We have tried to achieve this vastness in our souls for years. We have always wanted to recognize and accept people – not for the ill-temperedness they display due to certain exterior reasons, but for the spiritual immensity of their inner worlds, their silent spiritedness, their energetic harmony, and their continual openness to self-reform. And it was impossible for us to think otherwise. Such acceptance is required by the superior commands of faith, a testament to its universality. Indeed, while we have always tried to embrace our own faith completely, we have also regarded other religious thoughts and philosophical ideas as a natural part of our life. We have always sought coexistence. Our slogan has always been “accept everyone for who they are, and show respect.” And we have always tried to be faithful to this principle and have never condemned or abused anyone due to differences in religion, faith, sect, or opinion.

Though we have suffered various kinds of abuse, and were subjected to insults and degradation, we never responded. We never responded despite the fact that we had many legitimate reasons to do so. We endured various forms of abuse and humiliation, but we considered retaliation in kind as a cruel principle. We always believed the eternally inherent honor and privileges of being human should not be forsaken for temporary attributes like grudge, hostility, anger, and barbarity. Hoping to express these emotions without causing doubt or confusion, we even humbly bowed our heads and placed them on the ground, hoping to serve as steppingstones on the paths of those who we thought possessed good intentions. Such behavior for the sake of tolerance is a form of humbleness and submission; and while behaving in this manner, if we have unconsciously insulted our faith in any way and sinned, may God forgive us! We have continuously exclaimed, “Respect for all humanity.” We tried to live like shadows, to prevent being obstacles. We never anticipated anything from those whom we embraced with understanding, whose ideas we welcomed with respect. All we asked was mutual respect; this much we would expect simply out of our humble appreciation of their being human.

Indeed, we have never singled out anyone. As our hearts beat with love for the whole of humanity, we never demanded anything in return for our compassionate care. If we had made such demands, continuing our broad and sincere relations with all the nations of the world would have been impossible; ties based on expectations can never survive. But we want our relationships with others to last forever, and for that matter we chose to establish these relations on the belief that every human being is an example of God’s art.

We lived our lives accordingly, offering our love and respect to everyone (perhaps we have gone too far in showing our love, and some people mistook our kindness for hostile intentions). We showed kindness and displayed our humanity at every opportunity. We did not discriminate against anyone based on “worth”; we tried to live beyond such measures. We waited for the propitious moment when the eye of reason would convene and integrate with sound judgment. I believe that, as humans, we have a right to this basic expectation. Lesser expectations would be disrespectful to the honorable human being, whose potential exceeds that of the angels.

Indeed, for many years, while opening our fountains of deepest love, we’ve often been overwhelmed by the hope that our seeds of affection would germinate in lands of hatred, hostility, anger, and conspiracy. And many of those in our society that share this dream responded positively from their hearts:

Make a sound, my brave one, or don’t you hear me?
For years I have stood with you in my imagination.
I live with the hope that you will rise up and come…
My heart, shining with hope, awaits you.
At times it flies in the skies; at others it crawls on the ground…
Everywhere is in ruins, a festival for owls.
Bridges have fallen one by one and the roads are without travelers.
No one stops by anymore, the fountains have run dry…
Arise and come just like in the dreams!
Early one morning on your white horse,
While watching you in my spirit with my closed eyes.
Arise and come just like in the dreams!

Overcome by the magic of this splendid ideal, millions began to utter words of love. Though at first this love was only a trickle, in time it has transformed into a cascade. Now it is a symbol of revival for everyone.

This is another dimension of God manifesting His greatness. Sometimes, by allowing the weakest ones to fulfill great achievements, God shows that intermediary causes have no real significant value and reminds us of His sublimity in many different ways. What we have lived through was of a similar nature. It was as if the One of Eternal Power opened the gates to the hearts of others for ordinary, simple individuals like us, virtually bestowing upon us to become Solomon with his vast kingdom of love; and even if it was only temporary, the evil spirits of grudge, hostility, and conflict were so shocked that they became delirious with their evil desires.

Then, it was the time for the heroes of tolerance to speak. The Earth turned into pure gold in their hands; coal transformed into diamonds, and poison turned into sherbet. While they were satisfied with the willingness of society to reclaim its true nature, society also rejoiced at discovering its own spiritual depth and essence. Indeed, kindness converged with graciousness, and the souls, weary from years of bloodshed, tears, and the festering of evil, rejoiced at their good fortune. At last, everyone sat beneath open skies singing songs of love. Everywhere, light overwhelmed darkness, and the roars of hostility and animosity were replaced by the comforting ballads of love and brotherhood. Revenge and grudge idly awaited their fate, and hostility and resentment slowly shrank and faded away.

We were delighted and anticipated that those who were conscious of their humanity would adorn their souls with feathers from Gabriel’s wings, reach the heavens frequented by the angels, and raise a new voice composed of the divine. A new voice that would not allow the groaning of conflict, lies, slander, and defamation.

Disappointingly, however, a marginal but adamant group, driven by hostility, aggression, anarchism, and slander, a group whose strength and extraordinary efficiency lie in its destructiveness and its bellicosity, has obstructed this awakening like fiends. They have attempted to block this progress by swaying some people who were confused and undecided. They have attacked religious thought and defamed religious people. They have labeled everyone with an ideology; for them, some people were “religionists” – whatever that means – while others were members of a cult, thus sowing fears for fundamentalism, they ignited flames of discord.

Tyrants have oppression on their side,
but the innocent have God on theirs.
Persecuting people may be easy today,
but tomorrow they will certainly go before God.

We have remained silent; silence is the way we respond. Retaliation in kind is a tyrannous principle in our book. We do not fight back physically, nor do we reply to their curses. Acting without force against those who use force, and remaining silent before those who utter abuse: these are requirements of the covenant between us and our consciences. God never created us with teeth to bite, nor did He create us with claws to savage others. Each individual acts upon their character, and we consider acting violently as disrespectful to ourselves. Thus, we have swallowed our words when we could have spoken out loud.

While others have revealed the darkness in their souls, we are presented with the opportunity to praise God’s favors upon us.  We will not overshadow our time in this transient world by harming others, speaking evil words, or hurting others’ feelings; in the spirit of Yunus the poet, we will appeal to everyone to love one another. 

While doing so, we will remain loyal to these words, as written by Bediuzzaman: “I am forgiving all the troubles, tortures, and calamities I had to suffer for so many years. During my whole lifetime (of over eighty years), I have tasted nothing of the worldly pleasures. My life has passed on battlefields or in prisons or other places of suffering. I was placed on disciplinary segregation for months. They have treated me, at war tribunals, as if I were a savage. As for those who persecuted me, who banished me from one town to another, who tried to imprison me with many charges, and those who reserve a place for me in the dungeons: I forgive all of them.”

Indeed, I vow that as a believer I will share these emotions. I vow that I will not be upset with anyone or break away from them. I vow that I will welcome death with pleasure. I vow that I will accept the suffering from His Majesty as one with the loyalty that comes from His Beauty. And finally, I have no authority to speak on behalf of God’s rights, but with the regards to my violated personal rights, I vow that I will not demand them from anyone on the Day of Judgment.

