p. 140.
5. Nursi, The Words, Twenty Sixth Word, NJ: Tughra Books, pp. 479–494.

This article does not claim to provide answers about social traits or morality in general, but simply summarizes the findings of two recent scientific papers that appeared in the journals Science and Nature, describing interesting research on social ethics and moral behavior. The broader implications of the studies are left to the reader to reflect upon.

The article published in Science magazine presents a line of evidence that spending money on others makes us happier. The Nature article comes up with a – perhaps – more surprising finding: preverbal infants can evaluate social actions, and strongly prefer individuals who help others. The results of the two articles thus suggest that not only do we become happier by doing good to others, but we also feel sympathy for other individuals who do so, even before we start talking.

Spending on others makes us happier

In order to investigate the effects of spending money on others, researchers at the University of Vancouver in collaboration with Dr. Michael Norton of Harvard University, first asked a representative group of 632 Americans to rate their general happiness, report their annual income, and estimate how much they spend monthly on: i) bills and expenses, ii) gifts for themselves, iii) gift for others, and iv) charity donations.1 The first and second items of expenditure were averaged to calculate an index of “personal spending,” whereas the third and fourth items were used similarly to deduce a “prosocial spending” index. Data analysis revealed that significantly greater happiness was associated with higher prosocial spending, whereas personal spending was found to be unrelated to happiness.

Second, a group of employees who received a profit-sharing bonus from their companies were put to a similar test. All sixteen employees reported their annual income as well as their general happiness one month before receiving the bonus. Almost two months after the bonus, the same participants reported their general happiness and were asked to estimate how much of their bonus was spent personally or prosocially. The prosocial spending was again found to be the significant predictor of happiness, whilst the income and the bonus both remained insignificant.

Finally, the researchers designed experiments in order to further decipher the correlation between happiness and prosocial spending. To this end, forty-six university students were asked to assess their happiness in the morning, and were given $5 or $20 (a one time stipend) to be spent by 5 p.m. on the same day. Some participants were randomly instructed to spend the money on a bill, an expense, or a gift for themselves (personal spending condition), and the rest were told to spend the money on a gift for someone else, or a donation to charity (prosocial spending condition). After 5 pm, participants were asked to report their general happiness. The participants in the prosocial-spending group reported greater post-stipend happiness, with the effect of stipend size (i.e. $5 or $20) remaining insignificant. This work hence demonstrated that spending money on others promotes more happiness than spending money on oneself-a result that was apparently counterintuitive. Interestingly, when the conditions of the experiments were described to 109 students from the same university and they were asked their opinion on what condition would make them happiest, they were doubly wrong about their prediction: a significant proportion estimated that the $20 on personal spending would cause the highest happiness.

Preverbal infants can evaluate social actions

The second study by a Yale group describes experimental designs where preverbal infants (i.e. infants having not yet learned to speak) were made to watch animated events.2 (The group of infants chosen for the experiments were 6–10 months old.) In the first scheme (see figure, Scheme 1), a character (a red, circular object with eyes) tries to climb a slope, but fails in its first two attempts (A). At the third attempt, another character comes into the picture, either helping the climber by pushing from behind (B), or hindering it by pushing down (C). When the infants were encouraged to choose between the helper and the hinderer, they almost always reached for the helper (only 2 of 26 infants chose the hinderer). Interestingly, when the climber was made to look like an inanimate object as a control, infants did not show any preference for B or C. (Eyes were removed from the climber, and the climber no longer underwent self-propelling motion with the experiment unchanged in all other aspects.) This suggested that the infants did not choose the helper in the first experiment because they simply preferred the action or the shape or the color (further control experiments) of the helper, but instead their choice was purely social: With the eyes removed from the climber, the infants no longer identified the climber as an individual, and did not perceive the events as social interactions.

It is known that infants look at unexpected events for longer times.2 After the experiment described above, the same infants were subjected to a second test where their observation times were measured. In the display (see figure, Scheme 2), the climber sitting atop a hill initially goes back and forth (D) between the helper and the hinderer, and eventually approaches one of the two (E, the climber ends up approaching the helper; F, the climber ends up approaching the hinderer). On average, the infants stared at the display longer when the climber approached the hinderer (which is a surprising action), compared to the climber approaching the helper (which is an unsurprising action). These findings altogether suggest for the first time that the preverbal infants, although themselves unaffected as third parties (hence remaining unbiased), could make judgments about the value of a social act by differentially evaluating those who perform in positive and negative ways.

