As citizens of this macro-reality, we can often feel as if we are but pawns in the vast global chess game being played by multinational corporations, traditional superpowers, new and emerging nuclear powers, and the economic pushbuttons of development and consumer capitalism. Within such a world, some may find it difficult to believe that our individual choices can make a difference in our communities. So what if a few dozen or even a few hundred people in our city get together for an interfaith meal? So what if families from different cultures living together in a town get to know each other? What difference does it make in the end? Political powers and other forces call the larger shots and will send us all into war and conflict if they so desire. Human nature being what it is, we will succumb to our baser instincts in hard times no matter how many positive interfaith or intercultural experiences we’ve had with others.

Critics of interfaith dialogue often make this case. They point to examples from Bosnia, the Middle East, Kashmir, Punjab, Rwanda and elsewhere to illustrate that people who coexist peacefully for centuries can be manipulated into barbarically killing each other relatively quickly. Tyrants, insurgents and other power-seekers have learned that cultural, ethnic, and/or religious differences can form natural fault lines in a given communal fabric, which can be exploited by skillful media messaging and the opportunistic staging of current events into powerfully persuasive political theater. Once the mass media have been harnessed, if not outright hijacked, power seekers can move populations as if mountains – whipping up mass fear, anger, hysteria and eventually an appetite for genocide.

Interfaith dialogue seems no match for these gargantuan modern monstrosities. And, in many cases, it isn’t. The warmly felt bonds of interfaith harmony that thrive in times of relative peace and prosperity chill easily in times of strife and hardship, especially when political, economic or national security interests are at stake. In such times, usually all but a few individuals will succumb to fear, and then retreat to their respective religio-ethnic corners to prepare for a fight. The individuals who maintain their commitment to peaceful coexistence with their neighbors resist the fight, try to save their friends who have suddenly become “the enemy” because of their religion or ethnicity, and often lose their lives in the process. They may be heroes, to be sure, but they are dead. And they do not win in the end; the warmongers do – at least, most of the time.

But not all the time. Occasionally, we find exceptions to this all too common trajectory in human socio-political relations. Situations wherein populations held themselves together despite enormous pressures to fight and kill one another. Where community leaders resisted the gravitational pull of hatred that strips them of their voices and replaces them with those of fear mongers and peddlers of hatred. When we find these exceptions, we must review and analyze the exact conditions that made them possible in the first place, and determine if they can be replicated in other situations of strife and war.

I encountered such an exceptional situation this past spring while visiting Croatia. Fuzine is one of several quaint mountain villages in the district of Gorski Kotar in northern end of the Dalmatian coast of Croatia. I recently listened to the former governor of the district and a local radio producer tell their stories from the period of the war in 1991.

A Yugoslavian Army base camp was built near the district, on top of a hill. Normally, the existence of this base would have been the beginning of the end for peaceful relations between the Croat and Serbian villages of the district. Croats would view the base as a danger and a provocation, as well as a support camp to the Serbian villages. The Serbians, for their part, would have used the base as a “back-up” for their own violence against their Croat neighbors. Since violence begets violence, Croats or Serbs would make the first strike and the cycle would begin. Many would die, the villages would be destroyed, and the resulting “life” would resemble existence on the surface of the moon.

That’s not what happened.

In a stunning turn of events, the municipal leaders of all the villages – Serb and Croat – approached the base commanders and established a relationship with them. After several meetings, it became clear that none of them wanted either to shoot at each other or to be shot. So, they made a written agreement that constituted the “terms” of their coexistence during those months. For example, when the Yugoslav army was required to fire on the villages, per orders from up the chain of command, they warned the citizens ahead of time and instructed them on how to survive the barrage. They provided the citizens with maps of the mines they laid. The village leaders returned the favor and provided base commanders with a “heads up” when they were forced, by public opinion and the radical fringe, to fire on the army base. The local radio producer treated the army base as another “village” in the district and reported its news, events, and played music for the troops, etc. They called the families of wounded guards to apologize – and did so publicly on the radio – when radical elements in their midst broke the agreement and fired on the soldiers. Media reports stayed ahead of the rumor mills, reported the facts of things, and controlled the message to minimize the inflammatory impact of the angry rhetoric coming from other sources.

As a result of the extraordinary bravery and commitment from people on both sides, no one from the district was killed and no one was taken to a wartime prison camp.

Leaders on both sides suffered consequences. Two of the base commanders went to prison for 12 years. One of them disappeared into the mists of “the system” while the other was killed by civilians after being released. The radio producer in Gorski Kotar was banned from media and only recently has begun to work again. Other city leaders voluntarily disappeared into anonymity – this story was kept quiet at first – so as to avoid persecution and death for their actions.

Upon analysis, a few things stand out about this exceptional situation. First of all, there were conditions on the ground that the village leaders exploited to their advantage. The Gorski Kotar district was somewhat geographically remote from the heart of the fighting during the war. As such, neither the base nor the villagers had direct daily involvement in the heart of the war’s operations. Without interventions for peace that could have certainly changed, and the district could have become an additional center or “theater” of the war; however, the interventions took advantage of the district’s “off the beaten path” status. An additional opportunity came in the fact that one of the base commanders was nearing retirement, weary of his job and of fighting, and was inclined to strike a deal with the villagers as long as he could save face. Therefore, when village leaders approached him and his colleagues with a plan for peaceful coexistence, they were ready to negotiate a plan that would let both sides fly under the radar of the larger war and possibly come away from it largely unscathed.

Secondly, media leaders took their share of responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the arrangement with the base camp, as well as for keeping the peace between the villages during particularly tense weeks. Put simply, radio and print media controlled the message in favor of peace. When infractions to the agreement happened from time to time, from both sides, reporting of the story was done in the least inflammatory way possible. For example, when the base camp did an obligatory firing on the villages (after warning the villagers of the times and locations) and accidentally damaged the radio transmission tower, the base commander sent his own soldiers to repair it immediately so that broadcasts could resume as soon as possible. More importantly, this fact was reported to the community so as to minimize anger and outrage over the incident. In short, media operatives used their power for peace and not for war. They recognized the power of media to incite, enflame, and create the larger narrative in which people experience things in their communities. Through skillful messaging and the coordination of communication lines, they maintained and nurtured the agreement for peace through its many months, creating the very conditions for peaceful coexistence.

Finally, we can see that community leaders in the villages refused to relinquish immediately their roles as leaders to the larger forces of the army. They easily could have done otherwise. Once the base camp was established, they could have decided that war was now inevitable, that their little villages stood no chance to resist the war tide rolling towards them, and that each village needed to now begin fortifying themselves against the army and each other, and prepare to fight and die.

They didn’t do this. Instead, they banded together, created a plan, and took a huge risk in walking up the hill to the base camp and presenting it to the commanders. The creativity, courage and will power this required of them simply cannot be overstated. In the end, this human element is what makes the ultimate difference. Human beings are endowed with self-consciousness, agency and imagination, which allows us to not only visualize alternative scenarios in any given situation, but also to imagine and implement alternative courses of action within them – for ourselves and for others. These leaders together resisted the war tide, created an alternative possibility for their district, and bravely took radical steps to implement it. And it worked. Not flawlessly, but enough to keep their people, their homes and their way of life from going up in flames.

Can what happened in Gorski Kotar work everywhere? No and yes. No, in the sense that certain conditions in place on the ground in this district that contributed to the peace are not in place ubiquitously. Most army base commanders aren’t open to illegal agreements with “enemy” villagers. Not all regional or district leaders – in the media or otherwise – have working relations good enough to band together in wartime to create and implement such a thing as this. Many other factors prevent any one exception, such as what happened in Gorski Kotar, from providing a stable template for peace easily applicable to any other situation. These situations are exceptions, after all.

Nevertheless, what happened here can be instructive for other areas. The positive and necessary role of media in maintaining the peace agreement in Gorski Kotar is abundantly clear. Those who find themselves in similar situations of religious and ethnic conflict will do well to procure access to media, if possible, sooner rather than later in order to shape the messaging toward peace and restraint, away from hatred and violence. Today’s 21st century media technology resists totalitarian control in important ways, as recent events in Iran, China and even North Korea indicate. Those with skills can exploit media for peace as well as for war.

Finally, in the end, much turns on the simple power of human agency and choice, and the willingness of people to join together and exercise that agency in the direction of peace in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances. Of course, such principled action plans don’t always make a difference. In fact, such plans may often fail in times of war. But, they certainly have no chance of success at all if people give up on the fight from the beginning and refuse even to attempt to alter the course of things. On this point, people on the brink of war in all sorts of situations have at least a chance – perhaps not a big chance, but a chance nevertheless – to turn the tide in another direction, or at least to reduce the body count and carnage.

I am haunted by an image one of the community leaders in Gorski Kotar used in telling us their story when we met with them. The radio producer told us that media flies “as fast as a bird, as fast as the speed of light” even; however, it typically arrives after the dead bodies already lay on the ground. The producer and the other leaders in the community wanted to avoid bodies on the ground altogether. They wanted media to be faster than the dead.

