This story has been related in all the major monotheistic faiths, indicating a deeper allegorical meaning of a universal example transcending all times and cultures.

It is well worth analyzing the psychological, social and moral aspects of such stories to shed light on events in our lives and times.

In this story, Joseph represents the human conscience that enables us to be sincere, responsible and accountable, as well as altruistic and generous. The brothers of Joseph represent the carnal self which deafens, blinds, and silences the human soul in the face of spiritual and material oppression. The carnal self suppresses the sensitivity to overcome oppression and injustice as well as appreciating beauty and benefaction.

Joseph’s brothers threw him into a well in their jealousy towards him. This is allegorical to an ineffective human conscience that has been made to fall prey to passing whims and desires. It is like falling down into a pit that has only one way for escape, as opposed to rising up to overcome the challenges of humanity. In a similar perspective, Joseph represents the characteristics of the noblest men in history. These include dedication, devotion, love, responsibility, and generosity.

Joseph is then rescued from the well by people from a passing-by caravan, coming from a long distance, where otherwise there is no one that stops at this well. This brings to mind the thought that, at a certain point in history, human conscience and good-will will be lost and forgotten to such a degree that it will be ignored and left on its own. It will be like a piece of jewel deep in the earth or a small amount of water in the vast dessert, extremely precious yet inaccessible and undiscovered by the masses.

The entrapment of Joseph in the well represents the downturns of human history, where darkness and a kind of hopelessness rule over societies, in a similar vein as it is manifested in our own personal lives. There are points in our lives when we seem lost in the dark and most often in some sort of depression and despair. However, these dark points in our lives are constantly followed by some sort of guidance and enlightenment. The wisdom behind this dark-light principle clarifies to us that we are under constant trial in our lives. They call for us to learn who we are and where we are heading to in life.

The rescue of Joseph from the well represents the bright and enlightened times of human history, as well as in our personal lives. In these times there is a relief from hardship, suffering or depression for some. A sense of expansion, understanding and enlightenment surrounds us and increases our appreciation for the endless numbers of provisions we are given. In our lives and in the lives of societies, this principle points to a time of justice, peace, understanding and great spiritual development.

The crying Jacob, soft-hearted, compassionate yet dominant, and enduring in the face of adversity, represents the great spiritual and material mentors of humanity. For years they persevered patiently and consistently, while sipping the anguish of separation until humanity re-unites with the long-lost Joseph. People who represent Jacob will learn to live under conditions where they will not be understood or appreciated, possibly even by their own children. Hence, the greatest prayer of Jacob is “I only disclose my anguish and sorrow to God” (Qur’an 12:86).

After being rescued by the caravan and taken to Egypt, Joseph was sold as a slave, where he later became a King. Although a ruler with great power in his hands, he does not forget his father Jacob or his brothers. Wealth and power does not change him, nor does it make him oblivious of his responsibilities or degrade his character. In fact his prayer “Take my soul to You as one who submitted unto You, and join me with the righteous” (Qur’an 12:101) shows us very clearly how concerned he was about the state in which he would die, since the one who does not fear the consequences of his/her actions is someone who cannot be trusted.

This story also brings to mind the recurring presence of certain principles in our lives.

Joseph was thrown into a well, then later was given the opportunity (as a King) to call to account the oppression of his brothers towards him, who ultimately asked him to forgive them. This indicates that events revolve in a circular manner; while it is daylight for some it is nighttime for others. Likewise, today many suffer in agony and their identities are smeared and blotched, while others live in oblivion and recklessness. A time will come when those who are oppressed will call to account those who thought they are not accountable to anyone.

It is not known how long Joseph remained in the well and how he survived there; however, from this story we can see that the Creator, closer to all more than they are to themselves, enabled the caravan to be a means to rescue Joseph from a situation in which there was no hope for escape. This is a poignant reminder that we are never alone, or constantly at a loss, and although we are in essence fragile and powerless, the Most Gracious Creator creates a way of exit from the harshest of situations.

As a young man, Joseph was not only physically attractive but, more essentially, he had a strong spiritual magnetism and aura. His immense loyalty, sincerity and faith were the pillars of his character and the reason why his father loved him so dearly. Jacob also knew through his gifted foresight that Joseph was a beloved of the Creator; hence, this would mean that the trials and tribulations he would face would be much stronger than those most others faced.

The modesty and chastity of Joseph was equally as great as his captivating aura. This was manifested when he was working as a servant in Egypt after he was sold as a slave there. The wife of the King was powerful, young and attractive and wanted to abuse the good looks of Joseph and seduce him. At this point, we see the great will-power and chastity of Joseph, where he is protected and saved from committing a great mistake, as he says, “God forbid!” (Qur’an 12:23). Thus, the protection and help of the Creator becomes manifest under the direst conditions. The other reason why Jacob cried and was so worried and concerned for Joseph was maybe that he knew he would face great trials in his life and therefore constantly asked the Lord to protect, guide and help him under these conditions.

A final lesson to be learnt from Joseph’s strong personality and unique character is that he did not punish his brothers when they came to request from him some provisions after he became King. If he had wanted to take revenge, he could have easily done so, but he chose not to. On the contrary, he demonstrated how generous and forgiving he was. After the hypocrisy, the deception and the treachery of his brothers towards him, he finally says to them, “No reproach this day shall be on you. May God forgive you; indeed He is the Most Merciful of the Merciful” (Qur’an 12:92). Hence, Joseph teaches a lesson by forgiving his brothers who wanted him to be forgotten, lost and even dead.

Sebnem Unlu, PhD, is a Research Faculty at University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, USA.

As a child of 11, Rebecca thought she was going blind. There was a Japanese plum tree in her front yard, and its leaves seemed duller than they had the day before. Looking down, the grass didn’t seem quite right either. Neither did the sky. There seemed to be an invisible filter over her eyes, a slightly cloudy lens that made colors less colorful. It wasn’t just colors, either… things that had been painfully shiny, like a baby’s eyes or her swimming pool, suddenly seemed normal and unremarkable. A dullness had descended on her world. It was a subtle change, maybe imperceptible to some, but the shift in her perception bothered her. Maybe she sensed that it was a spiritual rather than physical malady. However, she told no one, and later forgot to worry about it.

Years went by and Rebecca became a romantic teenager. As she walked to classes at university, she looked around at the ivy-covered brick buildings, the oak trees dripping with Spanish moss, the students laughing and talking or hurrying to and fro, and she felt her heart would burst. In those days, her heart could break in under a minute. She felt so much love for the world, such joy at occupying her small corner of it that she couldn’t help but be very, very aware of how fleeting it all was. She remembered then her odd experience as a child. Had that been a rite of passage, the moment that a child’s eyes become an adult’s? She grew into a woman who valued intellectual honesty and emotional generosity. It annoyed her how others blindly accepted conventional wisdom, or how they were too self-centered to be counted on.

More years went by, and Rebecca descended into a deep, desperate unhappiness. Most people she knew seemed so satisfied, which made it worse. Those who were religious did not look too closely at any logical or metaphysical cracks that might appear in their chosen worldview. Those who were irreligious seemed content to look at the world through their own eyes, apart from organized religion. Rebecca took to reinventing herself from time to time. She became a bit of a chameleon, vacillating between ideological extremes, a bright “love-me” smile under sad eyes. But there was something incomplete about each philosophy she tried on, something fractured within that intensified the eternal hole in her own heart.

Rebecca felt she owed it to herself to find the most perfect perspective; obviously, it must adapt to new information. People often ridiculed her for her wanderings from libertarian to Marxism, from church to yoga. She, too, couldn’t understand herself. She couldn’t recapture her earlier mindset: she had changed, her perception had shifted, and no memory, photo, or diary could take her back to the way she’d felt. It was as if those memories were of someone else entirely. She was evolving because she hadn’t found “it” yet: her place in the world, the meaning of life. It seemed to her that, just out of her reach, was an absolute truth, an ultimate reality.

As the search for God devolved into a search for significance, her personal troubles began to overshadow the metaphysical ones. She struggled to sleep, and had vivid, disturbing dreams. She no longer felt comfortable, even with family or friends. She was uneasy even in her own skin, and felt she did not belong anywhere. Academia appeared to dismiss the spiritual dimension of the human experience, while religion appeared to dismiss intellect. But to her it was too arrogant to forge her own path, to create her own philosophy: how was it possible that in thousands of years, billions of human souls had not yet hit upon something more absolute and eternal about the meaning of life? As she wrestled with the answers, she nearly drowned a thousand times in her own despair – why was there starvation, genocide and war? Why had her father left? Why could no one love her as she needed to be loved?

