Scientists build synthetic embryos without eggs or sperm

Rivron NC et al.  Blastocyst-like structures generated solely from stem cells. Nature, May 2018.

A new study reported the production of “synthetic embryos” without egg or sperm. The research team combined two types of stem cells from mice in cultures and then they implanted them into the womb lining of live female mice, where they initiated pregnancy. The implants successfully grew for a few days. While this experiment did not lead to the creation of a real embryo, this is the first time early body structures have been generated from stem cells. It is believed that whole organisms can potentially be formed from stem cells. Despite major medical advancements, very little is understood about how early embryos develop. Embryos are both ethically and technically challenging to study, as they’re very small, about the width of a human hair, and located inside the womb. By producing these embryo-like structures, however, these studies could reveal some crucial information about the early phases of life and help develop new drugs to deal with fertility problems. Many miscarriages occur in the very early stages of pregnancy, when the fertilized egg does not implant in the womb. Using stem cells, rather than sperm and eggs, to make model embryos could offer a plentiful supply for scientific research. There are currently no plans yet to repeat the results using human stem cells, as this issue is heavily debated and it would require a complicated approval process.

Even brief maternal deprivation can cause brain dysfunction in adulthood

Janetsian-Fritz SS et al. Maternal deprivation induces alterations in cognitive and cortical function in adulthood. Translational Psychiatry. March 2018

Maternal deprivation induces alterations in cognitive and cortical function in adulthood.

Researchers have found that when a baby is taken from its mother for even a brief period early in life, it can cause a traumatic cellular event that ultimately effects the function of the brain in adulthood. In the study, young rats were removed from their mothers for 24 hours when they were 9 days old, which is a critical period of rapid brain development. Later when the researchers analyzed the brain scans of these animals in adult stages, they exhibited significant biological, physiological, and behavioral brain abnormalities in adulthood. More specifically, these rats showed memory impairment and reduced communication between brain regions, when compared to control rats. Interestingly, these changes in the brain look very similar to disturbances in brain structure and function that are found in people at risk for neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia. Rat and human brains have similar structures and connectivity, and researchers hope that understanding what happens in the brain of a young rat that’s removed from its mother might give us important insights into how this type of early trauma can affect the young human brain. The more we understand how the brain responds, the closer we come to being able to address and hopefully develop novel treatment strategies to reverse these neurological changes. Children exposed to early-life stress or deprivation are at higher risk for mental illness and addictions later in life, including schizophrenia. These studies are expected to provide clues to how a traumatic event early in life could increase a person’s risk of emotional disorders and what kind of policies or interventions might alleviate stress for children and should be developed to reduce the possibilities of such disorders developing.

The critical limit for global warming: 1.5 degrees Celsius

Warren R. et al. The projected effect on insects, vertebrates, and plants of limiting global warming to 1.5°C rather than 2°C. Science, May 2018

A new study claims that if we can manage to keep global warming below 1.5 ^oC, which is the ambitious goal of the 2016 Paris Agreement, we can save the vast majority of the world’s plant and animal species from climate change. Researchers in this study have analyzed

115,000 species, including 31,000 insects, 8,000 birds, 1,700 mammals, 1,800 reptiles, 1,000 amphibians, and 71,000 plants, to see how different projected climate futures may cause effect these species, measuring the risks to biodiversity by counting the number of species projected to lose more than half their geographic range due to climate change. Their analyses showed that achieving the ultimate goal of the Paris Agreement, or limiting warming to 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels, is critical for the survival of biodiversity. They also found that insects will be particularly sensitive to climate change, as 18% of the 31,000 insects are projected to lose more than half their range at 2^oC increase. This can be reduced to 6% at a 1.5^oC increase. The current global warming trajectory, if countries meet their international pledges to reduce CO₂, is unfortunately around 3^oC. In this case, almost 50% of insects would lose half their range. Insects are extremely vital to ecosystems and for humans. They have a long list of duties: to pollinate crops and flowers, provide food for higher-level organisms, break down detritus, maintain a balance in ecosystems by eating the leaves of plants, and help recycle nutrients in the soil. Ultimately, it won’t be just the biodiversity that suffers if the temperature rises too much, but the human race as well. The world is heating up. It’s no longer a case of if this is happening, but rather how fast can we limit the damage.

Answer: If we first look at the literal meaning of this aphorism, we can say the following: 

Roses only grow in soil. As it is not possible for a rose to grow from granite, marble or iron, it also cannot grow from silver, gold, emerald or ruby even though these materials are held by people as so precious.

Actually, the fact that people are buried in the soil when they die, suggests the same meaning. The body of a deceased person is not cast aside; rather it is buried in the ground so that it grows otherworldly roses in the beyond. Whether you attribute it to the truth about the last coccyx bone[1] or some other interpretation. Human beings contain such an essence that God Almighty resurrects them through it. However, one who has let himself decay spiritually in this world, will not be able to grow as a rose in the realm of Paradise. 

The pinnacle of servanthood: Prostration

Soil represents both modesty and humility. Although it is trampled underfoot, with God’s permission and grace it serves as a source of life for people and other beings. Therefore, if a person is like the soil, as long as he remains modest and sees himself as nothing despite any position he is elevated to, as long as he remains a humble servant to God, he will always rise and bear fruit. However, a person who assumes greatness and tries to fly in the air will fall headfirst one day. 

In this respect, a person must be humble in accordance with the favors and blessings that God has bestowed upon him. You can visualize this truth by thinking about the essential movements in Prayer. For example, a person who makes the opening takbir, “Allahu Akbar,” sees his position before God as insufficient and humbly bows before Him in a form of reverence. Afterwards, the person virtually says: “My God I am so thankful to You, for You have given me the opportunity to worship You thus, how great You are! How exalted You are! Given that You are the only One who is great, what falls to me is insignificance. However, I cannot express this while standing on my feet. Here I lower myself before You as much as possible.” With these feelings, the person prostrates before his Lord. Then he says: “O God, Thanks are for You my Lord, for Your blessing me with the opportunity to worship You thus. How great You are! How exalted You are!” Then he sits back beseechingly. As if the person has caught a glimpse of Him, he finds the first prostration insufficient and prostrates himself again. 

Remember the following saying of the Prophet Muhammad, the Pride of Humanity, peace and blessings be upon him: “The closest that a servant of God is to his Lord is while he is prostrating.”[2] Thus he stated that there is no state in which a person can be closer to God other than prostration. This meaning is expressed in a poem as:

Head and feet
both on the ground,
The road to closeness to God is
Where the Prayer rug kisses the forehead.

The disaster of laying claim to achievements

So how close a person will be to God is determined in accordance with the degree of his modesty and humility. Actually, this is the general attitude of a genuine believer when confronted with the showers of blessings bestowed by God. Such a believer becomes more and more humbled before the infinite blessings of the Beneficent Lord, he places his head on the ground and declares his nothingness before the Infinite.

In this respect, those who have dedicated themselves to serving their religion, country and people must never lay claim to achievements, no matter how high a position they are promoted to. They must always retain humility and not entertain any expectations other than God’s good pleasure. They must not attach their hearts to any worldly or otherworldly returns. People devoted to serving humanity on the path of truth must not cherish any ideas such as, “Let me settle this worldly affair of mine; let me have a house where I can live comfortably; let my child achieve this advantageous position…” In addition, they must not associate the services that they carry out with entering Paradise or being saved from Hell, as they must expect these as unmerited favors from Divine grace, providence and protection.

Those who fill their pockets and form money pools whilst claiming they are serving the nation, are obviously lying as their actions show. They seek to gain worldly positions and have expectations such as popularity, applause, appreciation and becoming the center of attention for the services they carry out. These denote hypocrisy, egotism and daring to be so insolent as to bargain with God. Those who lay claim to success and achievements, which are but Divine favors, who ascribe these to their own cleverness, intellect, perspicacity and sagacity and thus boast like pharaohs, may have this opportunity today. However, tomorrow they will lose in utter failure what they have in their hands today. Just as they insolently stick their noses in the air today, tomorrow they will eat humble pie with their noses rubbing in the dust. This is the Divine Custom, which has never changed.

Fertilizing roses

It is out of the question for a real believer to take advantage of certain accomplishments for personal gain, or to grow insolent and boastful with the lightheadedness of victory. In the face of favors bestowed by the Divine, a real believer acts with considerations such as, “I wonder whether I can propagate a suitable environment to encourage new roses to flourish by returning to the soil with my roses, flowers, leaves and roots?”

When the famous literary master, Necip Fazıl, referred to himself, he would say: “And take me as some manure.” I never forget this statement of his. Despite being aware of his greatness, cherishing such ideas is very important in indicating his modesty, effacement and humility. This is how a believer should see himself. Even if a believer becomes a rose garden and flourishes so vigorously that nightingales flock all around and start singing for him, he must still have the awareness to fall back to the soil in modesty as rose petals for the sake of making new roses grow. It is our duty, in the face of the bountiful showers of blessings bestowed by God, to further deepen our effacement, modesty and humility. When others talk about us with appreciation, we should be able to say, “How strange, what did we do wrong that these people are singing our praises, which to us is like swearing!”

From the perspective of causality, if we are to ascribe the services carried out to a cause other than God Almighty, they should be ascribed to the concord and unity between believers. One should remember that God Almighty accepts concord and unity as an expectant look directed toward Him, and He responds positively to those who turn to Him. Concord and unity are the most important means of Divine guidance and assistance.

Consider the meaning of the verse: “He has attuned their (the believers’) hearts. If you had spent all that is on the earth, you could not have attuned their hearts, but God has attuned them. Surely He is All-Glorious with irresistible might, All-Wise” (al-Anfal 8:63). As it is also pointed out here, what really matters is God’s help, protection and guarding. As long as we commit to Him, He will favor us bounteously, turning our one into thousands. He expresses His greatness by letting a drop carry out a task, which would normally require an entire sea. Similarly, He may employ an atom instead of a sun, or an ant instead of a rhinoceros; because one of God’s ways of expressing His greatness is through realizing great tasks by using very little things.

When the Pride of Humanity passed on from this world, his Companions numbered no more than 34,000. However, they were able to successfully deal with the Byzantines and Sassanids, the superpowers of the time. They then gained an important position among the world powers and put the balance of power in a new order. Moreover, they overcame eleven cases of massive rebellions. During his short caliphate of less than two and a half years, the blessed Abu Bakr suppressed all of these insurrections and maintained law and order.