Social cooperation

Social ethics is not only puzzling for philosophers and sociologists, but also for biologists because social traits are not inherently specific to humans. For instance, altruistic forms of behavior appear to be ubiquitous in nature and occur in creatures from bacteria to mammals. Even within a rapidly growing bacterial culture, a minority of cells are known to commit to reduced growth rates.3 This slow-growing subpopulation can survive an antibiotic encounter to regenerate the colony, providing an insurance policy for the whole population despite their reduced self-benefit. Towards the other end of the spectrum of living beings, vervet monkeys have watchmen that warn fellow monkeys in the presence of predators by attracting attention to themselves,4 increasing their own risk of being attacked. On first reflection, altruism contradicts the selfishness which is the natural outcome of the underlying assumption of Darwinian evolution, survival of the fittest. If only the fittest survive, according to natural selection, how can such magnanimous behavior continue to exist, when individuals who do not maximize their own interest should have been wiped out long before we can come to know them? Biologists are nowadays trying hard to reconcile altruism with selfishness, and altruistic behavior poses yet another challenge for evolutionary biologists (see a recent article in The Fountain for a detailed review5).

Reflections

• Surely We have created human of the best stature as the perfect pattern of creation. (Tin 95:4)
• Those men and women who give alms and lend to God a goodly loan, it will be increased manifold to their credit, and they will have an honorable, generous reward in addition. (Al-Hadid 57:18)
• The Prophet (may peace be upon him) reported that God said, “I created my servants in the right religion but devils made them go astray.” Every child is born with the fitrah (an innate disposition towards virtue, knowledge, and beauty). Everyone is born in the nature of Islam. (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)

Bill Sayoran is a freelance writer living in Boston. He can be contacted at billsayoran@gmail.com.

Notes

1. “Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness”, Science, vol. 319, 21 March 2008.
2. “Social Evaluation by Preverbal Infants” Nature, vol. 450, 22 November 2007. Videos of the animated events can be found at the Nature magazine website: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/suppinfo/nature06288.html
3. “Is Bacterial Persistence a Social Trait?”, PLoS ONE, Issue 8, August 2007.
4. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
5. “Darwinism and Altruism: Is There A Problem?,” The Fountain, Issue 64, July–August 2008.
6. http://saifur.tripod.com/religion.html

M&B: Dr. Mitchell, you have been teaching your course on the Bible and Modern Science for the last nine years. Could we start with the contents of this course and why you were interested in teaching it?

Dr. Mitchell: I’ve been teaching this advanced course in the religious studies minor since 2000, and it’s been a longtime interest for me. Since I started teaching at universities in 1974, I have included a study of the relationship between science and the Bible in almost all of my courses because I think that is probably the least understood controversy.

With the attempt to have a little epistemological humility-that is, I am not a scientist, I don’t claim to be a trained scientist-I am not trying to convert anybody, whether they are atheist or Christian to any particular point of view. My primary approach to this topic is to help both Christians and atheists to read the Bible because I think a lot of the confusion and a lot of the controversy about science and the Bible is the result of somebody not sitting down and explaining to people how to read the Bible. This debate is very heated in America. It splits families, it splits schools, and it splits churches.

So the course is unashamedly an attempt to help people incorporate what they are learning about science with their Christian faith, or with their faith, whatever it is. In a sense I lean in the opposite direction to some of the science teachers, in that many of them tend to lean toward mocking or making fun of the faith of people who believe, for instance, some of the more recent writers like Dawkins and Hitchens. I feel my job is to be a person on the campus who offsets that influence. So, first of all I focus on how to read the Bible. But the importance of learning how to read the Bible arises because the history of science in Europe and in the United States has been based on a conception of what science is and what faith is and how to relate the two which is really not based on knowledge; it’s just based on some poorly known incidents between Galileo and the Church.

M&B: Historical experiences?