It seems, in this case at least, they succeeded.

B. Jill Carroll is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice University.

Some modern Western scholars would ascribe the long-lasting existence of Ottoman rule to oppression and a strong military presence. According to this view, it was fear and terror that brought authority and control over at least the Balkans, a dominantly Christian territory. Careful and accurate scholarship, however, has revealed that this was certainly not the case. The majority of historical sources and archives have so far disclosed highly advanced administrative skills in the Ottoman state affairs. The most recent scholarly works, both popular and academic, have unanimously praised and applauded the Ottomans’ cultural and social contributions to the regions they administered, as well as their equitable treatment of their subjects over long periods of time. The Ottoman experience of social and cultural life provides valuable lessons for those nations that live in these regions today: The value of putting aside ethnic, religious and cultural differences, of living together and cooperating for a better future, and the sacredness of human life and the respect for the right of others to live, as well as freedom of expression and religion all existed in this state.

Historically speaking, Western Europe has always been in contact with the Ottomans through commerce or other forms of international relations. Diplomacy in the Middle Ages and afterwards was made possible by ambassadors. These ambassadors would conduct negotiations regarding disputes and sign new agreements. The observations of these special envoys about their visits formed first-hand reliable information about the unknown “others.” For example, in the year 800 AD, on one of these occasions long before the Ottomans, Charlemagne sent an envoy to Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph, with gifts. On his part, the Caliph also sent many gifts to Charlemagne, one famous one being a clock. In a similar vein, many ambassadors had the chance to see and study Ottoman life closely during their visits. These visits considerably increased in number with the agreement of concessions granted by the Ottomans. The ambassadors would often record their experiences as notes or letters, which have proven to be of indispensable value for us today in studying an era and civilization about which not much is known.

Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1520–1592) was one such ambassador for the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand. He came to Turkey and wrote about the life in Ottoman lands and their public administration practices. Busbecq grew up at Busbecq Castle as the son of the reputable Busbecq family. He studied in famous schools and like his father and grandfather he followed a career as a servant of the crown. He was first sent to England in 1554, and then appointed as ambassador to the Ottomans under the rule of Süleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul from 1555 to 1562.

For the duration of his service in the Ottoman lands, Busbecq constantly wrote letters to a friend in the Netherlands. These were later on published many times, most recently by Forster and Daniel in 1881 as the Turkish Letters. Widely accepted as one of the world’s first travel literatures, Busbecq describes public life and his adventures in the Ottoman land in the letters in some detail. One of the letters is of particular interest as it sheds light on certain historical aspects related to the Janissaries, the well-trained Ottoman guards.

The word “Janissary” had negative connotations in the West during the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Muslim conquests in Eastern Europe certainly contributed to this. However, Busbecq, after a prolonged visit to the Ottoman sultan, had the chance to evaluate the Janissaries and he developed some sympathy with them. In his letter he describes these guards as being of good character and spiritually elevated. In fact, Busbecq starts this letter with a description of these highly-educated Janissaries, how they function and their duties in the Ottoman lands, as well as their equitable and unbiased treatment of the public, poor or rich, Muslim or non-Muslim:

“At Buda I made my first acquaintance with the Janissaries; this is the name by which the Turks call the infantry of the royal guard… Janissaries are scattered through every part of the state, either to garrison the forts against the enemy or to protect the Christians and Jews from the violence of the mob. There is no district with any considerable amount of population, no borough or city, which has not a detachment of Janissaries to protect the Christians, Jews, and other helpless people from outrage and wrong.”

Busbecq goes on to comment about the gentle and polite disposition of Janissaries. In fact, he seems to be quite impressed by the simplicity and modesty of these guards, praising them highly, as can be seen in his next letter:

“These Janissaries generally came to me in pairs. When they were admitted to my dining room they first bowed, and then came quickly up to me, all but running, and touched my dress or hand, as if they intended to kiss it… After reaching the door, they would stand respectfully with their arms crossed, and their eyes bowed to the ground, looking more like monks than warriors… To tell you the truth, if I had not been told beforehand that they were Janissaries, I should, without hesitation, have taken them for members of some order of Turkish monks, or brethren of some Moslem college. Yet these are the famous Janissaries, whose approach inspires terror everywhere.”

According to Busbecq, these soldiers were ready to act even under extremely harsh conditions, accepting with resignation all that happened due to their faith. The Janissaries were certainly trained to obey their commander under the most severe of circumstances. In addition, Busbecq admired the Janissaries, who would never complain about difficulties:

“On such occasions (war or campaign) they take out a few spoonfuls of flour and put them into water, adding some butter, and seasoning the mess with salt and spices; these ingredients are boiled, and a large bowl of gruel is thus obtained. Of this they eat once or twice a day, according to the quantity they have, without any bread, unless they have brought some biscuit with them…”

Busbecq then goes on to compare the attitudes of these soldiers with their Western counterparts and admits the supremacy of the former with stunning self-assessment and criticism:

“From this you will see that it is the patience, self-denial and thrift of the Turkish soldier that enable him to face the most trying circumstances and come safely out of the dangers that surround him. What a contrast to our men! … On their side is the vast wealth of their empire, unimpaired resources, experience and practice in arms, a veteran soldiery, an uninterrupted series of victories, readiness to endure hardships, union, order, discipline, thrift and watchfulness. On ours are found an empty exchequer, luxurious habits, exhausted resources, broken spirits, a raw and insubordinate soldiery, and greedy quarrels; there is no regard for discipline, license runs riot, the men indulge in drunkenness and debauchery, and worst of all, the enemy are accustomed to victory, we to defeat. Can we doubt what the result must be?”

Thus, Busbecq sets out several universal virtues and ethical and moral principles as belonging to the Janissaries. Selflessness, humility, simplicity, integrity, and honor are among the virtues that Busbecq attributes to the Janissaries. He believes the way that individuals are ranked and merited for a job or promotion in the Ottomans is certainly of importance and may help us at least to partially explain the lofty character of the Janissaries. According to Busbecq, the merits for an important position in public service and authority should be based on character and ability, rather than privileges of birth, prosperity or social status:

“No distinction is attached to birth among the Turks; the deference to be paid to a man is measured by the position he holds in the public service. There is no fighting for precedence; a man’s place is marked out by the duties he discharges. In making his appointments the Sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank, nor does he take into consideration recommendations or popularity, he considers each case on its own merits, and examines carefully into the character, ability, and disposition of the man whose promotion is in question. It is by merit that men rise in the service, a system which ensures that posts should only be assigned to the competent…”

These remarks are astounding, even to us today. Being awarded with a position is based on qualifications and past accomplishments rather than social status and rank. This normative statement certainly has political and social implications. Busbecq continues in his claim even further:

“Those who receive the highest offices from the Sultan are for the most part the sons of shepherds or herdsmen, and so far from being ashamed of their parentage, they actually glory in it, and consider it a matter of boasting that they owe nothing to the accident of birth; for they do not believe that high qualities are either natural or hereditary, nor do they think that they can be handed down from father to son, but that they are partly the gift of God, and partly the result of good training, great industry, and unwearied zeal; arguing that high qualities do not descend from a father to his son or heir, any more than a talent for music, mathematics, or the like; and that the mind does not derive its origin from the father, so that the son should necessarily be like the father in character, or emanates from heaven, and is thence infused into the human body. Among the Turks, therefore, honors, high posts, and judgeships are the rewards of great ability and good service. If a man be dishonest, or lazy, or careless, he remains at the bottom of the ladder, an object of contempt; for such qualities there are no honors in Turkey!”

Nobody is held responsible for the misfortunes or sins of their parents. Everybody is accountable for his or her own deeds. The lofty character of a mother and father does not pass to the children at birth. It is how a child is raised and educated that really matters in society. People who are elevated intellectually or spiritually are those who benefit themselves and society. Without a doubt these universal messages that Busbecq proclaims with honesty are ones that we wholeheartedly support.

In addition to being an indispensable source of information about Ottoman life more than four centuries ago, these letters also provide valuable lessons for policymakers. They remind us that the foundations of great civilizations and military power were lofty values and virtues. Power, when in the hands of the righteous, becomes an instrument for stability and balance. On the contrary, when in the hands of a tyrant, power causes chaos and anarchy in the world. Morality, integrity, equity and fairness, as well as merit, are some of the principles that may guide nations towards progress and prosperity. In a sense, a nation will rise when more of its members become selfless and are able to put the interests of “others” before “their own.” Societies that are made up of people who are ready to sacrifice themselves for the better good of others will indeed inherit a better world for their children. They will also be remembered forever. Those who put their own hedonistic ambitions before all else are doomed to be forgotten. Nobody will remember their lavish and inconsiderate lives or existence. The former U.S. president, J. F. Kennedy once said “Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.” It may be most appropriate for us to conclude as follows: “Ask not how others can help you, but ask how you can help others.”