Become so merged with the soil that even your grave will be unknown

God is sufficient, the rest is empty desire. We do not need applause, appreciation or flattery. We must serve God with the utmost humility and modesty, become fixed on gaining His good pleasure and then be buried in soil again in order to serve as a seed for a new rose. Let alone seeking appreciation in our lifetime, we should not even have such a desire and expectation as, “Let a huge crowd attend my funeral.” You should even regard the conventional statements during your funeral ceremony about your being a good person as idle talk and never forget that what really matters is maintaining a sound relationship with God Almighty.

We should always keep a low profile and pass to the eternal realm thus. If possible, we should even wish our grave to remain anonymous like the great guide Bediuzzaman did. Remember that he said, “Let nobody know where my grave is, except for a few students of mine.” For God’s sake, what an admirable conception of Divine unity, what a wondrous relationship with God it is! Since he passed from this world, none but a few people know the whereabouts of his grave. He internalized the principle of extraordinary modesty, effacement and humility as a philosophy of life and led his life with an utterly low profile.[3]

If we have to have some expectations for the services we carry out let them be that the spirit of the noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, is revived and pervades the four corners of the earth. However, even in this respect we should not insist that we personally see the results, but leave the issue to the decree of Divine Will. It is not correct to prioritize anything other than what He wills. We want and wish, but cannot know what He wills. Some souls with a propensity to be like coal will never embrace right guidance and become like a diamond, even if we wish it. Though we are resolute and persistent, so that God Almighty and His Messenger will set a throne in hearts, we leave the result to God alone and welcome His judgment and decree.

[1] Abu Hurayra, may God be pleased with him, narrated that the Noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, stated: “Everything of the human body will perish except the last coccyx bone (end part of the spinal cord), and from that bone Allah will reconstruct the whole body.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab at-Tafsir, 1).

[2] Sahih Muslim, Salah, 215; Sunan Abu Dawud, Salah, 148; Sunan an-Nasa’i, Mawaqit, 35.

[3] Nursi, Bediüzzaman Said, The Rays, New Jersey: Tughra, 2010, p. 317; Nursi, Bediüzzaman Said, Emirdağ Lahikası (Supplement of Emirdağ), Istanbul: Şahdamar, 2010, vol. 1, p. 106.

In the early decades of the twenty-first century, strong-men like Okonkwo, the tragic character in Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Things Fall Apart, appear to rule the world.  From Russia to Turkey, from North Korea to the United States, men driven by fear and a need to demonstrate their masculinity through power control armies and nations. Okonkwo, Achebe tells us, was an athlete – a wrestler, a hard worker, rightly proud of his achievements – and yet he was also a man who treated people “with a heavy hand.” If you know the novel, and every literate person should, as it is truly one of the world’s classics, you know the story.  Okonkwo breaks the Week of Peace by beating his young wife, Ojiugo. He cuts down with his machete his adopted son, Ikemefuna, whom he loved, because, Achebe tells us, Okonkwo “was afraid of being thought weak.” And then, when the British arrive with their “peaceful administration” (Achebe was a master of irony), Okonkwo responds first by killing one of the government messengers and then commits an offense against the Earth, tragically hanging himself from a tree. This “strong man” was driven by fear.

And strong men like Okonkwo do seem to rule the world.  Yet I want to offer an alternative point of view, based in part on a recent trip to Nigeria. At almost the exact center of Things Fall Apart, Achebe has one of the wives of Okonkwo, Ekwefi, tell an old Igbo folktale that can highlight what happens when strong men rule.  Every Nigerian child knows the story. It’s the story of how the tortoise got a cracked shell. The birds of the Earth were invited to a great feast by the people in the sky.  There was a drought and famine on the Earth, and Tortoise was hungry. He heard about the feast for the birds and wanted to go along. So, Tortoise persuaded the birds to each give him a feather. Tortoise then made those feathers into two wings, so that he could go to the feast, and he flew with the birds to the banquet. On the way he told the birds that the people of the sky gave guests new names, and that his name was “All of You.” So, when the feast was served, Tortoise asked the people of the sky, “For whom is this great feast prepared?” And the people of the sky answered, “For all of you!” Tortoise then told the birds, “You remember that my name is All of You. The custom here is to serve the spokesman first and the others later. They will serve you when I have eaten.” Tortoise ate the choicest foods, leaving the birds only bones. The birds understandably grumbled. One by one, they then took their feathers back from Tortoise. He could not fly back to Earth.  So, he asked Parrot to take a message to his wife, to put out all the soft things from their hut. Parrot agreed, but then when he returned to Earth, instead he told the wife of Tortoise to put out all the hard things, like the machetes and guns and even a cannon. When Tortoise fell, he landed on these hard things, and his shell cracked into many pieces. A very strong traditional doctor was nearby, allowing Tortoise’s wife to gather the pieces of his shell and glue them back together.

I’ll return to this story near the end of this essay, but my main point in what follows is that despite all appearances to the contrary, I believe the era of the so-called strong man is coming to an end. It is not going to end easily, because when they feel threatened, such men react with displays of pride and force. But as Mohandas Gandhi and Desmond Tutu and other nonviolent peacebuilders learned, “when people decide they want to be free there is nothing that can stop them.” And strong men, too, can learn to change their ways. For as Jesus put it so clearly, when his disciple Peter reached for his machete, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

The way of the future, the alternative, is the way through what Muslims like Fethullah Gülen know as istishara, or mutual consultation. The way is through what political scientists know as democracy. The way is through what economists call social enterprise. The way is through what educators know as universal literacy.  The way is through what biologists understand as cooperation. The way is through what theologians call trust. The way is what I call “deep peace.”

Among the most important books I have read in the past twenty years is a book by Harvard neuropsychologist Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature:  Why Violence Has Declined. It’s a big book, and it deserves to be read critically.  But Pinker’s main point is that statistically – and actually – we live in the most peaceful era of human history, ever. We experience today the longest life-expectancy, greatest creature comforts, least international warfare, lowest infant mortality rate, least food insecurity, and so on, of any era in human history. When we look at our lives objectively, compared to the lives of our ancestors even fifty years ago, life is good.

The world may seem like it’s controlled by so-called “strongmen,” but Jon Pahl believes faith, humility, and cooperation are set to bring about a new order of peace.

What has produced this peace, according to Pinker, is mutual consultation – the growth in democratic states, honest trading, and participation in international organizations like the UN. What Pinker fails to recognize is that the 20^th century also saw a dramatic resurgence of religion around the globe, especially in the global South. Pinker sees this resurgence of religion as an obstacle to peace. I see it as the single most important reason for expanding peace. Our faith traditions are the most profound causes of peace on the planet. Our religions, within their discrete domains, and increasingly across their domains through interreligious cooperation, generate deep peace.

Peace cannot be merely the absence of war. Although it is much to be desired, the absence of war is what I call “basic peace;” it is the bare minimum required of any government. Beyond that basic absence of violence, though, there is a peace that stems from the collective decisions that people make through our governments. I call this “policy peace.” Economic policies that fairly distribute resources produce peace.  Policies that support the arts and sciences and education produce peace.  But beyond basic peace and policy peace is “deep peace.” Deep peace is the inner courage to face one’s fears without violence.  Deep peace is the calm confidence to trust another human being and to live and work together with them, no matter what.

Our religious traditions foster deep peace. That is why they have survived far longer than any nation. Our religious traditions, each in their own way, engage us in discourses and practices that foster the trust that makes cooperation possible. Across traditions, we learn to pray, fast, give thanks, dispense justice, and reconcile with our enemies. These practices build the trust that flows from deep peace and that leads to all the other kinds of peace. Our religions, in other words, foster the most crucial evolutionary survival mechanism: cooperation. They have power that no dictator can stop.

Along with this trust, our religious traditions build habits of humility. From our faith traditions, we learn that we do not stand at the center of the universe, able to control it. When we consider the God who created the universe, we learn to say, “Allahu Akbar.” When we consider the God who sent Jesus (pbuh) to live among us, we learn to say, “Lord, have mercy.” When we consider the God who lives in and through our ancestors and the Earth itself, we recognize how fragile we are, and we come to say, as Okonkwo put it in a moment of lucidity in Things Fall Apart, that “the world is large.” Deep peace stems from humility. And humility fosters trust like a cassava produces fufu flour.

It was this kind of “deep peace” that Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee drew upon in her work with the Christian and Muslim women of Liberia to end that nation’s long civil war. If you have seen the documentary film by Abigail Disney, Pray the Devil Back to Hell, or read Leymah Gbowee’s memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers:  How Prayer, Sex, and Sisterhood Saved a Nation at War, you know what happened. Leymah Gbowee stood up one Sunday in Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Monrovia, and said, “Women, wake up! We have a voice! We want peace. No more war.” And that day a police sergeant and Muslim, Asatu Bah Kenneth, heard her, and then took the microphone. She pledged that just as Leymah Gbowee was going to organize the Christian women, she would organize the Muslim women.  And then the Christian and the Muslim women got together. And when they got together, they consulted with each other, planned with each other, debated with each other, strategized with each other. And then they protested with each other. And at those protests they sang, and danced, and prayed: “We want peace. No more war.”  And their prayer was answered.

 Practically, peacebuilders like Leymah Gbowee engage what Fethullah Gülen has called istishara, mutual consultation. I am nearing completion on a biography of Mr. Gülen, or, as he is known to his students and followers, Hodjaefendi, honored teacher. Most of his life has been spent in prayer and preaching, not politics. He practices deep peace. But he has also inspired the global Hizmet movement. And that movement grew, and continues, through istishara. 

I saw the results in Nigeria. Despite pressure from the so-called “strong men” of the Turkish government, the work of people committed to deep peace in Nigeria, begun with a single school in 1998, continues. Seventeen different Hizmet agencies operate schools, dialogue programs, and a hospital. All feature some of the best facilities in the country. I visited the Nigerian Tulip International Schools in Abuja, Lagos, and Kaduna, and Nigerian Nile University and Nizamiye Hospital in Abuja.  They are thriving in their missions to promote literacy and health through compassion and trust. And they are growing through the joint efforts, the mutual consultation, between people of Turkish and Nigerian descent.

It may seem, then, that in this age of ruthless weak men – for that is what they are – that we are all like tortoise, divided into many fragments and tribes. But there is another tortoise tale worth recalling, which may be as ancient as that told among the Igbo. It is one of Aesop’s Fables.

There once was a speedy hare who bragged about how fast he could run. Tired of hearing him boast, Slow and Steady, the tortoise, challenged him to a race. All the animals in the forest gathered to watch.

Hare ran down the road for a while and then and paused to rest. He looked back at Slow and Steady and cried out, “How do you expect to win this race when you are walking along at your slow, slow pace?”

Hare stretched himself out alongside the road and fell asleep, thinking, “There is plenty of time to relax.”