Could belief in God and worshiping Him be an option? Reading the holy scriptures

was at first a foray into the unconventional, a little excursion into something foreign. Later it made Rebecca uneasy: their warnings to the followers of other faiths, their recurring admonitions to unbelievers-“will they not see?” They claimed to be a direct communique from the Lord, God. It scared her to keep reading, and yet it scared her more not to know what it said.

Sometimes it feels like our personal, unstable world is constant, like the general world, and we imagine ourselves to be immortal; we embrace that world with intense emotions; then we drown in it and depart. Such love is boundless torment and trial for us, because an orphan-like compassion, a despairing softness of heart is born of that love. We pity all living things, we feel sympathy for all beautiful creatures which suffer decline and the pain of separation, but unable to do anything, we suffer in absolute despair.

Thinking over these, Rebecca would file them away, unaware that little seeds were growing and piercing the soil of her heart. She thought of praying to God. She felt each of the prayers was related to a season and stage in human life. Praying at dawn reminds us of spring, the freshness of youth. Prayer at noon reminds us of summertime, the vitality of adulthood. The afternoon prayer reminds us of autumn, and the weakening of old age. The sunset prayer reminds us of winter and death. The night prayer reminds us of the grave.

Rebecca’s heart was touched by words, but even so, to Rebecca they might have remained mere ideas, words in a book. It was the day-to-day examples of a number of observant believers that breathed life into faith and made it viable. They were kind, thoughtful people who spoke of God with both familiarity and reverence. Their eyes would light up at the sight of a lovely child, and they would breathe, “It is God’s will.” Their smiles were so warm, their hugs so tight, their hearts so giving; she felt she had found the community she had searched for. Muslims believe God’s mercy is limitless: like the waxing and waning of the moon, God forgives His people over and over and over again, and again and again. All people will stand before God and be held accountable for the good and bad they brought forth in this life. Life, therefore, is a test-for the human to overcome their evil-commanding soul and submit to the will of the Eternal and Absolute.

Beauty came suddenly, a few months after Rebecca have experienced these transformations in her soul. It was a hot summer day. She was sitting in a comfortable silence with her husband in the shade of their back porch, and she realized that the world was violently bright- almost Technicolor. The grainy contacts she’d been wearing since she was 11 were gone. The sky was so shockingly blue; the trees were so startlingly green. Her eyes filled with tears suddenly. She knew. She had been born completely surrendered to God, and had lived that way for almost a dozen years. She wondered if the day when the colors grew dull was the day she had left that perfect state of human nature. Perhaps now she had returned to her innate knowledge of God’s unity, and submitted herself to His Sole Divinity. It seemed God had called her back to Himself, and filled overflowing the hole in her heart, returning to her the colors of the world. Praise be to God, she could see again.

Jennifer Knight-Ari is an MA student in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program at the University of Central Florida.

Truthfulness is the firmest road leading to God, and the truthful are fortunate travelers upon it. Truthfulness is the spirit and essence of action and the true standard of straightforwardness in thought; it distinguishes believers from hypocrites, and the people of Paradise from the people of Fire. Truthfulness is a Prophetic virtue in those who are not Prophets, by which “servants” share the same blessings as “kings.” In the Qur’an, God Almighty described as being true both the one who communicated it and the one who confirmed it: He who came with the truth and he who declared that it is true (39:33).

Truthfulness can be defined as struggling to preserve one’s integrity and to avoid hypocrisy and lying, even in strained circumstances when a lie will cause release. Junayd al-Baghdadi says: “A loyal, truthful one changes states at least forty times a day (in order to preserve personal integrity), while a hypocrite remains the same for forty years without feeling any trouble or unease (over his or her deviation).”

The initial and lowest degree of truthfulness is sincerity and behaving the same whether in public or in private. This is followed by being true in all thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions. The truthful are those valiant people whose feelings, thoughts, and actions do not contradict one another; the most truthful are those heroes who are absolutely true in all of their imaginations, intentions, feelings, thoughts, actions, and gestures.

Using all of one’s faculties and capacities to achieve truthfulness in all actions, adherence to a lofty ideal or cause, and loyalty to or steadfastness in it is an attribute of Prophethood. In the verse: Make mention of Abraham in the Book: he was a most truthful one, a Prophet (19:41), the Qur’an refers to this highest degree of truthfulness. Truthfulness is the primary attribute of all Prophets, and the strongest moral force or means-producing activity for serving Islam and the Qur’an. It is also a believer’s greatest credit and most valid document in the Hereafter. God draws our attention to this significant fact: This is a day in which their truthfulness profits the truthful (5:119).

Truthfulness serves the Prophets, the purified and perfected scholars and the saints brought near to God, as a heavenly mount that, as quick as lightning, can carry them to the highest heights; lying, however, pulls Satan and his followers down to the lowest depths. Thoughts “fly upward” on the wings of truthfulness and increase in value, actions grow and flourish on the ground of truthfulness, and truthful supplications and prayers reach the Throne of Mercy and are welcomed.

Truthfulness is as effective as the “elixir” of God’s Greatest Name. When asked about the Greatest Name, Bayazid al-Bistami answered:

Show me the Least Name among God’s Names so that I may show you the Greatest One. If there is something as effective (for the acceptability by God of prayers and actions) as the Greatest Name, it is truthfulness. Whichever Name is recited truthfully, It becomes the Greatest.

Truthfulness caused the light of repentance to shine on the forehead of Prophet Adam, upon him be peace. Truthfulness served as a vessel of salvation for Prophet Noah, upon him be peace, when the world was flooded. Truthfulness carried Prophet Abraham, upon him be peace, to safety and coolness from the fire into which he had been thrown. Truthfulness elevates ordinary people to extraordinary heights, and is a key that opens the door to realms and realities beyond visible existence. One borne aloft by truthfulness cannot be detained from journeying upward, and doors are not closed in the face of one who uses this key. How apt are the words of Rumi in this respect:

The truthfulness of a lover affects even the lifeless;
Why then should it be found strange that it affects man’s heart?
The truthfulness of Moses affected his staff and the mountain;
Nay, it also affected that great, splendid sea.
As for the truthfulness of Muhammad, it affected
The beautiful face of the Moon and also the shining Sun.

In many verses, the Qur’an relates that being a true believer depends upon one’s integrity and truthfulness in words, actions, feelings, and innermost senses. It also regards such a degree of integrity and truthfulness as the basis of happiness in both this world and the next. The following are a few examples:

– Say: My Lord, cause me to enter with truth, and cause me to go out with truth, and grant me a power from Your Presence to help me. (17:80)

– Grant me a good reputation, being remembered for truthfulness, in later generations. (26:84)

– Give to those who believe good tidings that they have a true, sure footing in the sight of their Lord. (10:2)

– The righteous are in the Gardens and rivers, on the seats of truthfulness in the Presence of a Mighty King. (54:54-5)

Entering with truth, going out with truth, being remembered for truthfulness, true and sure footing, and a seat of truthfulness are all stations of and provisions for a long road extending from this world to the Hereafter. Since what takes place in this world yields fruit in the Hereafter, the truthful always pursue what is true, observe truthfulness when starting a task or moving to another place in the way of God, act and live in accord with the requirements of truthfulness, and bequeath truthfulness to succeeding generations. Their objective is to deserve eternal happiness in the Hereafter.

To become truthful in intentions and aims, believers must consciously decide to become truthful in their thoughts, decisions, and acts. This is the first step. Those so resolved must persist in truthfulness, regardless of the consequences, and refrain from whatever might shake their resolution. The second step is to maintain this worldly life only to support the truth and gain God’s approval and pleasure. Such people are always aware of the defects and faults of their selfhood, and do not surrender to the world’s attractions and change their conditions for worldly reasons. The third step is to establish truthfulness so firmly in one’s conscience that it governs every facet of life. This is identical with the station of being pleased, which is explained in the Tradition: One who is pleased with God as the Lord and Islam as the religion and Muhammad as the Prophet has tasted the delight of belief.

The greatest truthfulness and loyalty is for people to be pleased with the Lordship of God regardless of the treatment He dispenses, to accept Islam as the Divine system governing their lives, and to submit willingly to the guidance or leadership of the best of creation, upon him be peace and blessings. The way to true humanity lies in undertaking this grave responsibility, which is very difficult to fulfill perfectly.

Let us conclude with a fine couplet:

What befits man is truthfulness even if under threat;
God Almighty is the helper of the truthful.

