Once I could see God in one thing – even though it was the vastest, most mysterious, and perhaps most obvious example in creation – I was able to see God in almost anything.

Before, there was no meaning. There was no cohesion. There was no contentment. Instead, there was sorrow. There was an endless search for pleasure. There was a fear of death, but also a fear of life. And there were questions. There were always questions. And the answers I found only made me ask more and more questions. I was under the impression that there was no certainty, no order, no higher meaning – that I was asking questions that were not meant to be asked.

To put it another way, during this time in my life, I had the perception that knowledge and belief were incompatible – a relatively common idea, as I have found. Many will say that science goes against religion. Some will choose religion; I chose science, because in many ways, it appeared to be the more difficult one to dismiss. In retrospect, I know that my conception of religion was simply wrong, that the two really can be, and are, compatible. After all, not only did God give us intellectual capacities for a reason, but also, the book of divine revelation cannot contradict the book of creation. Would that not undermine God’s wisdom? Regardless, at the time, my belief had melted away due to my increasing awareness not only of science, but also that scientific accuracy was lacking in my faith. As a result, a never-ending barrage of questions ceaselessly entered my head.

To me, life had no real meaning. Everyone at some point asks, “Why am I here?” Before, my answer to this question was, “To make myself happy.” Therefore, my life was centered on myself – I was the center of the universe. No one else mattered. All of my time was spent on seeking pleasure – physical pleasure, material pleasure, intellectual pleasure. I was focused on finding happiness, and I thought this happiness would be found in gaining the acceptance of others, in having many possessions, in being well liked, in indulging in worldly pleasures. In my career path, I did not desire to make a difference in the world nor was I concerned with earning lots of money, strangely enough – I simply wanted a job that I adored: a job that made me happy. Mind you, what this job was, I did not know, but this was my goal and my primary concern.

I did not know the meaning of life, nor did I know why or how I got here, so seemingly, the only reasonable solution was to enjoy the life that I had. Why I had this life was of little import. So, I set off on a journey in search of lasting, worldly happiness, but I did not find it. Instead, I found that this abstract entity was very elusive. When it seemed I had found real and genuine happiness, I would lose it. The pleasures I partook in on this journey were only transitory, so when the contentment I found in them was gone, there was only pain. This left me still feeling empty, feeling that there was no real deep and lasting contentment to be had in this world. It was akin, in a way, to an addiction. I was always trying to get my “fix,” and over time, it became increasingly difficult to satisfy myself, to hide the pain – pain that resulted from wanting, from desiring even, to live a life of higher meaning, all the while not knowing how to attain it.

Regardless of the fact that, initially, it was knowledge and questioning that caused my belief to wither, during this time, I was not at all interested in increasing my knowledge – not in reading or in learning. I was simply apathetic; perhaps I had become burnt out due to knowledge causing me to ask questions that seemed unanswerable. Pondering frustrating existential questions was not pleasurable, nor was it, seemingly, a path to happiness, so I just ignored my thirst for knowledge and answers. In lieu, I spent my time on shallow frivolities, but this got very old, very fast.

Despite my pulling away from intellectual endeavors and from belief, there were still some topics that occasionally caught my interest. It was my seemingly innate fascination with space, with the universe, that made me reconsider my belief in God. I could not look at the order and perfection inherent there and think that it was all just a random occurrence. This was simply impossible to me. There are innumerable examples, but for one, if the earth were any closer to the sun, it would be too hot to sustain life, and gravity would be too strong. If it were any further away, the opposite would be true – it would be too cold and gravity would be too weak. As I see it, the earth’s distance from the sun could not have been a mere coincidence. In the words of Nursi, the universe is a “macro Qur’an,” and I was able to discern this even before my personal beliefs were solidified; I could clearly see that the universe is brimming with God’s signs, and that the sheer vastness of it is a testament to His infinity and oneness.

Once I could see God in one thing – even though it was the vastest, most mysterious, and perhaps most obvious example in creation – I was able to see God in almost anything: the tides of the ocean, the composition of the atmosphere, a seed sprouting into a small tree, the uniqueness of a fingerprint, the utter complexity inherent in an atom, despite its size, or even the varieties of difference – and remarkable similarity – between people. To emphasize this, God repeats over and over, “Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?” And it had thus become clear – I cannot deny any of them because all of creation is a reflection of its Creator.

At this realization – that God does indeed exist, for He manifests Himself everywhere – my thirst for knowledge made a swift resurgence, but first I had to forget everything I had previously known about my beliefs, my desires, my goals, my life’s purpose – I even had to forget everything I knew about myself. I had to gain a new mindset and refine my worldview. I had to reevaluate my own personal motto. I had to change even the minutest aspects of my daily routine. There was so incredibly much to learn, as there had been so much time that I had wasted. The turnaround seemed hasty or even abrupt, but it had been in the works, covertly, for a long, long time. Those times when I pushed aside my questions? They were the final moments of calm before my life would be flipped upside down, losing every last bit of resemblance to my previous life.

Now, I feel guilt if I waste too much time. I have, seemingly, almost a compulsion to learn something new every single day. I read – constantly – about anything and everything. My desire for knowledge is no longer in a vacuum, as it was before, because now I know that knowledge could be used to increase faith and belief, and faith and belief could be used to increase knowledge. For every question of faith or of the nature of life that knowledge led me to ponder, belief gave me answers – answers that satisfied me. The satisfaction was in seeing how knowledge and faith were not only compatible – they were intertwined. I could see the perfect order in everything created by God, and I could see all of the problems inherent in the society created by man – materialism, narcissism, and a lack of faith. But these problems were not only on the macro scale of society; on the micro scale, they had been my problems. They had been the obstacles to my happiness and contentment. I had life, and I had knowledge. Faith was the missing piece.

I still partake in worldly pleasures – I am not an ascetic, nor do I claim to be. These pleasures, however, are not the means to happiness. Belief is the means to happiness. Worldly pleasure is a gift from God, and so I experience pleasure for what it gives me – temporary pleasure. I no longer expect it to give me lasting contentment. Faith gives me that. Life for me is no longer this endless search for worldly satisfaction because happiness cannot be found among things of this world; it can only be found through certainty of belief. With certainty of belief, I now know that even pain and suffering has a greater purpose – everything has a greater purpose.

Before, I wanted happiness at any cost. That was my motto. Now, I focus on increasing my belief and my faith. I study, read, and reason since exercising my intellectual capacities is a way to do that and because I must not waste the gifts I have been given. My life has a different purpose now – to contribute to the greater good, to use my free will responsibly, to live rationally and reasonably, and to remember God in everything I do. One can always strive for this and never tire of it because there are infinite rewards and there is infinite room for improvement. So now, the motto that I live by is “knowledge to increase faith, faith to increase contentment.” Now, I have found all of the missing pieces.

Is this life?
This drastic contrast?
This black and white?
This sunshine and rain?
Is it?

Is it normal
for worlds to collide?
Combine?
Crash?

And these emotions?
To effervesce differently, yet be present,
in the same world,
the same existence.

It is.
And, apparently this is life,
When your mind and heart will be playing a tug of war,
and you sit,
you sit and realize it’s your choice.

See…
It’s your choice to visualize what you want to see. It’s your choice to just stay in the sunshine, ignoring the rain.
It’s your choice to just stare at that white and don’t look back at that black.

So this is what they meant,
when they told us to look at the cup, half full.

Even when you’re grieving the half that is gone, half is still there.