Slow and Steady walked and walked. He never, ever stopped until he came to the finish line.

The animals who were watching cheered so loudly for Tortoise, they woke up Hare.

Hare stretched and yawned and began to run again, but it was too late. Tortoise was over the line.

After that, Hare always reminded himself, “Don’t brag about your lightning pace, for Slow and Steady won the race!”

It is my conviction – rooted in my faith as a Christian and in my awareness of global trends as a social scientist – that despite superficial evidence to the contrary, the age of so-called strong and greedy men who are in fact fearful and short-thinking men is coming to an end. Slow and steady integrity will win the race. 

In 67 BCE, the magnificent Roman army, which was led by Pompey the Great, marched through the green mountains and blue shores of the Black Sea, chasing King Mithridates of Pontus and his Persian army. Once the Romans reached the highlands of Trabzon, now part of northeastern Turkey, they found pots full of local honey on the sides of their path. The hungry and tired Roman army, with a total of about 1000 soldiers, rushed into the pots, assuming they were gifts from the villagers. Within a couple of hours, a majority of Pompey’s soldiers were perplexed and hallucinating, and could no longer fight against Mithridates’ army. The Romans had been trapped by the “mad honey,” the first biological weapon used in history. The alkaloid grayanotoxin, of the rhododendron, locally known as the forest rose or the Kumar flower, induced aorta expansion among the Roman soldiers, which resulted in bradycardia (decrease in heart rate), hypotension, hallucinations, and eventually disorientation.[1] This mad honey is still being used, at low doses, by locals of the Black Sea region as a traditional medicine for the treatment of hypertension.

Honey is produced through enzymatic processing of the nectar or honeydew honeybees collect from various plants. The invertase enzyme within the bees’ abdomens catalyzes the conversion of sucrose – table sugar within the nectar – into glucose and fructose. Honey is supersaturated in sugars, packed with beneficial chemicals, and, thus, possesses high nutritive value. It has been used both as a nutritious food and a remedy for various ailments throughout history. Wound healing, and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, conjunctivitis, acute fever, and pain, are just some of the disorders honey can treat.

Honeybees have been on the Earth for thousands of years due to their indispensable role as the ultimate pollinators. Bees pollinate more than 60% of the planet’s overall plants, as well as 35% of the world’s crops. Nowadays, due to a fall in productivity rates of some crops, farmers hire beekeepers to install their honeybee and bumble bee hives into their fields, allowing for more effective pollination of their crops. Between February and March each year, almond tree buds in California burst into beautiful light pink and white blossoms in preparation for pollination. As the trees blossom, honeybees forage for pollen and nectar in the orchard. When the bees move from tree to tree, they pollinate almond blossoms along the way. Each fertilized flower will grow into an almond. Honeybees also receive a great advantage from the almond pollinations. The almond pollens are rich in proteins and nutrients for the bees, and they are their first food source after the winter. Thus, the bee hives leave the almond fields stronger than they came. After almonds, beekeepers bring their honeybees to different locations across the United States, pollinating over 90 other crops and making honey.[2]

Honey in medical bibliography

Honey has been harvested by human beings for thousands of years, as was depicted at the “Man of Bicorp,” an 8000-year-old cave painting near Valencia, Spain.[3]

According to a Sumerian tablet, one of the oldest human scriptures dating back to about 2000 BC, a prescription for treating wounds reads: “grind to a powder river dust and …. (words missing) then knead it in water and honey and let plain oil and hot cedar oil be spread over it” (Jones 2001). This tablet demonstrates the oldest script about using honey for therapeutic purposes. Meanwhile, almost all great civilizations throughout history, including but not limited to Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Indian, Mayan, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Ottoman, etc., praised honey in their texts; their doctors and healers used honey for treatments of various disorders. Honey was the most popular medical ingredient of the Egyptians, being mentioned in about 500 prescriptions among 900 papyri.[4] 

Honey also has been praised in religious scriptures, including the Torah, Gospel, and Qur’an. In the present Torah, the Promised Land (Ha’Aretz HaMuvtahat – Ard Al-Mi’ad) is described as the land of milk and honey (Deuteronomy, 6: 3). According to the story in the Gospel, Jesus ate honey and bread to prove to the Apostles that he was not merely a spirit or figment of imagination. In the Qur’an, honey is clearly identified as “a healing for mankind”:

And your Lord inspired the (female) bee: “Take for yourself dwelling-place in the mountains, and in the trees, and in what they (human beings) may build and weave. Then eat of all the fruits, and returning with your loads, follow the ways your Lord has made easy for you. ” There comes forth from their bellies a fluid of varying color, wherein is health for human beings. Surely, in this, there is a sign for people who reflect. (16:68-69)

Moreover, Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, praised honey as a source of healing for both the body and spirit. In his various traditions, the Prophet encouraged his followers to consume honey for its versatile medicinal use such as abdominal pain, as well as its high potential to protect people from many illnesses, indicating honey’s significant role in preventive medicine.

Avicenna (Ibn-i Sina) is the author of “The Cannon of Medicine” (Al-Qanun fi-t-Tibb) and his five-volume-book was a reference source for medical studies in the universities of Europe between the 12^th and 18^th centuries.[5] In the 2^nd volume of “The Cannon,” where he described the preparation of various pharmaceuticals for treatment, he listed honey in more than 35 prescriptions.

Until the early 20^th century, honey was used daily by physicians as a traditional medicine. It was even used on battlefields to treat wounds and burns. During World War II, Russian army nurses gave honey to wounded soldiers.[6]

As biochemistry and pharmaceutical researchers developed and introduced new drugs into modern medicine throughout 20^th century, scientific opinions on honey’s nutritive and medical uses have differed and clashed with folklore. However, recent controversies within the scientific community have re-kindled interest in the therapeutic uses of honey in modem medicine. Recently, scientific support has emerged in a proliferation of publications on the successful therapeutic use of honey in several general medical and surgical conditions. Thus, honey has been described as, “A remedy rediscovered,” by Dr. Zumla in an article in the “Journal of Royal Society of Medicine.”[7] A complementary branch of medicine, called apitherapy, has been developed in recent years, offering treatments against many diseases based on honey and other bee products, such as propolis, royal jelly, wax, and venom.

Components of honey

As described above, honey is not only a supersaturated sugar solution, but also equipped with more than 200 various chemical and biological components. This shouldn’t be surprising, as more than 60% of medicines on the medical market are extracted from plants. As the honeybees visit the flowers and trees, they work as diligent chemists collecting various organic compounds from within the plants.

Depending on its origin of flora, geographic region, harvest time, and strain of honeybee, the components of honey differs; hence, so does its physicochemical character and biological activity potential. Besides the sugars of glucose, fructose, and sucrose, which constitute about 76% of honey’s makeup, other minor components are present in honey, such as minerals, polyphenols, carotenoids, vitamins, amino acids, specific proteins and enzymes, organic acids, and volatile compounds. Some of the vitamins present in honey are B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, and pantothenic acid. The minerals include calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and zinc. While the amino acid content is minor, the broad spectrum of approximately 18 essential and nonessential amino acids present in honey is unique and varies by floral source. The polyphenols present in honey can act as antioxidants and they play a role in cleansing the body from the free radicals and reactive compounds, which can contribute to the development of serious illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.  It is shown that honey contains a similar range of antioxidants that are found in green vegetables and fruit including broccoli, spinach, apples, oranges and strawberries.[8]

Types of honey

Since the nectar for honey is mostly collected from the various kinds of flowers within the bee’s two-mile foraging radius, not every honey is the same. Therefore, the science of melissopalynology is well developed to identify the pollen and nectar source of honey.  Although there are many varieties, categories, and sub-categories of honey, all honey types can be divided into two general groups – multifloral honeys and monofloral honeys. Multifloral honeys are produced by honeybees using nectar from many different flower sources. On the other hand, honeybees can also produce honey from the nectar of one dominant flower species (>45%), which is called monofloral honey.  The common monofloral honeys are acacia, eucalyptus, fir, spruce, heather, lavender, lime, linden, orange blossom, pine, rape, rosemary, sunflower, chestnut, thyme, and clover.[9] Due to easier standardization and sustainable production methods, monofloral honeys are preferable for animal studies and clinical trials. Among several monofloral types, manuka, chestnut, oak, tualang, gelam, and ulmo honeys are the most studied medical grade honeys worldwide.

Biological activity of honey

The Cochrane Reviews are systematic reviews of primary research in human healthcare and health policy and are internationally recognized as the highest standard in evidence-based healthcare resources.[10] In recent years, two reviews were published regarding the usage of honey in large clinical trials worldwide. They are titled “Honey as a topical treatment for acute and chronic wounds” [11] and “Honey for acute cough in children.”[12] These articles prove that the benefits of honey are being discussed by the major players within modern medicine.

The health benefits of uncontaminated pure honey range from antioxidant, immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory qualities, to antitumor actions, metabolic and cardiovascular benefits, prebiotic potentials, human pathogen control, and antiviral activity. Most of these reported biological activities are credited to the minor components present within the honey, which are mainly dependent on the floral or geographical origin of honey. Therefore, scientists and physicians admit that not every honey can be used for every disease. It has been documented that the darkness of honey positively correlates with its total phenolic contents, which significantly contributes to its biological activity potential.

In an interview with Prof. Kamaruddin Yusoff of BalMer Honey Research Center, he interprets the Quranic verse about the honey, which was described as fluid of varying color emerging from the bellies of honeybees, that different colors of honey can be used for treatment of different diseases. It has been documented that the darkness of honey positively correlates with its total phenolic contents, which significantly contributes to its biological activity potential. On the other hand, Prof. Irfan Yilmaz interprets the same verse as not only the honey but also other fluids such as propolis, royal jelly, wax, and venom are produced within different parts of the honeybee’s abdomens. Accordingly, several scientists focused on these fluids as a part of apitherapy.

Although most of the biological properties are attributed to the phenolic components, other biochemical factors may also be involved: high osmolarity and viscosity (76% sugar content), high acidity (pH 3.2 to 6.1), the glucose oxidase system (source of hydrogen peroxide), low redox potential, high carbon to nitrogen ratio, and the bee defensin-1 protein.

The osmotic pressure and viscosity of honey is due to low water (17%) and high sugar content (%76). The majority of sugars found in honey are monosaccharides, which are glucose (a range of 22-40%) and fructose (a range of 27-44%); and disaccharides, which are sucrose (a range of 1-5%) and maltose (a range of 1-5%). The high osmolarity of honey is enough to hinder the growth of microbes; thus, no bacteria, virus, or fungi can survive within honey. Consequently, honey has a very long, almost eternal shelf life. Recently, pots of honey were found by archeologists while they were excavating the pyramids in Egypt and this 3000-year-old honey was well preserved and still perfectly edible.[13] In a proverb it is said that “Noble doesn’t go astray, honey doesn’t spoil.”