Osman Nal is an associate professor in finance, Texas Southern University.

Notes

1. Several uprisings by local populations in different parts of the Ottoman State occurred. But their number was very limited. In the case of the Balkans, for at least 200 years, and in the Middle East for at least 400 years, social life was very calm and stable.
2. A useful book on the Ottomans is Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross and Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin.

References

1. C. T. Forster and F. H. B. Daniel, eds. The Life and Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Vol. I, London: Kegan Paul, 1881.
2. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1555busbecq.html

(continued from the previous issue)

Using the distinct groves and folds on the hemispheres as a guideline, a map drawn on the cortex identifies focal points, where the various senses are concentrated, and activities in particular regions. Each of these different colored schematic centers has a specific name and performs specific functions. For example, the region above the neck at the back of the head (occipital lobe) is the field of sight; the sections that coincide with the temporal region is the field of hearing; immediately in front of this, on the left, is (generally) the field of speech; in the forehead region (frontal lobe), on the anterior wall of the middle canal is the initial center of planning of movement; on the top section of the front region is the field of complex movement; immediately behind here, in the middle-side region, is the field of simple movement; the area behind this, next to the hearing field and extending upwards, is defined as the touch receptive field. However, these areas are not confined, but rather spread out, and have a very complex connection network. The duty of the adjoining areas of these regions is to display and decipher the meaning of the signals received from the nerves. As the received signals regenerate past experiences and memories, the object or event sending the signal is recognized. To perform voluntary complex movements, the plan of movement must initially be defined in the mind and then the combination of this plan is conveyed through my nerve fibers to the movement regions. As complicated activities in humans, such as talking, and activities that involve the sensory integration mechanisms are miracles in themselves, it is quite astonishing that certain people claim that humans evolved from apes, later learning how to speak. The spinal cord (medulla spinalis) that extends from the skull in the form of a long cord, is the central nervous system sending signals to the body regions under the neck. The grey matter of the brain is located on the surface, while the white matter lies beneath the cortex; however with the spine, the butterfly shaped grey matter is inside, and the white matter on the surface covers the grey matter. In this central nervous system, all of the sensual messages that are received from the entire peripheral system, in particular from your skin and muscle, are immediately connected with the synapses or connections of the movement cells, and thus a spinal reflex is produced. As a section of the connecting cells (synapses) responds with a reflex, the other section transmits the signal to me to determine the appropriate voluntary response. For instance, if you tread on a nail, as the nail goes into the foot, a signal is transmitted by the sensor fibers to the spine, and to avoid a loss of time, the spine immediately signals the movement nerves before me, and a command is transmitted to your muscle you to raise your foot. And after your foot is saved by instant reflex, you begin to perform the other conscious activities, for example; you avoid putting weight on the foot, and bandage the wound if it is bleeding.

31 pairs of nerves (right and left) emerge from the spinal cord; 12 pairs from the brain area lay beneath the skull. These are all nerves that emerge from the central nervous system, and are distributed to various organs of the peripheral nervous system. All of the head nerves that emerge from the skull, with the exception of the tenth nerve, called the vagus nerve, control activities related to movement and senses in the head and neck region. Each of the 31 nerves exit from a space in the side of the vertebrae, and each of these nerves has two roots, an afferent nerve (sensual nerve), and an efferent nerve (movement nerve). These roots join immediately outside the spinal cord, and form the cords that carry the sensual and movement nerve fibers. These nerve cords are distributed in a plan and system that is specific for each organ. For example, the receptor sensor cells that sense a needle pricking your finger transmits this signal to the spinal cord through the receptor cell of the arm. The responsive reflex of pulling the hand away, a reflex from the spinal cord, is sent to the arm and hand muscles, and you pull your hand away. This is an example of a simple reflex. The movement nerve cells of the peripheral nervous system are divided into two, the somatic nervous system, which is distributed to the skeletal muscles, and the autonomic nervous system, which is distributed to the inner organs. Whilst the majority of the activities of the somatic systems occur voluntarily at the conscious level, the activity of autonomic systems is mainly involuntarily, or below the level of consciousness. The autonomic nervous system controls the smooth muscles of the heart, glands, blood vessels, respiration, digestion, urination and reproduction systems without our even realizing it. Dear Peter! Could you manage to do all this if you were in control? Your self control can only intervene until you place food in your mouth. Then the digestive secretions, the stomach and bowel activity, and the excretion of waste are all conducted automatically, totally beyond your control. Your breathing continues while you sleep, your kidneys never cease to function, your heart never rests, and your liver never relaxes while you sleep; your pancreas continues to produce insulin. All of your internal organs and blood vessels continue to function with the smooth muscles whenever necessary. And all this activity is conducted without you even being aware of it. If you tried to do all this, you would become exhausted within five minutes, lose interest and become unable to cope.

The nerve cords of the autonomic nervous system are divided into two, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. These two systems have been created in such a way that they respond in opposition to one another, and every organ is provided with a stem from both. Therefore, no organ of the body is left uncontrolled. Whilst one signals and encourages the organ to function quicker and generate more outcomes, the other acts to the contrary, sending signals that encourage the organ to slow down. In which case, with these two contrasting signals, the organ protects its optimal functioning tempo according to the situation and conditions. The sympathetic system generally responds in cases of stress and shock, preparing the body for the effects of such situations. For example, an increase in your blood pressure, blood-sugar level, and perspiration, the dilation of your pupils, and an increase in the flow of blood in your muscles all occur from the effect of the sympathetic fibers. The parasympathetic system sends adverse signals, such as reducing blood pressure and so on, so that the organs return to their neutral state and continue their normal functions.

From the very beginning I have described many of my sections and signals, but I have not yet told you about my key to life, my nerve cells, and how my nerve cells function. 30 billion cells, known as neurons, are the actual units that function in every part of my system. A neuron has a cell body and emerging filaments like tree branches. The single thicker filament like the tree trunk is called the axon, and the thinner filaments that emerge in larger quantities like tree branches are called dentrites. The nerve signals advance from the axon to the dentrite in the form of an electrical pulse. In the space between the connection point (synapses) of a nerve cell axon and the other cells, the dentrite, a chemical substance, called the neurotransmitter, is released. When these substances, in the form of neuropeptides, amino acids, acetylcholines, and monomines, reach the wall of the opposite cells, it an electrical pulse is immediately ignited in the dendrite. Just like a row dominos, falling down one after the other, or football fans performing the Mexican wave, a wave-like effect is generated and these electrical messages are fired with great speed from one end of the cell to the other, advancing in the form of tiny electrical pulses to be transmitted to neighboring cells. While a cell at rest has a potential of 70m V, the action potential of up to +30 – +40m V can transmit all types of information. Every cell can transmit up to 1,000 signals per second.

While you still do not recognize the true value of what you call the memory, which records hundreds of experiences every day, various theories are presented regarding how this bank which stores information in your brain actually functions. But we all know that the answer to this question lies within the millions of neurons that constitute me. Just as all of the senses, thoughts and actions occur from electrical and chemical signals that are transmitted from one cell to another they are presumably recorded in the same way, that is, with electrical and chemical signals.

It is difficult to define a precise center for the boundaries of the memories in me; memory could be interconnected with all of my regions. The storing of certain memories, some voices, visions, smells, or dreams, or the sense of resentment, anger or joy, is all carried out in different forms. You could not even begin to imagine the greatness of the memory storage! I have two types of memory, one short and one-long term. In my short term memory, I can store up to between seven and nine different things at any one time. Nothing remains in my short-term memory for more than a few minutes. Everything that you remember after this is stored in my long-term memory. In my long-term memory things can remain for days, months or even years. Everything you know and learn is stored in your long-term memory. By the time you are eight years old, the information in your memory is enough to fill one million pages. However, this is a mere drop in the ocean; the long-term memory is so vast that it can never become full. Even when you reach a hundred, I will have the capacity to store new information, so never assume that you are overloading a child’s mind and never deprive them of education…Some presumptuous people say; “Never force a child to memorize at a young age, it will affect the brain.” Do not believe them! The learning of foreign languages, the Qur’an and religious education is recorded in my memory by electric pulses and this is so much easier and healthier in the early stages of life. In fact, such activities at a young age can even strengthen the memory. The event called ‘recollection’ is the repeat of the electric pulse codes that are recorded at the actual time of an event. Occasionally you try to remember a person’s name, and although the name is on the tip of your tongue, you just cannot remember. You struggle and eventually give up. Then suddenly, two days later the name comes to your mind. You are quite puzzled and of course pleased that you have remembered, but have you ever wondered how this happens? As you try to remember, you control each of my nerve cells individually, because you are not sure where you placed the files that bear this information. But you are unable to find which section of the millions of cells bears the information. As you have not used this information often, or because you did not consider it to be important, you did not register it in a particular place. But you would never forget your father’s name, as it is important to you and use it often, so the file is in front of you constantly. Well, you get frustrated at not being able to remember and stop searching; however, what you call the subconscious is in fact a much more mysterious mechanism. It begins to search without you being aware of it. Then to your surprise it produces the file two days later. The subconscious is a very mysterious place, it affects everything about you. Only the most sincere feelings are recorded in the subconscious; no veil, no hypocrisy, only actual thoughts are recorded. And also events that deeply affect you, the sad or bad memories you experience, and of course sins…The subconscious is what causes the sense of guilt or an inferiority complex; this is reflected in much of your behavior. But problems like guilt or an inferiority complex are something we can change; it all depends on you. If you are a person who has self-control, you perform good, favorable deeds, and are continuously patient; thus you can eventually renew the contaminated sections of your subconscious so that it will not upset you anymore. Indeed, this is the reason why, of all the creatures on earth, only humans were blessed with the sense of remorse and faith. If you suppress feelings of guilt and sin in the subconscious, the autonomic system affects the organs without you even realizing it; the thalamus, hypothalamus, or the pituitary gland (hypophsis), which are small in size, but bear a great responsibility; eventually this disturbs the balance of the whole body and you become ill. Although this may not be an organic complaint at first, due to psychosomatic symptoms which are caused by suppressing your subconscious, over time this will affect the functions of one of your organs and you become ill. Of course the exact opposite is also possible, with inspiration, pleasant thoughts and good actions the positive signals transmitted to the affected organ may possibly be the means to recovery.