It’s the choice.
It’s the choice to chose how we look at our lives, the good and the bad.
How we smile in our happiness,
and find strength in our sadness.

How we laugh when we hear something funny,
something fun,
and hold those tears
when the sadness stings our hearts.

It’s our choice.
Our choice to be those optimisms
who just look at the glass as half full.

And who know,

deep down,
Even if the glass isn’t half full,
even if it’s only a quarter, or even a tenth, full
it will still, to some degree, be full.

And that it’ll get better.
It will get fuller.
Just know
that it will get better.
It will fill up.

No one’s glass
is constantly full…

New developments in scientific thought and hypotheses testing are changing the ways we think about truth and certainty.

Not only do scientific decisions rely heavily on tools and procedures of quantitative analysis, but also on social life and daily decisions. I want to start with a story from the judiciary system about the misuse of an important quantitative tool of the scientific community, Hypothesis Testing. It’s about the overturned Amanda Knox case in Italy. In 2007, she was accused of killing her roommate and sent to jail. The odds of DNA matching in the case of accidental death were reported as incredibly rare by a forensic data analyst, who examined data with regard to incidents of crime, concluding that the accident is not statistically an accident. The judges then made their decision based on this rareness, a single value, named p-value. Later, this was overturned (New York Times, March 27, 2013), because of a misinterpretation by the judges and lawyers, of the rare probability. What factors forced the judiciary system to make this decision based on a single value alone? Honestly, this is the story of the century and a story of Hypothesis Testing. This article introduces the logic behind their decision, draws attention to the misuse of data, and mentions alternative logics to this traditional approach on the matter (in March 2013, Italy’s Supreme Court ordered a retrial and found the two suspects guilty on January 30, 2014).

What is Hypothesis Testing?

We live in a data-driven world. Statistical inference is the process of drawing conclusions or decisions from data. The Hypothesis Testing procedure in the Neyman-Pearson paradigm is one of the procedures of this process, widely used in the scientific community for over a century. In this mindset, two complementary hypotheses are first defined: one is the conventional thesis (the null hypothesis) accepted to be true by default; the other is the alternative thesis (the alternative hypothesis) that needs evidence from data to falsify the null hypothesis. It results in a single value, called p-value, which is calculated from the data using theoretical model assumptions. A p-value is a measure – in probability sense, ranging from 0% to 100% – of how much evidence you have against the null hypothesis. The smaller the p-value, the more evidence you have against the null hypothesis. One may combine the p-value with the significance level to make decisions on a given hypothesis. This is also called significance testing. It has an accept-reject mindset (dichotomous decision or binary logic); in such a case, if the p-value is less than some threshold (usually .05) then the null hypothesis is rejected. Basically, it is a black or white decision, without considering the contrasts between them. This interpretation has been widely accepted in the twentieth century of scientific research, and many scientific journals routinely publish papers using this interpretation for the results of hypothesis tests, even though there are current tendencies not to use this. Let’s take a look at the history of this black-white logic.

History

The history of the process of hypothesis testing starts with Fisher (1890-1962), around the early twentieth century. Later, the contributions of Pearson (1857-1936) and Neyman (1894-1981), who were early fathers of statistics, about the interpretation of the hypothesis tests were integrated into present-day applications. Fisher’s approach focuses on inductive inference about a single hypothesis, whereas the Neyman-Pearson approach informs future behavior based on a test using two complementary hypotheses (Newman 2007).

These approaches are strongly influenced by Popper’s logic of falsification. Falsification can be defined as the act of disproving a proposition, hypothesis, or theory. This logic asserts that sufficiently improbable events can be considered impossible. A p-value suggests whether a null hypothesis is sufficiently improbable to be considered practically falsified in the sense of a logical refutation (Newman 2007). When we come back to the Amanda Knox case, the decision the judges made and justified is followed from this falsification logic in hypothesis testing. Another criticism with this mindset is: how fair it is to rely on a single value that yields a rare result? Are we going to generalize one lucky drawing of raffle tickets to believe all tickets are winners?

Logics and proofs

We use logical flaws and biases in our daily life. Finding the logical flaw in scientific papers is something most readers aren’t interested in. Instead, the results are believed as a fact. One of the widely used flaws/biases is in seeking or interpreting evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs or a hypothesis in hand (Mercie and Sperber, 2011). We tend to prove or show the accessibility or superiority of arguments by bringing evidence. Failure to prove that a treatment – say, a low fat diet – is effective is not the same as proving it is ineffective.

Let me give another example to clarify this: The New York Times editorial news reported on February 9, 2006, “Millions of Americans have tried to reduce the fat in their diets, and the food industry has obligingly served up low-fat products. Yet now comes strong evidence that the war against all fats was mostly in vain.” Actually, in the hypothesis testing mindset, the evidence collected from research should either reject the null hypothesis which is “diet is ineffective,” or fail to reject it. The mindset in testing is not about finding evidence to support the null statement. It is also not about proving the alternative hypothesis, “diet is effective.” Rather, it is basically looking for evidences to falsify the null statement. In the report, the “evidence” the reporter meant should be against the null hypothesis, not against the alternative hypothesis. Data is collected to falsify the null hypothesis, not to prove its truthiness, because the null is already accepted to be true unless convincing evidence is collected against it.

Let me give another example of this paradigm. As Newfoundland (2013) described, a person is innocent until proven guilty by bringing convincing evidence. The jury can’t say “he is innocent,” instead, the jury uses evidence that produces reasonable doubt to reject his innocence.

Developments in inferential paradigms

The accept-reject paradigm in inference represents a conventional wisdom. There are other, or currently developing, paradigms in inference, too. One of the dominating paradigms is the Bayesian-likelihood approach. After enjoying much wider acceptance in social and natural sciences, the Bayesian method suggests different views of hypothesis testing. The Bayesian approach is a method of data analysis in which subjectivity, conditionality, or past information is used to update the hypothesis as additional evidence is acquired. This approach in hypothesis testing offers a dynamic structure in probability calculation so hypotheses, and decisions, are not seen as a static truth; instead, they are updated with current data and the decision is stated in the sense of likelihood.

In our court room example, the Bayesian inference is applied to all evidence presented, with the past information being combined with the current evidence. The benefit of a Bayesian approach is that it gives all historical information so the decision is unbiased all along as the past data (prior knowledge) is used correctly. This paradigm changes the way statistics are calculated and how the result and inference are interpreted. Currently it is widely appreciated in quantitative data analysis, especially after convenient software exists for its implementation. However, the criticism to this approach, made by many, is found in its subjectivity. Objectivity and handling prior knowledge is a concern here so that different people, having different opinions, may arrive at different results.

Another developing paradigm: Fuzzy Logic

Fuzzy logic is another method in quantitative decision making. In contrast to binary logic (yes-no, or accept-reject), fuzzy logic can be thought of as gray logic, which allows a way to express in-between data values. It emerged in the development of the theory of fuzzy sets, by Lotfi Zadeh (1965). Fuzzy logic is mostly seen as a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with reasoning algorithms used to emulate human thinking and decision making. It handles the concept of partial truth using linguistic variables, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely false. The concept of partial truth would be subjective and would depend on the observer. For example, for the temperature of the weather, we want to determine when to say cold, warm, and hot. The meaning of each of these concepts can be represented by a certain membership (called a fuzzy set). The concept of each would be subjective. One might consider cold for all values up to 40 0F. In Figure 1, the meanings of the expressions cold, warm, and hot are represented by functions mapping a temperature scale to “truth values” ranging from 0 to 1. A point on that scale has three truth degrees, one for each of the three functions (expressions). The vertical line in the figure represents a particular temperature that the truth values (see three arrows) are measured. Since the red arrow points to zero, this temperature may be interpreted as “not hot.” The orange arrow (pointing at 0.2) may describe it as “slightly warm,” and the blue arrow (pointing at 0.8) “fairly cold” (Fuzzy Logic, 2013, para. 6). A rule could then be adopted, like for example, if “slightly warm” then stop the fan.