The pH of honey is mostly dependent on the phenolic acids collected from the nectar sources; therefore, it changes with the foraging resources available to bees.

There are live enzymes within the honey, which are mostly introduced from the abdomens of honeybees. The predominant enzymes in honey are diastase (amylase), invertase, and glucose oxidase. Others, including catalase and acid phosphatase, can also be present, depending on the type of floral source. And recently, proteolytic enzymes have been found in honey. Among these enzymes, the glucose oxidase plays an essential role in producing hydrogen peroxide, which is critical to limit the proliferation of pathogenic bacteria. Once the honey is dissolved in water, glucose oxidase will catalyze the conversion of glucose into gluconic acid and H2O2. Since the amount of H2O2 is diminutive (0.3%) and slowly released, there is much less cytotoxic damage to the healthy cells, providing a better method than applying H2O2 directly to wounds and burns.

Researchers continue to study the potential uses and benefits of honey. Several clinical and animal studies suggest the use of honey in the control and treatment of wounds, diabetes, cancer, and asthma, as well as cardiovascular, neurological, and gastrointestinal diseases.^[14]

[1] https://today.tamu.edu/2014/10/15/expert-gives-the-buzz-on-mad-honey/

[2] http://www.almonds.com/consumers/about-almonds/bee

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuevas_de_la_Arana

[4] Grossman, R. The Other Medicines: The Penicillin of Bees. Pan Books, 1986:177

[5] http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/ibn-sinas-canon-medicine

[6] Leo A. Boсkeria, Sergey P. Glyantsev, Yan G. Kolesnikov, “Russian war surgery in 1812: 200 years since Russia’s war triumph” International Journal of Surgery, Volume 10, Issue 10, 2012, Pages 624-628, ISSN 1743-9191, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsu.2012.11.001

[7] Zumla A., Lulat A. Honey- A Remedy Rediscovered. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. 1989 Vol 82 Pg385

[8] https://www.islamreligion.com/articles/10321/liquid-gold-benefits-of-honey/

[9] https://healthywithhoney.com/types-of-honey/

[10] http://www.cochrane.org/what-is-cochrane-evidence

[11] Jull AB, Cullum N, Dumville JC, Westby MJ, Deshpande S, Walker N. Honey as a topical treatment for wounds. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2015, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD005083. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005083.pub4

[12] Oduwole O, Udoh EE, Oyo-Ita A, Meremikwu MM. Honey for acute cough in children. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2018, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD007094. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD007094.pub5

[13] http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/honey-in-the-pyramids.aspx

[14] Samarghandian, S., Farkhondeh, T., & Samini, F. (2017). Honey and Health: A Review of Recent Clinical Research. Pharmacognosy Research, 9(2), 121–127. http://doi.org/10.4103/0974-8490.204647

Thermostats are devices that keep temperature at the desired level. They are used in refrigerators, dishwashers, electric ovens, water heaters, washing machines, and central heating. Without a properly functioning thermostat, the devices or machines are likely to break down.

Did you know that there is also a thermostat in our body that comes with a lifelong guarantee? How about the fact that each is customized for each body? The thermostat in our body is so durable and dependable that it continues to regulate our body temperature for a life time, through illness and health, and good and bad weather.

Hypothermia and hyperthermia

When you are alive and kicking, your thermostat works within a temperature range of one degree (36.5 °C–37.5 °C). If your body temperature taken in your mouth is above or below this range, it means that your body is signaling certain problems. Temperatures below 35°C lead to hypothermia, while those above 39°C cause an opposite problem called hyperthermia.

Hypothermia is a drop in body temperature, generally due to such factors as rain, wind, snow, or cold water. Prolonged hypothermia first causes shivering and blackout, then death. People who fall into water in shipwrecks die more of hypothermia than of drowning.

Hyperthermia, on the other hand, is a condition in which the body temperature rises to high levels because of factors such as inflammatory diseases and prolonged exposure to sunlight. If it continues for long, hyperthermia causes fatigue, dizziness, nausea and problems in blood pressure. It may lead to seizures or death, especially in children, unless immediate aid is provided.

Where is our thermostat?

Whether you inhabit Siberian taigas or African deserts, your body temperature is kept within the normal range. Our thermostat, called the thermoregulation center, takes up a small place in the hypothalamus of our brain. Assigned the task of balancing our body temperature, the center activates the system to decrease the temperature when it rises and to increase it when it drops. The center is composed of two parts, one in the front of the hypothalamus and the other in the middle. The former is in charge of decreasing our temperature, while the latter of increasing it.

It is the receptors beneath our skin that activate the center. The receptors have two types of heat sensors, one for warmth and the other for cold. A change in temperature, even in an extremity like the toes, is immediately reported to the center, which switches the system on. If the body temperature needs to fall, then the perspiration mechanism is switched on. To do this, the temperature inside the body is first transferred to the skin. The most important process at this point is the expansion of blood vessels, which induces a heat transfer. If the body temperature needs to be raised, the vessels are contracted and shivering is induced.

Adjusted for all conditions

Our thermostat is programmed to make maximum use of our body temperature and make adjustments depending on our age, whether we are asleep, hungry, ill, and according to weather. The required amount of energy is different for babies, children, teenagers, and the elderly. The human body needs energy less during sleep and more during an illness.

No one’s body temperature remains at the same level at all times. Our body temperature is unique to us, just like our fingerprints, and it can be measured through precise measurements. The factors that affect our body temperature may be as diverse as what we eat, what we do, what we wear, our mood, our hormones, and the environment. The increase in an adult’s body temperature due to activity is less than that of babies and children.

Our body has a temperature cycle which changes throughout the day. When we wake up in the morning, for example, our body temperature is 0.5 degrees lower than it is during the day. It is at its lowest in the second half of the night. It is highest between 16:00-18:00. We have greater heat exchange in cold weather than in hot weather. The heat regulation center adjusts temperature in response to all these changes, and thus saves energy.

Our temperature changes according to our gender, too. Body temperatures obtained from mouth measurements have shown that they may change by ±1.4 degrees in women and by ±1.2 in men. Hormones also play a role in this difference. For example, women have unique body temperatures during their period and pregnancy.

The temperature of the organs

Some parts of our body and some of our organs require different temperatures. The warmest organs are at the inside: the liver is 41.3 degrees on average, for example. Our skin is 33 degrees, and the parts near the skin have relatively lower temperatures. The temperature of the inside of our mouth, for example, is lower than that of our skin. The temperatures in the armpit and in the ears are likewise different. The thermoregulation center also has an impact on the rates of the chemical reactions taking place at the cellular level, as it keeps every one of the organs working at optimum temperatures.

There is incredible wisdom in how our body is heated (or not). Body parts that interact with the outside world have lower temperatures. One of the advantages of this is that it maintains optimum energy consumption. The higher the temperature difference between two objects, the easier the heat exchange. If our skin were as warm as our average temperature, i.e. 37°C, we would lose more heat at higher rates.

Furthermore, our eyes are granted a very special mechanism. The eyes, almost 90% of which are water and whose surface must be kept moist, are in constant contact with the outside world. However, the eyes of people who live in cold climates, where the temperature can reach -50°C, do not freeze because the eyes are placed in a protective shelter and wrapped in muscles, lipid layers, and eyelids. What’s more, capillaries, which are extensions of the ophthalmic arteries that encircle the eyes like a web, carry warm blood to the eyes regularly. Additionally, the fact that tears are salty lowers their freezing point.

Temperature balance in other living things

Animals also have body temperatures ideally programmed for their functions. The hedgehog, for example, has a body temperature of 36°C, but it is dropped to 6°C during hibernation. The body temperatures of most mammals are kept at about 37°C.

Animals are similarly endowed with systems of temperature cycles as required by the climatic and environmental conditions in which they live. For example, the body temperature of the oryx, an African antelope, can rise to 45°C when it is on the run. It can withstand such a deadly temperature thanks to the perfect system that protects its brain. The oryx has a peculiar network of vessels at the lower side of the brain which decreases the body temperature due to heat loss caused by evaporation. The carotid artery separates into smaller veins in the sinus cavity before it carries the blood to the brain, which causes the blood to lose heat. When the blood reaches the brain, it is already cool enough for the brain to function properly.

The creation of such systems certainly are miraculous, and yet we never think about them. All of our needs are met without our knowing about it.  

I had been considered a lot of things in my life but for the first time in my 100 years, I was a time traveler. I walked out on the moonlit deck behind the house with an envelope nearly as old as I was. It was still crisp and white thanks to the plastic sleeve it had been kept in all these years. I took a seat on a chair beneath a brilliant expanse of stars that seemed to always be there and then smiled, laughing at the fact that they were hundreds of light years away and probably hadn’t even been there at all, not as I saw them my entire life.

Everyone always imagines time traveling to take some sort of machine or vehicle, but that night I had bridged the great divide of 72 years of space-time more gracefully than the Tesseract, using just the contents of just that envelope to have a conversation that had been waiting for nearly a century. I ran my fingers over its corners and edges. I had known how to time travel for years but was waiting for this moment. I had written a letter to myself for my 100^th birthday and now that the family had left, the cake had been divided and devoured, and my sweet wife of 82 years was fast asleep, I was ready to finish what I had started.

I took a deep breath and broke the glue seal on the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. I marveled at how the sheet was so neatly folded and tried to recall how I felt the day I folded it, but I couldn’t get a clear picture. I knew the catalyst was still inside, the magic of the words would transport me back in time.

Upon opening it, the first thing I saw was the date: April 21, 2018. Now, some might imagine the feeling of time traveling to be gradual or spontaneous, that it may feel like every atom is ripping apart or perhaps completely painless and instantaneous, but that’s not how it feels at all. Instead, it feels effortless and gradual, just as the water flowing from the small fountain in the middle of the deck.

We spend our whole lives trying to be something and somebody that we miss who we’ve been the whole time.

My eyes scrolled to the now full open sheet and the memory of the past completely saturated the space between my ears. What would you write to your 100-year-old self? Would you fill every inch of the page with thoughts and questions or memories you may have forgotten? I didn’t. I simply wrote three questions:

• Did you live your dreams?
• Did you love enough?
• Who are you now?

Inside the envelope I also included a photograph of me standing with my pregnant wife and five children. I was smart for as young as I was, I knew that I didn’t need to fill the envelop with pages and pages of endless reminders or questions that at the time couldn’t be answered or replied to. I knew that by just asking those three questions and including that picture that I would be able to bring myself back. Everything I ever knew or existed as a memory in my mind, and no sooner had I taken my eyes off the picture, I saw my younger self sitting in the chair across from me with the softly flowing fountain between us.