Dear Peter! I have so many more facts and mysterious functions to describe to you, but unfortunately the pages here are not enough. Well, I suppose I must stop somewhere. I really wanted to talk to you about a number of different things, like dreams, mental illnesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, strokes, sleep, hypnosis, and the damage caused by drugs. However, each of these subjects is so vast, and many of them have already been explained in previous issues, so for now I will leave it to others to describe these subjects to you, and say my last words…

Dear Peter!… While your hand is writing and reading these words, or explaining what you have read to your friends, or learning all this information and passing it through the filter of thought, you are constantly using my nerves and my systems. There is not a single moment where I am not informed of events that occur in your body. Who knows just how much of the mysteries in me you will use in order to rise to the peak of accomplishment with the blessings that have been bestowed upon you by the Creator. Even the greatest computers made by human beings are mere toys compared to me. Nevertheless, the knowledge of engineers and craftsmen which design, plan, and place every piece into these computers with total accuracy is only possible because of me. Presumably you are not denying those who designed, constructed, and made the computer operate, are you? In which case you should thank God, the One who created me, an organ whose capacity exceeds that of thousands of computers, with His eternal power and wisdom; always remember to use me in good, blessed, and honest actions!…May God protect you!…

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir. 

No, not all of us.

Jill Carroll presents us with a legendary example of hope from our recent past, showing us that there can always be a solution, even at the cold touch of the barrel of a weapon, or with the blood-chilling knowledge that your town has been targeted. In this issue, she shares with us a truly interesting story she was told last summer in Fuzine, a village in Croatia’s Gorski Kotar district.

Croatia, now an independent state, was one of the six republics which formed the former country of Yugoslavia, a country that was devastated after a war in the ’90s. We shiver when we remember the massacres of Bosnian civilians before the eyes of the entire world, under the so-called protection of UN forces, when some had proclaimed that we had reached the zenith of human civilization. The massacre of Srebrenica, the fifteenth anniversary of which was marked last July, has no doubt left indelible stain not only in the lives of its victims-at least, those who survived-but also in the conscience of all of us who could do nothing more than pray. One observer who participated in the ceremony last July described Srebrenica as a town in which “the dead are more alive than the living, the living more dead than the dead; the dead visiting homes at night, the living visiting the dead during the day.” The story Jill reports from Gorski Kotar, Croatia features civil leaders and media members who heroically acted “faster than the dead” and perhaps saved their towns from being another Srebrenica – despite the consequences they faced in the years that followed.

The lead article describes another story of heroism, which is displayed at a global level. Gulen praises those educational activists who have gone all around the world and built schools and dialogue centers in hundreds of countries. The people Gulen describes are filled with love for humanity regardless of race, color, religion, and language, and they are convinced that universal peace can only be realized by overcoming ignorance. Gulen calls this volunteer movement “A Movement Originating Its Own Models,” perhaps because they are so precious to Gulen that he cannot compare them with any other social movement in the world, and perhaps because these volunteers truly come forward with an authentic approach for engaging our modern world and times.

First of all, we should discuss the ideas and opinions of the former scholars about the meaning of wisdom (hikma) referred to in this verse.

Some scholars defined wisdom as “non-recited revelation” and the Prophet’s statements, peace and blessings be upon him. The following verses in the Qur’an distinguish clearly the Book (the Quran) from wisdom: “God has sent down on you the Book and the Wisdom, and taught you what you did not know” (Nisa 4:113), and “I taught you [Jesus] of the Book and Wisdom, and the Torah and the Gospel” (Maidah 5:110).

With inspiration based on this Quranic distinction, the majority of the traditional scholars (muhaddith) indicated that the Book, referred to in this verse, means the Holy Quran while the wisdom points to the luminous remarks, wise words, marvelous thought, and virtuous statements of the Prophet.

Some said more specifically, “Wisdom is cognizance of the secrets of the universe so that a person who reads it like a book grasps the right thing to do, the wisdom, the benefit, the harmony, and the relation between cause and effect.” The pleasure of a person successful in reading such a book will increase the more he reads, and as the pleasure increases, he will read even more, and in this way he will become aware of wisdom. In this context, wisdom can be regarded as the study of the universe (macro-cosmos) and the human being (normo-cosmos), which is generally discussed by philosophers and theologians.

Another meaning of wisdom is the comprehension of Islam’s proper course and purpose, which include the effects of belief in the Judgment Day, how prescribed prayer functions in regulating our material and spiritual life, the role of fasting in purifying our carnal self, the place of prescribed purifying alms in being the vault of the social balance and order, the function and duty of pilgrimage in bringing Muslims worldwide together, and the like.

The phrase in the verse, “Whoever is granted the Wisdom has indeed been granted much good,” (Baqarah 2:269) means that whoever can comprehend wisdom is blessed with the favors of Almighty God, which is one of the points we understand from the verse.

Some scholars maintained that wisdom can be defined as “grasping the secrets of the Divine Names,” which is another major aspect. Indeed, whoever sees manifestations of the divine names wherever he or she looks has comprehended wisdom. A friend of God who looked at the names and saw their manifestation expressed his thoughts and feelings like this: “A sage cannot see anything but the Names; a dervish of the saint Jilani will grasp the secret.”

In other words, anyone looking at the manifestations of the Divine Names will desire to see the Holy Being Who is denoted by those Names or to witness God. Such a person will fall on his/her knees and prostrate in the face of every event or incident in the universe, and when s/he places his/her head on the ground and closes his/her eyes and is lost in inner feelings, s/he will attain a vastness as if s/he had placed his/her head on the pillars of the Divine Throne –though He is exempt and free from all sorts of quality or quantity. S/he will start to regard every sound as a chant coming from God and every color as an atlas consisting of variations of God’s Name. This must be another dimension of wisdom.

In another sense, wisdom is attainment of diverse feelings and perceptions in the treasure of the Divine Names, Attributes, and Functions during one’s never-ending voyage, and such a person has understood the truth of things and is in the grip of full wonder and curiosity about the Divine Essence. Occasionally, Divine Attributes are manifested. Yet, like the Divine Essence, His Attributes are unknown to us-though something may be said about their essence. Saying it another way, they are present, but are unknown. A person who has been elevated to this station is in a state of saying, “I have comprehended or I have sensed or I have fully understood,” and he is in the conjecture and imagination of always running, making significant progress, rushing and conceiving new things, but most of the time, s/he is bewildered. As we noted above, this station of the spiritual journey and progress is called “station of amazement.”

Those taking this journey become bewildered when they reach this station; their vision becomes blurry and changes, they do not see you when they look at you, their glance is dimensional, and they always see different things. They see a different face in your face and different eyes in your eyes. When you speak, they hear someone else speaking, and they can also feel it in their conscience. This station is the station of amazement and wonder. People in this station are not easily fooled; if they are fooled, it is rare because they always have the zeal to run towards God and to reach Him.

Considering the aforementioned, we can say that whoever is granted wisdom is blessed with many benefits. God grants wisdom to whomever He wishes. Still, there are some prerequisites for being entitled to receive wisdom. These include the capability for receiving it, the aptitude for discovering the universe, a heart that is able to feel and sense the manifestations of the Divine Names, and improved subtle faculties. All of these will be granted by God, Who will then give wisdom to this predisposed nature in the above-mentioned fashion. A person who reaches this horizon has been given copious good.

How can it be otherwise? Such people understand the meaning of the universe. They see that everything manifested in the universe is a manifestation of God’s Names. They walk to the horizon of the attributes and become obsessed with fully knowing, understanding, and perceiving the Exalted Essence. Even if they are told, “The doors are locked; don’t tire yourself in vain,” they wait with wonder for the moment the door will open.

