The Fountain: Do you think religion and belief are still relevant in twenty-first century Western society?

Paul Weller: Certainly in terms of Europe in relation to matters of law and public policy, religion and belief are often focused on. In this context, by “belief” is meant nonreligious beliefs that are founded on ethical systems or presuppositions and are included alongside what is more traditionally understood as “religion.” So certainly, at the level of society, state, and law there is a presence and relevance of religion and belief.

In terms of the reality of religion and belief as lived, clearly in many societies the numbers of people who say that they belong to a particular religion has reduced in the Western world compared to what it was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. But that of course doesn’t always tell you about the nature of their connection to religious tradition. They may have only had a very broad cultural connection rather than one with which they were personally engaged. I think one has to understand what is meant by these terms and how they function in individual lives.

Some tend to call themselves spiritual rather than religious, or faithful in higher values but not in God. Why is religion less appealing to many people, especially the young?

Yes, I think this is connected a little bit with what I was saying in relation to the first question because I think there are indeed many people who do affirm themselves to be “spiritual” but don’t want to use the word “religion.” We did some research four, five years ago for the Equalities Challenge Unit that looks at equality issues in higher education. We looked at religion and belief in higher education and very interestingly the descriptor that quite a significant proportion of students wanted to use was not one of the religions, nor that of “no religion,” but was “spiritual.”

In the national census in the UK, where I live, that option is not given: the options are no religion, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, etc. But when we gave the option “spiritual,” a significant percentage of students chose that.

Why is this? I think it’s because of a suspicion towards organized forms of religion, partly because organized forms of religion are themselves always ambiguous in terms of the good they do and sometimes unfortunately the not good or the bad that they also do. And this embodies some people’s experience of organized religion… So they distinguish or they start to distinguish between the historical organizational form of a religion that they’ve encountered and had a bad experience of, and what they think the religion may be pointing towards. Thus they might say “well, I’m a spiritual person” … but they don’t want to buy into the package of a historical religion or religious organization because they see mixed things in that.

But there’s always this spiritual side continuing…

I think so, yes… But I mean clearly there are people who also would speak against that. So there are also strong atheists – you know that’s a position in itself, but I think many people, as I say, when given the option of a choice between “are you religious – Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh; or are you no religion” would say something in between, [like] “I am spiritual, but not religious.” 

How were you drawn into religion and religious scholarship?

There are two questions there: one about being drawn into religion and one [about being drawn into] religious scholarship. In one sense, I could say I was born into a religious context because my parents were Christian believers. Indeed, my father was an ordained Christian minister in the Baptist tradition. So I could say I inherited it, but for me that’s not enough. That is not a full description because I had to affirm that for myself. Nobody, in my understanding, can be religious for another person. Therefore, while I need to acknowledge what my parents gave me in terms of my religious tradition until I affirmed it for myself, it wasn’t active in my life. It was maybe dormant in my life though.

At a certain point… I was baptized – not as a baby but when I chose to be baptized, to make my own commitment to my Christian tradition. That was at the age of 14. So it was a self-conscious decision, commitment, and choice. …[A]lthough I, too, have a sometimes conflicted relationship with organized religion. Just as some people who stand outside of religious traditions do, it is partly because I can see that many things done in the name of religion seem to be contrary to the spirit of Jesus and so I don’t adopt the word religion unproblematically, even for myself. Rather, I would say that the earliest name given to Christians, that is recorded in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, was of followers in “the Way.” I like to describe myself simply as that – so as one who tries to be a disciple of Jesus, a follower in “the Way.”

In terms of scholarship, where we are conducting this interview now is at a College in Oxford that has a Baptist foundation. I came to Oxford to study theology as an academic subject but also with my personal religious commitment and conviction [in mind]. That was at age 18, and I am now nearly 61. So since then I’ve been engaged in various ways in academic scholarship around the study of religion – partly from within my own tradition in terms of Theology and how the Christian tradition relates to other traditions; some of the other work I’ve done has been more sociological or social scientific, looking at how religion functions in the world – not necessarily evaluating it but trying to understand it and describe it… In relation to that, sometimes having a relationship myself with religion as a living tradition is seen by some people in the study of religion, or in the policy world, as being problematic. But for me it’s actually a positive benefit because I think that in my more social science research, I can connect with what religion as a lived reality is for the people who live by it and not just [view it] as a set of external descriptions about it. 

You have been an active member of the interfaith community for many years. Do you think these efforts have yielded anything? Or is it a fantasy among religious leaders or elites, which does not reflect much in the grassroots? Do you think it has been worth it, whatever the consequences?

Yes, it’s a difficult question to answer because clearly there are some initiatives that are more fruitful than other initiatives…  I think the effort to engage inter-religiously must be worth it. First of all, it is important because otherwise there are dangers [arising] from the distance between people of different faiths and beliefs. These can lead to conflict. Not always, but it can, and therefore to hear and understand the other as they see and understand themselves is an important thing to do, even if one doesn’t get further than that. That is actually a long way to have traveled. So that a Muslim no longer sees a Christian as perhaps more general Muslim populations do, or only as Muslim tradition has sometimes described a Christian, but actually listens to how a Christian explains themselves and vice versa. I think it is very important that people give witness to their own faith and that then the other person has to come to terms with that, which is sometimes challenging…

Sometimes in things like Christian-Jewish relations a number of Christian-Jewish organizations are criticized for being apparently superficial in their inter-religious dialogue and for being just a kind of tea [party]… But if you understand the history – certainly of Christian-Jewish relations in Europe – to actually be doing that is far better and far more important, given the history that resulted in the Holocaust. So, small things that don’t appear significant can actually be very significant. There is of course a danger that some inter-religious initiatives can be just talking shops where you go over the same territory again and again, without making progress. And sometimes some of the most profound inter-religious encounters are in normal life, not “constructed” encounters: for example, the neighbor who invites the other person into their home when a relative is ill and says prayers from one tradition to the other, or that celebrates a wedding… I think sometimes those of us who work in academic life focus on conferences and events and such things. But there is also what the American scholar of religion, Diana Eck, a number of years ago called “the dialogue of life,” and I think that’s equally important. 

With respect to religious communities, is their faith rather traditional instead of conscious? Do the faithful practice as a part of their culture or do they consciously believe and know what they believe and practice?

Yes, this is very important and a very complicated question… This is because on the one hand there is clearly a difference between faith as personally appropriated and culture, but on the other hand you cannot [express] individual faith without it having some kind of cultural clothing because we all live in historical and geographical circumstances…

 We don’t live in a vacuum; we don’t live in a bubble so inevitably there is a relationship between the two. I think what is important is that faith does not become reduced to culture or culture take over faith. So, there’s a dynamic tension between the two. Otherwise what happens is that culture tends to want to defend itself and sometimes to attack others when the lines of faith and culture become confused. This tends towards religions becoming – in a kind of Indian terminology – “communalistic” and setting up barriers against each other. This understanding of religion and culture does reflect my own roots in the Baptist tradition which has always made a distinction between belonging to a civil community and the culture and belonging to a religious community. So this goes back to my biography when I was saying that I acknowledge that I inherit something from my parents. But until I appropriate it, it’s not fully mine, and that part of appropriating it is as an individual who can stay critical of the cultural forms that it takes.

A scholar of religion who was both a scholar studying Islam, but also later of inter-religious things, was Wilfred Cantwell Smith. He used to talk about religion was made up of “personal faith” and “cumulative tradition,” and how one handles that balance is very important for the future of religious traditions in the globalized world. This is because with the globalization of the world, cultures are no longer geographically separated from each other, therefore inevitably the question of sorting out faith and culture becomes stronger than when one lived in an environment where everybody at least seemed to be of the same religion and the same culture. Though of course they never really were because even apparently the same religion or the same culture is never actually singular; it always has lots of sources underneath it, as well as differences.

What is the outcome of interfaith dialogue for you on a personal level? What has changed for you after you started engaging with the “other”? New knowledge? Surprise? Disappointment?

I think a number of things. I can illustrate it by two or three little stories. One was when I was a teenager, I got to know my best friend at school. He was Orthodox Jewish and his family had been in slave labor camps in Poland during the Nazi period. And I remember his mother asking me two questions as a young evangelical Christian. It was already quite strange that as a young Christian, the son of a Baptist minister, I had become friends with an Orthodox Jewish boy – for both sides it was a little strange. Yet we were good friends at school. His mother asked me two questions which have stayed with me in different ways through my inter-religious encounters. One was why did “the Christians” bully my friend? As a Christian who wanted to argue that not everything that’s done in the name of Christian history is really Christian, this question helped me to understand that whether or not I wanted to make that distinction, for others it is a problem. It is just like people who are not Muslim say today, you know, that all Muslims are terrorists and Muslims have to live with that distinction… It’s very difficult but at the same time one can’t completely cut oneself off from this. So it helped me to understand something about what I would now call the “socio-political” dimensions of inter-faith dialogue in which I can try to do what “I” as an “individual” might want to do, but others around me will see things differently.