“I look great for a hundred,” he said. It made me laugh because people had always told me how great I looked for my age and that I must have found the fountain of youth. I guess it was because he said “I” instead of “you.”

I just smiled and replied, “Thank you.”

At my age, I imagined I would be like the wise teacher before the young rambunctious student. I had often thought about this day and how different I would be from my former self; how he would be young and restless and cocky and wrong about so much. I had learned so much in an entire lifetime; surely, I would finally know everything and be able to answers the questions of the past. This is why I was surprised at the feeling I had as my eyes grazed over the first question.

“Did you live your dreams?” he asked.

I looked at him and he looked the same as I had so many years ago. I smiled and said the first thing that came to mind. “I think so. I’ve married the woman of my dreams, had a bunch of kids and grand-kids, I’ve written books and I’ve defeated the struggle for survival.”

He just stared at me.

“But I’m surprised,” I continued, “that now at 100, my desire hasn’t gone away but now there’s nothing in particular I want.”

He smiled, “Remember what Hafiz said: ‘Once all of your desires are distilled you will have but two choices: to love more and be happy.’”

I smiled knowing that he was right. “That’s exactly it. We live our whole lives chasing dreams. We want to do so many things, have so many things and be so many things. We don’t realize until a lot of time passes that often the anticipation of whatever we were chasing is better than the thing itself. We spend so much time trying to be somebody that we overlook who we even are.”

“So, you’ve lived your dreams then?” he asked again.

“I would say I have, and I am choosing to not only love more, but also be happy.”

We sat for a couple of minutes in silence, the only sound between us was the relaxing lapping of the fountain. I assumed that since he was a projection of my mind that he knew everything I knew and saw what I saw, so he would be asking the questions on the page without any provocation from me. He just stared at the fountain. It was a simple fountain that consisted of three large rocks stacked in the center of a big bowl which caught the water and recycled it back through tubing up through the center of the rocks to endlessly flow, never to run out and never to stop.

“So, do you think you’ve loved enough?” he finally said.

“You know, I remember writing that question down all those years ago, but to be honest I never really thought about it.” I sat for a minute thinking about what to say. “I’ve loved the best I could,” I finally said.

His brow furrowed. “So you don’t think you could have done better? You definitely haven’t been perfect, and you’ve hurt plenty of people over your life…made mistakes—

“Well of course I did. We all do! Everyone makes mistakes. I mean sure, there are things I wish I could have done differently but that doesn’t matter now because I can’t go back and change them.”

“But you’re a time traveler now,” he laughed.

“Sure, we all are. Time traveling is nothing more than remembering the past or imagining the future. We can change things in our minds, even convince ourselves things never happened. But we can’t do a thing about the people involved. Everything we’ve been through was real, but no one can remember it as it really was because we all have our own interpretations of what happened. We all see things through our own filters.”

“We share and fashion moments together,” he said.

“Yes. Do you want to know if I have any regrets? I have things I wish I could have done differently, but to me a regret is something that weighs you down, holds you back. I can’t spend my life living like that—I don’t have that kind of time.”

“No one does,” he smiled.

“That’s right. I believe we are all doing the best we can at any moment. If we could do better, we would.”

He leaned forward. “You don’t think that’s true, do you? Surely, we could always do better, we just don’t choose to?”

I smiled and said, “Nobody chooses pain on purpose—nobody sane anyways. So, I think we all like to think we are sane and if you hurt someone or make a mistake, it was the best you could do because no one who knows better would hurt themselves or anyone else on purpose. I like to believe that if we could have really done better, we would have.”

“Unless they’re insane,” he added.

“Right, and if you were insane it wouldn’t matter one way or the other would it?”

We both sat in the dark listening to the fountain. It continued to flow, and I thought about how my wife hated the sound of running water. I thought it would be nice to have a fountain in the house, but she politely informed me it would be better outside, to create a peaceful atmosphere at the back of the house. I know that she knew it made me happy but didn’t want to tell me no, and we effortlessly compromised. As effortlessly as the water flows.

“Do you know why you bought this fountain?” he asked suddenly.

“What?” He had caught me off guard. “Because I like it, I guess.”

He leaned back in the chair and smiled. “It’s because you aren’t able to answer the last question.”

I thought about all I had been and been through in my life: a young stupid kid, a slave in the factories, a writer, a father, a husband and friend. “I’ve been a great many things,” I told him, “but suffice it to say I am who I am, be it a great many things.”

He smiled, “Are you any closer to knowing?”

For the first time since I had started this I wondered what the purpose was. The perplexity of the question that I had spent such a great deal of my life trying to answer still eluded me, even here in my moment of grace. What seemed worse was the fact that although I am open to life playing out as it will, this whole experience hadn’t turned out anything like I imagined it would. I thought that out of any situation in life that could be controlled or predicted, an imaginary conversation in my mind would be it. I was 100-years-old, wise and charismatic, and I would be teaching the immature bratty youth that was my former self the lessons of life that I had mastered.

I had it all figured out, I thought. I closed my eyes and said, “No, I’m not closer to knowing.” To amazement as I opened them, he was gone.

I sat for a while wondering what just happened. I waited for so many years to finish this silly little project I started, this living experiential time capsule of sorts, and I couldn’t. My past life was also nothing like I imagined, which left me feeling in even less control. Instead, he was the wise teacher, and I was the foolish student. And then there was the fountain. “It’s because you aren’t able to answer the last question,” he had said. He was right, but why?

So I stared at the fountain, watched the water, and thought. “What did he mean?” I said aloud. I stared for a while trying to think of some complicated reasoning or clever idea that could connect my identity crisis with the riddle of the fountain. “I wish I would have asked him what he meant,” I said to the running water. Then, an idea so simple and elegant wove its way into the tapestry of my thoughts and brought me relief.

Why had I done this in the first place? Surely, it wasn’t about me asking my past-self questions, but the other way around. That’s when it all came together. The water in the fountain never ran out and never overflowed. It was all about balance. The fact that I couldn’t answer the question of who I am was because I didn’t realize the balance of my being. I thought that at the end of my life I would have all the answers, that when we were born we were empty and at the end we were overflowing.

But the fountain never empties and never overflows because it is in an unending process of recreating. It was fresh and new, constantly changing and moving while at the same time staying the same. It is in perfect balance between the extremes of existence.

Somehow I had known this all along. I had the idea to write myself a letter, ask myself on my 100^th birthday three simple but powerful questions, and along the way I managed to buy a fountain that would serve as the metaphor and reminder of the greatest truth of life. We spend our whole lives trying to be something and somebody that we miss who we’ve been the whole time. That truth can only be found in the balance of all things, from the mundane to the miraculous, the scientific to the spiritual, and from the personal to the universal.

I realized that I am like the fountain: never empty, and never full.  But in knowing this, however, my happiness will always be overflowing.

Meaning joy and delight, surur (rejoicing) is a kind of contentment that embraces a person from both within and without. Even though every conscience feels it differently, what is common in the rejoicing felt by everyone of those who rejoice is that breezes of intimacy come from the true Friend at different wavelengths, invading the human inner world.

Lovers of God are made aware of rejoicing with the fragrance of meeting with Him, the loyal with the faithfulness in their hearts, and the heroes of nearness to Him with sentiments of certainty. According to their capacity of perception and feeling, each type of person exclaims, In the grace and bounty of God and in His mercy—in this, then, let them rejoice. This is better than what they may amass (of worldly goods and riches) (10:58). They consider the origin of rejoicing that has arisen in them, and breathe peace and feel exhilaration with the joy of the Divine gifts that come to them.

Belief and all the results it promises, islam (being a Muslim) and all the exalted goals it directs people to, the Qur’an and the fruits with which it is laden pertaining to this and the other worlds, excellence (ihsan) and the vision of God in the Hereafter which it promises—each is a mercy and bounty of God given to persons according to their rank, and the joy and contentment that these gifts rouse in their hearts are the flowers of rejoicing that open in the emerald hills of the heart.

Belief, islam, the Qur’an and ihsan (excellence) are the greatest gifts of God, and the rejoicing that arises from being honored with them, with its inherent suggestion of gratitude and praise, is the greatest of all favors. Such rejoicing exceeds all worldly joys and pleasures and it is worth sacrificing the world and whatever is in it for its sake. It is because of this excellence that the Qur’an proclaims: This is (far) better than what they may amass (of worldly goods and riches).

While the Qur’an condemns any joy which does not arise from some Divinely approved thing and it is not certain what it will bring, it praises the rejoicing that comes from the knowledge of God and Divinity, obedience to the Messenger and the fruit of such behavior, and being a Muslim and the fruit of this. In many verses, the Qur’an states: Let them rejoice (10:58); Rejoicing in what God has granted them (3:170); Feeling exhilaration in what is sent down to you (13:36); For them is the glad tiding (of happiness and triumph) in the present, worldly life and in the Hereafter (10:64); God will give beauty and cheer to their faces and rejoicing in their hearts (76:11), and They will return to their family in rejoicing (84:9). While those feeling a joy which does not arise from anything that has been Divinely approved are threatened with an evil end, the others are offered the pleasure of happiness and exhilaration.

According to the source of the rejoicing and the way in which it is felt, rejoicing can be dealt with in three categories:

The first type of rejoicing is that which is embedded in spiritual pleasure. Such rejoicing is a Divine screen against the fear of falling far from the Ultimate Truth, and of being defeated by the darkness of ignorance of Him, and of the worry of being exposed to loneliness.

The worry of the common believers about remaining distant from the lights of the Ultimate Truth and breaking away from Him shows itself along with the fear of being unable to surmount the difficulties that surround access to Paradise, and the fear of becoming entangled in the bodily appetites that lead to Hell. The fear that the distinguished ones among believers feel about being exposed to loneliness is accompanied by the fear that one may feel no desire for the good, Divinely approved things, and no aversion to sins or immoral behavior. As for those foremost in nearness to God, they fear and worry that their feelings about separation and isolation are accompanied by a hesitation or slowness in choosing between remaining in this world and going to the Hereafter. All of these things cause everybody grief and anxiety to varying degrees. The rejoicing that appears on the horizon of the heart when its arguments have gained precedence becomes a means of exhilaration against this grief.