For this reason, people who are in this station have a longing for reunion with God, thus they anxiously wait for their time in this world to come to end. Prophet Joseph said in expressing such a wish from a person in this station, “My Lord! You have indeed granted me some important part of the rule and imparted to me some knowledge of the inner meaning of all happenings. O You, Originator of the heavens and the earth with particular features! You are my Owner and Guardian in this world and in the Hereafter. Take my soul to You a believer, and join me with the righteous” (Yusuf 12:101). Despite all his material achievements and fame, Prophet Joseph desired union with the True Beloved.

Finally, wisdom can also be defined as the understanding of the web of relations among human beings, the universe, and the Quran. The universe is a book compiled by God with His Power and Will. The human being is a concise summary and index of this book. And the Quran is a book that tells the meaning of the universe and the human in divine wording. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is the man who understands this in the best way. He is, therefore, the greatest prefect man (al-insan al-kamil). Whoever conceives this truth is the one to whom wisdom is granted. Those who consider the universe, the human, and the Quran separately from each other are deprived of wisdom and its joy.

May God instill relief in our hearts and help us understand this Noble Truth.

Notes

1. “Non-recited revelation” (wahy gayr matluw) is not the Quranic scripture which is “recited” revelation. The Prophet’s practice and words, which explain the Quran to the believers, are believed to be revealed to his heart; nevertheless, they are different than the Quranic revelation.

No matter how expressive and stylishly it is told, what matters is that this important phenomenon of the era should be related. It should, after all, be related so that we add a footnote to history and show our respect for those devoted people who performed such heroic deeds. If, on the other hand, this soft breeze, this warm atmosphere, this fresh thought and this love, and the gentle winds felt across the globe were to be described very briefly, it would be disrespectful toward the noble traits, such as magnanimity and altruism.

This movement is a phenomenon to be written about and underscored. A few dozen passionate people set off in all directions for the sake of God without stopping to think about their longings or their feelings of separation and without uttering the words “foreign lands” or “unknown places” at a time when nobody could even fathom what lay ahead. They were full of determination, firm of intention, and self-reliant. They suppressed their love for their country and their homeland, replacing it with a love for mission. They were aware of their efforts for the cause of God as few have been, they lived as such, and they walked to the east and to the west saying:

We have entered the path of love,
We are lovesick.
(Nigari)

At the most colorful period of their lives, when worldly pleasures and material objectives attract young people with an irresistible lure, and when physicality oppresses the hearts and minds of a person, they virtually flew to all these places with a passion for accomplishment that suppressed the various desires and compulsions; the excitement of those in the first row was in their hearts. This flight abroad was not like the departure of lovelorn youths who chased a false siren that had entered their lives at an unlucky time, those youths who pursued their dreams for a lifetime, who became lovesick, and who were strangers to their own nature, yet unable to reach the desired goal. The mission of these youths was from the heart and based on emotions, on consciousness, and determination; it had a depth of good faith and sincerity. You could say that these were the usual dynamics of faith, the natural conditions of divine ambition, the ideals of the devoted, the guides of the Infinite Light, or the efforts of those who had abandoned their selves and their beloved ones in order to express themselves. Indeed, they were neither prevented by their own shortcomings nor did they surrender to the obstacles in their way; they walked to the far corners of the world, the only never-fading love in their hearts being God’s favor and the ambition to meet Him. They walked; the roads took pride in this, the angels cheered them on, and, naturally, the devils beat their breasts. They walked; they had neither horses nor cars, nor weapons, nor ammunition. Their source of energy was their incredible faith and the excitement in their hearts that seethed like magma; on the horizon was the happiness of humanity, consent, and pleasure. Their destiny equaled that of the Companions and the Apostles. Soon after dawn they attained, with their chastity and purity, a manner that was tantamount to kinship with the angels. They became a theme for legends and a thing of never fading memory. They brought streams of light from eternity wherever they went. They lit a fire all around; the flame, ember, and smoke of this fire was happiness. The spell of tyranny and darkness gave way. The disbelieving bats were deprived of their sleep, and darkness unceasingly grumbled. Lies, calumny, and intrigue were hindered once again. All this made boorish thoughts and bigotry intolerably arrogant, making it want to tread on others’ ideas and set up traps for faith. However, all opposition was in vain: the light shone everywhere. The light that radiated from eternity embraced the entire world. Now it was the time and the epoch of the bright souls, although the murky situation still prevailed and the horizons were foggy, but the magic of darkness and the boorish thoughts were already undone.

Now it was the turn of the bright souls to speak. Humanity would discover itself through them and take its true place in the hierarchy of creation. Therefore, it was a generation that had long been awaited. As people had been waiting for them, wherever they went they always bent double as a consequence of their reverence for God and their respect for humanity, their eyes fixed on the doorway of the Most Gracious, meekly and humbly, awaiting the time when showers of light would be unleashed, while their heads and feet touched the ground. No matter how the people of today assess the issue, these were the children of tomorrow; the bright future bore their secrets. These lucky people, who were the apostles of resurrection, each in their own way, held the flowers of friendship in their hands and the verses of brother and sisterhood on their lips. Their tongues, sharper than sharpest swords, were nourished by Qur’anic waterfalls and their words had divine dimensions. These words destroyed darkness, but did not harm anyone. They brought the sound of the rivers of Paradise within earshot, but they did not lead to a longing for Paradise. In fact, these people needed neither hands nor tongues. Their pure faces that reminded one of God wherever seen were so magical that words stumbled in the presence of the meanings that emanated from their manners, and tongues became mute. Even their shadows burned the night moths; not to mention their light, which dazzled anyone that came near. We rightfully say, “Tongues and words have nothing to say in the presence of actions. When manners speak, is there a need for speech?” They are the representatives of this truth. There have always been multitudes of good people on the Earth; however, the manners and words of this latest group are entirely different. I can hardly say that they were singular or unique, but were I asked to explain how they were, I would not be able to immediately reply. I would probably say, “They look like angels,” and give up there.

Wherever these bright souls go, dry deserts turned into gardens of Eden thanks to the light they radiated. Much coal has been transformed into diamonds. Natures made of mud and stone have ascended to the rank of gold and silver. And everybody is talking about them now, waiting for the days when the love, brotherhood, and tolerance they promised will be realized. Today, only those who confuse darkness and light and who spend their lives in the realm of physicality are speaking against them. The bats are uneasy. The wolves and jackals are baring their teeth. The fools are restless. I find all these natural, and say, “Everybody exhibits his or her true nature.”

Whatever happens, despite those who blow out the candles, these men and women have long illuminated the hearts that are thirsty for light wherever they go, they warn the pure natures of what lies behind things and events, and they announce the universal human values to unspoiled souls.

I firmly believe that, just as intercontinental obstacles were once overcome thanks to the Qur’an, and love, respect, and dialogue were permanently established, a new ground for reconciliation has been or will be founded by the efforts of these lucky people today. Humanity used to recognize our nation, with its smiling face and fortunate destiny. Why should this very fact not also be true today? A flood of love among the people has started overflowing in almost every place that these bearers of the mission visit. There have been breezes of happiness and gladness, one after another, that can be felt all around. Moreover, islands of peace, which we can call invulnerable castles of harmony and stability, are forming near and far.

Who knows, maybe in the near future, thanks to these volunteers who devote themselves to letting others live, the mind and soul will embrace each other once again; conscience and logic will become complementary depths of each other; physics and metaphysics will stop fighting and withdraw to their own realms, and everything will find the opportunity to express the beauty in its own nature through its own language, the intricacy of legislative rules and the principles of creation will be rediscovered, people will regret having fought each other over nothing, an atmosphere of peace that was not previously established in the marketplaces, in the schools and homes will be established, and breezes of happiness will blow, chastity will not be violated, honesty will not be oppressed, hearts will always breathe respect and esteem, no one will envy others, their property or their reputation, the powerful will treat the weak justly, the weak and the poor will have the chance to live humanely, nobody will be arrested on the strength of mere suspicions, no dwelling or workplace will be raided, nobody’s blood will be shed and the weak will not cry, everybody will adore God and love humanity. It is only then that this world, which is the hallway to Paradise, will become an Eden that is fascinating to live in.

Notes

1. The author has dedicated this article to countless educational activists who have gone all around the world, with a motivation to provide quality education and to promote peace between different nations and cultures. All throughout his life and career Gulen has preached the importance of education and directed his audience to participate in and support educational activities.
2. Seyyid Nigari: A famous poet of Azerbaijan. He was an important representative of nineteenth century mystical poetry.

Original Article: Mak, G.K. & Weiss, S., Nature Neuroscience 13, 753 (2010).