In this issue, we are celebrating Black History Month with Laila Muhammad. The grandchild of Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, and the daughter of Warith Deen Mohamed, she is recognized more by association with her family, but she has continued her family’s incredible legacy of community work. In our interview with her, you will not only read about her family, but you will also encounter a social activist with common sense and compassionate vision. Anyone who is involved in any type of community work will benefit from her words. “We have to move forward,” Muhammad says, adding “collectively” at the end, with emphasis. This message is more relevant than ever at a time when our society is growing more polarized on multiple axes of race, religion, and gender.

Laila Muhammad’s message resonates with a book Justin Pahl reviews in this issue: Peace and Dialogue in a Plural Society, by Fr. Thomas Michel. Fr. Michel is a Catholic priest and a professor at Georgetown University who has been involved in interfaith dialogue with Muslims for many decades. He’s traveled and lived with Muslims in many countries including Indonesia, the Philippines, Turkey, the United States, and Europe. His research in this book focuses on the Hizmet Movement and how the movement’s educational and dialogue efforts around the world are contributing to peace in the plural society of the twenty-first century.

A complementary piece to the above themes is “The Age of Self-Awareness” by Caroline Halford. Halford writes, “The world became connected very quickly and with that came not only conflict, secrecy, and fear, but also progress, growth, and knowledge, or at least, attempts at these things.” This global plural society has stepped into an age of self-awareness in the twenty-first century, Halford argues. Whether our self-awareness will diminish into self-obsession or will allow us to be great, continuing the legacy of those who came before us, is up to us.

This issue’s lead article “Chaos and Flourishing Hopes” redefines our relationship with the past, the present, and the future. While some of us delve into the glorious days of our past, others, especially younger people, submit themselves to fanciful thoughts of the future, Fethullah Gülen writes. Yet according to Gülen, the best path is to implement “what is required in every stage of life,” after which we will perceive the past-future-present as “the three angles of a single unit, and we will be able to experience each period of time with its own depth. The golden ages of human history have always been experienced when the concept of time has been perceived as such.”

As he defines a perspective as a concept of time, Gülen also establishes a prescriptive approach to misfortunes and ordeals: “Going through such ordeals is how we can overcome the weariness caused by monotonousness. This is how we can always sense the pleasures and enjoyment to the same extent in the positive sense. This is in fact the transformation of difficulties and afflictions into spiritual prosperity.”    

Our immune system handles our body’s security. It’s equipped with the resources necessary to deal with different levels of security threats. This system walls off the body, but also has the equipment to hunt down any intruders. We can think of our immune system as a game of strategy, where defensive and offensive maneuvers are equally important. This game is not a simple, single-session one. It involves constant information gathering, weapon developing, and soldier training. In short, it involves constant change.

The body’s general defense mechanisms, called the innate immune system, can be considered the first line of defense, aimed at preventing bacteria or other pathogens (sickness-inducing factors) from entering the body in the first place. These include the skin (the walls of the castle), as well as mucus, tears, saliva, and acids (the boiling oils of the castle). Vulnerable entry points such as the respiratory system are covered with thick, sticky mucus, which traps pathogens and then disposes of them by way of sneezing or coughing. Other sensitive spots such as the eyes are constantly washed with tears. Tears are produced on top of the eye and drain into the bottom, near the nose, ensuring sterility.

The innate system also uses a mechanism called inflammation to handle pathogens that manage to breach the outer defenses. The main goal of inflammation is to prevent the pathogens that enter through the skin from reaching the blood. Inflammation is initiated by immune cells that are found within the injured tissue. These immune cells can be considered “patrol cells” and are found everywhere in the body, not just the blood. The moment these cells come across a foreign antigen (the molecular fingerprint of a cell or virus), they sound the alarm, triggering inflammation. Inflammatory precautions include blood clotting, macrophage migration, and increased blood flow to the area. Blood clotting occurs relatively quickly, since inactive clotting factors are already present and only need to be activated. This seals off the security breach, preventing more pathogens from entering. Macrophages are very large immune cells that migrate to the scene and capture any bacteria they encounter. Increased blood flow to the area both eases and accelerates the entrance of reinforcements, such as antibacterial proteins and other white blood cells. This is the reason for the swelling we see.

If all fails and the pathogens manage to enter the bloodstream, the body has no choice but to pull out the big guns: the adaptive immune system. The adaptive immune system is unique in that it knows its enemy and adapts accordingly, hence the name. Each type of pathogen has strong and weak spots. Some are resistant to antibacterial proteins, while others are resistant to being phagocytosed (being eaten alive!) by macrophages. During the first encounter, the adaptive immune system tries different methods of destroying the pathogen, and “records” the most effective method. It then stores the antigen of that specific pathogen. So, during the second encounter, the adaptive immune system already “knows” what to do and eliminates the pathogen almost immediately.

Now, let’s get into some detail.

There are many types of cells in the adaptive immune system. Each has a very specific role to play. Cytotoxic T cells are the ones responsible for destroying bacteria. One feature that distinguishes these cells from macrophages is the method of activation. Unlike macrophages, cytotoxic T cells only kill after being activated by another type of cell, the helper T cell. The helper T cells’ main purpose is to activate or suppress the immune response, like an on-off switch. They are so effective that without the secretions of these helper T cells, the adaptive immune system literally shuts down. The cytotoxic T cells also need a means of recognition. This role is fulfilled by antigen-presenting cells (APCs). When APCs find foreign antigens left behind in the blood by bacteria, they stick them on their own membranes. Then, they start handing them around to cytotoxic T cells, like police identifying bandits from WANTED posters. After obtaining these outlaws, cytotoxic T cells kill any of those bacteria they encounter.

A second difference between cytotoxic T cells and macrophages is how they kill. Rather than phagocytosing (eating alive) bacteria, they shove a tube-like protein into their membrane, allowing its insides to flow out and ultimately deflating and killing it.

After the body recovers from the sickness, most of the outlaws are destroyed. But a few are kept and stored in memory B cells. Memory B cells are like the immune system’s archives, in that they have long lifespans and are kept safe deep in the bone marrow. The file of each bacterium is kept in these cells, with its poster on the front for quick identification. Therefore, if the body encounters the bacteria again in the future, the immune system loses no time trying to identify them. The elimination process starts promptly, even before any signs of illness. This mechanism is, in fact, what makes vaccination possible. Dead or harmless pathogens are injected into the body so that their files can be created in our archives without the hassle of illness.

Unfortunately, bacteria also have a few tricks up their sleeves. Bacteria are single cells, and this enables them to change their genetic material without major consequences. These genetic changes also cause structural changes. Even though each bacterium is individual and independent, they get their strength from their large numbers. For example, imagine a population of 100 bacteria, all with different genetics. During an infection, our immune system uses a special tactic – for example, phagocytosis – to get rid of the bacteria. But one of these bacteria has a genetic feature – say, a strong cell wall – that gives it immunity from this tactic. So, while the other 99 bacteria get eradicated, this one bacterium survives. This bacterium then multiplies into 100 new bacteria with strong, phagocytosis-resistant cell walls. This forces our immune system to find new strategies to overcome the bacteria’s new defenses. Resistance in bacteria only gets stronger if provoked. This is the reason why excessive use of antibacterials is not recommended. While they may give temporary relief, they cause the bacterial population to grow more resistant.

Even though bacteria are skilled in the art of genetic mutation, there is another pathogen that is undoubtedly the master: The Virus.