With fire in their hearts and a blissful composure

They take everywhere armfuls of peace

Inside their eyes dews of infinity appear

The luminous riders, divine light on their faces

Like censers giving off fragrance all around

Leaving wisps behind, everywhere they pass

Offering the secrets of eternity to the world

Never-fading values in their thoughts

Like censers, giving off fragrance all around

In their gardens, like a legendary land

Springs of Paradise pour from crystal fountains

In their evergreen realm where no fall is seen

Everyday a new spring, everyday new blooms

In their gardens, like a legendary land

Angels hover in their horizons at each moment

They breathe the same air as heavenly spirits

Skies open their arms, constellations stand in salute

With their inner worlds like bays of Paradise

Angels hover in their horizons at each moment.

Every day, millions of people log on to online environments, seeking a second life in virtual worlds. It is noticeable that the average user is 26 years old, and spends 22 hours per week in his/her alternative lives [1]. After such dedicated players spend this much time in these worlds, not much is left for their offline activities. They literally live “in” these virtual worlds. What leads them to prefer a virtual life over a real one? Is something missing from the daily life? Why are people not happy or satisfied with what they have? Are they asking for more or looking for something they don’t have?

In Second Life, users can create a new character for themselves, a lifestyle, an environment or anything else they might imagine. Second Life, with about 17 million users, has its own economy and currency (Linden). Residents are able to buy and sell amongst themselves directly using Linden, which is also exchangeable for US dollars. Second Life’s GDP (2007) is estimated between $500 million and $600 million [2], which is larger than the GDP of 19 countries in the world. In October, 2008 users spent approximately $30 million. Although Second Life does not have a government, many countries have embassies in Second Life. The online world even has an in-world newspaper.

Many forms of sports activities have also appeared in Second Life. Residents can watch or participate in football, soccer, boxing, wrestling, and auto racing. Virtual art centers and museums allow artists to create and exhibit their works in a way which might not be possible in real life because of physical constraints or high costs. Streaming vocal and instrumental music or inworld instruments allow performances of live music. Live theater is also available in Second Life. The British act Redzone toured for their new album on Second Life (2007).

There are several studies [3] discussing how these online worlds could be used for educational purposes. There are regions in the virtual world of Second Life for educational purposes, and a variety of topics are covered. Virtual worlds are favored because they are thought to provide more engaging experiences than traditional online learning. Virtual worlds can provide an interactive imitation of real life classroom environments. 80 percent of British universities have teaching and learning activities in Second Life. More than 300 universities around the world are taking advantage of the platform to provide educational services at lower costs.

Good and evil exist in Second Life, so religion is also finding its way into this world. Many religious organizations have opened churches, cathedrals and meeting places in Second Life. People are more willing to explore and discuss spiritual things in a virtual world [4]. Second Life also has a place to perform the Hajj ritual, providing a virtual experience before making the actual pilgrimage in person. However, some residents find the idea of virtual worship odd. They prefer spending their time flying, shopping, or engaging in other activities.

Are all these activities making users happier or just helping them to forget their real life? The more users spend time in these worlds, the more they became addicted to their new lifestyle, becoming alienated from the events and responsibilities of real life.

Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish scholar, addresses this question in one of his latest articles [5] as follows: “In spite of the dizzying developments brought by science, the new opportunities offered by technology, and so many means promising us welfare and happiness, the people of our time do not seem very happy. On the contrary, they are overcome by unease and depression more than ever. Although it should not be expected to be any other way, mere worldly opportunities, which are not supported by personal relationships to faith or knowledge of God, are not deepened or given meaning, and obviously do not mean much.”

Despite the large number of educational and social features available in virtual worlds, the main motivation that leads players to games like Second Life seems to be a lack of satisfaction with their real lives. People are either not happy with their work, lifestyle or social environment, or they are seeking a second chance in life, a fresh start. These worlds approximate real life ever more closely with each new technological development. It remains to be seen how virtual worlds will affect real human relationships. One day people may not realize the difference between real and virtual worlds. Is Second Life simply taking over real life?

Gulen makes a similar connection between technological developments and the afterlife: “Even though it would not be correct to speculate today on the days to come, people who predict the future claim that the world will become so attractive for the people of physicality and carnal pleasures that it will make them forget Paradise. With a feeling and passion that gives priority to immediate pleasures and delights, they will say like Omar Khayyam, ‘The past and future are all but tales; enjoy yourself now, do not spoil your life.’ Thus, they will see life as only eating, drinking, and resting, constantly making their choices in favor of worldly ease and comfort.” The belief that on a particular day all humans will be held accountable before God for their actions in this life helps to support and protect the social dynamics of society. Success in the afterlife depends on remembering that one day we will be held responsible for every single deed of our earthly life.

Social dynamics and problems related to online gaming have been discussed widely in academic arenas. The large amount of time, money and resources spent on these games, as well as the associated social and behavioral problems, and loss of productivity are only some of the issues that come to mind. Scholarly articles on ethical issues of life in virtual worlds [6] have increased lately, and many topics are broached, including matters of privacy, monitoring and eavesdropping, the fear of exploitation, identity theft, the ethical impact of aesthetic decisions, values and ethics that are manifested in the social processes and their relevance to activities, professional ethics, standards of integrity, given identity issues and practices, malevolence and altruism, legal and ethical doctrines of confidential and privileged information, ethics for students and instructors, ethical development stages and issues, vandalism, harassment and crime.

Are we living our lives to the fullest? Everyone has the opportunity to choose how they live in this world. If this time is not well spent, that is, acting as if there is no responsibility or judgment for every action, what would be the difference between people living in this world as if it is a game, and those playing their lives away in these online worlds? The Holy Qur’an says: “This life of the world is but a pastime and a game, but the home of the Hereafter, that is Life if they but knew” [7]. Some people prefer their online lives to real life, and unfortunately many others are not aware that their actions evince their preference for the real life over the afterlife.

The movie Matrix has a similar story. The Matrix is a virtual world for people whose bodies are connected to the Machines, which use the bioelectricity and thermal energy of humans as their energy supply. Humans live out their lives in this virtual reality that resembles the 21st century without knowing that they are in a simulation. In the movie, a group of free humans attempts to rescue (unplug) others from the Matrix. The main challenge here is to make others believe that there is another life which is more real or important than the one they are living. In fact, as human beings we are all confronted with the same challenge. Either we gain an understanding of the meaning of our existence in the world and live accordingly, or we are enslaved by worldly ease and comfort, immediate pleasures and delights.

I would like to end with a point the Gulen made on happiness: “It seems that until human beings come to realize their essence, it will not be possible for them to put their affairs in order or to attain the happiness they long for. And this is particularly so if they are trying to suppress their spiritual appetite through luxury, comfort, and seeking to satisfy their physical pleasures because they are unable to realize their real problems.”

Acknowledgment: This article has been produced at MERGEOUS [8], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

Halil I. Demir is postdoctoral scholar in the area of Informatics, and lives in Iowa.

References

[1] Yee, N. “The demographics, motivations, and derived experiences of users of massively-multiuser online graphical environments.” Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 15:309–329.

[2] Wikipedia, Linden Dolar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_dollar

[3] Delwiche, A. (2006). “Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom.” Educational Technology & Society, 9 (3), 160-172.

[4] Anselmo, D., 08/01/2007, “A ‘Second’ Way to Save Souls” (churchsolutionsmag.com).

[5] Gulen, M. Fethullah, “Days of Depression and Our Atlas of Hope,” The Fountain Magazine, Issue 67, 2009.

[6] Emerging Ethical Issues of Life in Virtual Worlds, Information Age Publishing, Charlotte, NC, June 15, 2009.

[7] The Holy Quran (29:64).

[8] Mergeous, http://www.mergeous.com

You see, Auntie Kristina (that’s what a girl with manners should call her) was a friend of my family. She had visited us more times than I could count, but I had never been allowed to visit her, because her husband was unwell (and, I thought, probably couldn’t stand noise). They had no relatives in town. Their only daughter had married and moved to a distant city. So they lived alone in our small town, where everyone else had been there since Adam. It seemed to me that as outsiders they really appreciated the friendship of my parents. Also my father would fix any electrical appliance that broke in their house, free of charge. I guess Auntie Kristina and her husband loved my father like the son they had never had.

Auntie Kristina had the strangest ability to mend clothing like no one else could. She could patch a hole or sew a tear so that it was no longer there, as long as you had extra fabric. You couldn’t detect where a patch had been, even with my grandpa’s glasses on. Ask my mom if you don’t believe me.

So, I was ready to sprint toward her house when my teacher delivered her final instruction. “Be careful. Don’t drop the trousers anywhere. They are very expensive. And,”-that’s when my heart froze-“tell her these are your father’s trousers.”