The second question she asked me was why do Christians call our Bible “old”? Because often Christian popular understanding talks about the New Testament relative to the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. And at that time, I’d never really thought about that question. And of course for her, that seemed to imply that the “old” was no longer of value and that the “new” had replaced the “old.” So that made me start thinking at a theological level about the relationship between truth claims and revelation in one tradition and in another. And how one has to be careful about the ways in which we express what we believe we have received from God – whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim – and how other people understand what they have received by way of revelation. So, those two stories from my teenage years in many ways have determined my engagements in both the theological aspects of inter-religious engagement and also its socio-political aspects.

On another more personal level, it’s profoundly moving when people of other traditions relate to you as a human being. Several years ago, my wife to whom I was married at that time died. But while she was ill in the hospital Muslim friends came and recited the Qur’an and prayed with us and came and spoke at her funeral. These things are often more powerful than many of the international colloquia on inter-religious relations. I’m not saying those are unimportant but I am saying in terms of my own experience, these kind of things make me reflect. I know, for example, that many of my Muslim friends are far more dedicated in prayers than I ever am and that makes me ask questions of myself. So I think where one is open to it, getting to know the other helps you to be more self-critical and also to ask the question of what is it, if anything, that I have in my religious tradition that’s distinctive that I have to offer? This is because there are many things that are shared – but perhaps there are some things that are distinctive, and that actually engaging in inter-religious dialogue with the other helps to sort those things out.

We know your research on Fethullah Gülen, and you call it a “biographical theology.” What do you mean by that?

This is what I’m literally now just beginning on, so I haven’t fully worked out my description of what I mean by it. But fundamentally, I think that a body of theology – by which I mean the work of people who write in a disciplined way in their tradition – is not something that only comes out of the tradition as an abstract. I think that while it partly comes out of the inheritance of the wider tradition, it also reflects the way in which an individual appropriates that tradition and also the circumstances in and through which they live.  So, to me, in trying to understand something about Fethullah Gülen’s theology, it’s something about how that fits within the broader inheritance of classical Muslim tradition, but it’s also something about how a person who has so deeply drunk at the well of that tradition, has done so in a [specific] environment. And he did so initially in a particular national environment in Turkey where, among other things, the relationship between religion and the secular took a particular form; and where the flavors of Islam are affected by culture; and his personal biography – having been imprisoned, and [surviving] the context of military coups. To me all of these things are not irrelevant to a person’s theology and thus in trying to understand the theology, one should not seek to understand it just as an historical inheritance or as an abstract set of logical conclusions… but also in engagement with the individual. This doesn’t mean that it’s individualistic, necessarily. But it does mean that I think that for a rounded understanding of a person’s writing and teaching, one has to understand where they come from, how they’ve lived, and what has affected their life. Because it’s in dialogue with that context that they articulate and develop.

After two worlds wars and the cold war, we have lived through a relatively peaceful few decades… Yet, authoritarian leaders seem to be on the rise, and there is a tendency of polarization which is being openly displayed and expressed. Where do you think we are heading? What will be the role of religion in these circumstances?

In my memory and in my lifetime of course the world was divided into two power blocks, and I was very much engaged in East-West relations in the 80s and before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think [after the fall] there were many people who wanted to argue that okay well, everything will be alright now. But yes, clearly there is a rise of authoritarian leaders at present and new polarizations are forming. I think… new polarizations formed – so that in place of the East-West confrontation in the eyes of many (not only in the “Western world” but sometimes in the so-called wider “Muslim world”) the confrontation between Islam and the West or Islam and Christendom took the place of the previous confrontation between capitalism and communism. So that’s been there for some time.

I think what’s happening now, the so-called “populism,” is very worrying and very dangerous. It’s dangerous for religions because there can be religion as a cultural identity which is often invoked by populist leaders. Superficially this can be attractive to religious people who are concerned that the place of their religion has been marginalized and this strong populist leader will come along and bring religion back into its rightful place at the center of their national life. But this is a dangerous misuse of religion. One can’t separate religion and politics if one means politics with a small ‘p’ – in other words a concern for the public life – because all religions are concerned for more than the individual. That’s part of the nature of religions. But as a writer (Achin Vanaik) on Indian communalism put it some years ago there are politicians who use religion for instrumental purposes and there are religious people who use politics and politicians for instrumental purposes: neither is beneficial and both can be dangerous. There is a proper relationship between religion and politics, if by politics, is understood the ‘life of the polis’ – in other words of the wider community. This is because religions are not only concerned with the individual, but are also properly concerned with how lives are lived in community. But what can be dangerous to religion, civil society and the state alike, is an instrumentalization either of religion in the service of politics, or of politics in the service of religion, and certainly any equation between a religion and a particular political party. Such thinking is, at least in my understanding, not dissimilar to what I personally see as being one of the most important contributions that Fethullah Gülen’s thinking makes about the place of Islam and Muslims in the various states and societies of the world. 

On the night of January 13, 2017, eight people were kidnapped at gun point in the Ogun State of Nigeria,[1] by masked members of a group calling itself “The Delta Militants.” Those kidnapped were students and employees at a private school run by Turkish immigrants located near Lagos. These include three female students, aged eleven, fourteen, and fifteen years, who were seized from the girls’ dormitory. The five women included two supervisors, one headmistress, one cook, and a teacher, and all are Nigerian, except for the teacher, who is Turkish. Beaten and threatened with their lives, the victims were released relatively unscathed twelve days later, and all of the girls returned to their school within days, as did their teacher. I was able to meet all of the children and their teacher only a month after their ordeal, during a visit to their school, and over a meal at the teacher’s home.

When the girls sat shyly in front of me, two of them wearing green and pink skirts and the third dressed in grey, purple and white, I took a deep breath, shocked, and thought, “These girls are way too young to have experienced what they went through.” One, with enormous sad eyes, and a solemn, yet stunned expression, sat silently and did not answer any of my cautiously-framed questions, but occasionally nodded in agreement, or smiled briefly. The other two did speak to me, but were understandably reticent. After telling them I thought they were brave survivors, I asked where they had slept while in the forest, and whether or not they were bothered by insects. The silent one nodded, affirming that insects had pestered her at night. Another girl, the fifteen-year-old, explained that after being led out of the compound at night, the students and teachers just had to sleep either on the forest floor, or squashed together on an old mattress. I asked her if there was any silver lining to her ordeal, and her answer surprised me. She replied earnestly, “I learned that some people are really poor and that makes them do bad things,” a lesson she should not have had to learn at that age. All of their faces lit up with smiles when I asked them if they had wanted to bathe after they were released—after an exuberant and emotional meeting with their family members, it was the very first thing they wanted to do.

In order to feel safe after the kidnapping, they pray, keep the lights on at night, and sleep with others in the room. The youngest explained that her mother was going to purchase a “Sadness” doll for her, a figure from the Disney film Inside Out, to help her feel safer as she tries to cope with her emotions. All three conveyed that they had really, really wanted to return as soon as they could to their school, which they did only a few days after their release. While I avoided asking the children questions about the worst parts of their ordeal, the Turkish teacher explained that during the first few days of the abduction, the militants hit them and constantly threatened to kill all of them. Mercifully, none was sexually abused. Prayer and the responsibility of caring for children during the painful experience helped the teacher keep her strength, although she was almost certain she would not survive. Like the children, she returned to her school only five days after the attack.

Their own school negotiated to pay their ransom, saving eight lives. Sometimes, kidnappers sell their victims to other more brutal militant groups; these eight survivors were indeed fortunate they were released alive. Here I shed light on the mission, reception, and challenges of these schools, and offer greater context for why the kidnapping occurred.

Much-needed schools, challenging circumstances

The school is affiliated with the Hizmet Movement (also known as the Gülen Movement). Hizmet is a civil society organization, inspired by Sufi Islam, which was founded in Turkey around the ideas of an Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gülen (b. 1941), and participants began to launch businesses, as well as educational, and interfaith projects, in Nigeria in the 1990s.

Hizmet is the Turkish word for “service,” and indeed, this school’s mission is to “produce intelligent, enlightened and highly socialized individuals (youths), who are fit to pursue higher education and become effective, integrated and productive members of the society.”[2] Towards that goal, Hizmet schools in Nigeria provide instruction to around 5,000 students, regardless of their religious, ethnic, or tribal affiliations (there are over 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria).[3] The movement has also established other partnering institutions in Nigeria, including a university, hospital, consulting agency, examination preparation center, and a dialogue foundation (which hosts interfaith dialogue events). All of these are located in Abuja, but representatives from these institutions are found across Nigeria.