Dr. Mitchell: Yes, historical experiences. One of the things I read when I was at Rice University was W.T. Stace’s Religion and the Modern Mind. The conclusion he came to is one that I think is very important for people to know-that among the basic things that were discovered in the Scientific Revolution, there was nothing which should have had the slightest tendency to either prove or disprove faith, or even the existence of God. So, the fact that in the West, there was an Age of Faith, followed by an Age of Reason, then an Age of Unbelief is not for any scientific reason. It’s because of a psychological transition that took place, or because people misunderstood what was really discovered in the Scientific Revolution.

The modern conception, or the modern myth, is that Christianity and other religions just went along through the Middle Ages being totally ignorant of science, which of course is a historical nonsense. If they had been totally ignorant of science, there never would have been a Scientific Revolution. People believe that science was actually suppressed so much by the Middle Ages that it took an explosion of unbelief in order for modern science to develop. So, I make sure that people understand that all of the revolutionaries of modern science were religious believers and the idea that somehow some atheist dropped out of the sky and won the battle with the Church is nonsense. There was no battle between science and the Christian faith in history. The only battle was a battle that occurred among Christians about how the Bible should be read in the light of modern discoveries. And that continued for a long time.

M&B: What was the nature of the conflict that occurred between Galileo and the Catholic Church?

Dr. Mitchell: The battle within the Catholic Church was not primarily over the Bible or over faith; it was a political battle based on the fact that the Catholic Church knew that it was then losing its hold over the entire Christian faith and was also losing its control primarily over political power.

That’s what scared them, and so when they talked about being afraid of what Galileo said, it wasn’t primarily because they necessarily disagreed with it. It was because of their fear of the confusion that it would cause among the faithful, the Christians who were not well-educated. But they obviously could not hold that back. It was going to burst. But a part of the Roman Catholic church, a very small part of the Roman Catholic church, namely the Pope and the Office of the Inquisition, treated Galileo very badly. There are some things that people need to know about Galileo, and one is that he was a very ornery person, very difficult to get along with. That’s one of the reasons they had a problem with him. The Pope was a friend of his and didn’t necessarily disagree with him; he just thought that he was being obnoxious. Galileo would never recognize the description of him as this giant anti-Christian, anti-faith person who stood up to the Church and the Church punished him for it. He considered himself to be a good Catholic, he considered himself to be in conformity with all basic Catholic doctrine. The only reason he wrote was to try to show Catholic people that they did not have to reject the new knowledge that was coming about. Not only that, the main battle was not over the Bible; it was over Aristotle. The Pope and the Inquisition did not try to punish Galileo because he was a Christian or a Catholic or because of the Bible. They tried to punish him because he was too hastily critiquing and trying to do away with Aristotle, and Aristotle had become the scientific philosophy of the medieval Church. Now, Aristotle is not a Christian, and I take a little time to point that out. So, they were fighting about Aristotle’s view of the universe, not the biblical view because the Bible doesn’t have a scientific description of what the universe is. That’s the reason why we Christians, just like Muslims, started working on science; they adopted Aristotle because Aristotle was the scientist, and Ptolemy too. One of the main points I’m trying to get across is that there never has, in the history of the world, been a battle between Christianity and science.

Also, I like to remind people that Copernicus was published by the Church, and that Galileo was published by the Church. There was nobody else to publish their works. Indeed, the foreword to Copernicus was written by the Pope-though a different Pope than Galileo’s. There is no doubt that there were ignorant people and hostile people, but they were all Catholics arguing. It wasn’t science versus faith. The same thing happened with Protestantism, as science in the west was transferred primarily through Protestants because the people in England and Holland and places like that who carried on the scientific tradition were the Puritans. The Puritans were the ones who carried science forward. In other words, to put it bluntly, science is a gift of religious people to the modern world. Religious people should know that so that they do not think that they have to be reactionary. In fact, we don’t ordinarily think that way. I would say a good portion of the people who teach science, and even philosophy, at the universities in the area where I live are faithful people.