You might have asked why, but I didn’t. I knew the reason. Auntie Kristina had stopped doing this kind of work for quite some time now. She had turned down such requests lately because the job put a strain on her aging eyes. But there was only one person she wouldn’t turn down: a dear friend asking a favor. And that was my father. If you wonder how my teacher knew that, then I suppose you’ve never lived in a small town full of gossip.

Yes. I knew it was a lie, but after having had this same neurotic teacher for 3 years, a teacher who had pulled my hair in first grade for writing crooked letters, I knew better than to say no.

I lowered my head and dragged myself out of the school. As I watched my shadow slide over the stones on the dusty road, I tried to think of a way out. The first scenario that played in my head was telling Auntie Kristina the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

“Auntie, my teacher sent me with a pair of trousers which have two holes, one big and one small on the left leg. These trousers belong to my teacher’s brother-in-law, who is our ambassador in some far away country and who burned them accidentally during a reception. (No, I am not making anything up. I overheard my teacher talking to her assistant during recess.) Since these trousers are far too expensive to throw away and since it is very, very important that the representative of our glorious country doesn’t go around with holes in his trousers, would you kindly repair them, please?”

She would politely decline and I wouldn’t blame her. Why strain one’s eyes to save the fancy pants of a careless diplomat?! However, this kind of answer would spell disaster for me. I abandoned this scenario and switched to the next.

I would go to her house; pretend I had knocked till my knuckles hurt, then turn back to tell my teacher that the seamstress wasn’t home. My teacher would believe me because: number one, I hadn’t lied before, and number two, she believed that the child who could lie to her had not yet been born. (She told us this herself, but if you can keep a secret, I will tell you-she is wrong. Two of my friends lied to her once, and they didn’t even flinch when faced with her lie-detecting stare.)

Anyhow, I would try, if it would end my misery. Yet, I knew like two plus two equals four that she would send me again the next day and then the next until I found the seamstress home. Chances are she would send another envoy with me after the second attempt. Then, I would have to convert that classmate into an accomplice, which was about as easy as swallowing a bull.

As I swallowed my saliva and wiped my sweaty forehead I realized that I had arrived at Auntie’s house. Standing in front of her door with my fist raised to knock, I couldn’t think of a way out of this dilemma: Shall I lie to my teacher or to Auntie Kristina? To tell the truth, the first seemed a lesser wrong but with greater consequences. I would have the same teacher for another two whole years.

I knocked twice, wishing hard that Auntie Kristina had moved to another city without letting anyone know, or had gone to see her daughter long enough for his Corpus Diplomaticus to go back to that far-away country. Have I told you that I am not that lucky? Well it’s time you knew.

Auntie Kristina opened the door with a big smile that made me blush to the tip of my ears.

“Hello Auntie! My parents send their regards to you. My father’s trousers need some repairs.” My voice trembled like I was begging for food. “Some extra fabric is in the bag.” I handed the bag to her with shaky hands. As soon as Auntie saw the shiny, high quality pants she looked at me over her spectacles, perplexed. She inspected the holes and fell silent. The longer the silence lasted, the hotter my face got. Auntie Kristina, who probably knew how many fillings my father had in his mouth, could quite easily guess that my father, a modest electrician, would more likely land on the moon than own those fancy trousers. I lowered my head and waited for a shame-on-you slap but instead I got:

“O.K. Come and pick them up tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? I was worried. I will have to go through all this again my mind protested.

“Yes, “she said. “I don’t have time today.”

“Tell your parents I said hi,” she reminded me. I nodded. You would expect me to take a deep breath once she closed the door, right? Instead I felt like I was choking and there was only one way for my lungs to get air: let the tears that were knotted in my throat flow. And I did. I didn’t care who might be watching. I hated my teacher. I detested her mindless brother-in-law. I loathed pant-burning cigars. I hated myself. I was a bad girl. I was a liar. I continued to cry to my heart’s content, until my eyes were dry and I could breathe again.

The next day my teacher’s face brightened up when she examined the repaired trousers.

“Unbelievable!” she exclaimed. “One thousand witnesses are needed to prove that there was a hole in these pants.” She turned to me with a smile and said, “Well done.” Her praise, rare as rain in the desert, didn’t make me at all happy this time. In fact, it inflamed my guilt which was burning holes inside me. All I could do was to wait for the flame to die out.

Three weeks later, when the fire of my guilt had somewhat subdued, something happened that blew the ashes away and exposed the embers. It was the day of my older sister’s wedding. As I was busying myself, getting into everybody’s way, I heard Auntie Kristina’s voice greet my father. I jumped out of my skin and hid behind my bedroom door. Peaking through the keyhole, I saw her hand Mom a wrapped gift for my sister. Only for a split of a second did she scrutinize the outfit my father had on. Although it was his best gray suit, it stood a hundred light-years away from those fancy trousers.

She smiled at him and proceeded to the sitting room. She sat on the sofa exchanging pleasantries with both my parents while her coffee was being made. I glued my ear to the wall so that I could hear and started to reconstruct the puzzle of their conversation from what I could hear. When she asked where I was, suddenly finding a hiding place was more urgent than hearing what she had to say next. If I knew one thing about my mother, who stuck to the rules of manners like no other, it was that she would be looking for me in no time. It is considered rude for children to not greet guests, especially when the guests deigned to ask about them. I wasn’t mistaken. Mom rushed into my bedroom calling my name. I was sweating in my closet, hiding among racks of clothes. Did Auntie tell? Is Mom angry? Am I in trouble? I wondered. I could sense she was annoyed and impatient. Somebody called Mom from the kitchen with urgency so she stopped looking for me. I stayed inside until I heard Mom thank Auntie for coming and say goodbye.

I couldn’t spend my whole life inside a closet, so finally I decided I had to come out. On my way to the front yard, Mom called: “There you are! Here, take this. It’s from Auntie Kristina. She said you are a good girl,” Mom related with satisfaction. I don’t know why, but parents are really happy when their children are praised. “Isn’t she a nice lady?” Mom asked. Without waiting for my answer she hurried to greet another guest standing at the door. My mom had placed a bag of candies in my hand. My eyes welled up, but I pushed the tears to the corners. Something that felt good was happening inside me. The holes of emptiness were being patched. My soul was being mended.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “She is a nice lady, and the best seamstress of all.”

Mirkena Ozer is pursuing MA in women studies at the University of Georgia, Atlanta.

The numerous movements of the past 150 years, characterized almost without exception as ‘Islamic movements’, have had little if anything to do with the resurgence of religious faith as such. Most of these have actually been political movements, with leaders whose underlying goal has been to solve a specific problem: the problem of the perceived backwardness of the Muslim peoples and their subservience, politically and culturally, to the West.

While none of the groups that operate within the definitional matrix of ‘Islamic movements’ can claim to be identifiable primarily as a faith movement, various individuals have appeared sporadically with the avowed aim of fostering renewal of belief – often to the extent of dedicating their whole life’s work to that aim – and around some of these individuals, movements of considerable size and import have accreted. The Turkish Muslim scholar Bediüzzaman Said Nursi (1877/8–1960) is one such individual.

Progenitor of the ‘service of belief and the Qur’an’ movement, Nursi is arguably the most influential, if woefully under-researched, Muslim thinker of the twentieth century. While the ‘service of belief and the Qur’an’ movement, a faith-based movement consisting of millions of followers worldwide, does not – strictly speaking – fulfill the definitional criteria of a New Religious Movement, it stands out from other contemporary Muslim religious and ideological groupings not only for its uncompromising focus on the renewal of individual rather than collective faith, but also for its eschewal of any kind of religiously-legitimized violence or militancy for the sake of politico-ideological ends.

Although often stereotyped as the pioneer of reform of an Islam declining under the pressures inflicted on it by the Kemalist secularization policy of the Turkish state, almost half a century after his death, Nursi continues to defy any attempts to locate him precisely within the generally accepted milieu of ‘Muslim scholars’. While his magnum opus, the Risale-i Nur, is for all intents and purposes a commentary on the Qur’an, it is not a work of exegesis in the technical sense of the word, although he was clearly an accomplished exegete. And while Nursi was well-versed in the principles of scholastic theology (kalām), devoting the lion’s share of the Risale to what he claims are rational proofs for the unity (tawhīd) of God, it is not a work of traditional theology either.

In fact, on one level, the Risale is as resistant to compartmentalization as the Qur’an itself, which it claims to mirror and to elucidate. And if, as Nursi often asserts, the aim of the Qur’an is to guide man to belief, then the teachings of the Risale should be seen as consonant with that aim.