The schools are widely lauded for their academic success,[4] and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari thus far supports their presence in Nigeria.[5] After the July 15, 2016, attempted coup in Turkey, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoǧan blamed the plot on Hizmet. He did so without evidence, scapegoating participants and labeling them traitors and terrorists, apparently in order to increase his own authority. While Hizmet has over 2,000 schools around the world, Erdoǧan has recently pressured foreign governments to shutter these schools, in some cases succeeding. However, Nigeria’s Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has stated that given the frivolity of the request and the lack of evidence confirming any complicity on the part of Hizmet in the plot, the schools, which employ around 2,000 Nigerians, would remain open.[6]

Operating in Nigeria poses Turkish Hizmet participants unique challenges, although those interviewed also spoke of their love for their students and their appreciation for the beauty of Nigeria. However, challenges include obvious and serious security concerns, and a “very high” risk of major infectious diseases including malaria, meningitis, hepatitis, dengue fever, lassa fever, AIDS, and typhoid.[7] Participants also suffer from isolation from their families and friends back in Turkey, which has become especially acute since the attempted coup in Turkey. Since then, all affiliated with Hizmet have been widely ostracized in their homeland, and in many cases shunned by their own friends and family members. In Turkey, thousands have been detained, arrested, fired from their jobs, or forced to flee the country because of Erdoǧan’s “purge” of the movement.

Adding to this crisis, the Turkish government, according to those I interviewed, has refused to renew the Turkish passports of those abroad, or to give new passports to Turkish babies born outside Turkey. At a dinner in Lagos, one young woman laughed wryly, raising her baby up for me to see, and exclaimed, “No passport! He is a citizen of the world!” Absurdly, many of these babies do not hold citizenship anywhere. The danger of arrest and the passport issue have made it dangerous, and for many, impossible, to return home. Those few that have been able to go home for a visit spoke to me of strained relationships in their families, or of family members in jail. Without a doubt, many Turkish Hizmet-affiliated teachers and administrators in Nigeria are homesick, worried about relatives at home, and grieving for Turkish staples such as feta cheese and olives that are hard to find in some regions of Nigeria. Turkish delicacies aside, their religiously-inspired hizmet, or service, has required quite a sacrifice.

Why kidnap little girls?

The short answer is that some poor people do carry out criminal activities to access resources, and some wealthy people do as well, in order to hoard those resources. Nigeria has suffered for decades from acute corruption, economic inequality, and state instability. Even the recently-elected President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledges Nigeria’s tradition of bribery, skimming, and overcharging, and laudably, has recently launched anti-corruption measures.[8] With all of its human and natural resources, the West African country has witnessed its share of Christian/Muslim conflict, the violence of internal displacement, poverty, and forms of social injustice. Reflecting this, life expectancy at birth is only 52 years,[9] and the literacy rate stands at 59.6 %.[10] Over two million internally displaced persons languish in camps.[11]

Oil is Nigeria’s main export, and a primary area of conflict is who will exercise control over the oil-rich delta.[12] The self-termed “Delta Militants” responsible for the abduction are likely one of the many Niger Delta militant groups, who have stated that they are fighting to force the government to grant more resources to local communities.[13] It is also possible that they were mere criminals, using kidnapping as a means to make easy money. It is hard to pin the blame for the abduction on any one party; the eight were kidnapped because of the instability in the country.

Political scientist William Hansen explains that for some radical extremists in Nigeria suffering from poverty and life in rural regions, violence is a form of class warfare and an expression of anger against the state.[14] While the Niger Delta Militants may perceive themselves as “avengers” against those who have wronged them first,[15] these militants are perpetuating, along with the state, Nigeria’s dialectic of violence which leaves the country impoverished and its people psychologically traumatized. Unfortunately, in this case, innocent young schoolgirls and their caretakers paid the price. Terrorized, the girls will likely sleep with the lights on for a long, long time.

Conclusion

While I will not soon be able to forget the anxious expressions and courageous smiles of those girls and their teacher, it gave me some pleasure to hear that their school recently threw them a “survivors’ party,” celebrating their will to move forward. Hizmet’s projects in Nigeria, including high quality educational institutions and centers for interfaith dialogue, are also moving forward and will contribute in positive ways to Nigeria’s future. However, Turkish participants there were shaken by the ordeal of those kidnapped, and likely concerned for their own security and that of their students in the future months. Many of the Turkish Hizmet participants with whom I spoke expressed gratitude that the Nigerian government continues to allow them to reside and work there, despite any challenges. “I am Nigerian now!” more than one Turkish person claimed during my visit.

The monstrous abduction of the schoolgirls represents only a fraction of the hundreds of abducted persons in Nigeria every year. Solving this predicament requires training the next generation to run the country efficiently and fairly, the equitable distribution of resources, and job creation. While their Turkish friends contribute modestly towards the development of Nigeria through educating some of that country’s youth, it is the Nigerians, with the support of the international community, who will have to come together to achieve this goal in their own way.

[1] Population 186,053,386. CIA World Factbook: Nigeria, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ni.html.

[2]Nigerian Tulip International Colleges,“About Us,”http://www.ntic.edu.ng/.

[3]CIA World Factbook: Nigeria.

[4] Executive Administrator, 20 Best Ranked Secondary School in Nigeria,” Good Schools Guide Nigeria, October 5, 2016.

[5]MisbahuBashir,“Nigeria: How Govt Snubbed Turkey On Schools Closure,” allAfrica, August 18, 2016, http://allafrica.com/stories/201608180108.html.

[6]JerrywrightUkwu, “Coup: FG ignores Turkey’s request to close Turkish schools,”Naig.com, July 26, 2016, https://politics.naij.com/933492-coup-nigerian-government-ignores-turkey-find.html.

[7]CIA World Factbook: Nigeria.

[8]Robyn Dixon,“The aftermath of Nigeria’s fight against corruption: Officials have luxury cars, but can’t afford gas,” Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/world/africa/la-fg-global-nigeria-corruption-2016-story.html.

[9]UNData: Nigeria, http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=NIGERIA.

[10] CIA World Factbook: Nigeria, 2015 estimate.

[11]“Annual Report: Nigeria,” Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/africa/nigeria/report-nigeria/.

[12]FinefaceOgoloma, “Niger Delta Militants and the Boko Haram: A Comparative Appraisal,” AFRREV IJAH An International Journal of Arts and Humanities,Vol. 2 (1), Serial 5, February, 2013.

[13]Justice ChidiNgwama, “Kidnapping in Nigeria: An Emerging Social Crime and the Implications for the Labour Market,” International Journal of Humanities and Social Science 4:1 (January 2014), 135.

[14] William Hansen, “Boko Haram: Religious Radicalism and Insurrection in Northern Nigeria,” The Journal of  Asian and African Studies, 2015, 2-3.

[15] Hansen, “Boko Haram,” 3.

Answer: Stagnancy or complacency must not have any room in a believer’s worldview. From human to soil, and from things in existence to time, everything is active. A believer must be spirited and active in their pursuit of good deeds, and that money, soil, time etc. must be used in the most fruitful way possible.

The essentials of faith are the most important issues a believer must be lively and spirited about. For this reason, we always say in our prayers, “Our Lord! Increase us in knowledge, faith, and certainty.” To achieve these ends, believers should utilize books and consider the fruitful lives of the Righteous Believers of the classic period, sometimes by reflections, and sometimes by remembrance and recitations. Concentrating on prayers will open very different horizons before them.

Being spirited, vigorous, and active will enable us to solve the century-long problems which have harmed our world. It will allow believers to live their lives without being crushed and dominated. Unfortunately, when vigor and liveliness are lost, societies fail to save their position as a factor of balance between world powers. This will eventually cause them to lose their position, and then will bring them under different sets of domination in political, cultural, economic, and other fields.

When Bediüzzaman said, “O you miserable walking dead who abandoned Islam, which is like the spirit of the two lives! Do not stand in the way of the coming generation. The grave awaits you. Step aside and make way for the new generation who will wave the truth of Islam over this universe!” he was drawing attention to this reality: The universal religion cannot be represented by worn-out people, stale thoughts, and those of minimal effort. It is for this reason that Bediüzzaman demanded slothful souls devoid of excitement who could present a bad example for the future generation to get aside; so that the active and lively generation to come after them can take the right shape and carry out the right actions.

What lies behind the stagnant and passive state of a generation is, in a way, the failure of previous generations who could not surpass simple patterns of thought when evaluating the world and failed to catch up with their time’s horizons of comprehension.

God endowed humans with willpower. People are neither beasts nor inanimate creatures. As long as individuals give their willpower its due and use their God-given power and strength effectively, then—with God’s permission—they may blow breaths of resurrection to the entire world. Like in the story of Nasreddin Hodja, they can use their willpower to ferment all seas to make them into yogurt. When willpowers are spurred and others’ torches are kindled, then the whole world can be illumined like a place of festivity.

The essentials of remaining spirited

As for the essentials of remaining active and spirited, the following can be mentioned concisely:

1. Showing everybody a lane they can walk, giving them a field of activity, and saying “here is your task” is one of the most important factors for keeping people active. Even if a person breaks free from arrogance and acts in the name of the collective, one still wishes to know the frame of the work he or she carries out and the point it reaches.
2. Receiving appreciation for one’s personal endeavors spurs that person’s zeal and enthusiasm. Even though some grow more arrogant as they make different achievements, it is necessary to guide them to the thought of sincerity in an appropriate fashion.
3. On the other hand, if you help bring others to life, you also help yourself to stay alive in spirit. It is unthinkable for a person who resurrects others to personally remain dead. If you help some others to their feet, give them a start, and make them run like a marathoner, then you cannot just stay behind and look at them as they run.
4. Knowing the true worth of time, which is but a relative line, is also very important in terms of remaining active and spirited. We usually fail to recognize that time itself corresponds to a certain worth. However, given that it is wisely used, it is a matchless treasure by which Paradise is gained. If it can be wisely used, a person steps to timelessness within a short and narrow segment of time, and gains eternity with it. In this respect, knowing the essential value of time and blowing life into every moment with good deeds and positive action is an indispensable essential for the sake of a life of serving faith in an active and spirited way.