Viruses are so tiny that it has been debated whether they should be considered living creatures or just molecular structures. They contain very little genetic material, which makes them extremely prone to mutation. They mutate so rapidly that it is impossible for our body to create files for them. Moreover, they do not need provocation to mutate, since mutation is a part of their life cycle. This is the reason why immunodeficiencies (weaknesses of the immune system) are one of the most notorious disease types. Most immunodeficiencies are genetic and/or viral. The immunodeficiency with probably the worst reputation is AIDS. AIDS stands for “acquired immune deficiency syndrome,” and is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The thing that makes this particular virus so notorious is the fact that it targets the very cells that allow the immune system to operate, the helper T cells. Without the secretions of the helper T cells, the entire adaptive immune system virtually shuts down. After that, even the simplest illness can lead to serious consequences.

The HIV virus is an external threat, whereas another immunodeficiency, multiple sclerosis (MS), is an internal one. MS is a disease where our immune system sees our own cells (especially nerve cells) as enemies. This results in the destruction of cells by none other than our very own immune system. Destruction of the nerve cells may cause various neurological symptoms such as weakness, visual problems, or even psychiatric issues. Although the exact mechanism causing this deficiency is unknown, genetics is thought to play a big role. As a result, there is currently no known cure for MS.

In sum, our immune system continuously plays an extremely sophisticated, microscopic strategy game, of which we are observers more than we are players. Even as observers, we cannot entirely understand the battle at center stage, let alone the struggle going on in the game’s dark corners. Our immune system develops new strategies to keep us safe from thousands of daily attacks on the body. We are not even aware of all these strategies and defenses, unless they fail and we fall sick. There is no apparent winner or loser of this ongoing game, which requires extensive knowledge, intelligence, and uninterrupted adaptability, alertness, and creativity. As fantastic as observing this collective performance is, one cannot also help but ask whether each and every one of these players (our immune system, bacteria, viruses, etc.) a master strategist, owning all of these wondrous attributes, or are they directed to make their moves by the same One Master Strategist, for us to watch in awe and reflect upon?

In a famous story about Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician sets out to calculate the hypothetical number of grains of sand that would fully occupy the known universe. Archimedes wished to know just how large our universe is, as well as how many particles might fill its vastness. Archimedes’ bold attempt at answering this question pioneered two important contributions: first, a numerical system to denote extremely large quantities (which led to modern-day exponents) and second, a guess at how voluminous the universe is and how many particles it might contain. The answer that Archimedes arrived at is that 10⁶³ grains of sand would fill the known universe, which is a 1 followed by 63 zeroes.[1]

This number 10⁶³ is as large in the physical world as it is deceptively compact in its written form. Ultimately however, Archimedes did not have the advantage of modern-day telescopes to verify his answer. Furthermore, he could not answer the natural and more scientifically-challenging follow-up question to his thought experiment: just how many particles make up this universe? In fact, the true number of particles composing the known universe is believed by modern day astronomers and astrophysicists to be over a quadrillion times the value of Archimedes’ number.

But how did scientists arrive at their number? That is, how do we count the particles in the universe? A basic version of the calculation is actually straightforward and is presented below.

First, before attempting to answer how many particles exist in the known universe we should define particles and known universe. There are several ways to characterize a particle, but popularly employed definitions are atoms, nuclei, or electrons. For the sake of this discussion’s simplicity, we shall use atoms, since they are readily understood. Therefore our task is to count the number of atoms that exist in the known universe.

As for the term known universe, we mean the observable universe as described in the standard model of cosmology that astronomers and astrophysicists use today. Based on calculations on the observed “drift velocities” of galaxies (how fast galaxies move away from one another), this standard model posits the universe to have a radius of 4.6 x 10¹⁰ light-years (i.e., 46 billion light-years or 3 × 10²³ miles), an age of 13.7 billion years, and a finite – thus, countable – number of galaxies, stars, and other celestial entities.

How many stars are there?

Just as cells are the basic units of an organism, the basic unit of the universe is the star. Thus to count the number of atoms in the universe, we first count the stars. We begin this calculation with the largest discrete entities in the universe – galaxies – which are essentially large clusters of stars. Galaxies come in various shapes and sizes. Our own Milky Way is a spiral-shaped galaxy and is slightly on the larger side, having a diameter of 110,000 light-years. In contrast, the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy is only about 10,000 light-years in diameter and has a more ellipsoid shape. But whatever their features, how many galaxies are there in total?

By analyzing partitioned images from the Hubble Ultra Deep Field telescope, astronomers were able to create photographs of deep space, mapping our collective view of space from Earth. In these photographs, there are myriads upon myriads of galaxies. All of them are visible as discrete entities which can be computer-counted. With this method, scientists estimate the number of galaxies in the universe to be between 100 billion and 1 trillion. Thus, this number is on the order of 10¹¹.[2]

The next question is how many stars does an average galaxy contain? Quite a few, it turns out. An analysis of the light spectrum of galaxy images from the Hubble telescope, with extrapolation from data stemming from our own Milky Way, suggests that on average a given galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, which is again 10¹¹.[2] Combining these numbers, we calculate that there are approximately 10¹¹ x 10¹¹  = 10²² stars (10 sextillion) in the known universe.[2]

These 10²² stars differ greatly in their mass. For example, Eta Carinae, a star 8,000 light years away from Earth, is 100 times as massive as our sun. And the smallest known star, AB Doradus C, is found in the constellation Dorado and has a stellar mass of only 9% that of the sun. As an average, however, most stars are roughly as massive as our sun, which is 2 x 10³⁰ kg. For comparison’s sake, the mass of the Earth is 6 x 10²⁴ kg, putting an average star’s mass as approximately a million times more than Earth’s mass. Multiplying 10²² stars by 2 x 10³⁰ kg per star gives us a remarkable 2 x 10⁵² kg as the total star mass in the universe.

What makes up stars?

Now we must ask how many atoms does an average kilogram of star mass contain? To answer that, we have to delve into the composition of a star. Stars vary in their chemical content and contain elements ranging from the smallest one known, hydrogen, all the way up to iron. As an interesting byproduct of the big bang, much of the known matter created was hydrogen, since it is the simplest element – it is essentially one proton with one electron circling it. As a result, when stars formed from the available matter in the universe, they contained mostly hydrogen. As scientists analyzed the light spectrum of various stars, it was noted that star matter is surprisingly consistent in its average composition: it is roughly 78% Hydrogen and 27% Helium by mass.[3] The remaining 2% is made of trace elements such as Oxygen, Calcium, Silicon, and so on.

For the purposes of this simplified calculation, this 2% can be ignored. Then, by using the atomic masses of hydrogen (1.01 grams per mole) and helium (4.00 grams per mole) readily available from any periodic table of the elements, we can calculate that 1 kilogram of star matter is roughly 710 grams of elemental hydrogen and 270 grams of helium. Using basic knowledge of chemistry, we know that a gram of hydrogen is roughly 10²⁴ atoms and a gram of helium is roughly 10²³ atoms. Thus, we can calculate that there are approximately 4.6 x 1026 atoms in a kilogram of star matter.