Picture was obtained from

Fuzzy logic uses truth degrees as a mathematical model of the vagueness phenomenon, and it summarizes data analysis in facts with truth degrees, and leaves the decision to the observer. Its advantage is its ability to deal with vague situations with respect to linguistic variables. While the significance testing for a hypothesis declares one accept or reject, fuzzy logic allows for degrees of acceptance or rejection. However, in fuzzy logic, the notion of truth doesn’t fall by the wayside, but it is expressed in degrees and offers possibilities for different situations. Regarding inference, fuzzy logic uses the mindset ‘everything is a matter of degree and open to interpretation,’ and this mindset is also adopted to machine learning, which is considered a more suitable mindset with human reasoning instead of binary logic. The constraints in fuzzy logic are found in its tools and interpretations when complex inputs are considered.

The developments of paradigms in statistical inference have similar fates as in the developments of mathematics, geometry, and physics. According to the Euclidean parallel postulate, in space, there exist no two parallel lines that intersect each other. However, after Non-Euclidean geometry was developed in the nineteenth century, a wider geometrical and mathematical reasoning stemmed from it; accordingly, the geometry of the physical universe and particles came to be understood better. The development of Riemannian geometry, offering that distance properties might vary, resulted in the synthesis of diverse results concerning the geometry of higher dimensional surfaces and the behavior of geodesics on them. It also made Einstein’s theory of general relativity justifiable. Likewise, as time passes, we witness wider paradigms or logics that abandon or correct former approaches in scientific decision making tools. This is a good reason why teachers and professors should update their current teachings as to be consistent with convincing trends, as well as to train students to be ready for wider paradigms in the future.

Conclusion

In today’s scientific community, the way decisions are made and fallacies proved, are changing as new paradigms emerge. In order to make better decisions or to validate claims, many aspects and methodologies should be considered. One way to avoid mistakes as much as we can would be to expect fallacy points to exist in human mental processing during decision making, and improving and seeking better alternatives with well-established wisdoms.

(Thanks Ugur Sahin for reviewing the preliminary copy of this article.)

References

• Fuzzy Logic. In Wikipedia. Retrieved August 1, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic
• Kass, Robert E. 2011. Statistical Inference: The Big Picture 1. Statistical Science, 2011, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1-9, DOI: 10.1214/10-STS337, Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
• Mercier, Hugo, Dan Sperber. 2011. “Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 34, 57-111.
• Newfoundland, Jason. 2013. “The Cell Phone-Brain Cancer Controversy.” The Fountain Magazine, Jan-Feb, Issue 91.
• Newman, Michael C. 2008. “‘What exactly are you inferring?’ A closer look at hypothesis testing.” Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 1013-1019, 2008.

Annemarie Schimmel was born in Erfurt, Germany, in 1922. She grew up in a home full of talk about mysticism and philosophy. She was one of the young Germans of the 19th and 20th centuries who fell asleep with the Stories of 1001 Nights. Her father, a postal worker, was deeply interested in mysticism. During the Nazi era, the young Annemarie discovered her passion for the Arabic language and Arab culture. Once a week, she received private lessons in Arabic and Islamic Studies by Hans Ellenberg, whom she called Efendi. Already, at the age of 19, she had completed her doctorate on the subject, “The Position of the Caliph and the Qadis in Late Medieval Egypt.” She published more than 120 books and studied and translated, among other things, Arabic and Persian poets such as Mawlana Rumi, Ibn Ataullah, Hallaj, Yunus Emre, and Muhammad Iqbal, who wrote about mysticism and the love of God. As an Islamic scholar, she is still highly esteemed in the East and the West. Here is just one example:

Love

In passion deep my heart fell –
Just look, what love has made of me!
I gave my head to strife and pain –
Just look, what love has made of me!
I silently weep to myself,
While love stains me in blood,
Can’t be sober, can’t be confused –
Just look, what love has made of me!
Yunus Emre

The languages she knew included Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Turkmen, French, Pashto, Hindi, Kurdish, Swedish, and also Arabic, which she was able to speak in more than 10 dialects. Besides her talent for learning languages, she was also a gifted speaker and gave lectures in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that sometimes lasted hours.

She had a special passion for ornamentation, calligraphy, and architecture. Almost all of her published books are illustrated and many a chapter is introduced with calligraphic verses from the Qur’an. One of her books is titled, In the name of Allah the All-Merciful.

Annemarie Schimmel has received many awards and honors: honorary doctorates from the universities of Konya, Islamabad, and Sind; the Hilal-i Imtiyaz Medal (the highest award in Pakistan); the Gold Medal of the city of Istanbul; the Arts and Science Medal of the Republic of Turkey; the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade; and the Federal Cross of Merit. Thanks to her strong commitment for a better understanding between nations, her advice was taken seriously all over the world. Since her death, she has not been forgotten; in the Pakistani metropolis of Lahore, for instance, a main road was named after her – the Hiyaban-i Annemarie Schimmel Road. In Iran, she is much appreciated and often quoted. In Turkey, she became immortal as the unforgettable Cemile.

The bridge builder

“Nowadays broader circles of our society realize that a certain understanding of other cultures is needed to avoid the dangerous generalizations the media are replete with. It is a must to learn about the history of the ‘other.’ In my opinion, it is very important that we also address the intellectual history of Islam, recognize its outstanding cultural achievements, and strive to find common ground, even if it is sometimes difficult.”

During her life as a scholar, Annemarie Schimmel focused intensively on improving understanding between Islam and the West. With her in-depth analysis, she communicated the ideological and artistic content of Islamic culture, and especially its beauty and intellectual wealth – not only to German or European readers, but also to Americans and other cultures. She was always committed to dialogue, and made an effort – through media, literature, and face-to-face meetings – to get Christians interested in Islamic culture and Muslims interested in Christian culture. In the verses of famous Islamic poets and mystics she met the “true” Islam, which is embedded in believers’ hearts and waiting to be discovered.

For her, the first prerequisite for dialogue is knowledge of one’s own culture and the other culture, be a person Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist.

“Without mutual knowledge there is no mutual understanding, without understanding there is no mutual respect and no trust, and without trust, there is no peace, but the risk of a clash.”

Annemarie Schimmel would never have entered a dialogue without knowledge about the culture of her counterpart. In her view, people should keep and practice their religions. They should take it seriously, but at the same time, try to get to know other cultures and values and to accept them. In many conversations and interviews, she regretted that the Christian and the Islamic cultures knew so little about each other, because if they knew, they would surely appreciate each other – which she experienced over and over again during her long stays in Islamic countries. According to her, even brief conversations with taxi drivers can be very valuable in this regard.

She became friends with countless people from other cultures. Her image of Islam was not shaped primarily by her years of occupation with Islamic literature and art, but rather by the encounters with Muslim friends around the world and from all walks of life, who invited and received her lovingly in their houses and made her familiar with their culture.

Ms. Schimmel traveled with her mother from Edirne to Konya and Gaziantep, throughout Anatolia. They met with many people, from all layers of society, every one of whom taught them another personal piece of Turkish culture.