This journey moves between light and darkness. Along the way, one might come across small packages of epiphanies coming from the ultimate goal; but it is also possible that all destined rewards be put off until the completion of the journey, when one receives a special accolade.

During the trip, every traveler is sometimes filled with awe by an indistinct ray of light that flashes in the distance. Sometimes, as if being tested on the strength of their loyalty, one does not come across even a single ray of light their whole life; other times, one witnesses that the roads they pass have been illuminated with light all around. Sometimes, one is inspired as though they are being watched through unseen blinds, and with awe they grow attentive in all their senses. Considering this surveillance which has been opened to them by their faith as a sign of growing closer to the Divine Presence, one’s excitement and zeal grows even stronger, as in the case of a runner who has come close to the finish line. In fact, with the feeling of having joined the angels, their excitement grows to such heights that the harmony of the skies can be heard in the rhythm of their hearts. 

During this journey, the manifestations that come to those who have understanding and insight are sometimes in the form of sprinkles and dew; other times, they are showers. They do not always arrive with the same degree, same quality, same color, same dialect, or even the same wavelength. Every rise and manifestation throughout the journey is a special gift to every traveler and giver of service.

The gifts are determined, first of all, by the extent of one’s faith and sincerity, then by the purity of one’s horizon, the clearness of one’s heart, the vastness of one’s understanding, and the depth of one’s metaphysical aspect. Some of these gifts are obvious through their outer packages and the instant they meet with one’s senses they transform into gratitude; others are packaged with certain motifs and symbols and can only be deciphered through the light of attention and insight. Still others crash into the limits of the body and physical world and clothe themselves in a black veil; they expect us to renew our relationship with God and open the doorways to positive interpretations. And while some others make it all the way down to one’s hopes – by virtue of the vastness of the Divine mercy – more often than not, they end up being imbued by one’s despair and sorrow, and flow as tar into one’s thoughts. This is in a way dependent on the victory of either “fear” (khawf) or “hope” (raja) over the other, the result of which may change the picture of the journey significantly.

No matter the wavelength of these gifts, this attitude shapes one’s behavior into a certain framework. These warnings and instructions happen to come through, and individuals consider the victory of traveling down such a road a kind of invitation to reunion. They will certainly wake up one day, even if they are in the deepest of sleep. They will hear the call of the Eternal that their souls have forever been acquainted with, and will, to the end of their lives, run towards this complimentary call. Like trained athletes ready for action, if every hero of the heart sees those nights, where the breeze of Divine manifestation blows gently as a pier, a harbor, a kind of launching platform for the journey leading to The Ultimate Truth and Ever-Constant, then there should be no doubt that the Divine throne of mercy will pour down its compliments upon them. 

Is it ever possible that the Eternally Merciful One, who grants compliments to every individual many times above their merit, would remain indifferent to those faithful travelers who ardently run towards Him? Would He not treat with a particular favor and kindness those who turn towards His most special intimacy with their utmost sincerity?

Actually, even if there were not such a grant of Divine compliments, and no one was promised such a blessing, every individual should accept their connection with the Eternal Sovereign as an advance given beforehand, and, with each new breath of air should, like a hero of faith and loyalty, breathe Him in. One shouldn’t resort to childlike sulking, saying “Things didn’t go as planned; blessings and compliments didn’t rain down from the sky.” One shouldn’t grow sad or disappointed in a manner fit for characterless and ungrateful individuals. One shouldn’t be defeated by distances by thinking too much about the hardships and length of the journey.

Instead, one should “overflow like the waters, shed tears like Job,” setting one’s heart on Him and only Him in every place one wanders. One should live every moment with the thought of seeing, hearing, and knowing Him so that they do not waste their credits worthy of the Eternal on attaining certain childlike ambitions; so that they do not narrow through their own senses and fancies the vastness that God has bestowed upon them; so that by responding to the all-exceeding mercy with an all-embracing favor and zeal they are able to fulfill the requirements of the implicit treaty made with the Divine. All of this is done in accordance with His greatness and one’s smallness.

Every individual on this long journey leading to Him may sometimes change position due to the elements that give shape to their character. In fact, because they may be subject to certain slips during this change of position, one may not always be able to maintain their situation and may sometimes stray so far off center that they may crash into the most outward part of the circle.  It’s possible that, while a world full of people are delighting in the showers of Divine compliment, they may regard the continuous developments as congestion, the conquests as retractions, the ceremonies of victory as a kind of show, and the chants of joy as the consolation of the defeated. 

In almost every period of time, there have been, and there will always be, such bewildered individuals who have temporarily wandered away from the rest of the caravan. However, most have jumped back into their positions near the center, and, with the warmth that comes after a separation and longing, they have achieved a brand-new integration and maturity.

Yet, in order to attain such a spiritual awakening and alertness, one cannot approve a willful separation from the group, for every separation is a kind of slipping and can, in fact, result in one being caught in an irreversible current. Therefore, it is certainly not permissible for one to take up such an uncertain adventure by trusting in the thought of being able to horizontally overcome the abyss of distance that forms between them and the rest of the people. Though there is an aspect in every involuntary lapse and turnover that holds the promise of “revival after death,” as we have pointed out above, it may not always be possible to achieve the desired outcome. I believe that one’s conscience cannot say “yes” to such a seemingly certain disaster, only for the sake of a possible feeling of enlightenment and spiritual maturity.

Even if a person is sometimes shaken in their connection with the center, by staying within the community, maintaining the path, and following the signs and guides, they may come across certain enlightened souls whose gravity pulls them in. They may always stay alive, refreshed, and strong by sharpening their consciousness along the road. By virtue of moving together with a society that is always advancing, one may feel a new joy of revival effervescing in their souls every day, every hour, and every moment. They feel it as they jump from one peak to the other, and are filled with the desire to move towards the source of light that the sign and signals along the road point to.

Such a heroic traveler will never leave oneself to the wavering flow of coincidences. They reach out to those who utilize the innermost consciousness that will not lead to a troublesome path. They follow behind the ever serious, dignified, cautious leaders whose depths of their souls are visible in the smiling features of their faces, line by line. They line up behind the altruistic souls, the heroes of fidelity, responsibility, and duty. They strive hard in all their work with full sincerity as their hearts beat in palpitations of going forward. As they battle with both vertical and horizontal distances to the best of their skills, they are in full consciousness of the honors they are entitled. They experience multiple dimensions of time as their actions and thoughts are intertwined, and they feel they rotate around themselves like the North Star.

In short, one must have the patience to endure along the path. If thoughts of the journey can fulfill the hope of reaching the ultimate goal and the role of guidance, the whole group and the individuals acting as its molecules will, tomorrow if not today, reach the ocean that the river of these conscious and non-conscious groups all flow into. The drops of sweat and perseverance on their foreheads will turn into the fountain of Paradise which they will drink in. There have been many times where the collective advancing of the crowds who outwardly seemed as though they were being dragged on by the incentives of the masses rather than their own free will have won many victories and reunions they could not have achieved by any individual act, owing to the effect of a consciously conducted central plan of action.

These actions, which may seem still on the outside, are constantly repeated along the journey and thus are only able to be distinguished by conscious looks: these little motions squeezed into narrow spaces; light and quiet progress; these efforts that are appealing to people…

All of these feature in their apparent shallowness the chilling depths of the oceans; in their silence, the movements and vastness of the sky; and in their simplicity, the heavenliness of spiritual beings. They will no doubt eventually pay off to these heroes at an expected place with surprises that are beyond one’s expectations. All of these efforts, struggles, and sacrifices will flow and boil, and will come to the right consistency when the time comes. The truth for whose sake lives are given will rise like a full moon behind the hills in the distance, carrying hundreds of cheerful tidings of dawns that will break, slowly rising like the sun that we have awaited. It will smile into our eyes and will whisper the prosperity of our lives. It will flow into our beings with its beams of light and imbue our features with its own color. It will take and blend us into its world.    

Many scientists disregard the functions of the ego and the soul, considering the brain to be the only point of reference to explain our feelings and actions. The brain itself is a complex web of innumerable connections among its cortexes. For instance, while the prefrontal cortex is the trajectory of functions that relate to behavior and personality, Wernicke’s area, in the dominant temporal lobe, is concerned with the comprehension of language. The infralimbic cortex has been found to be critical in regulating habitual behavior, and it may be argued that this cortex might be the place we can observe the possible connections between our soul and why we behave in certain ways.

An overwhelming majority of our thoughts and behaviors manifest without us being aware them; we are only conscious of a small percentage of our actions. The minimum energy principle in the universe is evident in this process: we act as if on auto-pilot as we conduct habituated behaviors, and this is when our brain consumes a minimum amount of energy, as opposed to the much higher consumption needed during consciously-conducted actions. These require strenuous brain activity.