Finishing the calculation

Now we can arrive at our answer to how many particles exist in the known universe: if there are 2 x 10⁵² kilograms of star matter in the universe, and 4.6 x 1026 atoms in each kilogram of this star matter, we yield (2 x 10⁵²) x (4.6 x 1026) = 9.2 x 10⁷⁸. So after rounding, we can declare there are approximately 10⁷⁹ atoms in the universe.

This number is astoundingly large, yet looks deceivingly small. 10⁷⁹ is over a million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions. For comparison, the estimated number of hairs on your head is 105, the estimated number of people on this earth is 109, and the number of atoms in a typical human body is 1027.[4] If we count the atoms of each person alive and add them together we still only have 1036 atoms – that is to say, 1036 atoms make up the whole of humanity. If even humankind grew by a thousand-fold, meaning instead of 7 billion people alive, there were 7 trillion, the number of atoms making up the world’s population would still be only 1039.

Thus 10⁷⁹ is an enormous number – far larger than the grains of sand Archimedes proposed. It should also be noted that this is technically an underestimate of the true number of atoms in the universe since we did not include trace elements, mass from extraterrestrial planets, or mass from extrastellar phenomena such as the interstellar medium, intergalactic medium, black holes, brown dwarves, and other items of outer space. Also, this number deals only with visible matter, thus excluding dark matter (and dark energy), which to date remain very poorly understood concepts. Finally, we should also note that our estimate of 10⁷⁹ atoms is not the only one. Various other calculating methods have produced other estimations of the number of particles in the universe, ranging from 1072 to 1087.

Regardless of what the precise count of atoms in the universe might be – whether more or less than 10⁷⁹  – it is undoubtedly, as Archimedes noted, an awe-inspiring number. It makes the 1028 atoms in each of our bodies feel utterly humbled – but also connected to the grand whole since we are a part of that awe-inspiring number. When glancing up at the star-riddled sky, realize that the vastness of this universe can be described as 10⁷⁹ atoms organized into such things as stars and asteroids, people and plants, cars and computers. We humans are just a fraction of this astronomical quantity.

References

1. Bradshaw, Gillian. The Sand-Reckoner. New York: Forge, 2000.

2. Van Dokkum PG, Conroy C. A substantial population of low-mass stars in luminous elliptical galaxies. Nature, 2010; 468:940-942. Doi: 10.1038/nature09578

3. Irwin, Judith A. Astrophysics: Decoding the Cosmos. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2007.

4. Brandreth, Gyles. Your Vital Statistics: The Ultimate Book About the Average Human Being. New York: Lyle Stuart, 1986.

The drug molecules that are supposed to be curing us also need to overcome our body’s defense mechanisms. Let’s look at some of the body’s defenses and the way drugs overcome them, before we examine an unexpected inspiration for a new method of delivering drugs.

Our skin is the largest barrier preventing toxic substances from getting inside our bodies. The intestinal mucosa or the blood-brain barrier is a physiological defense barrier. If a drug molecule can pass through these barriers, the next step to be overcome is the biochemical barrier, where myriad enzymes play a role. Therefore, drug molecules have to be designed with optimal physicochemical properties. These include the proper size, charge, and hydrophilicity (water solubility) to ensure their permeation across our bodies’ biological barriers.

There are a few types of drug delivery systems. They are oral, pulmonary (via inhalation), intravenous (via injection), and transdermal. All of them have their own advantages and limitations.

For oral applications, a drug molecule needs to traverse the epithelial layer of the gastrointestinal tract. Thus, there are many factors which have to be taken into consideration for enhancing the delivery of molecules through the intestinal mucosal barrier. Many of the newer drugs on the market are composed of peptides and proteins, and they cannot be administered orally due to their relatively larger size compared to smaller drug molecules.

The delivery of drugs via traditional injection provides better bioavailability; however, this route has low patient compliance due to injections being painful and accidental needle-sticks. Hypodermic injections also generate dangerous medical waste and pose the risk of disease transmission by needle re-use, especially in developing countries.

Transdermal drugs have become an important form of medication in recent years, as they are non-invasive or minimally invasive. Transdermal drugs have many advantages over other drugs, such as high patient compliance due to the easy accessibility of skin, the avoidance of the gastrointestinal tract, and that they can be self-administered.

The main problem with transdermal drugs is that the skin is a highly effective barrier. The outermost layer of skin, the stratum corneum, is mainly composed of dead carneocytes embedded in lipid layers, and has a thickness of 10-15 μm. This packed structure offers a substantial barrier to the delivery of both small hydrophilic (water soluble) and high molecular weight drugs. Only small lipophilic molecules, which can dissolve in lipids, can pass through the skin. Therefore, alternative methods and devices are needed to deliver hydrophilic and macromolecular (larger) drugs through the skin in a controlled manner.

Numerous chemical and physical methods have been attempted with the purpose of increasing skin permeability for easier drug delivery. As the name suggests, micro-needles are micron-size needles that are applied for transdermal vaccinations, as well as drug and gene delivery. Researchers hope they will increase skin permeability via forming micron-sized channels in the skin, thereby allowing the delivery of therapeutics across the skin barrier. In addition, by careful control of the micro-needles’ mechanical strength and length, it is possible to deliver drugs across the dermal barrier while evading the nerves, thus resulting in a painless administration.

Micro-needles must have a high degree of stiffness (resistance to bending) and enough strength for a successful insertion into the skin. If they’re too flexible, they won’t insert; if they’re not strong enough, they’re fracture. A variety of materials are used to manufacture micro-needles, and they include silicon, glass, metals (e.g. stainless steel, titanium, and nickel-iron), and polymers. Current micro-needle technology is based on imitating the present hypodermic needle geometry and miniaturizing it utilizing a silicon micro-machine process. The designs are fabricated onto a substrate where hundreds of micron-sized needles are formed, and then these micro-needles can be either pressed or scraped on the skin, forming microscopic holes. As a result, skin permeability increases by approximately four degrees of magnitude, allowing the easier delivery of medicine.

The ideal micro-needle needs to be extremely small, with an inner diameter of 10-20 μm. It is very challenging to prepare such small needles, ones that are also strong and flexible. Fortunately, we have a living example to guide our designs: female mosquitos.

The world’s most advanced micro-needles are found in mosquitos. Thus, scientists and engineers have begun trying to mimic a female mosquito’s bite – that is, the way they suck blood from our bodies while also leaving behind their itch-causing enzymes. If such a breakthrough can be achieved, blood drawing or drug injection may be performed painlessly. Researchers from North Carolina State University indicate that if a “synthetic mosquito” capable of drawing blood painlessly can be developed, millions of diabetics worldwide who must draw blood several times a day for glucose monitoring will be able check their glucose numbers without pain.

Mosquito needles are made of two main parts: the fascicle and proboscis. The general shape of a female mosquito needle is a core-sheath structure where the fascicle is the main needle puncturing the skin and drawing blood and the proboscis acts as a surrounding and protective layer for the inner needle. Interestingly, only female mosquitos bite, since their need for human blood is only for the purpose of developing their eggs, not for their nutrition.

Ideally, a micro-needle would mimic the structures of a mosquito’s needle, including the mechanism by which the mosquito penetrates the skin and draws blood. This would make for the painless treatment of many diseases.