“We have to get to know other cultures better. You never finish with it; there is always something new to learn and to do: reading, giving lectures, and just keeping people informed. Everybody who knows Islam knows that Islam and terrorism have nothing in common,” she said in an interview. She relied on a quote of St. Augustine’s, “Res tantum cognoscitur quantum diligitur” (You only understand what you love), and on an Arabic proverb, which is mentioned in the prose works of Rumi: “Man is the enemy of what he does not know.”

Only a few Christians know that in Islam, Jesus is considered a forerunner to Muhammad and therefore enjoys the highest esteem in the eyes of Muslims, whereas Muhammad has a negative image in the West, peace be upon them both. Ms. Schimmel complained about this. In her book Jesus and Mary in Islamic Mysticism, she noted that Jesus is mentioned in the Qur’an in 15 chapters and a total of 93 verses, and that Mary is the only woman who is mentioned in the Qur’an by name – and thus is of great importance to all Muslim women.

Her greatest concern was a dialogue of equals. In Germany, she regretted and criticized that, for a long time, Catholic bishops had no other dialogue partners than Turkish engineers and distributors. She deemed this fact a main obstacle to understanding. Therefore she encouraged the German government to educate Imams and German-Islamic theologians. Eight years after her death, her wish came true. In April, 2011, the inauguration of the Centre for Islamic Theology at Tübingen took place – a milestone for interfaith dialogue in Germany.

Ms. Schimmel made the Turkish culture known in Germany and the German culture known in Islamic countries. During a five-year stay in Turkey, she wrote innumerable articles under her pseudonym, Cemile Kıratlı, for the magazines Hayat and Istanbul Dergisi. She did not forget her roots, but at the same time tried to absorb other cultures.

Annemarie Schimmel died in Bonn, in 2003, at the age of 81. Before her death, she said she was looking forward to finally seeing the hereafter with her own eyes, rather than only reading about it. Her last wish was that at her funeral, the opening chapter of the Qur’an be recited. Friends have engraved her life motto in both German and Persian on her grave stone: “People sleep, and when they die, they wake up.”

Conclusion

In her pursuit of understanding, Annemarie Schimmel was a role model for all people. It is important for our society to respect her efforts and follow her example. It is important that the Christian and the Islamic cultures get to know each other better in the future, because this is the only way prejudices and misunderstandings can be reduced. Annemarie Schimmel, Herder, Goethe, Klee, Rilke, Rumi, Yunus Emre, and Iqbal have proved the fact that there are no impenetrable barriers between cultures and religions.

“Then one day – Inshallah, God willing – we will find, as Goethe did, a way that will enrich both sides: the Orient through the encounter with the deep-rooted European culture and us through the knowledge of an infinitely rich past and a versatile oriental culture that comes to light in literature and grammar, in the heights of mysticism, but also in the most beautiful flowers of the arabesques. And then perhaps we may one day say (as Goethe put it once so well): Orient and Occident can no longer be separated.”

A few examples from Schimmel’s works: As Through A Veil : Mystical Poetry in Islam (1982); Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1975); Islam: An Introduction (1992); My Soul Is A Woman: The Feminine in Islam (1997); A Two-Colored Brocade: The Imagery of Persian Poetry (1992); Mohammad Iqbal, Poet and Philosopher (1960); Calligraphy and Islamic Culture (1990); A Dance of Sparks: Imagery of Fire in Ghalib’s Poetry (1983)

O heart! You and your suffering for Him exist; ah, how nice it is always to be concerned with Him and suffering for Him! That suffering is, in fact, your cure.
O you who are seeking the world; you are like a day laborer in this world;
and you, lover of Paradise, are also far distant from truth.
O you, who are unaware of the truth and pleased with the two worlds,
You are excused, for you have not felt
the pleasure of suffering for the Beloved’s sake. (Rumi)

How does suffering become a cure or a pleasure? Just like hot peppers do. Why do we consume hot peppers, even though they are painful to eat? In his article, Ali Fethi Toprak explains that experts think hot peppers “are good for our health by lowering blood pressure, having antimicrobial effects, and increasing salivation thus making a boring diet fun.” Kocabas also suggests that, according to some studies, the capsaicin present in hot peppers could be used as a pain suppressor.

Also in this issue, Katharine Branning explains that researchers have discovered a link between the heavy consumption of isot pepper and the very low cancer rates in southeast Turkey. The “research has provided conclusive evidence that isot pepper does indeed possess substantial anti-cancer properties.” In Branning’s piece, the very hot isot pepper does not only help cure cancer, but is also an emblem of dialogue, friendship, and mercy, stretching across cultures and religions.

In her heartbreaking memoir, Magdalena Rusanova tells us about her father, who she lost when she was a child. As we read along, we trace each and every threshold she needed to surpass in her life as she grew into adolescence, developed relationships with others, and faced important choices. Even though her father’s memory faded as the years passed, and despite her pain, there was one significant piece of advice he had given her, which happened to guide her all her life. Choosing the right guide is necessary for an unwavering walk in our lives, as Niyazi-i Misri says,

Let not any guide lead you, for he may make it
too difficult to proceed;
It is very easy for one whose guide is perfect
to advance along this path.
The right guide can even help us discover the pleasure in pain.

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning”
William A. Ward

When I visited my family last time, I realized that my two-year old nephew, who could not speak fluently and knew only a few words, wanted to learn about everything he saw. For instance, while I was using an iPhone, he wanted me to show him how to unlock its screen. I taught him how; he tried to use it and started asking questions about the applications: What is that? What is it doing? In fact, he sometimes couldn’t speak, but he implied what he wanted to ask. Moreover, he could easily learn and repeat what I said and did.

He is a curious bundle of joy, and so are most toddlers. I believe that if toddlers – who are usually defined as being between the ages of one and three – don’t lose their curiosity, each of them will grow into accomplished members of our future’s intellectual society.

Curiosity: What is it?

Curiosity basically means a desire to know or learn. Dr. Reiss states that curiosity is one of the 16 basic desires which guide human behaviors, and comes from the need to learn^[1]. Curiosity triggers various questions about events around us, and in a broader perspective, about the universe. The interaction between the desire to learn and the universe usually brings about scientific development. So, curiosity is the key to learning and science. And talking about children, curiosity is imperative to their learning.

“What is that?” is a phrase that is usually heard from a toddler who can speak at least a few words. Toddlers have a great curiosity to understand what happens around them. They are new in this world and everything grabs their attention. Because of this curiosity, they want to learn. According to Bruce Perry, there is a big learning cycle [2], which starts with curiosity and exploration, and goes on to discovery, pleasure, repetition, mastery, new skills, confidence, self esteem, security and more exploration. While one of the main characteristics of mankind is learning by curiosity early in his life, as time passes, his curiosity fades. What causes this change? Why does it fade away? Can it be delayed? What can be done to invigorate his passion for learning, exploring and discovering if it fades? How can schools, as a secondary environment for learning after the family, be designed so that the initial curiosity is not lost?

Why does curiosity fade?

The eagerness of children to scientifically understand the world is restrained by various factors. These factors vary due to the complex nature of human beings and the environment they live in. The three significant and common factors are fear, disapproval, and absence^[2].