The human brain registers often-repeated behaviors and assigns each one a code defining its importance. This code becomes a reflex and in time a habit, done automatically. Even though we usually do day-to-day habits as if completely subconsciously, the habitual mechanisms in our brain actually have a set of algorithms that point to a certain level of consciousness. The infralimbic cortex, for instance, is active even we are on auto-pilot. The more frequent the action, the more settled it remains in our brain and soul. When the frequency increases, the communicator lobe, located in the center of the brain between sensorimotor cortex and striatum, becomes stronger.

Pleasure factor

Research on developing new habits has shown that the prefrontal cortex is in communication with the striatum, and the striatum with the midbrain. An increase in dopamine secretion also facilitates habit development. Serving as a chemical messenger, dopamine is a pleasure-related molecule. If dopamine is secreted as a result of an action, then the person wishes to do it again. This is usually how habits are formed.

“This is how I am; that’s how I got used to it; I can’t help it.­”

We tend to resist new things and changes. Overcoming our deeply settled habits is a multidimensional process, relying heavily on intentions and willful inclination.

One method that is useful for getting rid of our bad habits is to replace them with different behaviors. Directing ourselves to a new behavior instead of the old ones eventually makes the latter lose influence over time. Watching TV or smoking are not necessities, but a habit. It is always possible to replace a bad behavior with a good one, but again, the process is not easy; it requires willpower and patience. Moving to a new place and adopting new friends can usually be helpful when one has difficulty resisting inner urges. A strong willpower supported by patience will wither the communicator lobe between the sensorimotor cortex and striatum, which will squeeze the habit from the brain.

Saying, “I just cannot” is the easy path. It’s giving the carnal soul control over your whole existence. Perhaps it suggests the bad behavior has become something the person even enjoys.

Second nature

Clinical research focuses on curing habits through medicine applied in the cortex. However, human life has too many colors and manifest actions depending on the time and context, which makes medication insufficient for breaking bad habits. This is where nourishment of our soul comes in. Adopting role models, especially those who pioneered spiritual and ethical traditions and their teachings, are useful in regulating our habits. One of these teachings is to practice and develop a second nature. In mystical traditions, it is usually recommended to practice a certain behavior, for instance waking up early at night for prayer, at least for forty days before being able to permanently adopt it. While gaining new habits it is important to be aware of ourselves and not to go to extremes, which may cause an imbalance in our lives.

Many spiritual practices have also been confirmed by medical science to be supportive of a healthy life. Bodily cleanliness through washing is an essential part of prayer in almost all religious traditions around the world. Water does not only clean our bodies, but its cooling effect soothes us and helps rid us of our anger.

Another spiritual teaching is to engage in good work and spend time with those who do good work. Once a person “repents” and tries to stay away from his or her bad habits, it is important to fill up the vacuum with righteous actions; otherwise, there is always a risk of turning back to those habits.

Becoming too habituated with one action, be it a righteous work or even a prayer, is another slippery ground for every individual. Habituation may cause us to lose our enthusiasm and feel nothing for that action. When one feels too familiar with good habits and takes no pleasure from them, one then needs to diversify their behavior to bring full awareness to their practices. Mystical traditions call this awareness under the watchful eye of the divine, and they encourage always contemplating each and every step one takes along the way.

Medical studies have been incredible at curing certain bad habits. However, many of our addictions, which harm both individuals and general society, are still present; medication hasn’t worked. For enduring results, it is important to support medical solutions with prescriptions from religious traditions, which idealize well-being both physically and spiritually. Many ethical values that are highly regarded in such traditions present very useful guidelines for a healthy life in which bad habits can be efficiently contained, if not completely eradicated.

This new finding – new for me, at least – sparked in me a light which shone back to Rumi.

In the West, many of us know Rumi for his poetry and sema dance. But few of us know the fact that he was born in a city called Balkh, which is today a part of Afghanistan. And when one sees the images of today’s war-torn Afghanistan next to the image and message of Rumi from 800 years ago – one cannot help but think: “how unlikely could this have been?” Not many of us also know that Balkh was one of the leading, if not the top, centers of knowledge and progress in the world 800 years ago – until invaded by forces from the east.

Construction is so difficult, but destruction is so easy. Images of the ancient city of Aleppo in Syria, both before and after the recent heavy bombardment, serve as a living – or a dead – example of what could have happened to Balkh.

After his city became the new target for invaders – and due to what appear to be some internal political conflicts – young Rumi and his family had to leave Balkh. They journeyed west, to the center of what is now Turkey. His real name was Jalaladdin Muhammad; “Rumi” came from this new land – Diyar-i Rum, the land of Greeks.

And now many of us are asking: wait a second, is Dylan a Turk? Lithuanian? Was Rumi Persian or Turkish? Or did he say Greek? This is the nature of being an immigrant – one human with too many identities.

Rumi was an immigrant. Bob Dylan was born to an immigrant family. Rumi’s parents fled the massacre looming from the east. Dylan’s grandparents fled the pogroms in Odessa in 1905.

I sometimes think of the young Rumi in Balkh. Perhaps he was terrified, fearing an imminent attack; sleepless at night, waiting for a possible raid at dawn. It’s hard to imagine: fearing a massacre and losing loved ones, despite having committed no crime. 

I also think of Dylan’s grandparents in Odessa. After decades of persecution and harassment, they surely feared for their lives and made plans for self-defense – and perhaps even to leave their homes.

Victor Hugo, another literary genius, had to spend many years in exile because of his advocacy for freedoms and opposition to tyranny in his homeland, France. This is what he wrote in one of his famous novels, Toilers of the Sea, itself a product of exile:

Volcanoes cast forth stones, and revolutions men, so families are removed to distant places; human beings come to pass their lives far from their native homes; groups of relatives and friends disperse and decay; strange people fall, as it were, from the clouds — some in Germany, some in England, some in America. The people of the country view them with surprise and curiosity. Whence come these strange faces? Yonder mountain, smoking with revolutionary fires, casts them out. These barren aërolites, these famished and ruined people, these footballs of destiny, are known as refugees, émigrés, adventurers. If they sojourn among strangers, they are tolerated; if they depart, there is a feeling of relief. Sometimes these wanderers are harmless, inoffensive people, strangers — at least, as regards the women — to the events which have led to their exile, objects of persecution, helpless and astonished at their fate. They take root again somewhere as they can. They have done no harm to any one, and scarcely comprehend the destiny that has befallen them.

The story of all humankind is no different, at least as narrated in holy scriptures. Adam and Eve’s descent was in a sense exile from home, from the Garden, from the Beloved. As sad as it was, there was a wisdom behind this exile, the fruits of which were the exceptional voices of love and compassion: Abraham the Friend of God, Moses whom God spoke to, Jesus the Word of God, Muhammad the Beloved of God… peace be upon them all. Ironically, these giants of love were never immune from exile: all had to flee their homelands to take root in another place.

But when you want your light to be visible centuries from today, you have to be prepared to pay the price: emigration from the heavens, emigration from your homeland, emigration from the beloved one; taking refuge in a foreign land, taking refuge in a lover, taking refuge in the Divine. 

As Rumi tells of his own experience, this is a journey from “being raw to being cooked, and then to being burnt.”

In addition to Rumi’s extensive scholarship and spiritual friendship with Shams, the sun, it was perhaps his status as an immigrant that helped him transform his outer knowledge to inner wisdom; that enabled his liberation from the uncomfortable clothes of what we thought religion was and allowed him to attain its true essence. His exile enabled his specific alchemy of knowledge and love, helping him to go beyond metaphorical love (aşk-ı mecazi) to real love (aşk-ı hakiki).

It is a journey of awareness and appreciation of the favors of our Lord, none of which we can deny (Qur’an 55:13).

Immigrants and the sea

In his Mesnevi, Rumi narrates the story of a sailor and a linguist. An arrogant linguist boards a ship. He asks the sailor, “Do you know any grammar?” The sailor replies in the negative. “What a pity, says the linguist, you have spent half of your life in vain.” The sailor is sad, but he keeps quiet. After a while, a terrible storm breaks out and the ship begins to sink. The sailor asks the now-frantic linguist, “O grammarian, do you know how to swim?” To which the now-frantic linguist replies in the negative. “What a pity,” says the sailor, “For it means that you will lose your entire life!”

This story speaks a lot about immigrants. First, there are hundreds of them drowning in the sea every day. Second, these immigrants are more often than not thinking people, advocates of freedoms and rights, doctors, academics, and journalists who are risking their lives for an honorable life in peace. Perhaps there are many Rumis and Bob Dylans among them, great souls who might remind us of our common humanity.

Rumi was an immigrant.

According to the United Nations’ records, the number of refugees in 2016 is greater than at any other time in history.

For the many of us who are not close to active conflict zones, immigrants are nothing more than a news item. For many others, immigrants are fellow friends to remember in prayers and be concerned for. A very lovely couple from the latter camp, who are very dear to me, recently sent me a wonderful book of poetry, titled Looking for Home: Women Writing about Exile. My friends sent in their message one of Jesus’ liturgies, from Mark 10: 29-30: “‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus replied, ‘no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’”

Independent of this beautiful gift I received, my wife told me around the same time that she and her American friends from her book club had chosen a novel for the month. It is by a very young writer Yaa Gyasi, and it’s titled Homegoing.

