How much sleep is good for health?

Sabie S et al. Association of sleep duration at age 50, 60, and 70 years with risk of multimorbidity in the UK: 25-year follow-up of the Whitehall II cohort study. PLOS Medicine, October 2022.

Sleep is an essential function to help restore, rest and rejuvenate the body and mind. Yet, many people neglect a good night’s sleep. A recent study followed up 8000 people at the ages of 50, 60 and 70 over a 25-year period and found that short sleep duration is associated with a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with multiple chronic diseases, also called multimorbidity. Scientists examined the relationship between how long each participant slept daily, mortality, and whether they had been diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, arthritis, dementia or diabetes. Participants who have five hours of sleep or less at age 50 were 20% more likely to have been diagnosed with a chronic disease and 40% more likely to be diagnosed with two or more chronic diseases compared to others who slept for up to seven hours. Moreover, sleeping for five hours or less at the age of 50, 60, and 70 was linked to a 30% to 40% increased risk of multimorbidity again when compared with those who slept for up to seven hours. Finally, sleeping for five hours or less at age 50 was associated with 25% increased risk of mortality suggesting that short sleep duration increases the risk of chronic diseases that can eventually lead to death. While sleep habits and structure change as people age, scientists recommend sleeping for 7 to 8 hours a night. Any sleep duration above or below these numbers have been associated with individual chronic diseases. This study adds to a growing body of research that highlights the importance of getting a good night’s sleep. In addition to how many hours you sleep, it is also important to make your room quiet and dark enough with a comfortable temperature. Keeping electronic devices away and avoiding heavy meals before you sleep also make a big difference for a healthy sleep.

Magnetic bacteria fight against cancer

Gwisai T et al. Magnetic torque–driven living microrobots for increased tumor infiltration. Science Robotics, October 2022.

One of the biggest challenges in the cancer therapeutics is to find efficient ways for anti-cancer drugs to reach the tumors they target. Researchers showed that they can now use bacteria to cross the blood vessel wall and infiltrate tumor tissue. In a recent study, researchers focused on the naturally magnetic bacteria Magnetospirillum, which can respond to magnetic fields and can be controlled by magnets. They first conjugated liposomes to the bacteria, tagged them with a fluorescent dye and demonstrated that the “cargo” was accumulated inside the cancerous tissue in cell culture. Then in animal models they showed that the magnetic bacteria were able to cross the vascular wall near the cancerous growth and migrate deep into the tumor’s interior when a rotating magnetic field applied at the tumor from outside the body. In principle, there are two major ways that bacteria can fight against cancer. First, they can carry anti-cancer drugs into the tumor. Second, they can damage and eliminate tumor cells in coordination with the immune system. It is now technically possible to modify bacteria using synthetic biology to optimize their therapeutic effect, reduce side effects and make them safer. This study opens up the possibility to use a magnetic field to control any clinically used therapeutic bacteria that have no natural magnetism as well. 

Secrets of Saturn’s rings

Wisdom J et al. Loss of a satellite could explain Saturn’s obliquity and young rings. Science, September 2022.

Scientists have long debated the origin and age of Saturn’s rings. Why are they much younger than the planet? Are they a permanent feature of Saturn? Or will they someday disappear? A new study provided fresh insights into the secrets of Saturn’s rings. The astronomers collected and analyzed data from 41 solar events, in which Saturn’s rings passed in front of the sun as seen from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. In combination with extensive computer simulations, they came up with the following model. Saturn, which currently has 83 moons, had at least one more moon, nicknamed in this study as Chrysalis. Chrysalis was tugging at the Saturn in a way that allowed it to have gravitational interaction with Neptune. About 160 million years ago, Chrysalis got too close to Saturn and created powerful tides that ripped the moon to shreds. Much of its debris fell into Saturn, and the rest spread out over the following hundred thousand years to form the iconic rings. Moreover, the loss of Chrysalis was enough to remove Saturn from Neptune’s gravitation and left it with its present-day unusually large 27 degree-tilt on its axis. The current model can explain several otherwise puzzling properties of Saturn at once and is consistent with the measured age and mass of the rings. It is noteworthy that these studies do not solely serve the purpose to feed into our curiosity about mysterious objects in space. Ring systems around giant planets provide invaluable test beds for investigating fundamental physical properties and processes in our solar system. Understanding the formation and evolution of ring systems could also help us to understand how planets, including Earth, form.