One of the common factors is fear that can arise implicitly or explicitly. The definition of fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid”^[3]. It causes uncomfortable conditions for people. When experiencing fear, a human cannot act normally until either the fear subsides or he deals with the cause of the fear. For example, parenting styles, events that cause internal family distress, violence, a teacher’s disciplinary style, restrictions, rules, and an unhealthy classroom environment can be some of the reasons behind fear. Human curiosity is fostered by healthy, comfortable environments^[4].

The second factor behind fading curiosity is disapproval. If a child is raised by phrases that start with “don’t,” he will learn not to do things. He will not be eager to attempt to learn new, different ways. For instance: If a child is raised by saying don’t do this, don’t do that, don’t get dirty, don’t take that apart, don’t touch, don’t, don’t, and don’t… To learn, they need to try these things. These attempts can be wrong or not essential, but children achieve a great sense of learning by doing.

The last, but certainly not least factor, of losing curiosity is absence. The meaning of absence is that the child has no sense of safety and opportunity to share new discoveries. The existence of caring people around them provides the optimal environment for exploration, discovering new things and increasing the capacity of sharing one’s discoveries. This is because of the sense of safety.

Invigorating faded curiosity

In terms of renewing curiosity for a child who has lost his passion for examination and critical observation of the world, we can start by eliminating the reasons for faded curiosity: fear, disapproval and absence. Eliminating these factors will give children a chance to reconstruct their passion, safety, and courage to repair their lost and curiosity to learn.

One who is responsible for a child needs to recognize individual differences in them, and to encourage their unique kinds of curiosity. Each individual is recognized as a different world; therefore, each individual has his or her own unique framework about the world. In some points, there can be similar and overlapping ideas but it does not mean their conceptual framework is the same. Curiosity triggers them to enhance their conceptual framework by learning with understanding. So we need to let them run after their different styles of learning, which will help them to advance in a discipline without enforcement. By doing so, children feel free to choose their area of interest and with a strong sense of their curiosity, they will move forward in that discipline.

At this point, we come up with a question: what can be done for timid children? Being timid does not mean that they are not curious. They just require more encouragement and reinforcement to feel safe and familiar with situations.

Generally, parents or teachers assume that some creative attempts of children are failures; thus, we need to redefine “failure.” If a child wants to learn to jump rope, which is not an easy task for younger children, he or she can do it hundreds of times, and trip every one of them. On one hand, this can be defined as failure; on the other hand, parents can think that it is a determination to reach success and that these trials and trips are necessary to develop that skill.

Another mistake, which can hinder a child’s curiosity, is that parents mostly make a judgment about a child’s larger personality rather than their specific behaviors. If we continue on the same example: jump rope, to encourage and reinforce them to learn, we can judge their behavior and lead them how to overcome it rather than critiquing their personality.

New approaches in the scientific environment in Curiosity is a common topic, not only for children but also within scientific communities. Through curiosity, human beings start to understand the universe and realize its wonderful and unique design. When you scientifically dig deeper into the environment and the world, your astonishment will increase about how perfectly designed things are. For instance: while I was watching a documentary, a man was interested in cobra snakes, and he dedicated 40 years of his life to exploring snake’s hidden and mysterious world. He was still so excited about talking about snakes and the details of their life; moreover, he mentioned that he needed to do more exploration to master his knowledge about snakes. You can easily catch the point: 40 years to explore only snakes, but it is not enough.

To raise a scientifically literate generation, to make them well skilled in understanding the world and willing to explore the world and universe, just like the man who is interested in snakes, the classroom environment needs to change. There should be a focus on the students and their learning with understanding, rather than being teacher-centered and based on rote learning. The United States and other countries have passed various reform acts in education to have more student-centered classrooms and better environments for learning with understanding. The most popular term in reform acts is inquiry. Although a century has passed since first appearance of the term “inquiry” in the science-education literature, there is no compromise on inquiry; you can find a lot of definition and different types of inquiry.

Inquiry-Based Learning

In a general perspective, inquiry is not only a method to teaching science, but also a result of teaching science. Learners have hands-on and minds-on activities both during the process, and after teaching and learning; learners should be able to imply new situations of scientific inquiry in their daily life. The inquiry should start with curiosity and a question about phenomena. Curiosity and the questioning phase start with some awareness of phenomena, and continue with experiments, research, observations, designs, and so on. Moreover, according to previous activities, students have some evidence, results, or assumptions to answer the initial questions, then give an explanation in keeping with his or her findings. Students need to make a comparison between his or her answers, peers, and the larger scientific literature, and also be able to justify their findings and answers.

After this process, the student learns both the scientific concepts and scientific process, and, as a member of a scientifically-literate society, uses it in new conditions in daily life. This process is a kind of imitation of what scientists do in their research. Moreover, these activities provide high retention later in the learning process. Increasing average retention rates would make students more proficient with science, keep them familiar with scientific content, and the scientific method; thus, they may keep their curiosity vigorous to sustain their scientific readings and investigations. By doing so, little students are going to be little scientists based on the strength of their curiosity.

To sum it up, curiosity is a significant factor for learning and science; it’s an essential part of human behavior. Most of the explorations, inventions and discoveries originate with curiosity. But curiosity is not a static power; most of us can lose our curiosity about the universe and the world because of various reasons, including fear, disapproval, and absence. To invigorate faded curiosity we need to eliminate the factors that are the reason for such lapses. Moreover, parents and teachers should be careful about individual differences, and we need to redefine the term “failure.” Finally, curiosity is the feature of scientific communities that are eager to understand the world and the universe. If their scientific method, which is known as “learning with inquiry,” can be applied in the classroom, children can follow the mysteries of the world and universe. Throughout little students’ journey, and during their studies, curiosity, as a wick in a candle, will enlighten our world. Let them to keep their candle sparkling!

References

1- Reiss, Steven (March 5, 2002). Who am I? The 16 Basic Desires that Motivate Our Actions and Define Our Personalities. Berkley Trade. ISBN 978-0425183403.

2- Perry, Bruce Duncan. http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/curiosity.htm

3- http://dictionary.reference.com/

4- Berlyne, D. E. 1960. Conflict, Arousal, and Curiosity. New York: McGrawhill.

He is the one who knows the sorrows of broken hearts, who alleviates incurable troubles, and who eliminates the loneliness and depression in our souls with breezes from His realm. Those who turn to Him turn to an opened door; those who supplicate to Him have realized the very purpose of existence.

Those who recognize Him through His works, those who truly know and feel Him through their consciences, need to learn nothing else. In the minds of those who attain knowledge of Him, pieces of that knowledge become crystal domes over diamond pillars. For the souls who do not recognize Him, knowledge is apprehension and all existence we explore with science becomes nothing more than a collection of lifeless bodies.

In the radiant climate of belief, all creation becomes clear as water, from beginning to end; thoughts and events become distilled and everything flows to Him. Those who turn and implore Him with such pure feelings and thoughts are the most fortunate among us.

Given this, wherever we are in the world, whatever the time of day, whenever we feel lonely, let us turn to Him with our whole being, open the doors of our heart to Him, and one by one, confide in Him our sufferings, pains, desires, and wishes, great or small. Then we will feel our pain alleviated, our suffering replaced with contentment, and our souls will be enveloped by the breezes of Divine favors.

Those who confine themselves within the material world will likely never feel Him. Still, with thousands of signs for those who see, He will make His presence felt in our consciences, that He is not distant, and make our hearts smile.