The three supreme matters in the worlds of humanity and Islam are belief, the Shari’a, and life. Since the truths of belief are the greatest of these, the Risale-i Nur’s select and loyal students avoid politics with abhorrence so that they should not be made the tool to other currents and subject to other forces, and those diamond-like Qur’anic truths not reduced to fragments of glass in the view of those who sell or exploit religion for the world, and so that they can carry out to the letter the duty of saving belief, the greatest duty.

Part of Nursi’s appeal lay in his uncompromising belief that it is belief (īmān) which must be renewed and protected, and that all other endeavors must be approached with the primacy of belief in mind: the fact that, unlike many of the popular Muslim thinkers of his own epoch, he repudiated the dubious art of politics – and, more importantly, the dubious art of politicking that is buttressed by religion – earned him respect and conferred on him a sense of authenticity that would perhaps be found wanting in so many other Muslim thinkers. Another part of his appeal lay in his shrewd interpretation of the forces ranged against him. For Nursi, unlike many of the Muslim scholars, leaders and ideologues who came later, realized that if there is a conflict between Islam – or belief – and modernity, it is not a conflict fought over issues of government or technology, over science or democracy. As Nursi’s own evaluation of the problems facing the Muslim world shows, the conflict is ultimately over transcendence, with the post-Enlightenment experiment claiming a centrality in the universe’s affairs for man that Islam, with its emphasis on the dependence of man on God, cannot countenance. Man is faced with a choice: belief in the sovereignty of God or belief in the sovereignty of man, with all that such a choice entails. For Nursi, the way to salvation consists solely in choosing the Other over the self, and it is in the dynamics of this choice that the key to an understanding of Nursi’s take on spirituality and man’s place in the cosmos may be found.

Renewal and reform, then, do play a central role in the Nursian Weltanschauung, but, unlike so many of his coevals, it is the renewal of belief and the reform of the individual that constitute his primary and overriding concern. In this respect, he is one of few Muslim thinkers in the twentieth century who has little if anything to say about the socio-economic or political externalia of Muslim life. Over the past century and a half in general, and the last twenty-five years in particular, ‘Islam is a complete way of life’ has been the mantra of choice for the vast majority of Muslim movements. As a corollary, emphasis has been largely on the ‘implementation’ of Islam at the socio-political level, with debate and discussion focusing mainly on issues such as Islamic law, Islamic education and the concept of the Islamic state. As such, the lion’s share of Muslim movements can be said to adopt an ‘externalist’ approach to the Islamic revelation, seeing in the strict adherence of Muslims to the shari‘a – and, where necessary, the imposition of such adherence through legislative means – the key to the formation of the ideal Muslim society. For the ‘externalists,’ reform has come to mean chiefly the reform of society, the underlying aspiration of which must be to return to the ‘golden age’ of Islam typified – for the externalists at least – by the community-state of Medina during the lifetime of the Prophet. These ‘dreams of Medina’, and the concomitant desire to share – or, even, impose – those dreams on others, are responsible in part for the current Western perception of Islam as more political ideology than divinely-revealed religion. The relative merits and demerits of ‘Islamism’ or ‘political Islam’ as terms by which to describe this over-politicized approach to Islam need not occupy us here. Suffice to say that in the last analysis, this approach rests on the fulcrum that is the return of ‘Islamic rule’, the transformation of the Muslim world into an umma analogous to the community-state of Medina and, wittingly or otherwise, the reduction of the Islamic revelation to the single issue of governance. While Islam made political and transformed into ideology is a relatively recent phenomenon, the ‘externalist’ approach to Islam which informs it is almost as old as Islam itself. However, whereas for the likes of ‘non-externalists’ such as Ghazali in the twelfth century and Mulla Sadra in the seventeenth it was the nomocentrism of the externalist scholars and the over-emphasis on fiqh (jurisprudence) which constituted the greatest obstacles to the health of the Muslim community, for the Ghazalis and Sadras of today – of whom Nursi is undoubtedly one – it is the over-politicization of religion which is the danger.

Arguably the most important common denominator among Islamic/Islamist groups and leaders of the past fifty to one hundred years has been the tendency to favour the use of force to change ‘religiously suspect’ regimes in the Muslim world and bring about Islamic revolutions. And it is precisely on this point where one sees a fundamental difference between Nursi and his contemporaries. For not only is Nursi distinguished by his staunch opposition to any kind of uprising or revolution in the name of Islam, but also he stands on account of his aversion to politics in general, and the politicization of Islam in particular. Nowhere is Nursi’s ideological departure from the majority of his contemporaries delineated more sharply than on the highly contentious issue of jihād. As emphasized above, for Nursi, the way to salvation consists solely in choosing the Other over the self, and it is in the dynamics of this choice that the key to an understanding of Nursi’s take on spirituality and jihād may be found.

There are many for whom it is clear that humanity is in a precarious position. We are told on a daily basis that we live under the threat of pollution, global warming, terrorism, famine and a thousand and one different ills. Our time is, we are told, a time of global crisis. Yet few are able to fathom the real cause of this crisis. It is not that we do not understand the problems around us. Our crisis – the crisis of modernity – is that we do not understand ourselves. Indeed, postmodern thought – if such a thing exists and is not really just another name for the confused ideas of late modernity – nurtures a scepticism in which the very possibility of understanding anything is called into question.

Most people, Nursi claims, have been reduced to hardship and misery by the demands and dictates of modern times. Man’s innate nobility has also been marred, he says, as the gradual divorce from religious values has opened the floodgates of ‘dissipation’, encouraging dissolute living and the ‘appetites of the flesh.’

Socio-economic inequalities are also the hallmark of this modern civilization, Nursi adds, with the Western attitude being “So long as I am full, what is it to me that others die of hunger?” and “You work so that I can live in ease and comfort’. By allowing the rift between the classes to widen, the West has engendered so much strife and sedition that it is on the brink of bringing humanity to its knees, giving rise to the struggle between capital and labor – itself the precursor of two World Wars and bloodshed and disorder on a hitherto unknown scale.

One could go on, but surely the point has been made: it was impossible for Said Nursi to approve of a civilization in which the negative aspects outweighed the positive so decisively. For Nursi, the only way forward for man is to embrace a civilizational form which brings true happiness and prosperity – and if not for all, then at least for the majority.

Human beings are faced with a choice: belief in the sovereignty of God or belief in the sovereignty of man, with all that such a choice entails. For Nursi, the way to salvation consists solely in choosing the Other over the self, and it is in the dynamics of this choice that the key to an understanding of Nursi’s take on the ‘true civilization’ may be found.

For Said Nursi, for man to be truly human, he must establish for himself not an Islamic state, but an Islamic state of mind. If, in secular shorthand, ‘civilization’ is the highest thing towards which man as a social being can aspire, let us see how Said Nursi redefines the term to make it truly meaningful for limited, impotent man, giving it the ability to ‘confront the awesome silence of the grave’ in a way that no other civilization is able. Comparing Western civilization with the ideational entity known as Islamic civilization, he locates the source of the former in human artfulness (daha) and that of the latter in Divine guidance (huda). These sources, he holds, impact in very different ways on society in general and the individual in particular.

Artfulness, writes Nursi, functions in the mind and confuses the heart. It looks to the material and to the corporeal, considering the body and the evil-commanding soul, which it seeks to nurture. It develops the potentialities of the nafs while making of the ruh a servant or slave. In its love of this world, which is the only world it recognizes, it turns man into a satan, worshipping deaf nature and, in its blindness, drawing a veil of ingratitude over the face of the earth. It sees the bounties before it as ownerless booty, which it usurps like a common thief.

Guidance, on the other hand, works in the heart and lights up the spirit. It develops man’s potentialities and spiritual capacities and, in so doing, illuminates nature. It makes of the soul and the body and in so doing produces happiness in this world and the next. It sees Divine art everywhere, and the wisdom and power of God in all things. It worships Allah, the possessor of art and power. It is both seeing and hearing, and as it benefits from Divine bounties, it scatters the light of thankfulness all around it.

In Nursian terms, then, to be truly civilized, man must be truly human, and to be truly human, his goal is not the kind of khilafa that engenders power but the kind of khilafa which engenders worship – namely the nurturing of each individual soul into its true state as khalifat Allah fi al-ard, vicegerent on Earth. This, for Nursi, marks the true civilization to which man should aspire.

Dr. Colin Turner from Durham University, UK, is the co-author of Said Nursi, 2009, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and IB Tauris, London, New York.