Now, as for specific areas that Galileo dealt with, he told some folks, for instance, that he had a telescope that could see that there are more than seven planets. According to the story, Archbishop Bellarmine refused to look through it because the Bible says there are only seven planets. In fact, the Bible doesn’t discuss the subject. It was Aristotle who said there were only seven planets. Again, that was a fight between Galileo and Aristotle. But some of the Bible people would throw out things like a passage in the Book of Joshua which is taken from a poem from the Book of the Wars which we don’t have. The only thing we have from this book are quotations like the one in Joshua, and it’s poetry. In this poem in the Book of Joshua, it says that the sun stood still in the valley of Aijalon, and then Joshua was able to complete his battle against the enemies of God. Well, some of the Bible people said, “Well, that’s just absolute scientific proof that the sun moves around the earth.” But there were a lot of medieval theologians who knew that wasn’t the way you should interpret the Bible. So, Galileo did a lot of speaking on that subject when he wrote his letters to defend his case, particularly his letter to the Grand Duchess.

A lot of people today think that one of the things that bothered the Church at the time of Galileo was that they believed that the earth was flat. The Church did not believe the earth was flat at the time of Galileo or at the time of Columbus, but that’s still the street talk. In fact, Thomas Aquinas knew of only one theologian in all of the history of the Church who argued that the earth was flat. Thomas Aquinas said that he was an ignoramus because Aquinas believed, as did Aristotle and Ptolemy, that the world was round. The picture many people have of medieval science is as if it were done by ignorant people and that in order for modern science to win they had to overcome the ignorance of all of these medieval scientists including those in Seville. But of course that’s where Aquinas had gotten his science-from the Muslims in Andalusia. That’s where he’d gotten his Aristotle. So the High Middle Ages was not the Dark Ages. That’s a mistake lots of Americans make, including PhDs in universities, talking about the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages preceded the Middle Ages. And that was a dark age. But the High Middle Ages was not a dark age. It was an age of the most intense intellectual ferment in human history, and certainly in contrast to every place else in the world, except the Muslim world, where the same thing was going on. So, you see, those are ideas that I’m trying to let people know about. For instance, to explain that the idea that the sun stood still in the valley of Aswan is from a poem that’s taken from a non-Biblical book.

M&B: How about the genealogy of Prophets in the Bible?

Dr. Mitchell: There is genealogy in the early part of the Bible, which treats genealogy as if it were chronology, which is all you can do if all you have is genealogy. They treated genealogy as chronology. All traditional cultures have these genealogies, but they cannot really be used as chronology. First of all, their purpose is different from chronology. Their purpose is to keep the genealogy or lineage. So, for instance, there are some genealogists in the Christian Bible that say, “Jesus was the son of David that was the son of Abraham.” It’s a genealogy. Obviously, it is not very complete.

M&B: So, by “son,” it means “grandson”?

Dr. Mitchell: Yes, it means descendant-or an ancestor-but there are other considerations. If we consider the genealogies to be scientific chronologies, then we’re still thinking of the Bible as primarily a scientific book. But, whether it’s true or not, it became fairly accepted by Christian geologists and others in the nineteenth century that geology certainly seemed to say that the world was older than six thousand years. At that time they thought it was maybe 200,000 years old, and every few years since then it has been pushed back. But they did not consider that change a threat to their faith because they understood that the Bible was written for a different purpose. They understood that if we spend all of our time trying to make it concordant with scientific theories, first of all, the two will never be concordant because scientific theories change every generation. Second, it would mean that the people to whom these books were originally revealed could not possibly have understood them because they would be scientific books and science is not something they were interested in; it was not something that they could comprehend. So, that argument about the sun standing still did not last very long, and even most modern-day scientific creationists do not try to argue that that poem has to be taken as a literal scientific view. Otherwise, you’d have to do the same thing to the Psalms and so forth. In fact, there are several creation accounts in the Hebrew Bible that are different from the creation account in Genesis because they’re for different purposes. In fact, all creation accounts are doxological; they are praise that God is the Only One-He is the One God, that the moon and the stars and the planets are not gods, that the animals are not gods, that human beings are not gods and so forth. Even though they are not gods, they are still good. So, that’s what we should have been carrying on, instead of carrying on this debate about science-especially with these ridiculous stories that are added to it.

M&B: So, it’s not right to read the Bible as a book of science to draw strict conclusions.

Dr. Mitchell: The point I want to make is that both Christian fundamentalists and atheistic fundamentalists are too uptight about this question, and that is detrimental to religious faith. Some people come into my office crying because they just learned that the earth is maybe more than six thousand years old, and they say, “Professor Mitchell, I’m losing my faith,” and I say to them, “What do you mean you’re losing your faith?”