Motherhood or maternal recognition is well characterized by associated brain plasticity during both early development and adulthood. Unlike motherhood, paternal-offspring recognition and its related brain plasticity is poorly understood. A group from University of Calgary designed a set of experiments to test whether father mice can recognize their own infants once they’ve reached adulthood. They exposed adult males to their own and genetically unrelated infants for 2 days. The fathers were tested for adult offspring recognition six weeks later. Assay compared the time spent by the fathers with their own and unrelated offsprings. Results showed that although the father mice show similar parenting behavior toward both sets of infants (own and adopted), they only recognize their own pups as adults. Paternal recognition is associated with increased prolactin (a hormone primarily associated to lactation), mediated neurogenesis in the olfactory bulb, and hippocampus, a major component of mammalian brain. These newly generated neurons are important for the formation of socially relevant olfactory memories. Authors also found that the fathers must physically interact with the infants in order to recognize them later. This is confirmed by some control experiments in which fathers are only allowed to see, smell or hear infants through a wire mesh barrier which was not sufficient to induce neurogenesis. One of the socially relevant benefits of paternal recognition of the infants as adults is to avoid incest interactions which cause inbreeding depression.

2- Recently revealed hideous effects of smoking on children

Original Articles: Brion, M.J. et al., Pediatrics 126, e57 (2010) & Kwok, M.K. et al., Pediatrics 126, e46 (2010).

Smoking is bad for our health, but apparently it may also have subtle, yet far-reaching consequences on our children according to two recent studies. The first study reports that mothers who smoke during pregnancy are more likely to have children with psychological problems. A related study presents evidence that babies who develop in the presence of second-hand smoke (from their fathers) may develop weight problems. Dr. Mary-Jo Brion of the University of Bristol tells “Babies exposed to smoke (in the womb) may be prone to rule breaking, such as lying, cheating, bullying, and disobedience in later years” and adds “To some extent it is somewhat surprising that … maternal smoking may also directly impact child behaviors from exposing the fetus to tobacco in utero.” The other study suggests that smoking around expecting mothers (even when the mother herself is not smoking) also affects the child: higher childhood weight appears to be clearly correlated with paternal smoking. “To protect their children, fathers should avoid smoking from conception onward,” says Dr. Mary Schooling of the University of Hong Kong. Furthermore, smoking mothers should not be too surprised to see their children “disobey” when they tell them not to smoke.

3- Exposure to certain wavelengths of light resets the body clock

Original Article: Gooley, J.J. et al., Science Translational Medicine 2, 31ra33 (2010).

With the introduction of high-tech gadgets into our lives, our daily functions have changed drastically. As opposed to old-fashioned bed-time reading of an “actual” book made of paper, we fiddle with our iphones or ipads or notebooks or channel surf on our bedside TVs before going to sleep. A recent study revealed that exposure to certain wavelengths of light, such as those from laptops or TVs, would negatively influence our circadian rhythms (daily rhythmic activity cycle) by resetting our body clocks (e.g., keeping us awake when we should be sleeping). The feeling of sleepiness at night time is triggered by the secretion of a hormone called melatonin. It had been known that exposure of blue light to the eye’s photoreceptor system located in the ganglion cells suppresses the melatonin secretion, therefore stimulating alertness. In their recent work, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital showed that green light exposure of a different cell population on the eyes – cone cells – also resets the body clock by suppressing melatonin secretion. The senior author of the paper, Dr. Steven Lockley, said in an interview that “we need to think about the entire spectrum of light when designing light therapy or lightning designs to boost alertness or induce sleepiness.” The moral of the story is to be more vigilant about our interaction with fancy electronic gadgets at night if we want to have a healthy and relaxing sleep.

4- Poor teachers may impede good students

Original Articles: Taylor, J. et al., Science 328, 512 (2010).

Scholars know that educational environment, including both tasks and the social environment of a classroom, affects children’s achievement just as much as genetic factors. But the teacher plays a main role, because the quality of the educational environment depends on teachers’ performances. A new study underlined the importance of qualified teachers and how they can make a difference in education. The researchers examined the influence of teacher quality by studying 280 identical and 526 fraternal twin pairs in the first and second grades in different Florida schools representing a diverse environment. Identical twins share 100 percent of their genes and fraternal twins share half, and some of the twins were taught by the same teacher but some were in different classes. The researchers used an Oral Reading Fluency test which is based on how many words in a paragraph a child can accurately read in a minute in order to assess the reading skills of children. The researchers recorded the reading scores of students in the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, and they followed the students’ improvements during the year. To measure teacher quality, they used the scores of twins’ classmates. By studying twins’ groups, researchers were able to eliminate some other factors such as genetics and socio-economic conditions. According to the findings, the teachers played a role in “moderating” students’ achievements, and they helped the students to grow to their full potential. When teacher quality is very low, genetic variance is constricted, whereas, when teacher quality is very high, genetic variance blooms. As the study’s lead author, Jeanette Taylor, said “Better teachers provide an environment that allows children to reach their potential.”

It is possible to ask many more such questions. Astronomer Neil F. Comins, from Maine University, explained in his book, What If the Moon Didn’t Exist, the scenarios humankind would have faced if the Moon hadn’t existed. According to Comins, one of the millions of reasons why Earth is the only planet (known to us) to have life is the delicate balance between the Earth and the Moon. No occurrence in the universe is a coincidence, thus the Moon has been created as a balance factor. This balance is so sensitive that it is possible to say that there would be no life on Earth if it weren’t for the Moon.

The Moon, a sphere that has no atmosphere, and has a surface covered with craters, dust and rocks, is the Earth’s only satellite. The radius of the Moon is about one fourth of that of the Earth’s, its volume is about 1/50 of the Earth’s, and its mass is about 1/81 of the Earth’s. The Moon is around 240,000 miles from the Earth’s center and it takes 29.5 days to complete its orbit around the Earth. Even though we do not know for sure how the Moon came into being, the currently accepted theory asserts that a planet about 10 times lighter than the Earth, which astronomers call “Thiea,” crashed into Earth and a part of that planet broke apart and fell into space. This part (having lost its shape and most of its mass) crashed into Earth again after orbiting the Earth. In this second crash, the metal center of “Theia” fused into the center of the Earth while the outer shell’s light rocks scattered into space. In time, these little rocks fused to form the Moon. At first, the Moon orbited the Earth with a distance of only 14,000 miles, but in time this distance increased into an average of 240,000 miles.

The Moon’s largest effect on Earth is the tide. According to the law of universal gravitation, any two objects in the universe pull each other, and the force of this pull is in direct proportion to the objects’ masses and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between the objects. The gravitational pull between the Earth and the Moon causes the seas and the oceans on Earth to either rise or subside. This effect is called the tide, which changes between high tide and low tide according to the Moon’s position. One third of all tide effects on Earth are caused by the Sun’s pull and the rest is caused by the Moon’s.

The Moon gets 1.57 inches farther from the Earth every year due to the tide. It is known that the time taken for the Earth to turn around its axis completely (1 day) increases by 0.02 milliseconds every year so that this distancing effect can be countered and the angular momentum of the Earth and the Moon can be sustained. It is also known that the time taken for the Earth to turn around its axis was 8 hours when the Moon was first created, and that it increased to 24 hours since then. If the Moon had not been created, there wouldn’t have been any tide and because of that, one day would still be 8 hours. That would mean that the Earth would be spinning around its axis about 3 times faster than its current speed. A greater spinning speed of a planet might mean stronger winds on its surface. For example, Jupiter and Saturn spin around their axes very fast and have about ten hours in a day. This causes winds with speeds up to 300 miles/hour at the east-west direction on their surfaces. The dust storms that occur in the atmospheres of these planets are caused by these winds and can be seen from the Earth with a telescope.

Without the Moon, the Earth would have spun faster, causing a faster heat exchange among the air, seas and land. This, in turn, would have caused hurricanes in the east-west direction on the face of the Earth with speeds up to 100 miles/hour. Such conditions would have been very inconvenient to all complex life forms including human beings. Even simple tasks like speaking or listening could have been very difficult or even impossible. Since a day would have been eight hours, this would have caused a mismatch between the biological clock of living things – including human beings – and the flow of the day, resulting in biological complications. Without the Moon, the high tide would have been very weak, again causing a very inconvenient environment for sea creatures.

The Moon also has a role in keeping the Earth’s axis at a 23.5 angle. It is known that the seasons result from this and allows the right amount of sunlight to the equator and the poles, creating a climate appropriate for life. Another known effect of the Moon on the Earth is that it reflects the Sun’s light and heats up the Earth by 32.36°F (0.2°C). The Moon also serves as a shield against space rocks, and if it had not been for the Moon many more rocks and meteors would have hit the Earth.

Most of the cosmic rays that come from space are neutralized by the Earth’s magnetic field. Few of these rays reach the Earth and causes chemical reactions. Without the Moon, the core of the Earth would have spun faster along with the Earth itself. With the core of the Earth spinning faster, the magnetic field would have been much stronger. This would have caused huge changes in the atmosphere. Besides, some bacteria and animals that use the magnetic field to find their way (such as sea turtles, salmon, eels, pigeons, and migratory birds) would have been negatively affected. Consequently, many ecosystems, as we know them today, would have been different.