I was far away from home when my father passed away. Comfort came in the form of flowers a dear friend picked from his garden, and in all my friends’ efforts to share my grief.

I am an immigrant. My friends make it feel like I am home.    

Whenever our father was upset, we would ask him to take us to Luna Park, and he would. We never took any of the rides; not the cars, nor the wheel we adored watching so much. But it would make dad happy again. All the troubles plaguing his mind would be gone. Perhaps he was thinking how funny we were, and as he silently chuckled to himself he was forgetting his distress. Perhaps he was being proud of our rather early display of maturity.

Whenever our father was upset, we would take him to Luna Park, not the other way around.

At this time, within these bands, plate-like structures called placodes, mark the positions of future teeth. Proliferation of cells in these areas continue to grow into the underlying mesenchymal tissue while other cells called ectomesynchymal cells begin to assemble around these swellings of cells.

This sets the stage for the development of the teeth. The process can now be divided into the bud, cap, and bell stages. These three stages only describe the shape of the developing tooth during each stage. An innumerable amount of genes and proteins are involved during each of these stages, some of which are yet to be discovered. During these stages, cells transform into other cells by interacting with each other and by various complex molecular signaling pathways.

An astonishing feature during development, not unique to tooth development, is the predetermination of the fate of every one of these countless cells.

The question of what initiates tooth development , and what determines the positions of the teeth in the developing oral cavity, continues to be a compelling one for researchers. As early as the eleventh day of gestation, signs of initiation emerge. To date, over ninety different genes and numerous other signaling molecules, including transcription factors from various cellular families, have been discovered and implicated in the initiation of tooth development. The intricate and complex interactions that occur during these processes are far from being fully understood.

The bud stage: Also referred to as the ectomesenchymal condensation stage, it is characterized by the invasion of epithelium into the surrounding cells (the ectomesenchyme). Proliferation of cells during this stage increases cellular thickness in the region, hence forming a bud-like structure. There are no significant cellular changes during this stage; however there is much activity surrounding the developing tooth during the transition between the bud and cap stages. Nerve fibers begin to enter the dental follicle, which later enter the dental pulp.

The cap stage: The passage from bud to cap stage is marked by the change in cellular form or shape (morphodifferentiation). These cellular changes are also determined and regulated by numerous signals and the expression of specific genes. The differences that occur at this stage also determine the tooth type that will be formed (incisor, canine, or molar).

The tooth bud continues to grow and pulls the dental lamina as it grows. It now appears like a bulge which rests on a conglomerate of ectomesenchymal cells, hence taking the shape of a cap positioned on a ‘head’ of ectomesenchyme.

At this stage, the future structures of the tooth can be distinguished. The ectomesenchymal portion, now called the dental papilla, will give rise to the dentine and pulp (the blood and nerve supply) of the tooth. The portion on the outside of the dental lamina and the cap (called the dental follicle) will give rise to the future supporting structures of the tooth (the bony socket and periodontal ligament). The cells making up this cap, which includes a lining of cells and the cells inside this lining, are called the enamel organ, and will give rise to the tooth enamel. This triad of structures is collectively termed the tooth germ (i.e., a collection of cells that will form the tooth).

During the latter part of the cap stage, cells begin to transform by altering their functions. The core of the enamel organ forms star shaped cells (the stellate, or star-like, reticulum). This occurs by a process whereby cells produce and discharge a hydrophilic protein which in turn increases water content between cells, thus separating them while they maintain links with each other, giving them the starry appearance.

Around this time a structure called the enamel knot arrives. It is thought to be the coordinating center for tooth cusp shape. It appears and disappears at different stages of development.

In the midst of the cellular changes taking place, clusters of blood vessels begin to penetrate the dental papilla, precisely in the positions of the future roots. It is thought that the blood vessels and nerves also play a role in the initiation of tooth development.

The bell stage: As the growth of the tooth germ proceeds, the inner portion deepens and it begins to bear resemblance to a bell. It is in the course of this stage that the tooth takes on its final shape (its crown form). In addition, the cells which will be responsible for the formation of the tooth’s enamel and dentine form at this stage.

The cells which make up the enamel organ begin to change their form, including their shape and size, while their function changes according to the role they are destined to perform. The cells interact with each other in an astonishingly coordinated way as they induce one cell to differentiate into another at precise stages of formation. Two distinct layers of cells form in this way, which are then separated by an intermediate layer. The outer layer of cells begins to manufacture and secrete the organic components which will later form mature mineralized enamel (ameloblasts), while the inner cellular layer will begin to manufacture and secrete substances which will be the building blocks for the formation of mature dentine (odontoblasts). At the point where the inner and outer cell layers meet at the edge of the bell, the cells continue to proliferate up to the time that the crown size is completed. Once this is complete, the cells then generate the cellular constituents for tooth root development.

By the end of bell stage, the developing tooth is separated from its original attachment to the surface of the developing oral cavity, and is now housed in its own developing crypt.

During the latter part of this stage, an offshoot of tissue forms on the tongue and palate facing the side of the developing tooth. These offshoots are the tooth buds of the future permanent teeth.

The subsequent maturation and mineralization of the tooth’s enamel and dentine are separate areas of study which are indeed as complex and intricate as one can imagine.

This exceedingly complex, orchestrated work of art, albeit simplified for the reader, must occur in harmony with the growth of other structures including the face, tongue, and jaws. The subsequent events that must take place for the appearance of the teeth is yet another area to be studied. This process is exquisitely timed with respect to development and function.

When considered how complicated all of this is, and how perfectly it functions, one can’t help but be awed.

References

• Antonio Nanci; Ten Cate’s Oral Histology, Development, Structure and Function.8th Edition, 2013.
• Beverly Kramer &John Allan; The Fundamentals of Human Embryology, Student Manual (2^nd Edition), 2010.    

A proper diet differs from person to person. It’s important to design your diet according to the genetic map of your family and characteristics of your body. By “dieting” I do not mean being undernourished, but eating a healthy balance of nutrients to supply your body’s daily energy needs. Balance is important, for if a person only eats protein, fat, or carbohydrates, after a while, the body’s organs can start to deteriorate.

Here are some aspects that should be taken into consideration while designing your personal diet:

Personalizing the diet

Not everyone should have the same diet. People come in different shapes and sizes, and they have different genetic makeups. A person must know how their body responds to certain foods. They must identify whether they (or their family) is prone to gain weight, whether they have a depressive or a nervous personality, or whether there is a family history of certain diseases, like diabetes, heart disease, or cancer. Families that are genetically susceptible to heart attacks should eat vegetables and fruits instead of too much protein or foods high in fats.

Maintaining an ideal weight range is important. While certain foods should be eaten in smaller amounts, this does not mean eating nothing. For instance, if a person has diabetes, they can’t have too much sugar – but no sugar is also bad for them.

A person who works hard outdoors will have a different diet from a person who works in an office. Some people are allergic to certain foods. Other people have a low basal metabolism or suffer from psychological distress. Food preferences also change according to cultures: a preferred food in one society may not be accepted in another.

Determining your ideal weight

Each person’s ideal weight is different. It differs depending on a person’s height, as well as the weight of their fatty tissues, muscles, and bones. A rough way to figure out your ideal weight is to add or subtract five from the last two digits of your height in centimeters. For example, someone who is 180 cm (5.90 feet) tall should weigh between 75-85 kg (165-187 lb). The most important thing is to set a healthy, ideal weight, and stick to it for life. Going over your ideal weight can lead to obesity and a slew of other health problems.

Determining body mass index

Obesity means an extreme excess of fat in a person’s body. Therefore, if your ideal weight is 60 kg (132 lb.) but you weigh 80 kg (176 lb.), knowing how much of the excess 20kg is fat or muscle is possible by determining your body mass index. If this excess of 20 kg (44 lb.) is 5 kg (11 lb.) of muscle and 15 kg (33 lb.) of fat, you can lose 15 kg of excess fat with a better diet and exercise. Losing mass from one’s muscles is harmful to the body, as it causes protein loss. Protein loss shouldn’t happen while you’re also losing weight.

The basal metabolic rate

This is the total energy, per 24 hours, that one expends while at rest. This changes according to a person’s physiological and biochemical structure. 30% of basal metabolism is used by the liver, 19% by the brain, and 18% by the skeletal muscles. Those with higher muscle mass index have a higher basal metabolism. If fewer calories are taken in than the basal metabolism needs, weight is lost; if more calories are taken in, weight is gained. Those with a higher basal metabolic rate lose weight much easier. One must take this rate into consideration when building their ideal diet.

Climate

Climate has an effect on one’s organs and metabolism. A change in climate conditions changes the energy demands on the body. The colder the climate, the more calories one needs. Gastrointestinal diseases are common in Siberian children who have diet-related malnutrition. Conversely, those living near the poles are less likely to have heart and vascular diseases, even though they eat diets high in fat and protein.