A particularly interesting class of all these non-coding RNAs comprises riboswitches. Riboswitches are structured mRNA elements that regulate gene expression upon binding of a specific small metabolite. These biosensors were first discovered in 2002 in bacteria. Later, it was shown that plants, green algae and fungi also posses riboswitches. Although, only one type of riboswitch is found in plants and none has beeen detected in mammals yet, metabolite-sensing riboswitches are commonly used for the regulation of fundamental biochemical pathways in bacteria. Riboswitches help cells monitor the environmental conditions and determine if a compound is present at sufficient levels or not. Based on this decision, production, degradation or transport of the related metabolite is either turned on or off.

Architecture of a Riboswitch

A standard riboswitch is divided into two parts: a ligand-binding domain and a gene expression domain (Figure 1). Small molecular metabolites bind to the ligand-binding domain, which is called aptamer, of riboswitches with astonishing specificity. For instance, purine riboswitches differentiate guanine from adenine by at least 10,000-fold based on the identity of a single pyrimidine (thymine or cytosine) that binds to the ligand (1). When a ligand binds to aptamer, conformational changes of the RNA’s structure occur at the gene expression domain. Eventually, this leads to the modulation of gene expression. Some of the riboswitch mechanisms to regulate the expression of genes include formation of stem-loops, lollipop-like RNA structures, which lead to the blocking of transcription or translation, which are the processes where proteins are synthesized using the mature mRNA, self cleavage or mRNA destabilization (Figure 2).

Classes of Riboswitches

The numerous distinct classes of riboswitches discovered so far are differentiated by their ligands and remarkably, the same class of riboswitches can control gene expression through different mechanisms in various organisms. For example, a riboswitch that recognizes and binds thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP), a derivative of vitamin B1, is called as TPP riboswitch (2). In plant cells, when TPP levels are high, excess TPP binds to a TPP riboswitch located in one of the TPP biosynthesis genes. As a result of TPP binding, conformation of that RNA segment changes, which leads to the formation of an unstable mRNA product which degrades quickly. Although, a very little amount of stable mRNA is also produced, it is not enough for the protein synthesis of an important component of TPP biosynthesis. Therefore, TPP biosynthesis can not be completed and consequently TPP levels drop in the cell. On the other hand, when TPP levels are low in plants, more stable mRNA is formed because there is not enough TPP that can bind to the riboswitch and cause structural changes which will result in the formation of unstable mRNA. The stable mRNA produced in the absence of excess TPP is used for the protein biosynthesis of TPP metabolism successfully and thus TPP levels increase in the cell. Unlike plants in bacteria, when TPP concentration is high, riboswitches down-regulate expression of thiamin biosynthesis genes by either blocking the formation of any type of mRNA (both stable and unstable) or preventing the mRNA process rather than destabilizing the mRNA. Some of the other riboswitches that bind vitamin derived compounds are adenosylcobalamin, the coenzyme form of vitamin B12, and flavin mononucleotide, a biomolecule produced from vitamin B2, riboswitches. There are also riboswitches that can bind to amino acids such as lysine riboswitch. The cyclic diguanylate (c-di-GMP) riboswitch is the first known example of an RNA that binds a second messenger, which carries signals from receptors on the cell surface to target molecules inside the cell (3). Purine riboswitches selectively recognize guanine or adenine and regulate purine biosynthesis and transport, which is important for DNA/RNA synthesis. Another interesting type of riboswitch is the glmS riboswitch. It modulates gene expression by undergoing self-cleavage when there is a sufficient concentration of glucosamine-6-phosphate, an important amino sugar. The spectrum of ligands that can be recognized by riboswitches also includes a metal ion, as well. Mg(2+) riboswitches control Mg(2+) transportation when cells are grown in high Mg(2+) environments. In brief, the growing list of studies on riboswitches shows how novel mechanisms are which they use to regulate the gene expression of many fundamental metabolic pathways.

Applications for Riboswitches as drug targets and chemosensors

Riboswitches are powerful and essential components in all three domains of life which are bacteria, archaea (a group of single-celled microorganisms) and eukaryotes ( organisms whose cells contain complex structures inside membranes such as plants and fungi) functioning as intracellular biosensors and regulators. They regulate gene expression in a highly efficient, precise and fast way. Therefore, they can be engineered for various applications.

First of all, riboswitches are excellent candidates as drug targets since they control many important bacterial and fungal genes. Chemical analogs that mimic the actual ligands of the riboswitches can be designed to silence or regulate the expression of defective genes responsible for disease development or even kill certain bacterial pathogens by turning off the genes that are involved in fundamental metabolic pathways. A great example of this strategy is presented by the Breaker laboratory at Yale University. The Breaker group chose guanine-binding riboswitches as targets for the development of novel antibacterial compounds. They have designed several guanine analogues and tested their ability to be bound by the riboswitch and repress bacterial growth (4). They have been able to inhibit the bacterial growth by inducing guanine riboswitch action. Their approach could be used to discover new antibacterial compounds that specifically target other riboswitch classes.

In addition to being drug targets, riboswitches can open new frontiers in bioremediation, bionanotechnology, and synthetic biology. In 2007 Shana Topp and Justin P. Gallivan from Emory University demonstrated that Escherichia coli can be reprogrammed to detect, follow, and precisely localize to a completely new chemical signal by using a synthetic riboswitch (5). They suggest that the bacteria with synthetic or mutated riboswitches could be used to follow and degrade pollutants in soil or target small-molecule signals of disease. Overall, their work to equip the bacteria which can autonomously follow chemical signals, degrade, synthesize or release compounds can help scientists invent new technologies in bioremediation, drug transport, and synthetic biology.

Furthermore, riboswitches are ideal candidates for use in analytical devices and techniques. Their binding features make them suitable in all specific analytical applications in which selective recognition is required. Therefore, these powerful molecular tools can be utilized in analytical chemistry, molecular biology and biosensor technology (6).

As a result, living systems utilize riboswitches to detect the concentrations of small-molecule metabolites and to modulate the expression of related genes via numerous elegant mechanisms. The use of genetic engineering of riboswitches holds enormous potential for inventing new applications to sense and destroy pathogens, deliver drugs, perform bioremediation, detect chemicals and many others that might have significant impacts on our lives. It is also remarkable that only a couple of decades ago most of the non-coding RNAs were assumed to be useless, and are called junks since they do not provide any information for protein synthesis. Yet riboswitches by themselves are enough to prove that God has created everything with a purpose. He is All-Wise and he does nothing in vain. Riboswitches are not useless at all. They are such complex, and perfectly working systems that they can serve humanity as well-designed on/off switches in numerous applications.

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

References

1. Gilbert SD, Reyes FE, Edwards AL, Batey RT. 2009. Adaptive ligand binding by the purine riboswitch in the recognition of guanine and adenine analogs. Structure 17, 857-868

2. Wachter A, Tunc-Ozdemir M, Grove BC, Green PJ, Shintani DK, Breaker RR. 2007. Riboswitch control of gene expression in plants by splicing and alternative 3′ end processing of mRNAs. Plant Cell 19, 3437-3450.

3. Kulshina N, Baird NJ, Ferré-D’Amaré AR. 2009. Recognition of the bacterial second messenger cyclic diguanylate by its cognate riboswitch. Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 16, 1212-1217.

4. Kim JN, Blount KF, Puskarz I, Lim J, Link KH, Breaker RR. 2009. Design and antimicrobial action of purine analogues that bind Guanine riboswitches. ACS Chemical Biology 4, 915-927.

5. Topp S, Gallivan JP. 2007. Guiding bacteria with small molecules and RNA. Journal of the American Chemical Society 129, 6807-6811.

6. Mairal T, Ozalp VC, Lozano Sanchez P, Mir M, Katakis I, O’Sullivan CK. 2008. Aptamers: molecular tools for analytical applications. Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry 390, 989-1007.

Even though Kant has very original insights that opened new gateways in the history of philosophy, his so-called “critical philosophy” is not devoid of defects. This article aims to present Kant’s account of causation and critically evaluate it.

Kant’s famous remark about his awe for “the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me,” which is written in his gravestone, shows his orientation in philosophy. While he was interested in explaining the features of the universe and the nature of our theoretical knowledge, he did not ignore the practical aspect of our life that concerns with how to act in the right way. That is to say, ethics and natural science were main disciplines Kant tried to understand. However, this paper examines his analysis of theoretical knowledge and the natural science by focusing on his account of causality.