To prepare a micro-needle based on a mosquito needle would require extensive knowledge of chemistry, material science, mechanical and structural engineering, and fluid dynamics. After resolving any scientific challenges, these needles would need to be manufactured in high quantities to reach the many people in need. This would require scaling up the fabrication methods in a safe and compliant facility. For such widespread production to happen, the process would have to be widely adopted by patients.

In summary, if researchers can mechanically mimic a mosquito needle, it would be a great achievement in the development of advanced micro-needle technology. It’s incredible that the solution to a major medical problem – the efficient delivery of drugs and vaccines – is already present in nature, at our disposal.

REFERENCES

1. Wang B, Siahaan T, and Soltero R. Drug delivery : principles and applications. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Interscience, 2005.
2. Kalluri H and Banga AK. Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology 2009;19(5):303.
3. Arora A, Prausnitz M, and Mitragotri S. Int J Pharm 2008;364(2):227.
4. Prausnitz MR and Langer R. Nat Biotechnol 2008;26(11):1261.
5. Betancourt T and Brannon-Peppas L. Int J Nanomedicine 2006;1(4):483.
6. Ramasubramanian MK, Barham OM, and Swaminathan V. Bioinspir Biomim 2008;3(4).
7. The magical world of the Mosquito, Ibrahim Yildiz, January-February 2010 Issue: 73, Fountain magazine.

The United Nations actually has a name for the new consciousness that is emerging across the globe: a culture of peace. There are two main hallmarks of this consciousness. The first is the understanding that we are all members of one human family. All our religions teach us to follow a path of righteousness, defined by caring for one another with generosity, compassion, mercy, and love. In previous times, we have limited the expression of these virtues to those within own tribe while arming ourselves against outsiders. The key realization of the 21st century is that there is no “other.”

Our quickness to judge others according to their race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or culture is fast diminishing. We no longer live in isolated pockets of people who look like us. Those who go to school together, work together, and meet as neighbors can’t help but notice our common humanity. And blood feuds, bigotries, and grudges nurtured for generations in closed societies are evaporating in the fresh air of inclusivity. This trend is helping us transcend the ideal of mere tolerance, as we move onto firmer ground of respect, caring, and appreciation.

The 20th century saw the rise of the interfaith movement, an important step in the advancement of humankind. For the first time, scriptures of all faiths were made available in translation, and timeless mysteries stood revealed. Concurrently, there was an enormous increase in the percentage of the world’s population that could read and even attain levels of higher education. While some leaders have continued to fan the flames of intolerance for political and economic purposes, there is a growing consensus across the globe that people of faith have more in common than the differences of their religions might imply. Interfaith organizations and observances are now widespread, and we will soon see differences of religion as another expression of the glorious diversity of our human family, along with skin color, language, and cultural background. Once we gain the wisdom to see beyond our differences, we will come to appreciate the rich storehouse of insights each tradition brings to the compendium of human knowledge and understanding. Then we will be ready to learn from one another.

In this new “universal” consciousness, it will be challenging to incite members of any group go to war against another. We have already begun to recognize that violence is not a useful way to resolve conflict because it creates a loser. In fact, everyone involved in violence, whether victor or vanquished, suffers a loss, as American combat veterans realize when they return home with PTSD and suicidal dreams. In days of old, war was considered a glorious and noble occupation. Conquest was admired and the “spoils of war” – including enslaved peoples – were considered legitimate acquisitions. Today’s understanding is more compassionate, more nuanced. War is not yet obsolete, but it is considered to be a last resort when dialogue and diplomacy fail. Dialogue and conflict resolution are now being taught in schools, and the spirit of reconciliation will be increasingly enhanced by the desire to take care of those beyond our own identified group.

We are at our best when we endeavor to understand and empower one another. Fortunately, this universal spiritual truth, so nobly expressed as the Golden Rule, is becoming ever more apparent. Every tragedy that we hear about from across the world, whether a war, an earthquake, or a tide of desperate migrants, inspires us to open our hearts and our pocketbooks. For the first time in our history, we feel the pain of people we don’t know; we are becoming one global community.

And not a moment too soon. The combined effects of human waste emissions on our air, water, and soil, along with the beginnings of potentially massive changes in the global climate, are putting the very future of human life in peril. The planet is crying out for us to change our ways and we are finally starting to listen. Indigenous peoples around the world have always told us to walk lightly on Mother Earth and treat her with respect. Will we wake up to this wisdom before it is too late?

As we reach the next level of human evolution, we begin to understand at the very core of our being that we are part of a living Earth amidst a living universe. This is the second hallmark of the emerging consciousness: the renewal of our sense of deep connection with nature, realizing that our future must include new ways to live in harmony with our environment. Our scientific approach has objectified the Earth and all the creatures who call it home. The arising culture of peace will be one of relationships based on honor and respect.

As world leaders tackle the issues of a planet threatened by desertification, shrinking coastlines, and extreme weather, the people of the world are seeking innovative solutions that will bring us inexpensive and abundant energy sourced from renewables such as the sun, the wind, the tides, and perhaps even the geothermal energy of the Earth itself. Can we learn to split the atom safely, with no hazardous waste? Can we achieve zero-point energy? These questions are for the scientists of our time. What is clear is that humanity is now aware of the need to power our lives in a way that neither depletes nor despoils the natural environment, but rather aligns with natural systems in which there is no waste that is not also used to nourish.

The United Nations began the 21st century with eight “Millennium Development Goals,” designed to significantly reduce global poverty by 2015. We now see the emergence of a new agenda called the “Sustainable Development Goals,” a comprehensive blueprint for maintaining not only a healthy relationship to the world around us, but also for fully developing the human potential of every child. It is encouraging that every nation has signed onto this commitment to creating a caring society.

Our relationship to the Earth becomes even more significant as we move increasingly towards a virtual reality. Our devices connect us to one another – both personally, to our friends and families – who are never too far away to be in touch, and worldwide, to our sources of news and information. New directions in education will allow young people to rapidly excel in both the sciences and the arts. Yet we will need even more grounding in nature, and more balance between heart and mind, as intellects soar to new heights.

Yes, the 21st century will see the opening of humanity’s heart. As we release the fear that stems from a sense of separation – whether from one another or from God – we heal into a wholeness never before experienced outside a small tribal community. The whole Earth is our community! This realization allows us to lay down our arms and experience love. This love is what will be needed to repair all that we have broken in our beautiful world. Only by caring for one another and for our Mother Earth can we create a new culture of peace, one that will assure the flourishing of the human race in the face of whatever challenges may come.

Perhaps this time of awakened consciousness will be seen as an evolutionary leap of the spirit. Imagine how powerful we will become when we recognize the spark of the Divine within every human heart, and indeed all of creation! Instead of arguing about the existence of God or the truth of our religions, we will simply see all life as sacred, cherishing the beauty of the world around us and the infinite light we see in one another’s eyes.

How do we know that the 21st century will be the time for such wonders? As we stand at the threshold of a new world, we find ourselves at an unprecedented point of tension and time is running out. Behind us lies a path to the destruction of our environment. We cannot continue to tolerate dysfunctional governance, financial systems that benefit only the few, and a consumer culture that fills our oceans with plastic and our bodies with toxic chemicals. We cannot continue to accept a civilization where some live in comfort and some in starvation. When the air temperatures and the sea levels rise, we will need a healthy planet with healthy people ready to take care of one another. And we can do it – in fact, we are ready!