Nights are openings to such inspirations. The souls awakened to the truth, who turn their hearts into bright mirrors shining with Divine epiphanies, wait for blessings to pour on their prayer rugs. We, too, can watch for the surprise blessings of the night, even when we are alone. Such moments can be our time of reunion, when we can stand in His presence and open up the secrets of our heart to Him. Only share your troubles with Him, moan in His presence, and bring your head to prostration, which is the first threshold on the path leading to Him, and wait! Then you will feel doors opening to your heart, one after the other. You will melt under the lights of His being; your respective presence will vanish like a drop falling into the ocean, and in a zone beyond considerations, you will become one being united with the gigantic waves.

The deeper you allow yourself to fall into Him, the deeper the realms that will open to you, and the higher the peaks you will scale. If you set sail to these inner depths with full conviction, you’ll think you’ve skirted the eternity of Paradise, the pristine atmosphere of the realms beyond. With every new step, you will see a different favor of being closer to God.

The souls who see nothing but the material reality and fail to attain the many levels of greatness, magnificence, and inner depth will continue to stagger in darkness, never managing to break free of deprivations and depression.

If only they, too, could feel the depths within their soul, as deep as clear skies and as vast as the universe. If only they, too, could discover the light inside them, and use that light to illuminate the secrets of our Creator’s realms.

Some fail to find these radiant ways which exist as a seed inside them and lead a life unaware of this lofty truth. They fail to blossom and are trapped in physical longevities instead of discovering roads to eternity. I do not know if we should feel pity for them or pray that their eyes open to truth.

Like all omnivorous foods, peppers – both hot and sweet – have been created in unique, wise ways to make them appealing to eat and to help reproduce.

Plants and their fruits are sustenance for herbivores, including humans. They are often brightly colored – be it red, orange, yellow, purple, or green, inviting us to a delicious food. But not all plants are meant to be eaten. Indeed, some plants are designed to be unappetizing, either through look or smell; some even have thorns, or sticky, hairy surfaces to deter us from eating them. Another remarkable way that plants are protected against herbivores is the presence of unique chemicals that induce vomiting and pain, or may be toxic.

Many edible plants need to be eaten – it’s how they spread their seeds. Thus, they produce juicy, tasty skin and sweet-smelling aromas. Why, then, are hot peppers different? Though they are nicely colored and juicy, and sweet smelling, they are also hot, and not terribly pleasant for animals to eat.

A recent study at New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute determined the hottest chili to be the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Chili. It was chosen from among 125 varieties. Researchers dried and ground it to powder, to isolate its active compound. This way, they were able to determine that the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion reaches about 1.2 million units on the Scoville heat scale. It is so potent that it could induce sweating and tears, and of course puts the mouth on fire.

Figure 1. Molecular mechanism of TRPV receptor activated by capsaicin. TRPVs are located on the surface of nerve cells where they normally respond to changes in temperature by releasing calcium ions. Those ions signal to intracellular machinery to fire nerve action to inform the brain about increased levels of heat. Capsaicin in hot peppers mimics this system, and thus fools brain to think mouth is hot.

What make hot peppers hot?

Animals are equipped with receptors, like TRPV1 in the mouth’s nerve endings, which sense heat. Hot peppers produce a chemical called capsaicin. Capsaicin binds to and activates TRPV1 receptors; thus we feel a heat similar to a burning sensation. In reality, capsaicin does not actually increase the temperature in the mouth, but instead mimics the same process (Figure 1). Since capsaicin mainly dissolves in oil instead of water, drinking water does not help much to get rid of the burning sensation. Cold water provides only temporary aid. However, the drinking of ayran (a Turkish yogurt drink) relieves hotness by removing capsaicin due to the presence of oil in ayran. Interestingly, although mammals have receptors for capsaicin, scientists have recently discovered that birds don’t.

Capsaicin deters mammalian consumption

It is an interesting phenomenon that peppers are hot but need to be eaten to propagate their seeds in different environments, which is done through the droppings of animals. If this is the case, why are hot peppers made unpleasant with capsaicin? To figure out the wisdom behind this contradiction, Joshua Tewksbury performed a study with a group of mice and birds, and found that birds do not distinguish between sweet and hot peppers in their diet. In this study, both mice and birds ate the same amount when fed with food mixed with sweet peppers. However, mice refused to eat foods mixed with hot peppers, while birds happily ate such food. Moreover, analysis of the droppings of birds and mice showed that the seeds passed through the bird’s digestion systems were intact and fully fertile and could germinate, while seeds eaten by mice were either crushed or semi digested so that they were not fertile. Thus, the role of capsaicin in hot peppers is to deter mammals that destroy their seeds while not disturbing birds. This is a great example of ingenious interdependence.

Capsaicin as antifungal agent of peppers

Figure 2. Capsaicin is not only protective against mammals but also fungus contaminations. A) Insects make peppers prone to fungus contamination by causing harm. B) Healthy pepper C) A pepper with fungal contamination. Modified Image from Tewksbury lab.

The infinite wisdom of capsaicin protects peppers against fungus as well. Another study by Tewksbury showed that hot peppers are relatively protected against fungal infections. Tewksbury demonstrated that increased doses of capsaicin inhibit the growth of fungus. This finding is in parallel with lower fungus growth in hot peppers compared to sweet peppers.

But what about insects? How could peppers be protected from insects?

Adaptations against insects

Interestingly, the skins of hot and sweet peppers have different levels of thickness. It has been suggested that this gives an advantage to sweet peppers. Furthermore, this protective layer is made of lignin, which is made of the same material as capsaicin and helps to protect from other threats. This allows peppers to adapt to many different environments. For instance, in the presence of fungal contamination, a pepper might be able to produce more capsaicin and decrease lignin production, or vice versa.

Why do we like to eat hot peppers then?

Humans differ from mammals in their love of hot peppers. There are different explanations why we like to eat hot peppers, despite them being painful. Some experts assert that hot peppers are good for our health by lowering blood pressure, having antimicrobial effects, and increasing salivation thus making a boring diet fun. On the other hand, some experts approach it from the perspective of human emotions and argue that we are actually after the pain produced by hot peppers. In addition, there are some studies suggesting that capsaicin could also suppress other pains.

Hot pepper or capsaicin as pain suppressor

Capsaicin in hot peppers could be used as a pain suppressor, as some studies suggested. A study using mice lacking TRPV1 heat receptors showed that the increased long term activation of TRPV1 by capsaicin could relieve pain following the accumulation of high doses of Ca2+ in the cells. This is accomplished by the suppression of both cellular activities and the transmission of pain through nerves.

Hot peppers are hot and we love them. It seems like we will continue consuming them. As every other art of creation, hot or sweet peppers are likely to have many more levels of wisdom awaiting us to discover.

References

• Tewksbury Lab. Retrieved from: http://faculty.washington.edu/tewksjj/res_pai.html on 18.2.2012.
• Yalgın. Ç. 2012. Acı biberler niye acı? (Why Are Peppers Hot?) Açık Bilim. Retrieved from: http://www.acikbilim.com on 18.2.2012.
• Zivkovic, B. 2006. Hot peppers – Why are they hot? A Blog Around The Clock.

Various studies exist about these compartments – which controls the expression of the soul through the body, which is responsible for memory, intelligence, belief, hatred and love. The brain’s two hemispheres have different functions and specialize in different areas. For example, linguistic abilities and tongue functions are usually controlled by the left hemisphere, while musical abilities and the ability to comment and analyze complex images are controlled by the right hemisphere. However, it is not possible to state that the forebrain functions independently from the hemispheres of the brain. The Wernicke’s area, located on the upper tail of the temporal lobe, is responsible for language comprehension, and the Angular Gyrus that is a mediator between sound and vision, is responsible for linguistic and mathematical operations. For this reason, the Angular Gyrus is accepted to be related with superior consciousness and intelligence. Scientists have proven that intelligence and consciousness decrease more dramatically upon the destruction of these areas when compared to the destruction of the forebrain. Therefore, for the spiritual functions to be able to operate in the body, it’s essential that these areas of the brain function.