“Well, the Bible says the earth is six thousand years old, and my professor says it’s more than six thousand years old.”

“Well, you’ve got a Bible,” I tell them, “and I’ve got a Bible over there, so why don’t you show me where it says that the earth is six thousand years old?”

What is changing is that you may be changing a belief, and that’s not the same thing as losing your faith. You’re changing a belief, and if you’re a forty-year-old person of faith or a hundred-year-old person of faith, you shouldn’t probably have all of exactly the same beliefs that you had when you were eighteen, and that’s very important to people.

To the atheists, I want to say that they should learn a little bit about history and the philosophy of science and logic, and learn what faith is, so that they have a little bit more respect for people of faith, even if they are the extremists, because every time they write about something that is going on in a school district or whatever, they act like they’re in a panic. That is, they seem to think that if we allow people to believe that human beings are the creation of God, science is lost. Well, the problem for that argument is that all of the people who were scientists up until their great grandfathers or their grandfathers were people who believe that human beings are the creation of God, and science didn’t die.

Yuksel A. Aslandogan is the editor of Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World: The Contributions of the Gulen Movement.

The Earth’s shape is becoming rounder as a result of the construction of projects like the Three Gorges reservoir. The weight decrease due to the melting icecaps has played a major role in these changes.

From time immemorial, humanity has wondered about the shape of the Earth. Over the centuries countless studies exploring the Earth and its shape have been conducted, and they still continue today. With advancements in technology, the methods and measuring devices have constantly changed. In earlier periods the Earth was believed to be flat; nevertheless from around the fifth century bc there were varying opinions suggesting that the Earth was actually round and calculations were conducted to measure its radius. Particularly from the seventh century ce onwards, the number of studies regarding what the Earth really looked like have increased tremendously.¹

In later years, with the advent of Islam and its open encouragement of Muslims to explore the universe and make advances in science, Muslim scholars made huge progress in astronomical research. Historians who have studied these advancements in astronomical science agree that the era between the eighth and fourteenth centuries can aptly be designated as a period of Islamic astronomy. In the years following the sixteenth century, significant research was undertaken in relation to the shape of the Earth and measurements of its radius in both the Islamic world and the West.

In the eighteenth century astronomic research and the advancement of technology proved not only that the Earth was round, but that it had a distinctive shape. According to calculations, the Earth was bulging around the equator and flattened at the poles. The maps produced by satellite systems show that the Earth is not completely round or smooth, but rather it has protrusions, creating an uneven surface that resembles a face with spots.2

“Geoid” is the term scientists prefer to use when referring to the physical depiction of the Earth’s surface. The shape of the Earth is not a perfect ellipsoid, thus, scientists use this representative surface that is thought to be most approximate to sea level, in order to identify departures from the ellipsoid shape. Due to the events of nature and human-related factors the geoid constantly changes, and this is why a precise mathematical account of the geoid has not yet been possible.

The Earth is known to be a geologically active planet. Just as everything else in the universe, from atoms to galaxies, has not been left to their own fate, the Earth is also constantly being transformed, thus making our magnificent ecosystem possible. The continuous geological process of changes in the Earth’s crust is related to a variety of factors: the varying density of the rock layers which form the Earth’s crust, the activity of the tectonic plates, as well as the movement of the continents, shifts in the center of gravity, tidal activity, hydro-spherical and atmospheric phenomena, and human intervention in some regions.

Researching the variations in the gravity of the Earth with satellite systems is a relatively new method of recording the changes in geoid elevations. The distance between the center of the Earth and its surface is constant (the tallest mountains will rise or decrease 1-2cm per year at most); if we take into consideration that the Earth’s physical body does not vary much and disregard the other forces, then we can say that the main reason for these infinitesimal changes in gravity on the surface of the Earth is due to differences in mass. While there is a decrease in weight in specific regions from melting glaciers, in other areas there is an increase in weight due to melting water flowing into reservoirs; both these phenomena play a significant role in the variations of the Earth’s gravity.