Whether it is caused by a lack of knowledge of God or is the basis of wrong behavior and rebellion, ignorance causes grief and anxiety to the spirit. To prevent this, the absolute Friend removes the darkness of heresy, misguidance, and denial that sometimes infiltrates into the spirit, with the breezes of rejoicing which He causes to blow in the breasts and illuminate the hearts of His friends with His own Light, making them sources of light as indicated in the Verse of Light (24:35). We can interpret this as the Almighty’s bringing forth those whom He loves into light from the darkness, reviving their hearts with the light of His Knowledge, and making them candidates for eternity. The light-diffusing Divine declarations in the Qur’an point to certain dimensions of this Divine favor. For example: (2:257) God is the Guardian of those who believe, bringing them out from the darkness (of unbelief, heresy, and misguidance) into the light (of belief, islam, and perfect goodness); and (6:122) Is, then, he who was dead (in spirit), and We raised him to life, and set for him a light by which he moves among people without any deviation—is he like the one who is lost in depths of darkness, out of which he cannot get out?

When the spirit falls far off from the pure spiritual realm, which is the true source of the Divine gifts that flow into it, it becomes wretched, feels lonely and isolated, and is dragged towards other paths with different expectations and feels discontent. Yet, as declared in the verse (13:28), Know well that in the remembrance and mention of God do hearts find rest and contentment, a heart which is fed on remembrance and the mention of God can overcome all adversities with the pleasure it has in the rejoicing that God has caused to arise in it.

The second type of rejoicing is that which comes from witnessing God in everything with all His Names and Attributes. Seekers who progress from knowledge to knowledge of God wholly submit their bodily life and free will to the Divine Will by virtue of their obedience, devotion and spiritual connection to God, and their relation with Him from the bottom of their hearts. They rise to a new life by the Lord’s Will; the result of this is that rejoicing appears and the spiritual dimension of their spiritual existence that looks to the other world gains predominance. Even though they fulfil what they should do to obtain a result, their belief in, submission to and reliance on God are a much more powerful resource in their decisions and actions, and they feel events with their peculiarities at wavelengths that belong to the realms beyond. This may be viewed as self-annihilation in God. The author of al-Minhaj (al-Jaza’ri) pictures the deep rejoicing that arises from this state as follows:

A state which proceeds from knowledge of the Unseen;
It is not possible to perceive that knowledge except through pleasure.
Always make efforts so that you can be freed from your own self,
(For acquiring this knowledge is only possible
by becoming free from one’s own self.)
It is incumbent on you to acquire it, if you can pay its price.
Knowledge of the outer dimension of existence
is mixed with clay and muddy water,
while knowledge of its inner dimension (nourished with Divine gifts)
guides the soul and heart.
(Spiritual) knowledge is a hidden treasure which comes to you,
in proportion to how much you can be freed from your own self.

The rejoicing that arises from acceptance by the heavenly realm, which is the third type of rejoicing, removes the feeling of loneliness and isolation from every part of the spirit. It prompts travelers to the Ultimate Truth to witness the Divine Being in His signs and causes them to overflow with the hope of knocking on the door opening to His vision, with their spirit being drown in the joys that pertain to the other world.

At this level of rejoicing, the heart, the spirit, and the other faculties, all turn to the One Who eternally speaks, with a most sincere desire and—as indicated in the saying, If He did not want to give, He would not have given the desire to ask—they are honored with acceptance by the One Who answers and bestows freely.

Seekers who rise to this level are enraptured with the streams of rejoicing in their spirits and begin to feel the breezes of His intimacy blowing from the Realm of the Holy Presence (al-Hadirat al-Quds). They feel as if they were at the threshold of the pure Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Mercy and the Realm of the Transcendental Manifestation of Divine Attributes and Names (alam al-jabarut and malakut), and overflow with a deepest desire and excitement to knock on the door that opens to His vision. It is as if they have been turned into pure spirits, becoming quite intoxicated with what they see and hear beyond all concepts of modality, and smiling at all those favors by the Grace of God.

O God! Include us among those whose faces are bright (with the vision of You), and who are looking toward Your Holy Face. And bestow blessings and peace on Muhammad, on him be the most perfect of blessings and salutations, and on his brothers among the Prophets and Messengers, and on all the members of his Family.

My favorite number is 7. It’s a beautiful number and, most importantly, it is a prime number. I emphasize it being prime because I am fascinated by prime numbers. A prime number is a positive number that is only divisible by 1 and itself. Math teachers emphasize teaching prime numbers because prime numbers lie at the very heart of mathematics. But prime numbers are actually not only of purely mathematical interest. When you answer your phone, you are using prime numbers. When you buy something on Amazon, prime numbers are protecting you from thieves. Some animals and fruits love prime numbers also. If you keep reading, you will see that a lot of algorithms develop from number theory, using it for communication security and for the transmission and compression of information.

Prime numbers cannot be evenly divided into smaller integers. Hmmm, so we can take half of all possible numbers off the table right away. Yes, we can! Even numbers, except for 2, cannot be prime. All multiples of three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and so on can also not be prime. At this point you might think, “Hey, there are no prime numbers then.” However, this is not true. There are an infinite number of primes. Euclid proved the theorem many years ago.

Theorem: There are infinitely many primes.

Proof: Suppose that p1=2 < p2 = 3 < … < pr are all of the primes.

Let P = p1 x p2 x … x pr+1 and let p be a prime dividing P; then p cannot be any of p1, p2, …, pr, otherwise p would divide the difference P – p1 x p2 …pr=1, which is impossible. So, this prime p is still another prime, and p1, p2, …, pr would not be all of the primes.

I know the theorem seems complicated. But the basic idea of the proof is that, if there were only finitely many primes, we could have a list of all of those prime numbers. For example, let’s say we only know 2, 3, 5, and 7 as prime. Now if you multiply them all together and add 1, you will get a new number, 211, that isn’t divisible by any of the numbers except for 1 and itself. So, we get a new prime number for our list. You can do this operation infinitely and every time you will get a new prime. So, if somebody asks you what is the largest prime, you know the answer. “I don’t know! They are infinite.”

Assumption: There is no real formula which can be used to find all the prime numbers.

When you start writing the prime numbers in order, at the beginning you will see that there are some pairs of prime numbers that have just one number between them. We call them “Twin Primes.” For example: 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 11 and 13, 17 and 19, 29 and 31.

But you will realize that they are less frequent as you go on. There is a conjecture about this.

The twin primes conjecture: There are infinitely many pairs of twin primes among the infinitely many prime numbers.

Furthermore, having no divisor is not the only thing that makes prime numbers so unique and cool. For instance, a whole number line can be produced using nothing but primes. In other words, every other number can be found by multiplying primes together. Thus, we can easily say that primes are the atoms of the number sequence and all other numbers are built from primes. And then from numbers you get mathematics and from mathematics you get the whole of science. Great mathematicians have shown that:

absolutely any whole number can be expressed as a product of primes, only primes, and nothing else.

Mathematicians call this the unique prime factorization theorem. This theory is coming from number theory, the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. And understanding the fundamentals of arithmetic is the first key to unraveling the mysteries of the primes.

Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic: Every integer greater than 1 either is a prime number itself or can be represented as the product of prime numbers and that, moreover, this representation is unique, up to (except for) the order of the factors.

For example:

To get 666, try this one: 2 x 3 x 3 x 37

What about 1,234,567,890? It is not that hard. 

2 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 3607 x 3803

Interesting fact: There are people who are really good at calculating in their heads. Don’t worry if you cannot, for a lot of mathematicians cannot calculate at all. They just use their fingers or do things on paper.

Basically, we are pulling apart any number into two numbers, then pulling those apart into two numbers if possible, and so on… When no further factoring can be done, all numbers left over are primes. We will eventually be left only with primes. The terms in the product are called prime factors. And do not forget that the same prime factor may occur more than once; the example above and below has two copies of the prime factor of 2:

1,234,567,890= 2 x 3 x 5 x 3607 x 3803

Note: When a prime occurs multiple times, exponentiation can be used to group together multiple copies of the same prime number.

A particularly beautiful prime number is Belphegor’s Prime, 1000000000000066600000000000001.

That’s a 1, followed by 13 zeros, followed by a 666, followed by 13 more zeros, followed by a closing 1. Can such beauty really be a coincidence?

What about the largest prime number? I found that as of January 2018, the largest known prime number is 2^77,232,917 − 1, a number with 23,249,425 digits. It was found by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

When I first checked the biggest prime number, I noticed that finding them is unpredictable. And being unpredictable makes prime numbers mysterious. Normally, special numbers should not occur randomly. All the mathematicians that I know have always believed that. And luckily, researchers from Stanford checked the first 100 million primes, searching for a pattern. And they found one.

Here is a great piece of information: Prime numbers have a peculiar dislike for other would-be primes that end in the same digit.

I wondered: Why do some smart people spend their lives trying to find numbers which are not going to be divisible by any other number? Why?

The reason was simple: To save our lives.

It is all about “encryption.” Prime numbers mean encryption. This makes primes vitally important to communications. Most modern computer cryptography works by using the prime factors of large numbers. Prime numbers also played an important part in the secret spy codes during World War II.

Encryption means that communication is scrambled in some way. It is based on the science of cryptography, which has been used as long as humans have wanted to keep information secret. If you watch the movie, “The Imitation Game,” you know that, during World War II the biggest users of cryptography were governments, particularly for military purposes. And during the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia both tried to keep the other from learning defense secrets about missile and rocket developments and other military secrets.

Now we live in the digital age, and we put more information online, like keeping our photos or messages on iCloud or putting credit card information on Amazon; like logging into our bank account or sending a very important email to our professor or having a private conversation with our best friends on the phone. All these financial transactions and other sensitive details are not just important to us, but also to thieves. We have to stop people stealing our info. And that means we have to respect prime numbers and constantly try to find new prime numbers.

How has the mathematical logic behind them resulted in vital applications in the modern world? The reason is simple. You could do a prime factoring for a 4-digit number during a test, but what if somebody gives you a 600-digit number or 1000-digit number? Your algorithm definitely will not work. Because even the most powerful and advanced ultra-super computers cannot do prime factorization for a long time. Not seeing your family for a week could be a long time, but here I am trying to say that “long time” is equal to the age of the universe. It may sound absurd, but it is reality.