The more accepted view, at least today, is that spiritual characteristics and personality function independent of the brain. A convincing proof disregarding this view is that during many tumor surgeries, even though the body’s vital activities remain intact, after removing tissue from the brain, spiritual characteristics sometimes degrade. Another proof is the surgery performed to remove the forebrain of depressed patients (a prefrontal lobotomy). The patients vital activities were not disrupted upon surgery and their mood improved for a while. For a short amount of time, patients stopped suffering from serious neurological and psychiatric disturbances. However, when the patients were observed several years after the surgery, it was concluded that the patients lacked the functions of the forebrain and these surgeries were abandoned. The most prevalent side effects related to the removal of the forebrain were:

• Loss of the ability to solve complex social problems,
• Loss of the ability to take sequential steps in order to resolve a complex problem,
• Loss of the ability to multitask,
• Loss of determination, effort and desire to do activities,
• Loss of the ability for a community response when faced with a problem,
• Loss of ethical values and the feeling of shame,
• Loss of coherent thought even though the ability to speak and understand what is said is not lost,
• Instant emotional changes: from kindness to frustration, passion, violence and insanity,
• Inability to use artistic or naturally existing talents for the sake of a purpose.

These dysfunctions made it apparent that there was a correlation between the forebrain and spiritual characteristics.

Single neurons, not from the human brain, were inoculated in the lab and an experiment was carried out.. Studies showed that these neurons were not a means to highly intellectual capabilities, such as intelligence; whereas when neurons taken from the forebrain were inoculated and experimented on, it was found that they were a means to uniquely human capabilities like intelligence. Complex problem solving and the capacity to make discoveries were found to be correlated with the forebrain. It is not possible to explain such a fact without taking the soul into consideration. Spiritual characteristics such as sadness, happiness, joy, peace, patience, compassion, and love are all the results of complex interactions within the brain. However, it is not convincing to say that they are only results of electrical or chemical interactions within the brain.

The prefrontal area is where all thoughts coming from lower brain areas (such as sight, hearing, and feeling cortex areas, and the thalamus and hypothalamus) are gathered and processed to be enriched. Many information and memories gathered from different parts of the brain come together in the prefrontal area to be synthesized into deeper thoughts. Active memory is when different pieces of information are synthesized together and form a thought; and this thought is later acted upon. This allows to accurately surmise future events, and to plan for them.

It also allows for a rapid, appropriate response to the signals gathered by the five sensory channels. It allows for predicting the consequences of actions before performing them and for resolving problems of a complex medical, mathematical, ethical, moral, or philosophical basis. It can also postpone emotional responses for an appropriate time, measure the consequences of verbal and physical communications, use will power to measure the ethical and moral consequences of actions, and use information gathered from all channels to diagnose a problem. People who have damaged prefrontal cortexes, have serious difficulty synthesizing information and processing it to form coherent thoughts (active memory). This situation shows us that the prefrontal cortex enables consciousness and highly intellectual actions.

Another function of the prefrontal cortex is to enable focus about a specific topic. Taking this into consideration, the prefrontal cortex is semi related to attention. An existing proof for this is that people with damaged prefrontal cortexes are unable to concentrate and their focus is easily disturbed. Individuals whose prefrontal cortex has been removed or damaged can acquire a spiritual consciousness; however due to their handicap, they are unable to express their thoughts in a serial and sensible fashion for more than a minute. They can be easily distracted from the original subject. The prefrontal cortex allows an individual to accomplish a process of thought despite distractions, and allows for communication between the soul and the mind.

To sum it up, the prefrontal cortex is correlated with intellectual characteristics such as consciousness, intelligence, and self control, and also relates to how well we perform our moral values. For example, if the prefrontal cortex is unable to function, the individual does not feel shame anymore. This makes people believe shame is related only to the prefrontal cortex. However, the brain is merely a bridge between the body and the soul. Our brain is a bridge and curtain for our soul, which is the source of our spiritual characteristics. When we physically have a problem with our brain, the soul carries on its existence as before, however it is unable to express its consciousness, intellect, and will power in this material world.

Though most outsiders view Chinese culture as being monolithic, both ethnically and religiously, there are over 20 million Muslims living within China. They’ve managed to peacefully co-exist with both their Muslim and Chinese identities.

Few people know that the Hui People, who are one of the fifty-five minorities of the People’s Republic of China, have been practicing Islam for 14 centuries, ever since Islam first emerged in Arabia. Even fewer people know that of those fifty-five officially recognized minorities of China, ten of them practice Islam. The Hui people particularly stand out from the rest of the Muslim minorities for a number of reasons. For example, as opposed to the other Muslim minorities for whom Chinese is a second language, the Hui People speak Chinese regional dialects. In addition to the language difference, contrary to the other Muslim minorities who are concentrated in the same region, the Hui people are spread out all over China. As a result of this regional diverse, the Hui People share many cultural similarities with the Han Chinese. These are only two distinctions that separate the Hui People from the other Muslim minorities in China, and while these two alone make the Hui People unique, there are even more differences that deserve recognition. The study of the Hui People is important because it will demonstrate how Islam has been practiced in harmony with Chinese culture for centuries. Furthermore, this study will also explain how one becomes loyal to his/her Chinese and Muslim identities simultaneously, because Chinese Muslims don’t find any problem in identifying themselves as Chinese and adopting Chinese customs that agree with Islam. Accordingly, the rest of the paper will give an overview about the origins and main characteristics of the Hui People before explaining the adaptation of Islam to the Chinese culture.

Who are the ten Muslim minorities of China?

The main focus of this paper will be an analysis of the particular characteristics of the Hui People. However, before undertaking the analysis, I will give a brief overview of the other nine Muslim minorities in China. The Chinese government has categorized its minorities based by nationality ever since 1949. Furthermore, the ten Muslim minorities of China were categorized by their ethnicity, including the Hui People. Six of the nine Muslim minorities, namely Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars and Tajiks, predominantly live in the XinJiang Autonomous Region, which is also known as Eastern Turkistan to many non-Chinese (Dillon, 1996, p.4). They all speak a form of Turkic language, except the Tajiks who speak Persian (Dillon, 1996, p.4). The remaining three Muslim minorities, who are the Salars, the Boa’an, and the Dongxiang, live in different regions. The Salars are another Turkic speaking Muslim minority in China that live in a region that borders the Gansu and Qinghai provinces (Dillon, 1996, p.4). The Salars trace their ancestry back to people who migrated from the Samarkand region during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The Boa’an live in the southwest of the Gansu province, while the Dongxiang live in the western-edge of Gansu province. Both trace their ancestors back to the Asian troops sent out during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). The Boa’an and Dongxiang languages also originate from the Mongolian language family, even though they are different from each other (Dillon, 1996, p.12)

The etymology of “Hui”

The Chinese word hui consists of two squares which literally means “return.” According to a Chinese Muslim scholar, “[t]he outer square means the universality of Islam, whereas the inner square refers to the Ka’bah” (Cahuh, 2004, p.156). In addition to this definition of hui), some Chinese Muslim scholars describe “the religion of the Hui as the religion that returns us to Allah,” the name of God in Islam (Cahuh, 2004, p.156).