An introduction to Kant’s “critical philosophy”

Before Kant, there were two important traditions in modern philosophy: rationalism and empiricism. On the one hand, the rationalists assumed that we could obtain knowledge of the world by trusting in the power of our minds. Kant considered them to be dogmatic in the sense that they dogmatically assumed this idea without examining the nature and limits of our minds so as to see whether we can really achieve this goal or not. On the other hand, the empiricists usually distrusted the power of the mind in its attempt to know the world, and in its most extreme case, in Hume, it led to skepticism. In response to these two approaches, Kant suggested to examine critically the nature and limits of the mind and see to what degree we can have knowledge at all. This is called “critical philosophy.”

For Kant, our minds are not passive receivers of representations like mirrors. A normal flat mirror reflects the image from an object as if it is the same except in a two-dimensional way. It was a common attitude among philosophers before Kant to treat the mind like a mirror. The mirror does not change the form of the object. Likewise, the mind does not affect or change the form of the objects, it just receives them. However, Kant changed the whole picture. He treated minds as active filters. Whatever is reflected on it is shaped in a certain way. On this view, the mind is like a concave or convex mirror, or colormatic glasses but it is not like a flat mirror.

According to Kant, the mind has three faculties with different functions. These faculties are sensibility, understanding and reason. Through sensibility we get the raw material of experience. This material is structured and shaped by space and time which are not outside the mind but are the pure forms of the faculty of sensibility. What we get through this faculty is called “intuition.”

The faculty of understanding provides us with concepts, especially with “the pure concepts,” or categories, of which there are twelve in total, and are used in organizing the intuition. In brief, what is reflected on the mind as coming from the world is structured by the a priori forms of intuiton (space and time) to which the twelve categories of mind are applied.

Kant’s postulation of the mind as an active factor in obtaining knowledge is considered to be “the copernican revolution” in philosophy. Kant has a formula which depicts his system very well: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitons without concepts are blind.” In order to have understanding, we should both have intuition and concepts. These two conditions should be fulfilled for a genuine and reliable understanding. First, concepts without intuiton do not give us understanding; we can just think about them and never be sure whether they are something about real or not. According to Kant, concepts such as soul, God, and free will are ideas to which no intuition corresponds. Second, if there were no ordering role of the mind, all the information we got from the world would be chaotic. For instance, we would not be able to identify a certain individual as a human being, an animal of a different sort or even as an object, because we lacked an ability to order and classify the information. Therefore, according to Kant, the world appears to us differently from as it is in itself due to the ordering character of the mind.

Kant calls the world as it appears to us “phenomena” and the world in itself “noumena.” The latter is beyond the limits of the legitimate realm of theoretical knowledge. We cannot understand it, and we cannot theoretically know anything about it: we can only think about it. Ideas such as those of God and free will are directed toward the nounemal realm. They belong to the faculty of reason and have a regulative role in ordering and unifying our experience. However, they are empty according to Kant. That is to say, there is no corresponding intuition to them in our experience. Thus, we cannot decide whether they really exist or not by theoretical knowledge. This conclusion of Kant’s critical philosophy may suggest an agnostic position towards God, (actually it led many people to become agnostics) according to which human beings can neither affirm nor deny the existence of God. However, Kant thought that he found a reason for believing in God in another domain, namely in practical reason and knowledge. Nevertheless, Kant’s attempt to show the illegitemacy of theoretical knowledge regarding neumena undermines itself. This can be seen especially in his analysis of causality.

Synthetic a priori truths

Kant takes mathematical science and natural science for granted. He accepts them as successful sciences and tries to understand the conditions under which they are possible. His conclusion is that these sciences can be grounded only on “synthetic a priori judgments.” There are two important conceptual distinctions here: the analytic-synthetic and the a priori-a posteriori. The former is a semantic distinction, the latter is epistemological. A statement is analytic if its predicate-concept is included in the subject-concept, otherwise it is synthetic. The proposition that all black cats are black or that bachelors are unmarried is analytic. A black cat is black, the predicate is embedded in the subject here. And bachelors are by definition unmarried because a bachelor is a single male. However, the color of my cat is not included in its definition. A priori judgments are known independently of experience whereas a posteriori ones are known by appealing to experience as a justification. We know that everything is identical to itself without any experience. But we need some experiential evidence to affirm the statement that the Morning Star is identical with the Evening Star. It was a scientific discovery that those stars were actually the same, namely Venus.

For Kant, all analytic judgments are a priori. He also claims that there are synthetic a priori statements. This is a bit unusual because we normally know synthetic statements by experience. How can we know a statement a priori if its predicate is not included in the subject? Kant explains the possibility of such judgements by appealing to the mind’s role in shaping experience. According to him, by applying the categories to intuition, we put what is in our minds into our experiences. So, “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them.” In other words, the categories shape the experience and we know that aspect of experience a priori since it belongs to us. The conceptual distinctions presented so far enable us to understand Kant’s account of causality better.

Causality

From a historical point of view, Kant’s account of causality was a response to Hume’s scepticism about causation. Let us first see what Hume said about this issue. Hume points out that we only observe correlated events in nature, and that there are some regular correlations and some irregular ones. For instance, we always observe that lightning precedes thunder. On the basis such regular correlations, we infer that the events in question are also causally related. That is to say, lightning causes thunder. However, according to Hume, we never observe causation between events. What is observed is just that two events are correlated in a regular manner. Causation is what our mind is inclined to infer when faced with such regularities. Causal links are produced by the human mind as subjective mental operations. So, there is no objective causality between events: it is our subjective interpretation of the regularity between them.

If we consider the fact that electrical charges are regarded as the common causal factor behind lightning and thunder by contemporary scientists, we can appreciate what Hume said. We do not observe causal links. Perhaps, sometime in the future, scientists will propose another physical factor as the cause for thunder, lightning and maybe for electical charges. Since we do not observe causal links, we can never be sure about what causes what. Hume extends this skepticism so far that nothing really causes anything else. There is no objective causation; there are just correlations in our experience. In other words, he also denies the objectivity of the universal causal principle, namely that every effect or event must have a cause.

As a response, Kant distinguishes two different levels in analysing causation. On the one hand, he tries to prove the objectivity of the universal principle of causality. Kant is aware of the difficulty of proving it on the basis of experience. Such a universal principle cannot be based on experience. Kant considers this univeral principle as a synthetic a priori truth. It is valid for anything we experience because all our experience is shaped by the category of causality. He formulates this principle in the following way: everything that happens presupposes that which it follows in accordance with a rule.

According to Kant, the phenomena consisting in irreversible sequences indicate the causal order. As an example of irreversible sequence, he mentions the sequence when we look at a ship moving down the river. In this case, what we apprehend is an objective process. And its order cannot be arranged otherwise than in this very succession. So, when we watch the ship’s departure, the order in which our visual states occur is not up to us. As a conclusion, Kant argues that in irrevesible cases, the apprehension of one perception which occurs necessarily succeeds that of the other which preceded according to a rule called “the law of the connection of cause and effect.”

On the other hand, Kant’s analysis of irreversible sequences does not suggest anything about particular causal relations. A particular sequence of irreversible representations does not enable us to identify the cause of the event in question: it only indicates that the event in question must have a cause (in the sense that some other event precedes it), even if we do not know what this cause is. Kant expresses this point by saying that “Everything in nature, as well in the inanimate as in the animated world, happens or is done according to rules, though we do not always know them….”

While there are some ambigious passages indicating as if Kant has identified some necessary causal links between particular events (such as that the sunshine caused the warmth of a stone), those passages should be interpreted under the light of this general statement here. The reason simply is that Kant aims to exemplify his view of causation in such contexts rather than identifying some particular causal links.

A fundamental problem with Kant’s analysis of causality

As we have seen, Kant treats the universal principle of causality as a synthetic a priori truth. In doing so, he limits causal ascriptions to the phenomenal realm because it is the phenomenal realm not the noumenal realm, which is shaped by our minds. So, according to Kant causal talk about noumena, things in themselves, is not legitimate and does not give us theoretical knowledge.

However, the question that should be answered in this regard is if the human mind interacts with noumena. If so, how does it interact? In some passages, Kant seems to consider noumena to be an empty and limiting concept. We cannot know anything about this realm (even whether or not noumenal objects such as free will, soul and God exist), therefore it is just a heuristic device indicating what is beyond our theoretical knowledge. Thus, we cannot say anything about the relationship between the mind and noumena, because noumena are beyond our understanding. Otherwise, anything we say can only be an illegitimate speculation.

Nevertheless, such passages do not represent Kant’s whole philosophical outlook. As a fundamental aspect of his critical philosophy, Kant assumes that our experience is shaped by us but not totally created by us. There is an external element to experience that is independent of us. He must accept that there are noumenal objects even though we do not know what they are. They are not just conceptual tools formulated to define the phenomenal realm. In fact, there are several passages in which Kant explicitly ascribes causal efficiency to the noumenal realm.