What more could define this moment in time? Perhaps when we at last achieve a planetary culture of unity and peace, then we may be ready to communicate with civilizations from the stars beyond our sun. A humanity united in love may be welcomed into worlds beyond worlds.

So let us go forward together, unafraid to experience a new way to live on planet Earth as the one human family we are, caring for one another and flourishing in peace.

May peace prevail on Earth.

It was very natural that people focused on these measurements, as they were critical to everyday life. One of the first known attempts to measure length was the Egyptian cubit, developed around 3000 BC, which was based on the human body, one of the best tools then available to humanity. A “cubit” was the length of an arm from the elbow to the fingertips.

Similarly, early civilizations used what they had at their disposal to measure time, which was determined based on the regular movements of the sun. People used sundials, then candle clocks, water clocks, and sandglasses to measure time. As a result of the different methods used, the lengths of generally used time periods varied greatly from place to place – just as the units used to measure mass and length varied, too.

After the world became more interconnected, people needed a universal measure that could mean the same thing from one society to the next. In order to avoid confusion, an international standard unit of measurement, called the metric system, was created by France in 1790.

Latent constructs

During the last two centuries, the focus of measurement has shifted from observable objects to latent constructs such as traits, attitudes, and abilities. Latent constructs are based on certain theories. They can neither be observed nor measured directly. We attempt to measure them through some observable indicators, which are assumed to represent the underlying construct. For instance, the measurement of unobservable personal characteristics has challenged psychologists for centuries. Several approaches have been developed in an attempt to properly define and quantify these latent characteristics. Most of the current developments in these measurements are based on research into human sensitivity from classical psychophysics. In the 19th century, Ernst Weber, Gustav Fechner, and Herman von Helmholtz were some of the first scientists who attempted to measure human sensitivity to such sensory stimuli as lights, sounds, odors, tastes, and pressures.

Many social scientists have also been attempting to numerically identify some unobservable phenomena, such as ability, I.Q., and personality. In 1905, French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the Stanford-Binet IQ test to measure intelligence. Since then, other scholars have developed many tests for measuring intelligence. These tests are commonly used in educational and business settings.

Basic principle behind the successful measurement is to design a tool that can make it possible to obtain an accurate measure of what is intended to be measured. Despite the fact that all measurement instruments are subject to varying degrees of instrument error, psychometricians, who practice the science of measurement, and physical scientists have used different approaches to explain and reduce such errors. There are several differences between these two schools of measurement concepts. For instance, Stanley Smith Stevens (1946), an American psychologist, defined measurement as “the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to some rule.” This definition is different than physical scientists’ definition which refers to the numerical estimation and expression of the magnitude of one quantity relative to another (Michell, 1997).

Conditions to measure the unobservable

Since measuring latent objects is more difficult than measuring observable phenomena, some conditions must be met before attempting to measure these unobservable things. First, they need to be identified based on a sound theory. An underlying theory should explain the causes and results of the variations of certain abstract phenomena, as well as the phenomena’s relationship with other constructs.

The second necessary condition for an object, either physical or latent, is that there is variation. Suppose that we are attempting to measure intelligence. If a group of individuals are found to be equally intelligent, there would be no need to measure and compare.

In addition to these two conditions, mathematical models are necessary to connect the theory and its observable indicators. Since these models assume a variable that can only be measured with error, our measurements may not reflect an exact quantity.

René Descartes (1644) claimed that, “If something exists, it exists in some amount. If it exists in some amount, then it is capable of being measured.” On the one hand, this philosophy teaches us that some things may exist which we have not yet measured. For instance, before Santorio Santorio invented the first thermometer, no one could express the temperature with a numerical value. However, temperature still existed, even before the existence of humankind. Therefore, humanity’s inability to measure something does not mean that it does not exist. On the other hand, a religious person can claim that there are some metaphysical objects believed to exist but which cannot be quantified. Therefore, the existence of something does not mean that it can be quantified – or at least, not by humankind.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the measurement of unobservable objects. First, most unobservable things have observable consequences. Thus, we can estimate many latent characteristics by observing the consequences on a person’s behavior. Let’s take personality as an example. An introverted person would tend to have a hard time being in front of a group of people. Such an observation can give us some idea about a person’s level of introversion. Measurements can focus on objective, behavioral reflections of a particular trait. This can be achieved by creating an instrument that is designed to measure the desired characteristic. The patient can be given a questionnaire and answer certain questions about the trait being measured. Answers based on the patient’s self-perception could be an indication of the degree of introversion. The person’s level of self-perception plays an important role.

Nevertheless, relying only on either our or someone else’s perceptions may not be a perfect form of measurement, as it is not possible for us to perceive everything about ourselves or the world around us. Our knowledge is very limited. If we cannot quantify an object either due to its hidden constructs or our inability to measure it, this does not mean that this object does not exist or it cannot be measured.

Though Adam may never be able to precisely answer his wife’s question about how much he loves her, it’s safe to say that his love exists, even if we can’t measure it.

References

• Descartes, R. Principia philosophiae, Amsterdam 1644. Pt, 2, 57-59.
• Michell, J. (1997). Quantitative science and the definition of measurement in psychology. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 355–383.
• Stevens, S. S. (1946). “On the Theory of Scales of Measurement”. Science 103 (2684): 677–680.

However, in just 20 years, the “soul” of the Web has changed: what began as the ultimate democratic tool, the Web is increasingly turning into a “global village” and a limitless market where the consumer is the commodity.

In this essay we will examine how these changes affect our online and real lives, and whether we can glimpse at the future of staying connected.

The Web: 20 years ago and now

In a BBC documentary series, “The Virtual Revolution,” Dr. Aleks Krotoski analyzes the development of the Web and its all-encompassing impact on our lives. She speaks with the prominent and important online social strata: the founders of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, and the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who acknowledges the discrepancy between the intended purpose of the Web and what it represents today.

At its beginnings, the Web was the epitome of democratization: its defiance against authority and tendency to uphold horizontal allegiances, and the fact that it gave voice to everyone and censored no one. Even now these characteristics are closely tied to the definition of the Web; however, we are also witnesses that these democratic hopes are being challenged by the growing influences of giant web companies, such as Google and Amazon, and some governments’ interests at controlling the content their citizens have access to.

It is difficult to state that Google has a monopoly over the Web, because essentially, no one has and no one can have a monopoly over the Web. However, Google’s way of making money, through the so-called Google AdWords, shows what happens when the Web meets the profit-making sector. One of the factors in the efficiency of these AdWords is the consumer profile^[1]. Google collects data about us based on the words we look up and it uses it to offer us a “more personalized experience,” i.e. showing us user-profiled ads.^[2] It seems that the consumer is becoming the consumed, as Dr. Krotoski observes. Despite this, in the words of Seth Goldstein, we are “perfectly dumb and happy” about the amount of data or “digital fingerprints” we leave behind.

Governments are also very actively involved in using the internet as the “fifth dimension of warfare.” One of Dr. Krotoski’s interviewees said that wherever there was a conflict in the real world, there was a conflict on the Web. In recent years a cyberwar has been going on between China and the U.S. and both countries have been accusing each other of running an “army of hackers.”^[3] And increasingly, there are allegations that the Russian government used the Web in its efforts to influence the recent U.S. Presidential election.