For example, no one has been able to find the two primes which divide the following 617-digit number:

25,195,908,475,657,893,494,027,183,240,048,398,571,429,282,126,204,032,027,777,137,836,043,662,020,707,595,556,264,018,525,880,784,406,918,290,641,249,515,082,189,298,559,149,176,184,502,808,489,120,072,844,992,687,392,807,287,776,735,971,418,347,270,261,896,375,014,971,824,691,165,077,613,379,859,095,700,097,330,459,748,808,428,401,797,429,100,642,458,691,817,195,118,746,121,515,172,654,632,282,216,869,987,549,182,422,433,637,259,085,141,865,462,043,576,798,423,387,184,774,447,920,739,934,236,584,823,824,281,198,163,815,010,674,810,451,660,377,306,056,201,619,676,256,133,844,143,603,833,904,414,952,634,432,190,114,657,544,454,178,424,020,924,616,515,723,350,778,707,749,817,125,772,467,962,926,386,356,373,289,912,154,831,438,167,899,885,040,445,364,023,527,381,951,378,636,564,391,212,010,397,122,822,120,720,357

Let me give you another example. Every time you send your credit card number to Amazon, you are depending on primes to keep your details secret. To encode your credit card number, your computer receives a public number like X from the website, which it uses to perform a calculation with your credit card number. This scrambles your details so that the encoded message can be sent across the internet. But to decode the message the website uses the primes which divide X to undo the calculation. Although X is public, the primes which divide X are the secret keys which unlock the secret.

To put it briefly, prime numbers protect your money and privacy from being stolen. A prime number is absolutely essential to modern computer security.

One of the amazing things about prime numbers is how their presence can be felt in nature.

I am sure that you like the sound of cicadas during the summer. However, people in Nashville do not have a chance to listen to the harmony of the cicadas every year. The last time they had a chance to listen to the cicadas was 2011. Nashville’s forests will be quiet for 13 or 17 years. 13 or 17? But they are not divisible by any number except for 1 and itself. Yes, they are prime numbers.

According to scientific research, the cicadas are mathematical bugs. They appear periodically but only emerge after a prime number of years. They use prime numbers to come out of their burrows and lay eggs. Cicadas only leave their burrows in intervals of 7, 13, or 17 years. You may think that the cicadas choose these numbers randomly. You would be wrong. There are no cicadas with 8, 10, 12, 15, or 20-year life cycles. If you start looking at these cicadas through the mathematician’s eyes, you will see that the pattern begins to emerge. It is also a beautiful chance to understand how perfectly created is nature.

13 and 17 are both indivisible, and this gives the cicadas an advantage, as primes are helpful in avoiding other animals with periodic behavior. But, how? Suppose that a predator appears every four years in the forest. Then a cicada with a six-year life cycle will coincide with the predator every 12 years. Yes, because the least common multiple of 4 and 6 is 12. But if a cicada emerges every thirteen years, it will only face a peak predator population once every fifty-two years. (4 x 13). And that gives it an enormous advantage.

In other words, these insects use prime numbers to ensure their survival. The cryptography that keeps our lives secure when we are online uses the same numbers that protect the cicadas.

Mathematics is a world of mystery. And at the core of it lie the prime numbers.

In Arabic, dua literally means to call out for help. In Islam, it refers to the personal calling of the believer to his Lord.[1] This is to be distinguished from the formal prayers (salah) that are prescribed for Muslims five times a day. Unlike salah, dua is not compulsory in Islam, in the legal sense, and is therefore more personal and intimate.[2] It is to be noted that Islamic scholars have translated dua in various ways, yet all of them evoke the meaning of a heartfelt cry of the believer to the Almighty. The purpose of this essay is not to go through every aspect of dua, but to more precisely dig into its particular role in the purification of the qalb, the heart, and aql, the intellect.

Qalb in Arabic is literally translated as heart. However, qalb in Islam is vaster and most often refers to one’s spiritual heart, the spiritual center of the body.[3] The qalb is considered to be the root of one’s emotions and spiritual connection to God. A verse in the Qur’an equates salvation in the Hereafter to only the believer “who will come to God with a pure heart (qalb-un-saleem) (26:89).” The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, “There lies within the body a piece of flesh. If it is sound, the whole body is sound; and if it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted. Verily this piece is the heart (qalb).”[4] Many other verses and ahadith (sayings of the Prophet) suggest that Islam equates the very purpose of human existence, for the believer, as endeavoring towards purification of the heart.

Similarly, a believer is advised to develop their aql (intellect). Aql literally means perception. Aql helps people to intellectually engage with and contemplate the signs of God and accept belief in Him.

This understanding does not indicate understanding His essence (dhaat), but rather that aql paves the way to understanding spiritual realities and thus brings a person closer to God.[5] In one’s default state, the aql functions to remove the veils between a person and God[6]. It can serve as a ladder to spiritual development. But like the qalb, if it is corrupted by sins and passions, then it will lead a person away from God.[7] It is thus of utmost necessity for the traveler on the spiritual path to develop his aql which will then serve as a bridge towards God.

Having established the importance of the purification of the qalb and the development of the aql, it’s also necessary to mention that there are various tools in Islam given to achieve these two major aims. For the purpose of this essay, we will focus on one such tool, the dua. And more particularly, this essay will explore how dua actually achieve these aims.

Firstly, dua is an affirmation of tawheed, through which one purifies their qalb from all other than Him (shirk e khaffi) and also leads to developing the aql. When a believer turns to God in dua, he or she is putting his trust in Him. The believer is realizing that only God can help him or her attain whatever they seek. It is an acknowledgement that no one besides Him has any power, not even one’s own self.  The development of the aql is thus done through pondering and realizing (tafakkur) that all power rests with Him alone and not with causes.

One example out of many is seen in the dua of Prophet Jacob (Yaqub) (peace be upon him) mentioned in the Qur’an. When two of his beloved sons were missing and not only did he not know their fate, but all odds of finding them were against him, he turned to God and pleaded in one of the most perfect manifestations of tawheed: “Verily, I only complain of my grief and sorrow to Allah” (12:86). This is encapsulated by Qadhi: “Part of the completeness of a person’s tawheed is that he does not complain to anyone else, in order to gain their sympathy and pity. Rather, the true Muslim submits all his affairs to Allah…”[8] It is important to note that this does not indicate that means are to be left. The means are being used, but the believer’s main hopes are in his duas to the One who owns and controls all the means (Musabab-ul-asbab). This necessitates intellectual understanding and heartfelt submission. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that dua is the “weapon of the believer.”[9]

Another major way to develop the aql comes from witnessing the cause and effect of dua. When a believer turns to God when all means have failed and places their hopes in Him, their conviction in God as the Real Doer (Fa’ail-e-Haqeeqi) and that He alone is worthy of being worshipped. He relies on God in absolute terms, an indication that the aql has developed to a higher level.

It is through the inculcation of tawheed, God’s being one and unique, in the heart of the believer due to supplication (dua) that the heart is also purified. Islamic scholars, such as Imam Ghazzali, have written much on the different diseases of the heart that the believer must try to cure.[10] As tawheed becomes more firm in the heart of the believer, he or she realizes that truly there is no-one other than Him that can help him in time of need. The result is the curing of various diseases, including relying on causes other than God as if they have real power, seeking reputation, ostentation, vanity, false hopes, and love of the world.[11] Thus, dua leads to the true tawheed in the heart of the believer and results in the purification of their heart.

Furthermore, supplication is the means through which the believer attains the closeness of God and His love (ishq-e-Illahi), which is essential for the purification of the heart and the development of the intellect. A verse in the Qur’an reads, “And those who believe have intense love for God.”[12] Professor Kamaluddin Ahmed, commenting on this verse, states that, “with the construct “those who believe,” God challenges the believers by describing a characteristic of true belief. It is as if His verse calls out, ‘O ye who claim to believe, who profess that the light [nūr] of faith is in your hearts, know that the true believers are intense in their love for Allah.’”[13] And thus, it is from such verses and hadith that scholars say with true love for God believers can attain the true salvation in the Hereafter.[14]

Much has been written about how to achieve the true love for God. Scholars have written that yearning for God, decreasing one’s dependence on the world, and reflection on the worldly and spiritual blessings bestowed by God, are all factors that increase a believer’s love.[15] All of these attributes are inculcated through dua. As the believer calls on their Lord and becomes dependent on Him for their every need, their yearning for Him increases, their dependence on the world decreases, and they realize the divine blessings. It is human nature to fall in love with the one who helps you, which in spiritual terminology is often referred to as ashiq-e-ihsani. When a believer falls extremely in love with God, then naturally all the attributes that a true believer needs start pouring over them. They fix their compulsory acts and work to make them better in order to please their Beloved. They work to remove all negative attributes that are disliked by their Beloved, such as anger and hate. As this is done, the believer begins to slowly purify their heart from all other than Him, until nothing remains except love for Him and love for His Sake.

And as a believer falls more in love with God, they start seeing His attributes manifested all around Him and his knowledge of the divine increases (maarifatUllah). The intellect thus views the world through the lens of which God wishes. He  or she becomes the living example of the hadith qudsi[16]:“I am his hearing with which he hears, his sight with which he sees, his hand with which he seizes, and his foot with which he walks. If he asks me, I will surely give to him, and if he seeks refuge in Me, I will surely protect him.”[17] The intellect is thus developed to its default state of purity and soundness; i.e. aql-e-saleem.

Furthermore, supplication makes a believer realize their true purpose in life: servanthood (uboodiyah) of God. A verse in the Qur’an states that, “I did not create the jinns and the human beings except for the purpose that they should worship Me” (51:56). In another place, the Qur’an says, “O mankind, you are fuqara (extremely needy) of God…” (35:15). These verses have a vital connection. As a believer realizes his or her true need (faqr) of God, only then will he or she truly be ready to fully submit to His commands and make their uboodiyah the purpose of their life. Supplication is the tool which can serve as that perfect bridge between the two states – of leading to a believer’s realization of their faqr and to the perfection of their uboodiyah.

As discussed earlier, when a believer turns to their Lord, they do so realizing that the power to help rests only with God. The believer realizes that he or she is not independent, but rather in deep poverty and needs God for their every need. This gets rid of any self-delusion or arrogance that may creep upon a person: “And your Lord has said ‘Make dua to Me, and I will respond to you” (40:60). As a person turns more frequently to God, the realization of their dependence does not allow any pride to develop. And as the believer internalizes further their uboodiyah, and the diseases of the heart such as vanity, false hopes, boasting and arrogance, love of the world, and relying on other than God, are cured.[18] The way he or thinks about every action begins to reform in accordance with what leads to the pleasure (radhaa) of God.

Supplication is thus potent in making a believer understand his or her need for God, which makes them internalize their servanthood, which then leads directly and indirectly to the purification of the heart, and reforming their intellect in accordance with the pleasure of God. It can thus be concluded that supplication plays an extremely important role in the purification of the heart and the development of the intellect.

Bibliography

Ahmed, Zulfiqar. Love for Allah. Translated by Kamaluddin Ahmed. Chicago: Faqir Publications, 2001.

Ghazali. Marvels of the Heart. Translated by Walter James Skellie. Fons Vitae, 2010.