Age and gender

In the elderly, losing weight can cause urinary tract infections. A child under five on a long-term, low-calorie diet is at risk of pneumonia, low blood pressure, hypocalcemia, and abdominal swelling. Supplementary micronutrients such as thiamine, folic acid, vitamins A, C, E, and K, and iron should be given, along with carbohydrates, to children suffering from malnutrition. Care should be taken not to disrupt the balance of the basic substances in the body.

Balanced diet

Unbalanced diets cause functional disorders and diseases in the organs. In high protein diets, which are preferable for terms of fat loss, especially in diabetic patients, cardiovascular and nephritic problems have been observed when the metabolism of carbohydrates and fat have deteriorated. In menopausal patients who lose weight through high protein diets there can be a significant decrease in bone density due to imbalances in protein, sodium, calcium, and potassium, which can lead to fractures.

Imbalanced diets are often accompanied by diseases. Moderately high protein diets may increase the risk of metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Low fat, high carbohydrate diets may be more suitable for these people. Instead of a single type of food, the most favored diets are those which are more complex than others.

85gr protein + 116gr fat +   360gr carbohydrate/day   =   high carbohydrate diet
139gr protein + 82gr fat   + 181gr carbohydrate/day   = high protein diet
137gr protein +   140gr fat   + 42gr carbohydrate/day = high fat diet

Mixed diets do not reduce the risk of colon cancer. However, eating lots of fibrous, pulpy foods has been shown to reduce it.

Determining meal times

We eat more than we need to. True hunger is when stomach cramps begin, and this happens about 18-24 hours after one’s last meal. We should not confuse hunger and mild hunger. Mild hunger is not feeling full in the stomach. Long-term memory is facilitated in the case of mild hunger and molecular mechanisms are accelerated, and thus we become conditioned to eat at regimented times.

Physiological mealtimes should be preferred to traditional mealtimes. Foods that give energy, such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, can only be metabolized after a certain period of time. Since it takes the longest (8 hours) for fat to metabolize, it should be at least 8 hours between meals; otherwise, the body stores that excess fat. So someone who sleeps for 8 hours can eat two meals a day.

Duration of meals

The relationship between hunger, nutrition, eating speed, and putting on weight was studied in obese children, and it was found that the feeling of hunger and eating speed were four times higher in obese children than normal children. Therefore, that’s why they eat more and the feeling of fullness takes longer to kick in. Meals should be chewed for a long time: a brain’s satiety center only registers a feeling of fullness after around 30 minutes.

Amount of food

The volume of a normal stomach is 1000-1500 cc. It is necessary to leave space for the stomach’s contents to shake easily and for the stomach to add the enzymes and the slurries that break the food down and carry it towards the intestines. In this case, it is necessary to leave 2/3 of the stomach for water and food, and 1/3 empty. The total amount of food and water should not exceed 700-1000 cc.

Personalized workouts

Exercise strengthens muscles. During a workout, biochemical events in the body are accelerated, toxins are excreted more easily from the body, and weight is lost. Before determining a workout program, it is important to make sure there isn’t any significant abnormality in the body’s biochemistry, or an injury. For the best results, it is important to know which muscles work more in terms of energy spent during a workout. For example, the energy spent by the front thigh muscles and the forearm muscles is not the same. A workout should proceed gradually, so as not to cause injury.

Drinking enough water

The water lost by daily metabolic activities and sweating should be recovered. The amount of water consumed per resting day is 1800-2000 cc. A person will need more water if they are exercising.

A Prophetic diet

Certain religions have guidelines for which foods to eat together at the same time. For instance, in Judaism, meat and dairy products should not be cooked together; some Orthodox Jews would not combine meat and fish. Many Muslims look at the Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) diet and see that he did not eat the following kinds of food together: milk and sour food, milk and meat, or milk and eggs. He also avoided two hot or cold foods at the same time, as well as two fried or dried foods. The Prophet (pbuh) did not prefer to eat extremely hot food and said blessings would be with cooler food. Religious traditions also have certain dietary prohibitions. For instance, Judaism and Islam prohibit eating certain animals, and permitted animals have to be slaughtered according to the religious law.

Diet is an important part of one’s health, but it’s not the only factor. Health is determined by many things, including culture, genetics, education, and other lifestyle factors.  

Hizmet’s activities can be classified into four categories: business associations, interfaith/intercultural dialogue activities, education,[1] and relief work.[2] Its interfaith/intercultural dialogue activities provide safe zones where peoples of different backgrounds can come together and engage in friendly conversations in a peaceful atmosphere. Such meetings create constructive relationships and social capital.

The movement’s educational and relief work also engender dialogue, although indirectly. They have often helped communities who have historically had strained relationships come together under the tree of knowledge.

Hizmet pioneered dialogue activities in Turkey in the 1980s. This allowed different communities to search for solutions to common problems. When the movement spread worldwide in the 1990s, its dialogue activities reached beyond just the Turkish context and encompassed all major faiths and cultures.

With the growth of militant extremism dominating the international discourse about Muslims, Hizmet became a major moderate voice, condemning extremism and embodying Islam’s peaceful face.[3] It presents an alternative vision for Muslims, in stark contrast with the reactionary political Islamist movements. Hizmet encourages Muslims to peacefully but actively engage in all walks of life and with all types of people.

Fethullah Gülen, the key figure whose ideas have inspired the movement, “regards dialogue as an activity of forming a bond between two or more parties.” He also “specifies the humanitarian approach to dialogue, which manifests itself with tolerance and various tolerance-based concepts such as love, compassion, forgiveness, and humility” (Kim 2015, 35).

Kim has also called Gülen’s approach to dialogue “dialogic Sufism,” a reactivation of the Turkish Sufi tradition, one that has been specifically adapted for the contemporary world. “Dialogic Sufism opposes a dialectical approach to humanity which assumes an opposing and conflicting relationship between self and others,” Kim wrote (2015, 36). He adds that this approach is in contrast with the reactionary nature of political Islam: “Instead, it [Hizmet] interacts with any challenging condition and context to build a dialogical bridge between the past and the present, the East and the West, rationalism/materialism and spiritualism, and between different civilizations, religions and cultures, obliterating difference and distinctions between ‘[the] self and others’” (Kim 2015, 37).

Gülen has traced the idea of dialogue back to basic Islamic themes. Accordingly, he takes the “basmala,” the beginning of almost every chapter of the Qur’an, as a point of departure. The basmala is a recitation of God’s attributes, “the Compassionate and the Merciful.” According to Gülen, the recurrence of this phrase in the Qur’an is an indication “God wanted to teach Muslims, among other things, to be compassionate and merciful in their relations with their fellow human beings, and with nature” (Saritoprak and Griffith 2005, 333).

Furthermore, Gülen has been inspired by the writings of Ahmed Faruqi Sirhindi (1564-1624), an Indian Sufi, who introduced the concept of loving friendship (khillah) and that each believer is to cultivate a spiritual friendship with all those who profess the faith of Abraham, both Muslims or non-Muslims (Saritoprak and Griffith 2005). Referring to love in the Sufi tradition, Gülen emphasizes one of the “beautiful names” of God, “al-Wadud,” or the Beloved One, and asserts that Muslims are expected to reflect this attribute in their lives by being a people of love. Gülen has found the roots of these themes in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, quoting the hadith, “Whoever is humble, God exalts him; whoever is haughty, God humiliates him” (Saritoprak and Griffith 2005, 334). To Gülen, this idea is the heart of Islamic ethics. It is also the basis for interreligious dialogue, and he sees dialogue as the natural result of the practice of Islamic ethics. Humility leads to peace through dialogue, not violence through conflict.

According to Gülen, the Qur’anic verse 3:64, revealed in the ninth year of the Hijra (629 CE), represents one of the greatest ecumenical calls of Prophet Muhammad’s time and clearly indicates that Muslims are expected to treat People of the Book with respect and tolerance (Webb 2015; Saritoprak and Griffith 2005): 

Tell them: ‘O people of the Book, let us come to an agreement on that which is common between us, that we worship no one but God, and make none his compeer, and that none of us take any others for Lord apart from God.’ If they turn away, you tell them: ‘Bear witness that we submit to Him’ (Al-Imran 3:64).

According to Esposito and Yılmaz (2010, 162), Gülen’s teachings are based on Turkish Islamic tradition inspired by Sufi figures like the poet and theologian Rumi (1207-1273) and the Ottoman Empire’s religious tolerance, as exemplified in the Empire’s community self-governance (also known as the millet system). In this respect, Saritoprak and Griffith (2005, 330) assert, “[t]he Ottoman Empire presented a great example of the Islamic understanding of tolerance towards non-Muslim subjects, in particular, the People of the Book. In our contemporary world, the issue has become even more relevant because of a tremendous need for interfaith dialogue and understanding.”

They argue that Gülen’s interfaith approach, in turn, is rooted in three Islamic principles: “a history of revelation and prophecy, the commonalities among faiths, and the Qur’an’s explicit sanction of interfaith dialogue” (Esposito and Yılmaz 2010, 162). The following paragraphs will present details of each of these, tracing them in Gülen’s writings.