Certain conservative governments, such as the Iranian and the Chinese, employ censorship of web content on a daily basis. However, the latest attempts to pass the SOPA and PIPA acts, which have ignited massive protests in the U.S. and Europe, prove that even supposedly “democratic” governments try to cripple the “free-for-all” spirit of the Web.

What has the Web done to us?

The Web has distorted and transformed our notions of privacy. Our online habits are a gold mine for advertisers. They use recommendation engines to learn patterns of our behavior as consumers and shower us with ads for things we did not even know we needed; this process is called behavioral targeting. We are still significantly unaware to what extent and in what way this huge amount of “digital-fingerprint” data could be utilized.

However, we also willingly share some very important information about ourselves with the rest of the world through social networks and blogs, such as Facebook. Many of us give away our real names, dates of birth, locations, personal relationship status, etc., without even realizing the consequences of such openness.

The Web has also changed the way we think. We now tend to think more associatively than linearly, because of the enormous amount of data we are exposed to, which also makes us less attentive and less able to concentrate on one topic for long.

It has also become impossible to lead a political campaign without focusing on online communication between the candidate and their voters. The Arab Spring and the Occupy protests were fueled by group activity and information sharing on the Web.

The fact that 1/4 of the planet today is connected shows that the Web is increasingly penetrating every sphere of our modern lives. We are turning into Homo Interneticus, a name Dr. Krotski used to describe the new wired human, and our prototype can be found in South Korea, the most connected nation in the world. Internet addiction has long been recognized as a problem by the South Korean government; there were even some cases of addicts who neglected themselves – or their children – to the point of death^[4]. However, finding the most efficient way of treating internet addiction is still disputed.

To end with the words of Emily Bell, the Guardian News & Media director of digital content, “Forecasting the future of the internet is a horrible business, even in the short term. Those who can do it most successfully are among the richest people on the planet. Being asked what the internet will look like in four years’ time is a stretch. Being asked what it will look like in 40 years is bewildering.”^[5]

References

“Web Users Disapprove of Search Engines Collecting Personal Data for Advertising Purposes.” Buzzom. March 19, 2012. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.buzzom.com/2012/03/web-users-disapprove-of-search-engines-collecting-personal-data-for-advertising-purposes/.

Bell, Emily. “What Will the Internet Look like 40 Years in the Future?” Tech. October 23, 2009. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/23/internet-future-websites.

Tusler, Nick. “What Does Google’s New Privacy Policy Mean for Marketers?” What Does Google’s New Privacy Policy Mean for Marketers? March 21, 2012. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.tmwunlimited.com/news-and-blog/posts/2012/03/21/what-does-google’s-new-privacy-policy-mean-for-marketers.

Williamson, Lucy. “South Korean Clinic Treats Web Addicts.” BBC News. August 1, 2011. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14361420#page.

In order to remind us of this point, God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, said: “Do you wonder at the degree of Sa‘d’s concern? I am more concerned than Sa‘d, and God is more concerned than me.” Concern requires fulfilling with great zeal whatever God likes and orders and being as determined as possible not to commit whatever He dislikes and forbids. It also requires loving from the bottom of one’s heart the Essence, Attributes and Names of the Necessarily Existent Being, and doing one’s utmost so that He may be loved also by others, and preferring relationship with one’s Lord to everything in the world and the Hereafter. In expressing these last two points in particular, the following verse of a saint is highly significant:

I wish all the people of the world love Him Whom I love,
And all that we speak about would be the Beloved.

If the endeavor required is the assumption of a determined attitude not to commit evil and therefore related to God’s absolute dislike of such acts, then this would mean that one must adopt a manner that belongs to God. He who was the voice of truth, upon him be peace and blessings, said: There is no one more concerned than God. It is because of His concern that He has prohibited all indecencies to be committed, whether in public or secretly. This draws attention to the Divine source of concern and endeavor. By saying, God displays concern, and a believer also displays concern. God’s concern is for the prohibited acts that His servant may commit, he reminds us of the mutuality of concern and the ardent endeavor that is required by it.
The scholars of truth have interpreted concern and endeavor in two ways:

• Recognizing no alternative or rival to the All-Beloved.
• Fixing all of one’s attention on the All-Beloved and trying to outdo all else in loving Him.

However we want to understand endeavor, whether it be resisting corporeal desires and trying to lead our lives on the horizon of the heart and the spirit, or waging war against evil morals and establishing a way of life formed of good morals or virtues, or feeling in our hearts that we belong to Him exclusively—all these are among the principal elements which will bring us up to the level of true humanity. They are a response to God Almighty’s infinite concern for His servants. God’s concern is that He does not leave His servants forever vulnerable to others’ sense of what is fair, just and right, and He honors them with exclusive loyalty and servanthood to Him, and He does not throw them into the humiliation of subjection to false, imaginary deities. In response to this, the required concern of His servants is, in the words of Mawlana Jami‘, the craving for One, the invoking of One, the seeking of One, the seeing and following of One, the knowing of One, and the mentioning of One.

Some view endeavor as the initiates’ making Him their unique concern, their sole hope of contentment, and excluding all else other than Him from the sphere of their efforts which must be directed toward Him alone and exclusively. It has been regarded as the manifestation of the state in which some who sigh for the All-Beloved from whom they are separated are. The initial verses of the Mathnawi by Jalalu’d-Din Rumi sound like melodies of such endeavor and longing:

Listen to the flute, how it recounts;
it complains of separation.
….
I seek a bosom split in parts by separation,
so that I can explain to it my painful yearning!
Whoever has fallen far from his origin,
longs for the day when he will be reunited with the Beloved.

Those who have made serious endeavor with utmost concern have treated the subject of endeavor in three degrees:

The first consists of the endeavor that is practiced and known by regular, profound worship of God, by those who embroider their lives with the threads of piety and righteous deeds. In order to become perfected, they exert such endeavor that even a single, slight error is enough for them to suffer pangs of conscience for a life-time.

The second degree of endeavor is practiced by those who have set their hearts on God, the Ultimate Truth, exclusively, who go from state to state, who travel from love to pleasure and thereon into deeper and deeper yearning. They make every endeavor to please Him and, as stated in the verse, To whatever direction you turn, there is the “Face” of God (2:115), they always turn to Him with all their faculties and under all circumstances, and are on the alert against letting their eyes slide to another beloved. They always try to find Him in any corner of their hearts for special meetings, as mentioned in a hadith, I have a special time with God. They regard it as the greatest disrespect for time to fail to spend even a moment in knowing and pleasing Him. They tremble with the threat, This is because you exulted on earth without right, and you behaved insolently! (40:75), and they hear with eagerness the Divine call, Eat and drink at ease as reward for your deprivations and sacrifices in past days! (69:24) resounding all the time at different pitches.

The endeavor of those endowed with true knowledge of God, which is the third degree, is always to pursue deeper and deeper knowledge of Him, saying, We have not been able to know You as knowing You requires. They glimpse unbelievable beauties and sometimes keep what they have witnessed concealed, even from their own eyes, in jealousy. Sometimes they bemoan this world as being a place where He cannot be seen and complain of their eyes, in that they are unable to see Him and belittle their own being as they cannot keep concealed their special relationship with the All-Beloved and His special favors to them. Like a compass, they are always sensitively poised and agitated until they reach the day of final, eternal reunion with the All-Beloved, a day when they will acquire steadiness.