For instance, when Kant distances himself from the idealist philosophers who claim that everything we perceive is mind-dependent and there is no objective reality outside the mind, he claims that “there are bodies without us, that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are in themselves” and that we know them “by their representations which their influence on our sensibility procures us.”

As another example, this time regarding the free will of human beings, Kant thinks that human beings are free with respect to the noumenal realm but under causal determination with respect to phenomenal realm. When he tries to account for moral responsibility, he presents the free will as having its own causal power to be able to appropriate particular human actions. The following is an explicit remark: “The will is a kind of causality of living beings so far as they are rational.”

As it is clearly seen, Kant is forced to accept that the realm of things in themselves (noumena) causes the realm of appearances (phenomena) and this is exactly what undermines the very foundation of his critical project as limiting theoretical knowledge to phenomena.

Conclusion

Kant certainly has an insight in making a distinction between phenomena and noumena; however, his way of distinguishing these two realms undermines his own critical philosophy. There is a similar distinction made by Muslim theologians between dhahir (phenomena) and batin (noumena). In their case, categories of causality and existence for instance are legitimately applicable to noumenal realm, but they argue that we do not know how they are applicable. According to them, for instance, we know that God exists but we do not know how He exists. His existence is quite different from our existence. As Descartes says: “A finite mind cannot grasp [adequately] God, who is infinite. But that does not prevent [the finite thinker] having a perception of God, just as one can touch a mountain without being able to put one’s arms around it.” As a conclusion, Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena should be improved so that it enables us to ascribe existence and causality to the noumenal realm even in a minimal sense.

Dear Peter, in your body, which is built like a well-functioning factory, I am the most essential sanitary device. As the heart pumps blood to take food and oxygen to all your organs, you obtain the energy you need. But do you ever think about the disposal after so splendid activities are carried out in your body? If you burn a stove, you need to dispose of the smoke and the ashes if you want to keep it working. Likewise, as you burn your calorie intake, you dispose of the smoke (carbon dioxide) with your lungs and the waste with nitrate-poisonous after a certain level of intensity-thanks to my quietly and perfectly working filters. That is, I am an organ which saves your life by removing the poisonous substances in your blood. I do not only filter your blood, but also play a role at controlling the balances of the sensitive levels of water, sugar, amino acids and different minerals in your body. In short, I am a tiny but strategic laboratory.

The acid-base balance in your body and the amount of water and different salts are significant values which concern all of your bodily activities. When their balance is upset, different troubles arise in different units of your bodily mechanism. I am such a blessing, which works so sensitively to adjust the levels of water and mineral salts in your body while you don’t even realize it.

A watery environment is needed for the thousands of biochemical activities taking place in your body. In addition, activities like the contracting of the muscles and transmission of electrical stimuli between your neurons are realized with the presence of a pinch of mineral salt you don’t even give a thought about. Sometimes you sweat due to running or hot weather. The white stains on your shirt are the salts you lose after the water evaporates. When you suffer from diarrhea, you lose salt again, for the salt in the nutrients are thrown out without being absorbed. Especially when little children are concerned, this loss is of vital importance. The transfer between the blood and the liquid in the tissues is mainly realized through the concentration differences which are kept in a certain balance. If your body holds too much water, your tissues swell. You particularly feel it when you press your finger over the flesh near your shins.

Dear Peter, I will not list all of my duties in detail in order not to confuse you. However, let me tell you one more. Since not everyone knows this duty of mine, they just see me as an organ of liquid disposal. But I also take part in controlling the blood production! Surprised? Well, I also have the duty of secreting the hormone which stimulates blood production in the bones. I must always stay alert and maintain this balance in the best way; if you start losing blood, for instance, I must increase the hormone and accelerate blood production.

Yes Peter, I’ve told you about a few of my basic duties, but haven’t told you about how wonderfully designed I am. I am a bean-shaped organ and a single kidney like me weighs 130-160 grams on average. We are approximately 10 grams lighter in female bodies. I am surrounded by a soft but protective membrane. I need 35 grams of daily oxygen supply to survive and I use 13 % of your total body energy.

As an army is made up of individual soldiers, I am like a complex army, and a single soldier of mine is called a “nephron,” which does the real job. Thus, you can see me as a body of nephrons. Millions of these nephrons are brought together to make up one kidney.

A single nephron is a thin tubular structure with closed ends, and its length is about 3-4 cm. So the total length of my nephrons is about 50 km. The cup-like sac at the beginning of a nephron is named the “Bowman’s capsule.” The main artery bringing blood to the kidneys branch into smaller units, and one road leads to every nephron. The knot of capillaries (glomerulus) inside this double-walled capsule is more complicated than any road map you might have seen. The total length of the capillaries is nearly 25 km. The unwelcome substances in the blood are passed to the capsule thanks to blood pressure, and they proceed through the tubule. The total surface area of my tubules is about 20 m2. Within five minutes the whole of your blood passes through us. That is to say, an average of 1.2 liters of blood per minute, and 1800 liters a day are filtered by my nephrons, leaving the toxic substances in me. As this amount of blood (nearly 400 times the normal amount in your body) pass through my tubules and return to the veins they leave behind an average of 180 liters of liquid in me. In this case, you could be supposed to throw out 180 liters of urine a day. However, if you really did that, you would neither be able to find a sufficient supply of water nor salt. Fortunately, Providence granted you the mechanism to absorb back nearly 178.5 liters of this filtered substance. This way, the thickened urine throws out the toxic nitrogen-containing byproducts together with a little amount of water. Therefore, I give you back the substances you need with an amount of 1.5 liters of liquid disposal a day. This reabsorbing is realized in what you call the Henle loop. The cells in the walls of my tubules have neither intellect, nor consciousness, nor any knowledge of physiology; in spite of this, they work as if they were perfectly aware of their duty to adjust the amounts and types the substances to be kept or released. To give you an idea, you can think about the huge dialysis machines your engineers design to fulfill the job my tiny tubules do. You decide which one of us is the perfect work of engineering.

A rich network of veins surround the Heinle loop and the reabsorbed substances are released into the bloodstream. The drops to be disposed of are collected and then passed to your bladder. When the liquid in your bladder amounts to a certain value it tightens the bladder walls. The muscles blocking the way out give way and the urine is disposed of. However, know that the bladder has the capacity to expand as large as 1.5 liters when you cannot find the proper time and place.

Peter, most people take for granted the blessings they enjoy. If you visit the nephrology service in a hospital and talk to the patients waiting to be dialyzed, you understand what I mean better. Do not forget that many people who suffer from kidney failure need that huge machine to filter the whole of their blood and they pray for a kidney suitable for transplantation to be found at once.

Incidentally, thinking of chronic kidney failure recalled various reasons which ruin me: long lasting infections, long-term use of certain medicine, different chemicals like ethylene and mercury, heavy loss of blood, high blood pressure, serious burns, and wrong blood transfers etc. In such cases I can receive irreparable damage.

Another issue which troubles me is the formation of kidney stones. The stones which form owing to failures in different metabolic processes really hurt. When excessive decrease of liquids or increases of salts in the body upset my sensitive balance, some dissolved substances remain, begin to collect, and form stones. These stones hinder urine flow and might cause infections. You may drink water abundantly to prevent these stones. Most importantly do not wait too much before going to the toilet. If you excuse me, I also strongly recommend you to urinate in sitting position; this helps emptying your bladder completely and reduces the risk of kidney stones.

I do my job properly until I lose 90 % of my working capacity. When a considerable part of me loses its capacity, the remaining good part boosts its activity to make up for the loss. When one of our twins are taken out with an operation, the other one does not complain at all; it grows a bit bigger and keeps working.

As the nature of honey depends on the nectars bees collect, the ingredients of the urine I produce depend on what’s in your body. Therefore, a urine analysis tells much in the case of illness. For example, I normally do not release valuable substances like glucose and protein in your blood into the urine, but return them to the bloodstream. As my friends cannot fulfill this function in diabetic patients, their urine analyses reveal glucose. As for medicines, I throw them out right away since they are alien substances to me.

Peter! You are young and healthy but be careful and do not get cold around the waist, otherwise I might trouble you. There’s a lot to tell you Peter, but I do not want to confuse you. Like any other organ, I do not like being taken for granted and I just wish for you to appreciate what a blessing I am. Let me note that my perfect cooperation with the rest of your body is another wonder in itself. Anyway, the urea in your blood is increasing, so I must go help my twin now. Goodbye Peter!

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