First, Gülen’s commitment to interfaith dialogue emanates from his inclusive and singular approach to religion, in which Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, particularly – and even the non-Abrahamic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism – accept the same theistic source.[4]

Accordingly, a spiral understanding of history and religion in Gülen’s thought generates this approach, in which the universal principle of God’s existence is reaffirmed by messengers and revelations. “The divine revelation and prophecy establish both an axis for religious unity and a framework for religious diversity” (Esposito and Yılmaz 2010, 163). Since the Qur’an declares in verse 40:78 that God sent many prophets and the hadith tradition specifies their number as 124,000 messengers, Gülen is able to argue that the universality of religion is reflected by any religion, to a varying degree, and that all major religions are based on the shared divine revelation (Esposito and Yılmaz 2010).

Supporting his inclusive approach to religion and interfaith dialogue, Gülen draws parallels between the similarity of different religious teachings (Esposito and Yılmaz 2010). In this regard, he states that religions pursue the same universal goals. He also reiterates their shared source and emphasizes the commonality in generally accepted values across different religions, indicating the divine presence in all religions[5]:

The goal of dialogue among world religions is not simply to destroy scientific materialism and the destructive materialistic worldview; rather, the very nature of religion demands this dialogue. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and even Hinduism and other world religions accept the same source for themselves, and, including Buddhism, pursue the same goal. As a Muslim, I accept all Prophets and Books sent to different peoples throughout history, and regard belief in them as an essential principle of being Muslim. A Muslim is a true follower of Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus, and all other Prophets. Not believing in one Prophet or Book means that one is not a Muslim. Thus we acknowledge the oneness and basic unity of religion, which is a symphony of God’s blessings and mercy, and the universality of belief in religion. So, religion is a system of belief embracing all races and all beliefs, a road bringing everyone together in brotherhood.

Regardless of how their adherents implement their faith in their daily lives, such generally accepted values as love, respect, tolerance, forgiveness, mercy, human rights, peace, brotherhood, and freedom [are] exalted by religion. Most of them are accorded the highest precedence in the messages brought by Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, as well as in the messages of Buddha and even Zarathustra, Lao-Tzu, Confucius, and the Hindu prophets.

Lastly, Gülen believes in the Qur’an’s universal call for dialogue, though it primarily targets the Abrahamic religions and forms the first pillar of interfaith dialogue (Esposito and Yılmaz 2010). Verse 3:64 from the Qur’an is one example that Gülen quotes[6]: “O People of the Book, come to a word common between us and you, that we worship none but God, and associate none as partner with Him, and that none of us take others for Lords, apart from God.”

Gülen also emphasizes verses 2:3 and 2:4, which require Muslims to believe in scriptures that were sent to previous prophets as well as the Prophet of Islam (“…who believe in what is sent to you and what was sent before you”)[7]. Accordingly, by establishing the belief in earlier prophets and revelations, Islam lays out the foundation for interfaith dialogue. Further, based on verse 29:46, “And discuss you not with the People of the Book, except with means better (than mere disputation),” Gülen contends that the Qur’an bases that dialogue on finding common points rather than disputing others’ religious beliefs.[8] Yücel (2013), quoting Seker, asserts that “Gülen’s dialogue work is not un-Islamic or something new to Islam, but is rather based on the spirit of the Medina Charter, an agreement drawn up between the Muslims and non-Muslims (Jews and pagans) in Medina that granted rights and respect towards non-Muslims.” Seker adds that Gülen also draws from the spirit of the final sermon of Prophet Muhammad (Yücel 2013, 204).

According to Webb (2015), for Gülen, being human is sufficient enough to earn respect. Webb (2015, 16), in this respect, points to Gülen’s use of the hadith to justify his universalistic principle:

[The Prophet] one day stood up as a Jewish funeral was passing by. One of the Companions at his side said, ‘O Messenger of God, that’s a Jew.’ Without any change in attitude or alteration of the lines on his face, the Prince of Prophets gave this answer: ‘But he is a human being!’

In this respect, by pointing to enlarging the circle of Hizmet from the Abrahamic faiths to include religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism on the basis of human-brotherhood, Erol (2012) asserts, “the Gülen movement is eager to create further bonds just because they are human beings regardless of their faith, colour, language, culture or ethnic background. It is simply implementing the aforementioned famous saying of Yunus Emre: ‘We love the created because of the Creator.’”[9]

According to Kim (2015, 39), “[i]n Gülen’s diagnosis, most of the problems that contemporary human beings face result from the loss of true humanism, which causes and appears with widespread hatred and enmity,” and “Gülen is convinced that the only way to disentangle the real and critical danger to human beings is to revitalize humanism by means of love and tolerance.” Hizmet means “service to humanity,” and based on Gülen’s philosophy, “the real path of Sufis is to seek their spiritual progress in the happiness of others by living for others. This exemplifies what hizmet is” (Kim 2015, 38). Similarly, Al-Mabuk (2015, 29) contends that in Gülen’s thought, “forgiveness holds the promise to transform hostility, resentment and hatred into peace, love and harmony among individuals and societies.”

Yücel (2013), on the other hand, links Gülen’s dialogue efforts to Said Nursi (1877-1960), an influential Ottoman-Kurdish Islamic scholar and activist. Gülen is an ardent follower of Nursi, who initiated the idea of dialogue in his Damascus sermon in 1911[10]: “Said Nursi proposed dialogue and collaboration between Muslims and Christians before a congregation of over 10,000 Muslims, including 100 prominent religious scholars, in the Umayyad Mosque, Damascus” (Yücel 2013, 197). Nursi believed in this cooperation against materialism, which he saw as the source of the international aggression of his time; to him, greed, driven by materialism, causes the major conflicts that lead to destruction on a worldwide scale. Nursi suggested that Muslims and Christians should cooperate against common threats, including poverty, ignorance, and enmity between peoples. According to Valkenburg (2015, 53), “[i]t can be found in Nursi’s Damascus sermon and in some parts of his Risale-i Nur as well, where Nursi showed that negative approaches to people of other religions in the Qur’an usually apply to specific situations only, whilst the more positive evaluations of others have a more universal value. Something similar can be said about the quotation about loving good deeds and detesting bad deeds, since in the same Damascus sermon from 1911, Said Nursi stated that ‘the thing most worthy of love is love, and that most deserving of enmity is enmity.’”

According to Yücel (2013, 200), “Gülen has two aims for interfaith and intercultural dialogue. Firstly, he seeks a world in which civilisations do not clash. Secondly, he pictures a world where religious, cultural and linguistic differences are not denied or repressed, but rather expressed freely in the form of a civilisation of love. He dreams of a world without conflict and enmity. In such a world, people avoid hurting or annoying each other.”

References

• Al-Mabuk, Radhi H. 2015. “Fethullah Gülen’s Perspectives on Forgiveness.” Hizmet Studies Review. 2(2): 21-31.
• Barton, Greg. 2014. “How Hizmet Works: Islam, Dialogue and the Gülen Movement in Australia.” Hizmet Studies Review. 1(1): 9-25.
• Kim, Heon C. 2015. “Sufism and Dialogue in the Hizmet Movement.” Hizmet Studies Review. 2(2): 33-49.
• Saritoprak, Zeki, and Sidney Griffith. 2005. “Fethullah Gülen and the People of the Book: A Voice from Turkey for Interfaith Dialogue.” The Muslim World. 95(3): 329–40.
• Webb, M. O. 2015. “Fethullah Gülen’s Use of Philosophical and Scriptural Resources for Tolerance.” Hizmet Studies Review. 2(2): 9-18.
• Yilmaz I and Esposito JL. 2010. Islam and Peacebuilding: Gülen Movement Initiatives. New York: Blue Dome Press.
• Yücel, S. 2013. “Muslim-Christian Dialogue: Nostra Aetate and Fethullah Gülen’s Philosophy of Dialogue.” Australian e-Journal of Theology, 20(3).

[1] http://gulenschools.org/

[2] http://embracerelief.org/

[3] http://rumiforum.org/gulen-condem-isis-new-york-times-washington-post/

[4] http://en.fgulen.com/questions-and-answers/599-what-is-the-role-of-prophethood-and-of-prophets

(Accessed July 5, 2015).

[5] http://en.fgulen.com/about-fethullah-gulen/251-fethullah-gulens-speeches-and-interviews-on-interfaith-dialogue/1334-introduction

(Accessed July 5, 2015). 

[6] http://en.fgulen.com/reflections-on-the-quran/4286-al-imran-3-64

(Accessed July 5, 2015).

[7] http://en.fgulen.com/conference-papers/peaceful-coexistence/2486-sacred-scriptures-and-interfaith-dialogue

(Accessed July 5, 2015).

[8] http://en.fgulen.com/conference-papers/peaceful-coexistence/2512-gulens-paradigm-on-peaceful-coexistence-theoretical-insights-and-some-practical-perspectives

(Accessed July 5, 2015).

[9] http://www.fethullahgulenforum.org/articles/32/the-contribution-fethullah-gulen-on-christian-muslim-relations

[10] http://www.saidnur.com/foreign/en/risaleler/sermon1.htm