Another significant service of the Moon to our lives is that, like the Sun, it has been used as a calendar throughout human history. Muslims today observe their Ramadan fast according to their hijri calendar which is based on lunar measurement of time.

The Moon is the largest satellite that we know, in proportion to the size of the planet it is attracted by (the Moon’s mass measures 1.23 % of the Earth’s mass). The size of the Moon plays a critical role in the sensitive balance of our ecosystem. When the relationship between the Earth and the Moon is examined carefully, one could easily conclude that the Moon has been created specially for the life on Earth by the One Who “has made the heavens high and set up the balance” with a gentle measure, a great cause and benefit, and was given to the service of humankind.

Notes

1. Neil Comins. What If the Moon Didn’t Exist? Voyages to Earths That Might Have Been, New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
2. “The Sun and the Moon are by an exact calculation” (Quran 55:5).
3. Marcus Chown. “The Planet That Stalked the Earth,” New Scientist, August 14, 2004, pp. 27–30.
4. Paul D. Spudis. “Moon,” World Book Online Reference Center, NASA, 2004.
5. Tony Phillips, “What Neil & Buzz Left on the Moon,” Science, NASA 2004.
6. Richard Ray, “Ocean Tides and the Earth’s Rotation,” IERS, 2001.
7. Comins 1993.
8. Paul J. Henney, www.astronomytoday.com
9. John Gribbin, “A Mysterious Monthly Temperature Cycle,” New Scientist, pp. 18, January 28, 1995.
10. “We have obscured the sign of the night, and We have made the sign of the day illuminating to see, that you may seek bounty from your Lord and that you may know the computation of (time) the years and reckoning…” (Isra 17:12). This verse has been interpreted as to refer to the moon and the sun. “… He has made the night for repose, and the sun and the moon a means for reckoning (the divisions of time)…” (An’am 6:96) also refers to this fact. See Ali Unal, The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, Tughra Books, 2008, p. 294, 570–71.
11. Quran 55:7.

Today, those who have made it their business to identify and cure these feelings of emptiness and the consequent loneliness that is experienced by the human self have presented panoply of solutions, usually gift-wrapped in various intellectual discourses. People struggle with each discourse, hoping that maybe one will, after all, be their stamped pass through the golden gateways of enlightenment. Time unwraps each solution and lays its contents bare. History stands as a graveyard, giving testimony to the inadequacy of the philosophical critiques and theoretical discourses of modernity and post-modernity. The world is still in a state of chaos and, within this existentialist milieu, human beings still question their solitary existence.

It seems that history has selected a fistful of people who deem themselves destined to step into the arena of intellectual combat, jumping to the rescue of humankind. The common man finds themselves in a literary laboratory where they are left to experiment with the latest medicines that have been prescribed for their affliction. In a desperate attempt to break free from the onslaught of isms hurled at us by the age of modernity and post-modernity, the intellectuals of our age have come up with a new literary concoction. The era of isms has ended. It is now the age of paradoxes. There is an increasing trend of juxtaposing ironies in the guise of facts and universal truths. Language is the best-seller in the market for dressing-up contradictions with such frills; one is often left so dazzled by the linguistic niceties that they are unable to detect any lacuna in the logic presented. People develop unique dictionaries for each of these. The logic presented for this discrepancy in the repertoire of every person is simple: each person’s world is made up of their distinct life experiences, their memories of the past and their imagination of the future, as well as their comprehension of the now and their plans of action for grappling with the present. Thus, the language one employs and the peculiar meaning it entails is contingent upon one’s very own, individual privé monad. It is these self-concocted dictionaries, composed of their distinct vernacular along with their numerous subtleties, which form one’s individual mental architecture by which the affairs of one’s life are orchestrated.

This novel concept of individual dictionaries rotates round and round the dining tables of the most “progressive” of humankind. People prize themselves as being part of what is now being hailed as a grand intellectual revolution. This revolution, it is believed, gives one the ability to guard one’s pristine exclusivity. Inherent within this exclusiveness of the individual self from the “other” is the championing of the self, and a sense of security prevails, giving humankind the assurance that the esoteric nature of our pristine binaries of right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly make all that we do and say a private matter. And, some like to believe, within this privacy, within this unique sphere of personal space lays the epitome of freedom that humanity has ever been able to reach.

It is within this multiplicity of one’s private, peculiar lingua franca that they are able to ascribe meaning to their very existence. One’s conceptualization of the self and one’s ferocious defense of this newly-acquired perception of freedom are what form the basis of one’s interaction with those around them and the world that they live in. This sense of exclusivity leads to what Habermas has called a breakdown in “communicative action”-the absence of common relatable backgrounds to the extent that no one can any longer imagine being in another’s shoes. Without this mutual taking of perspective, the very precious element of human emotional intelligence that is known as “empathy” is automatically removed from many people’s dictionaries. Empathy is the same trait that makes a child burst into tears when another one cries in front of them, thinking that the pain is not the other’s but their own. This quality of being able to relate to, to actually understand and feel not only the other’s pain, but also their happiness, is what forms the main spring of the concept of rescue, a concept upon which entire literary laboratories have been established. If it were not for empathy, the demarcation between the self and the other would make it unimaginable for anyone to surmount those towering walls to rescue another; this would have been a thing of fairy tales and folklore. This is the point when an eagerly embracing the age of private dictionaries, with their golden masquerade of personal freedom, draws one actively into an intellectual maelstrom against the “other,” and against tolerance.

Confronted by such tempestuous times, when I look upon the glorious pasts of our ancestors in an attempt to find some point of reference that could aid in navigating, one string of events presents some relevant points to my argument. While growing up, my life, just as that of any other child who was growing up at the same time, was colored by numerous stories and legends. Over time, I managed to dust off images of flying horses and heroic men coming to the rescue of people who were being tortured by brutal potentates. But the more human memories have remained with me to this day. As a young child, I often saw my grandmother leave the house and walk over the next-door neighbors’ house with some delicious dish she had prepared. The visits had an almost ritualistic feel to them, since every single time some delectable dish was cooked and brought over to our house; I knew some of this would find its way to our house. On the occasions when I was allowed to accompany my grandmother on these visits, I would witness her place the dish on the table, and then either herself or the recipient would divulge some important piece of news, each launching off into a torrent of complaints and remarks about this, that and the other. On one such occasion, the meeting took a sudden unpleasant twist. I remember quite vividly that my grandmother severely rebuked one of our neighbors, a regular receiver of sweets and meals. The hot halawa lay on the table in front of her, sending off sweet enticing whiffs while both grownups were engaged in a heated verbal brawl. The point of contention was indecipherable to me, as grown-ups at that time had a way of skillfully employing a code language in front of children; perhaps this was part of an attempt to protect our innocence from being tarnished by the realities of adulthood. At the end of the quarrel, my grandmother apparently had the last word and made her way home with the hot dish of sweet-smelling food still sitting on the neighbor’s table. From that time onwards, there was a continuation of exchanges of harsh words over hot delicious meals or sweet mouth-watering delicacies. My young mind was at first befuddled and later exasperated by the on-going quarrel, the continuation of which was clearly contingent on the exchange of meals. I knew that all the trouble would effortlessly come to a halt if neither lady were to cross the fence that demarcated their house from the other. No ties of blood bound them and the cessation of any contact whatsoever would not have disrupted the routine of our lives. It was as simple as that.

What left my young mind baffled in the past was the persistence of my grandmother and our neighbor to maintain contact, despite the conflict; however, this makes sense to me now. People in the past had a more wholesome experience of life because it was framed within a sense of collectivity. Their dictionaries were not discrepant from others and they spoke a common language based on a certainty that their essence was unique to them not as individuals, but as an individual human race. It was their recognition of the unity of essence, shrouded within a multiplicity of existence, which enabled them to forge ties that were so tenacious. This notion of being united in essence, in their human proclivity to do good and believe in the Absolute Truth, was translated into their relationships and their persistent efforts to maintain relationships that had been forged willingly. The entire saga of my grandmother’s quarrels with the neighbor is intelligible to me now as a part of ongoing effort to remind her friend not to detract from this natural inclination towards goodness that was rooted within her very makeup as a human being. The whiffs of sweet-smelling treats were left as a message that her act of reprimanding her friend did not spring from a desire to claim a higher moral ground based on her own personalized set of rights or wrongs, but rather from an active concern for the community that she perceived herself to be a part of. The fact that the neighbor welcomed her at the door each time before the drama took place relates the moral pattern of people at that time, or at least within the confines of such interactions. It reflects a broad moral consensus of the entire neighborhood; they were actively involved in saving not just the one who was being wronged, but also the one who was doing wrong. Each person comprehended the fact that the underlying reason for the argument between the two found its source in the legacy of mutual concern, handed down to them from their elders. An active sense of empathy, of the fear that the wrong that was being committed today could be committed by them tomorrow, the fear that if it was not ended it would form a part of the legacy of their children, existed among these neighbors.