Even a minor variation in mass can be detected by measuring gravity. The change of mass location on the Earth’s surface results in gravity variations in the same region; in brief, today the commonly used gravity measurements are the most important source for detecting and identifying variations in geoid elevations, as well as determining the actual reasons for these changes. Gravity measurements are conducted via satellite systems; these indicate changes in mass location by detecting an increase or decrease in weight. The most modern technological satellite systems that can detect gravity change and allow us to follow the variations in masses on the Earth’s surface are the satellite used by the European Space Agency, called GOCE, and NASA’s satellite, called GRACE. GOCE has been designed to perform accurate studies of the Earth’s gravity field as it progresses into orbit. As the satellite passes over the regions where gravity is intense or weak, it measures the variations in gravity with signals that have been conveyed by a device called a gradiometer. GRACE is a pair of identical satellites that are flying in the same orbit, 136 miles apart; they orbit the Earth at a distance of 300 miles. These satellites can measure distances with microwave signals, and can detect changes of less than 1% the thickness of human hair; thus the twin satellites are able to accurately measure the distance to the surface of the Earth. The measurements provided by this satellite system make it possible for changes in gravity to be calculated. The GRACE satellite data is 1,000 times more accurate than other gravity field detection systems.

The enormous waves that occurred on the sea surface as a result of the Sumatra Island earthquake, which measured 9 on the Richter scale, caused a level ridge, measuring about six meters in height, to form on the shore. According to data produced by GOCE, such changes in the mass of the Earth’s surface caused a variation of 18 mm to occur on the geoid; this is recognized as a relatively high degree of change.

Changes in the polar glaciers also cause variations in the geoid; data provided from satellite GRACE shows that the layers of ice in Greenland and the Antarctica are melting at a higher rate than previously expected. The melting icebergs are causing a rise in sea levels of up to 0.41 mm every year and the weight of water produced from the melting icecaps is causing changes to the shape of the Earth’s surface.3

One of the interesting facts attained by GRACE is the changes in the Earth’s gravity field that have been caused by Three Gorges in China, the largest reservoir ever built. The lake region of the reservoir that is being built measures around 372 miles long, 70 miles wide and approximately 574 feet deep; when the casing of the reservoir is completed it will house an amazing 39.3 billion m3 (9.4 cu mi) of water. The area that this reservoir will cover once the project is completed is so great that it will make an estimated 1.5 million people homeless. It has been observed that the enormous accumulation of water in the completed sections of the reservoir has increased the gravity level in that region, which in turn has caused changes in the geoid structure.4

Scientists have confirmed that the Earth’s shape is becoming rounder as a result of the construction of projects like the Three Gorges reservoir. It is also estimated that the weight decrease due to the melting icecaps has played a major role in these changes. In some regions of Scandinavia and Canada the ground is rising 1 cm every year due to the melting glaciers. The water produced from the melting glaciers is forcing the currents in the Atlantic Ocean towards the equator, while the decrease of mass at the poles and the increase of weight in the equator region have caused significant changes in the shape of the Earth.

Many scientists claim that changes in the Earth’s surface have been caused by changes in the climate. Unfortunately, according to a report published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), humans are responsible for 90% of global warming. As a result of these vast variations, the geoid shape of the Earth is becoming rounder and its radius is increasing annually by 0.4–0.8 mm. The reasons for these changes are being closely monitored by scientists. According to scientists, the variation of the geoid that has been caused by changes in mass location is having an effect on the Earth’s dynamics, with the transfer of mass demonstrated by the changes in gravity causing a reduction in the speed of the Earth’s rotation around its axis; this is expected to result in variations in the daily time-zone.

Abdullah Sancak is pursuing an academic career in engineering in Turkey.

Notes

1. For more information on this topic see James R. Smith, Introduction to Geodesy, The history and Concepts of Modern Geodesy, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997.
2. There are interesting images that show how the earth looks in the following link: University of Texas Center for Space Research and NASA (7 Haziran 2005) http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/gallery/gravity/
3. G. Ramillien, A. Lombard, A. Cazenave, E. R. Ivins, M. Llubes, F. Remy, R. Biancale, Interannual variations of the mass balance of the Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets from GRACE, Global and Platenary Change 53 (2006) 198-208.
4. San Shaoan, Institute of seismology, CEA, Wuhan, China, Gravity change before and after the first water impoundment in Three Gorges Project. http://www.sgg.whu.edu.cn/icct/html/icct_ppt/S1/sun.s.A___fourth.pdf