The term ‘hui’ was used to describe all Muslims in China before the People’s Republic of China, in 1949, even though there were various nations practicing Islam during imperial China, including various Turkic people, Persians, and Arabs. The identification of Muslims as ‘hui’ gained a widespread usage starting with the Yuan Dynasty (1368-1644), ruled by the Mongols. After Imperial China, the Communist Government identified the Hui People with those who “do not have a language of their own but speak the dialects of the peoples among whom they live” (Gladney, 1996, p.20). Today the Hui People are famously known as Chinese Muslims.

The Development of Islam in China

Interestingly, the first appearance of Islam in China dates back to the 7th century in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), following the emergence of Islam in Arabia in 610 CE. Arab and Persian traders, soldiers and Sufi saints played a significant role in this transmission of Islam to Asia. Persian and Arab traders first settled in the southeastern coast of China, Canton (Guangzhou,) Xiamen, Quanzhou, Yangzhou, and some of them married local Chinese. However, this was a small amount of the Muslim community, and they were of little interest to local officials during Tang and Song Dynasties (618-1279 CE) (Gladney, 1996, p.17).

The Yuan Dynasty (1368-1644) was a landmark in terms of the spread of Islam in China because the Mongol rulers forced many Muslims living in Central Asia and Western Asia to migrate to China. “[T]he armies of Genghis Khan and his successors sacked major Islamic centers, including Bukhara and Samarkand, and transported sections of the population-skilled armourers, other craftsmen, and enslaved women and children among them-back to China, where they were settled as servants to Mongol aristocrats” (Dillon, 1996, p.17). In addition, the Mongol rulers of China made legal and hierarchical distinctions between the four kinds of people that led the Muslims to have higher status than the Chinese because the Muslims succeeded the Mongols who were at the top level (Gladney, 1996, p18).

Muslims in China believed that Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas, the maternal uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, along with the three companions of the Prophet, were the first Muslims in China. In accordance with this claim, He Qiaoyuan, a seventeenth century Chinese scholar, also stated that “the prophet’s four apostles arrived in China to preach during the middle of the reign of Emperor Wude in the Tang Dynasty” (Sen, 2009, p.80). At the same time, many Chinese Muslims pay visit to a tomb which is associated with Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas in Canton (Guangzhou). Today there are even some Chinese Muslims who trace back their ancestry to Abi Waqqas. However, contemporary scholars regarded that this chronicle was a legend due to the lack of evidence. Instead, they argued the beginning of Islam in China started with the envoy sent by Caliph Usthman, in the Tang Dynasty, in 651 (Sen, 2009, p.81).

Han Kitab

The Han Kitab is a collection of treatises, translations and books constructed by different Chinese Muslim scholars between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, and Liu Zhi are the most well-known authors of the Han Kitab. The authors of the Han Kitab took an unprecedented position in the history of Islam in China by using predominantly Neo-Confucian terms in the introduction and description of fundamental Islamic concepts such as prophethood, God, and ritual. The Han Kitab is the very example of the adaptation of Muslims into Chinese culture. For example, the concept of prophethood in Islam, is explained with the Neo-Confucian concept “shengren” which means “a link in the long chain of sages sent by Heaven to communicate the Way through their worldly teaching” (Frankel, 2011, p.88). In short, the authors of the Han Kitab are mainly concerned about making abstract Islamic terms more understandable by using the existing religious terminology in China.

Practicing Religion in Muslim China

With the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the Chinese government’s shift in its attitude towards the practice of religions certainly enabled the revival of religious institutions and the free practice of religions in China. In fact, comparing the other Muslim minorities, the Hui People hold much more freedom in terms of practicing Islam. Political issues mainly lead other Muslim minorities to encounter some restrictions in practicing Islam. For example, the political, cultural and religious activities of Uyghurs are closely monitored and restricted by the government because they are considered as a threat to national unity.

With regard to the Hui’s religious traditions, they consider themselves Sunni Muslims who follow the Hanafi School of law. The mainstream Islam is called gedimu in Chinese, which is the transliteration of the Arabic word al qadim, “the ancient.” They call their Imams ahong, deriving from the Persian word akhong. As seen, it is possible to encounter the transliteration of both Arabic and Persian terms in the Hui People’s religious and daily life expressions. The Hui People also have names in the traditional Chinese forms, along with a religious name. Mahmud Ma Xiao and Sharif Wang Yongliang are examples of Hui names. There are also some common names among the Hui, “like Ma, probably derived from the first syllable of Muhammad” (Dillon, 1996, p.50-53).

In addition, the close interactions between the Hui people with Chinese culture were reflected in the mosques built in the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and early Qing dynasties because they have a similar architectural style with the Buddhist and Daoist pagodas constructed in the same period. However, the recently built mosques have been following the models of “Afghanistan, Iran, the republics of the former Soviet Central Asia, or the Arab world” architectural styles (Dillon, 1996, p.38).

That the Hui People are scattered around the country is a significant sign indicating the integration of the Hui People into all walks of life. It is unexpected that a minority group does not concentrate in a region, but spreads out all over the country. In the case of the Hui, they are all around the country even though most of them live in Ningxia, Gansu, Henan, Hebei, Qinghai, Shandong, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Liaoning and Anhui provinces. As for the population of the Hui, they are one of the most populous minorities in China, following the Zhuang and the Manchu. According to the report on Mapping on the Global Muslim Population conducted by Pew Research Center (2009), there are 22 million Muslims in China (p.7). To another report on International Religious Freedom conducted by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (2006), “there were 20 million Muslims, more than 40,000 Islamic places of worship (more than half of which are in Xinjiang), and more than 45,000 imams nationwide.” The same report also announced that the Hui People nearly consisted of the half of the Muslims in China.

Despite the fact that the Hui share many cultural affinities with the Han, it is obvious that their practice of Islam distinguishes them from the Han Chinese. For example, the Hui, like all Muslims, observe some dietary rules, such as not eating pork and any meat not slaughtered according to the Islamic way. Nevertheless, when one says meat in China, the Han first recall pork. Mao Zedong, who is the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, also said that pork is “a national treasure” of China (Gladney, 1996, p.13). As for dressing, Hui men wear a white skullcap and Hui women cover their head with a headscarf originating from their Muslim identity. At the same time, as opposed to the Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn which are the most common Chinese festivals, the Hui primarily celebrate annual Lesser Bairam (Eid ul-Fitr), and Corban (eid ul-adha) along with all Muslims around the world.

Conclusion

It is a little known fact that over 10 million Chinese speaking people – not including Turkic, Persian and Mongolian speaking Muslims – practice Islam today. This piece touched upon some of striking features of these Chinese Muslims, called the Hui. The earlier sources established that the first presence of Islam in China dated back to not long after the rise of Islam. The example of the Hui people also demonstrates how a Muslim society is well adapted to another culture while also maintaining its Islamic identity. Muslims have been inevitably influenced by Chinese culture and have adopted some parts of it – such as architecture, language, customs, and clothing – that do not disagree with the fundamentals of Islam. It is an undeniable fact that the Hui people’s practice of Islam has prevented them from being assimilated and absorbed into Chinese culture. The examples given in the last section, Practicing Religion in Muslim China, show that the Hui people maintain their Islamic identity while also owning their Chinese identity. This ideology was first documented by the Chinese Muslim literati who explicitly stated, three hundred years ago, in the Han Kitab, that Islam is compatible with Chinese culture