O God, I ask for (Your) forgiveness and endeavor (to please You)! O God, guide us to what You love and are pleased with! And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad Mustafa (the chosen one).

References

This article examines the philosophical underpinnings of modern humanity’s problematic relation with the bio-physical environment. These views, many critics say, suffer from anthropocentrism and dualism. After establishing these problematic viewpoints, I will turn to investigate nondualism, an alternative mode of thinking mostly promoted by religious traditions, which I believe can help us transcend the predicaments of the contemporary man-nature relationship.

Anthropocentrism and dualism

Modern humankind is anthropocentric. The centralization of humanity, accompanied by an ontological hubris, leads to the prioritization of humanity’s needs and pleasures. This justifies the transformation of the Earth into a titanic factory that supplies security and pleasure for humankind whilst destroying the biosphere.

There is another problematic aspect of anthropocentrism as it pertains to ethics in general and environmental ethics in particular. Ethical relativism seems to be the logical conclusion of human-centeredness. When an individual human being becomes the center of the world. subjectivity reigns, because there are as many “centers” as there are cognizant humans. Here, vulgar forms of ethical relativism emerge.

Can we transcend this predicament? Different forms of Kantian ethics and utilitarianism tried to rescue anthropocentrism from this self-destruction. They wanted to establish anthropocentrism without ethical relativism and skepticism. Retrospectively, as postmodern criticism has compellingly argued, it is difficult to say we were able to avoid the tension between anthropocentrism and ethical objectivity. On such a ground it is very difficult to establish an all-encompassing ethos regulating our relationship to nature. If, as a species, we need to relate ourselves to nature in a constructive way, then this degree of subjectivity seems pernicious.

As postmodernist and existentialist epistemologies argue, we inevitably interpret the world by extrapolating from ourselves. All of our cognitive activities intermingle with surrounding structures (political, economic, linguistic), rendering us subjective beings. It seems like as a species we are bound to remain anthropocentric. I do not think anthropocentrism is a bad thing, per se. The centralization of humanity could actually be a constructive power if it is accompanied by a sense of responsibility and humility. What makes anthropocentrism extremely dangerous is its alliance with another philosophical underpinning of Western thought: dualism.

The blend of anthropocentrism and dualism, in other words dualistic-anthropocentrism, is what nurtures an ethics of exploitation of nature. A dualistic conceptualization of existence poses several problems which directly influence our attitude towards nature.

First of all, dualist ontologies and epistemologies envisage a rupture between the two ends of the dichotomies. This leads to an ontological and epistemological alienation of man from both nature (res extensa) and other human beings – or other minds. It not only isolates humans from their surrounding environment, but also distances them on a vertical plane. The very nature of thinking in terms of binary oppositions leads to a hierarchy between parts of any dichotomy. Therefore, those possessing privileged properties (man, reason, male) can easily justify envisaging themselves as having the right to dominate those possessing what are perceived as inferior properties (nature, intuition, female). This mode of thinking, I believe, constitutes the subconscious of modern humanity as it deals with nature. It paves the way for the exploitation of nature and its resources.

Secondly, a dualistic categorization of existence is a mental construction, an abstraction. There is enough reason to suspect that this mental construction does not exhaust the extra-mental reality – namely that existent things do not simply consist of two distinct units. Dualism may be stifling the dynamic flux, interplay, and receptivity of different beings. As Heidegger indicates, every abstraction is a distortion. Imposing an artificial rupture between things results in a clash between mental constructions and extra-mental reality, creating an imbalance in the very fabric of nature.

Nondualism and religions

It is obvious that humanity needs a new way of seeing the world, and of self-understanding, to eliminate this humanity-nature dualism, as well as our anthropocentric fantasies. Modern humanity since the Enlightenment has developed its relationship with nature under the imposition of these two underpinning principles. Having a genuine relationship with nature as well as other human beings seems possible only through reconsidering the roots of this alienation and reasserting a different epistemology which can unite us on both the physical and metaphysical plane, thereby bridging the abyss between man and nature.

Questions arise here. How can religions help us overcome anthropocentrism and dualism? How do we go beyond these two principles, which are so embedded in our thinking?

Due to the domination of the philosophical outlook of modernism, religions too have long been interpreted under the imposition of anthropocentrism and dualism. But the pre-modern understanding of religious ontologies and epistemologies tend to be more theo-centric and non-dualist. This approach confirms the multiplicity of beings on the physical plane and bonds them to each other on the metaphysical plane. Insight into the nondualistic reality and interdependency of all things reveals the fact that humanity is not radically different from other creatures and is in need of everything else in the world.

Extrapolating from the pre-modern interpretation of the man-God-nature relationship, I believe that all religious traditions should develop, within each tradition, a discourse which is critical of and claims to offer an alternative to anthropocentrism and dualism. To put it bluntly, the alternative to dualism is nonduality, which does not envisage a radical separation between man and nature. A profound interplay between species, as well as mutuality, receptivity, and dependency, are founded on nondualism. To transcend the predicament of dualism, nondualism keeps an eye on the well-being of the whole. Since every part is organically and inseparably intertwined, every part has equal worth.

This is in sharp contrast to the dualism that categorizes, separates, alienates, and creates hierarchy within existence. There is no hierarchy in the phenomenal order; there is no part which is subordinate or of lesser value than any other. This leads to the ontological decentralization of humanity. Freed from dualism, humanity can enter a new mode of being, a nondomineering relationship with other beings. Once one is released from dualistic ego-centrism, things in the world appear no longer as alien and threatening, but as interrelated phenomena.  

Growing awareness of the interplay and profound receptivity of all things brings an expansion of the mind which invites us to transcend the constrictions of dualistic ego-centrism. If I use Said Nursi’s analogy, the ice cube of ego dissolves in the ocean of existence, reaching a more comprehensive state of being – and, as Rumi adds, without losing the consciousness of its inherent “dropness.” This expansion allows things to manifest themselves in more novel, creative, aesthetic, and complete ways.

In a nondualistic context the distinction between cause and effect blurs, too. As J. Zimmerman aptly puts it, “the idea of nature as totality of causes and effects has validity as a mental picture and only so long as no absolute ontological claims are made for it.”

The Buddhist notion of “mutual coproduction” is helpful here: “All phenomena arise simultaneously in mutual coproduction.” For a Buddhist, causality is a progeny of dualistic thinking, a mental schema relating natural phenomena without corresponding the nature of reality. The significance of this way of seeing is that when ego, the primary cause, is decentralized, cosmocentrism emerges. Humanity’s unique position as the primary cause effecting its surroundings disappears, and the profound receptivity of individual human beings emerges. Things are no longer independent, self-enclosed, substantial entities, but rather profoundly interdependent, receptive phenomena arising simultaneously. This in turn leads to a holistic view of life that decenters humanity and fosters care for all beings.

Establishing viable alternatives to anthropocentrism and dualism is a major task facing humanity today. Humanity can learn to let things be and to allow them to manifest themselves in accordance with their own limits. Theological systems which promote these values in a consistent metaphysics, whilst being in accord with what we know about the physical world, don’t just pass the test of time – they point the way forward.