Today, people find a false sense of security in the notion of privacy and personal space. A sense of relief is felt that no busybody from the neighboring apartment will come knocking on the door, with the sense that the gift of a sole meal or a plate of sweets grants them the moral right to correct one’s wrongs or to criticize acts. One finds themselves comfortably ensconced in this preservation of private space and thus fails to recognize that the so-called privacy that is so aggressively guarded is actually shrinking with every passing day. In the past, at least one was able to walk down a street without having some person or another trying to sell them expensive means to look socially acceptable. But the case today is the total opposite of this. The alienation that is a direct cause of protecting what we now term “personal space” has curtailed our freedom to guard our natural proclivity towards goodness which connects us with humanity. The percolating sense of otherness and spreading intolerance are just two sides of the same coin.

The decisive factor in the above discussion is that no time is in and of itself golden. It is the people who are living at that time who cast it in varying hues, hues by which the future generations will remember them. Only if people could burst their own bubble which divides them from the other and embrace the unified proclivity towards Good and Absolute that is part of their human makeup, will they be able to live up to the moral responsibility that they have, not only towards themselves and their contemporaries, but also towards their future progeny. In this hour of need what we need is not another so-called glamorized intellectual revolution, but rather a grand intellectual revival of the human estimation of one’s own self. In my opinion, expensive intellectual laboratories and large think-tanks can help, but a revolutionary revivalism of that which can help us find a positive continuity with the past and a beneficial connection to the future could play a small start. The muddy hand of a child is enough to hold up a mirror to each and every one of us, shattering any claims of uniqueness or separateness. This brief muddy treasure will remind us of what we are made of and of what we mean to one another. Within this humbling realization, I believe, flickers a great hope.

Raaza Jamshed Butt has an MA degree in international relations from the International Islamic University, Malaysia.

At the beginning, I really did not pay much attention to him. He was very small, almost invisible and harmless-looking. However, he started to reproduce all of a sudden. Now, there were billions of his copies on one of my leaves. Everything was happening so quickly. They were taking me over. Something had to be done urgently.

As plants, we cope with such environmental stresses everyday. If the stress factors affecting us are living organisms, such as bacteria, harmful insects, and weeds, we call those as biotic stresses (1). On the other hand, if we are exposed to drought, salinity, heat, cold, and deficiency or excess of a chemical in soil, those are abiotic stresses for us. Both biotic and abiotic stresses impair our growth and even lead to our death sometimes. Therefore, stress response mechanisms are very important for us. Unfortunately in the United States alone, crop losses due to plant pathogens amount to billions of dollars (2). As we are the main food resource for the humans and assigned for so many other important functions on earth by God, our health and productivity is taken very seriously by scientists. So, it is of great interest to them to find out how our defense responses against microbes work. If scientists learn what is going on when a plant is infected by pathogens thoroughly, they can introduce better resistance mechanisms into economically important crop plants via genetic engineering.

Oh “NO,” I am stressed!

Unlike animals, we are firmly attached to the ground so we can not escape from stress factors. However, thanks to God, we have fascinating defense mechanisms against environmental challenges. First of all, I need to know who this infectious agent (pathogen) is so that I can trigger a stress response mechanism against it. The interactions between me and these microbes are controlled by my receptor proteins and Pathogen-associated molecular patterns, or PAMPs, delivered by the pathogen. PAMPs help pathogen growth by suppressing my defenses and manipulating my metabolism (3).When I recognize a PAMP by my receptors, I activate a set of defense mechanisms known as the hypersensitive response (HR) to arrest and terminate pathogen growth before it terminates me (4). Just before or in conjunction with HR, I increase synthesis of several families of pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins in my infected part (5).

Do you want to know what I do after I identify a pathogen? I bet you do, so I am going to tell you about the other components of my signal transduction cascade that is activated upon brutal attack of microbes (Fig. 1). One of the early steps in this signaling cascade is the elevation of cellular calcium (Ca (2+)) levels mediated by my plasma membrane and channels such as cyclic nucleotide gated channels (CNGCs). After the initial Ca(2+) increase, I activate some of my calcium-binding proteins (calmodulin or CaM) and protein kinases, which modify other proteins by chemically adding phosphate groups to them, and ultimately I generate nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) (6). ROS function as signaling molecules that coordinate a wide range of diverse plant processes, such as growth, development, stress adaptation, and cell self-destruction (programmed cell death) (7). However, the real reason I produce ROS under attack is to use them as local toxins to form unfavorable conditions for pathogen growth and reproduction. NO plays a key role in our immunity in synergy with ROS regulating responses that include defense gene expression and programmed cell death (8). As a result, I utilize both ROS and NO to say “NO” to the pathogens. Other important signaling molecules I utilize are salicylic acid and jasmonic acid. These essential plant hormones are chemical messengers that enable me to respond to my environment. Salicylic acid, SA, which is chemically similar to but not identical to the active component of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), is involved in the defense against pathogens that feed and reproduce on live host cells and activates signaling processes providing systemic acquired resistance, protecting the plant from further infection after an initial pathogen attack (9) (Fig. 2). On the other hand, jasmonic acid (JA) induces defense against pathogens that kill host cells for nutrition and reproduction (10). Another hormone in the complex cross talk of signaling pathways regulating my defense responses to microbial attack is ethylene, ET (11).

Although, I have not even told you all the details, I bet you have started to think that all these signaling cascades, regulators, hormones, molecular patterns, and receptors are highly complicated. Do not worry; I am not planning to tell you all the molecular mechanism(s) and relevant pathways I execute during biotic stress responses. If I do, then what will the plant scientists who are interested in plant pathogen interactions do for the rest of their lives? Instead I am going to briefly describe to you what strategies I use to prevent the spread of infection that the small microbe started.

Initially, I build physical barriers around the infection by increasing my cuticle, a protective waxy covering, and cell wall thickness, and then I release antimicrobial compounds, such as phenolics and phytoalexins to the sites of invasion (11). However, this effort is usually not enough to stop the microbes. Therefore, most of the time, the cells in the local region surrounding the infection decide to commit suicide to limit the growth of the pathogen through programmed cell death, which is a highly coordinated and sophisticated phenomenon. This resembles to the firefighters’ strategy to put down a forest fire. Firefighters control flames by cutting down trees, clearing brush away from the existing edge of the fire. This way they can form borders to mitigate the forest fire.

While I am fighting the infection, I also try to confer a long-lasting protection against this pathogen. I send mobile signals like salicylic acid to activate defense responses in distal tissues in case a secondary pathogen attack might occur there (12). Salicylic acid also induces numerous genes that encode PR proteins with antimicrobial properties (13).

I have done all those things I have told you here and a lot more that are still undisclosed to humans in a really short time because it was a matter of “to be, or not to be.” After all that stress, I have won the battle against the microbe at least for now. I have gained a life experience and will defend myself better in the future. I am recovering, but unfortunately my leaf, where all that fighting happened, has a big lesion, an abnormal tissue, which was formed when my poor cells died during the attack (Figure3).

As you can tell from my story, plants get stressed out too. However, we are not stressed due to problems at home, school, or work or spending time stuck in traffic. We deal with salinity, heavy metals, temperature, drought, lack of nutrition, herbivores (insects, mammals, etc.), and pathogens. Thanks to God that He gave us astonishingly complicated response mechanisms to resist all sorts of stresses to some extent, especially biotic stress. Otherwise, we might have become extinct. Can you imagine a world without us? You would have no more oxygen in the air, no more food for animals and humans, no more papers or books, no more clothes, no more furniture, no more blooming beautiful gardens, no more roses for your loved ones, and no more trees, which hold the soil in place so that wind and rain don’t cause severe erosion and destruction of homes for so many species. In addition, there will be fewer resources for drugs and dyes. Oh my God, you are the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. Thank you that You created us, shaped us and gave us smell, taste, color, and resistance to stresses.

Safiye Arslan is a research fellow in the area of biological chemistry and lives in Nevada.

References

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2. http://www.apsnet.org/online/feature/biotechnology/

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10. Spoel SH, Johnson JS, Dong X. 2007. “Regulation of tradeoffs between plant defenses against pathogens with different lifestyles.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 104, 18842–7.

11. Bouchez O, Huard C, Lorrain S, Roby D, Balagué C. 2007. “Ethylene is one of the key elements for cell death and defense response control in the Arabidopsis lesion mimic mutant vad1.” Plant Physiol. 145, 465–77.

12. Ficke A, Gadoury DM, Seem RC, Godfrey D, Dry IB. 2004. “Host Barriers and Responses to Uncinula necator in Developing Grape Berries.” Phytopathology. 94, 438–45.

13. Liu PP, Bhattacharjee S, Klessig DF, Moffett P. 2010. “Systemic acquired resistance is induced by R gene-mediated responses independent of cell death.” Mol Plant Pathol. 11, 155–60.

14. Durrant WE, Dong X. 2004. “Systemic acquired resistance.” Annu Rev Phytopathol. 42, 185–209.