Murata, S., & Chittick, W. C. The Vision of Islam. New York: Paragon House, 1994.

Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. Sufi Essays. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972.

Qadhi, A. A. Y. Dua: The Weapon of the Believer: A Treatise on the Status and Etiquette of Duʻa in Islam. Birmingham, England: Al-Hidaayah, 2001.

Usmani, Taqi. The Meanings of the Noble Quran. Karachi: Maktaba Maariful Quran.

Yucel, S. Prayer and Healing in Islam. New Jersey: Tughra Books, 2010.

Yusuf, Hamza. Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms, and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart. Bridgeview: Starlatch, 2011.

Zafar, Uthmani. Sufism & Good Character. Translated by Faraz Rabbani. London: White Thread Press, 2012.

Zuleyha Keskin. “Attaining Inner Peace According to the Risale-i Nur”. (PhDdiss., Australian Catholic University, 2016): 132.

[1] Murata, S. & Chittick, W. C, The Vision of Islam, (New York: Paragon House, 1994), 295

[2] Salih Yucel, Prayer and Healing in Islam, (New Jersey: Tughra Books, 2010), 8.

[3] Zuleyha Keskin. “Attaining Inner Peace According to the Risale-i Nur”. (PhDdiss., Australian Catholic University, 2016): 132.

[4] Nawawi, A. Z. “Hadith Nawawi.”: 6.

[5] Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi essays (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1972), 55.

[6] Zuleyha Keskin. “Attaining Inner Peace According to the Risale-i Nur”. (PhDdiss., Australian Catholic University, 2016): 135.

[7] Nasr, 1972, 55.

[8] Qadhi, A. A. Y, Dua: The Weapon of the Believer: A Treatise on the Status and Etiquette of Duʻa in Islam, (Birmingham, England: Al-Hidaayah, 2001), 83.

[9] Al-Mustadrak‘ala as-Saheehain1855

[10] Ghazali, Marvels of the Heart, trans. Walter James Skellie, (Fons Vitae, 2010).

[11] Hamza Yusuf, Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms, and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart, (Bridgeview: Starlatch, 2011).

[12] Qur’an, 2:165.

[13] Zulfiqar Ahmed, Love for Allah, trans. Kamaluddin Ahmed (Chicago: Faqir Publications, 2001), Translator’s Foreword.

[14] Uthmani Zafar, Sufism & Good Character, trans. Faraz Rabbani. (London: White Thread Press, 2012).

[15] Zulfiqar Ahmed, Love for Allah, trans. Kamaluddin Ahmed (Chicago: Faqir Publications, 2001), 101-111.

[16] Hadith qudsi refer to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in which he says that “Allah SWT says…”

[17] Fath al-Bari, 11.34041, hadith 6502.

[18] Hamza Yusuf, Purification of the Heart: Signs, Symptoms, and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart, (Bridgeview: Starlatch, 2011).

We classify each living thing by the different and similar features they possess. Through such classifications, we understand that all things are created for a purpose. They help us to read the book of nature laid before us.

Many species of animals belonging to groups such as one-celled organisms, fish, invertebrates inhabiting the seas, and worms in the earth, are still waiting to be discovered. No one can know for sure what the total number of animal species will be. Time will show whether it will be two million, or three, or even five. The number of animal species identified and named to date is about 1,400,000.

Of these, insects number nearly one million species. The group called Coleoptera, or beetles, have the most species, with about 350,000. The next largest groups are Lepidoptera, or moths and butterflies (about 120,000); Diptera, or flies (120,000); and Hymenoptera, or ants and bees without 110,000 species.

Incredible numbers from the insect world

Many insects serve a vital role for humans. Bees, of course, are a great gift to humanity. They do not only serve us honey, but also have a duty to pollinate flowers, fruits, and vegetables. If it were not for the bee, we would not have many types of fruit we enjoy today, or we would find them with difficulty and at exorbitant prices because they would have to be pollinated artificially. To be able to produce honey as small as one gram, a bee, which covers an approximate distance of 800 km in its lifetime, has to collect nectar from as many as 125,000 flowers. Put differently, in order to make one kilogram of honey, 40,000 bees have to visit 6 million flowers.

The animal with the longest jump

If we asked which could jump longer, a kangaroo or a flea, many would underestimate the flea. Striking findings emerge when we compare distances with body size. While a man can leap a distance of five times his height, the red kangaroo can jump 13.5 meters, which translates as nine times its height. The springbok, a medium-sized antelope living in Africa, can jump 10 times its height, a grasshopper 20 times, a kangaroo mouse 45 times, the northern cricket frog (Acris crepitans) 36 times, and a cat flea (Ctenocephalides felis) 200 times. It is a very special protein called resilin, placed in the muscle fibers in the hind legs, with which the cat flea is enabled to jump such incredible distances.

The animal with the fastest wing beat

Despite their tiny sizes, insects are equipped with most mind-boggling craftsmanship. They have keen senses as well as membrane-like wings that can beat shockingly fast. The common fly beats its wings 180-330 times per second, the worker bee 240-250 times, and the mosquito 278-307 times. Meanwhile, the tiny midge called Forcipomyia beats its wings 1,046 times a second, as calculated in 1953 by Sotavalta, a Polish researcher who used an oscillator for the task. Researchers were startled by how electrical and chemical processes could generate the speed required by contraction and relaxation of muscle fibers.

The eye that can perceive the most subsequent movements

For the perception of movement, the eyes need to record slices of movements, one after another, and send them to the brain. The more the number of movements sent in a second, the faster the perception of the movement. While the brains of some animals can handle a few images at a time, others can process a torrent of them. The fire salamander can perceive and process 5 images a second, a human being and a gecko 20, the black beetle 20-30, the cat 27, the frog 48, the bee 55, the rock pigeon 148, and the dragonfly (Libellula sp.) 300.

The animal with the shortest lifespan

Mayflies (Ephemeroptera) are best known for the fact that they spend 99% of their lives as larvae. They spend this period of youth in water, and then they emerge as adults. The length of their adulthood is normally one day. Some may live 3-4 days, and others die in a few minutes. Adult mayflies cannot nourish or feed because parts of their mouths and digestive system atrophy. They start to fly as soon as they are of age so that they can mate. The males die immediately after fertilization and are followed by females (after they lay eggs). Some can produce one generation, some two, and others many. They store all the air they breathe in a day in their intestine and swell their body, and they use the energy necessary for flying from previous reserves.

The animal colony with the largest population

The nests of social insects such as bees, ants, and termites are like plants that operate in the most incredible order. The perfectly designed division of labor includes such groups as drones, queens, workers, cleaners, babysitters, soldiers, guards, etc. The Bellicositermes have the highest population with three million members. A red wood ant (Formica rufa) nest has 500,000–800,000 members, a leaf-cutter ant (Atta) nest 600,000, a termite nest (Reticulitermes) 100,000, a honey bee hive 40,000–80,000, and a wasp nest (Vespa) 700–1,500.

The biggest insect

Because breathing is carried out by the trachea system in insects, it becomes difficult for oxygen to reach the tips of tubes past a certain distance. That is why insects cannot grow very large. The biggest insect in the world is Phobaeticus chani, a species of stick insect, with its abdomen reaching a size of 35.7 cm (~14 in). Measured from the tips of its legs, it has a length of 56.6 cm (~22 in). The insect with the largest wingspan is the Thysania Agrippina, a butterfly species with a relatively smaller abdomen. The butterfly species with the largest wing surface is Coscinosera hercules with a smaller wingspan (28 cm or 11 in) but a wide surface area of 300 cm².

The keenest sense of smell

Sense of smell plays an important role in many types of behavior such as finding prey, recognizing young, and marking the nest. Smell is perceived when chemical molecules dissolved in the air pass through the nose, which varies according to the species of animal. The more the molecules in the air and the closer the distance, the easier is for the scent to be detected. The most skillful creature in this area is Saturnia pavonia, or the small emperor moth. German researchers proved in an experiment they conducted in 1961 that the male moth could detect a single molecule of a chemical secreted by the female into the air with the help of the chemical receivers placed in its fan-like antenna.

The deadliest animal

Animal documentaries mostly highlight the number of casualties caused by such animals as sharks and the venomous box jellyfish at sea, crocodiles and hippopotamuses in fresh water habitats, lions and elephants in savannahs, bears in forests, and scorpions in deserts. These animals are known to be dangerous because they are easy to see with the naked eye and some can be violent. Yet, the total number of casualties by all these animals combined, we can have a better understanding of the overemphasis. These numbers are especially dwarfed by the death toll (around 2.5 million) caused by the much smaller mosquito (Anopheles sp), which holds the title for the deadliest animal. Malaria, yellow fever, West Nile virus, lymphatic filariasis, and dengue fever, all of which are transmitted by this species of mosquito, pose the most serious health threat in many countries of the world.

The animal with the hugest appetite

The intake of an animal depends on its basal metabolic rate, body temperature (warm-blooded or cold-blooded), and the surface area of its body. The food intake of the anaconda snake amounts to 0.13% of its body weight. It is 1% for the Asian elephant, 2.9% for the lion, 3.5% for the chicken, 3.5% for the little owl, 18% for the goldcrest, 30% for the Eurasian blue tit, and 40% for the rat.  The lesser mole eats as much as its bodyweight (100%), while the hummingbird and pygmy shrew consume twice as much. Much smaller than these animals, mosquitoes suck blood four times their bodyweight. The record, though, is owned by a caterpillar called Anthereaea Polyphemus, which eats plants 86,500 times its bodyweight in 56 days and 1500 times in a single day. If a human baby of 3.5 kilos ate proportionally, it would mean 301 tons of food.

The greatest endurance against G-forces

In an experiment, the click beetle (Elateridae) jumped to a height of 29.8 cm (11.7 in). It was found that it its brain endured a deceleration of 2300g by the time it reached its peak. Even jet pilots can only endure a force of 9-10g, meaning their bodyweight is multiplied by 9 or 10. When the racing driver David Purley crashed into an obstacle at a speed of 174 km, he was subjected to 180 g produced by the deceleration. He survived but and sustained dozens of fractures, a few dislocations, and several obstructions in the heart.

The smallest insect

It was first discovered in Nicaragua in 1999, but because there were not enough samples it was not introduced to the world of science until 2015 when Russian researchers demonstrated 85 samples found in a national park in Columbia. Named featherwing (Scydosella musawasensis), the beetle species won the title of the tiniest animal. The smallest of the samples collected was 0.325 mm; the biggest was 0.352 mm. Having an elongated, oval, yellowish-brown body, the beetle has antennas split into 10 parts. It is incredible that this beetle has a heart, a brain and a stomach despite its size of one third of a millimeter.