How can one keep their motivation and sincerity while doing good works and services—and keep it as fresh as at the beginning? What can be done to inspire new generations to devote their lives to lofty goals?

It is true that people usually start off with utmost sincerity and devotion in their acts of charity, expecting nothing but God’s good pleasure. At least, this was the case a few decades ago in our generation. People that gathered around a certain lofty cause used to have a very strong sense of solidarity and friendship with their colleagues on their shared journey. They used to read a lot and had intense discussions with a sense of curiosity and desire to learn more and explore the truths about human life. They would study different works and analyze them with a scholarly endeavor. I don’t remember ever departing a gathering in the past without reading a book and praying together. We would study a holy verse or a Prophetic saying and contemplate on the truths of faith. People were usually very enthusiastic to learn these truths—first for themselves, and secondly to teach others. Such a process of learning and teaching kept people well-nourished and fresh. Of course, the results out of this nourishment and freshness were abundant and satisfactory.

Sadly, we have lost that desire to read and learn, and this has caused the gap between us and our sources of knowledge to grow wide. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to keep one’s motivation for charitable work as high as it used to be. Some continue to have that desire, but the number of such people has not increased, at least not proportionally to the growth of their community. One reason for this has to do with the fact that in the past, people used to take a deep sense of pleasure from what they were reading; today, the same text does not sound as novel as it did before. There is a need to introduce a new style of reading, but those who are in a position to teach knowledge to others have not transformed their content to be more appealing.

What is more, as individuals have started to assume higher positions and status, their charitable work has become somewhat routine. They might have been deceived by people’s attention on what they had to say. They mistook this attention as if there was no need to change anything in the content they offered, so they went on repeating the same things over and over, which in time resulted in even the best truths seeming stale.

It is very important to find new methods and formats to rekindle the enthusiasm to read, explore, and do research. A mobilization is needed for this; otherwise, our spiritual motivation will not survive.

The firsts

The first followers of God’s messengers and those that came after them had unique qualities. They studied in the circle of such giants and witnessed their qualities firsthand; and this enabled them to reach distant horizons. Take students of Bediuzzaman: not only did they read his works very carefully, but they also asked questions to benefit from him even more. Perhaps, the fact that his students turned to him with full attention and concentrated their efforts in his works might have inspired him to say new things.

This level of excellence cannot be expected from everybody. It really requires an intellectual surgery, so to speak. How to do that is another question, but the main objective should be to analyze the subject matter we are reading with all its nuances, metaphors, and implications as comprehensively as possible. An effort in this direction will reveal the fact that we actually do not know enough of what we thought we already knew. This may ignite a spark in our soul, spurring us to save ourselves from the suffocating atmosphere of familiarity.

Today, we are not reading as seriously as we should. As a result, many lack knowledge even about essential matters. Many do not have a sense of curiosity to learn. It is really surprising to see people who call themselves believers but do not wonder at all about the message God sent for them. It is disturbing when people flip carelessly through scholarly works which normally demand serious contemplative effort. We act like we understand when in fact we do not. Superficial knowledge, shallow convictions do not answer the needs of our time, nor do they convince others and appear appealing.

Stuck with formalities

Along with losing an enthusiasm to read, another problem is that we are taken aback by many formalities. In the past, nobody had any titles, statuses, or ranks. There were no administrative boards, no inspectors, no management roles. Everyone was considered to be in the same rank. Everyone respected and cared about one another. The main concern was always to educate ourselves so that we could convey our message across in the best way possible. All efforts were directed at cultivating the “perfect person” and teaching others about faith. Everything else was just secondary or unimportant.

However, in time, someone has become a representative of a certain organization; others took on the responsibility of a place; while others still became members of a board. Meetings followed meetings. Perhaps, these were unavoidable consequences of growth and institutionalization. Yet, the real problem was when people forgot that these were in fact secondary issues and they made them turn away from the main objective. They even wasted their time and the time of others by engaging themselves with an agenda that did not really matter. They deceived themselves by assuming that they were doing something important, for the sake of which they in fact gave up on reading and prayer.

Administrative positions are there to facilitate charitable work and services for faith. They should never be the ultimate goal or given precedence over more important work. Everybody, regardless of their status, should see themselves like a messenger who is expected to deliver a message, a letter, or a greeting to the addressee. His or her duty is to fulfill their role so the system can operate as efficiently as possible. For those who devote themselves to a lofty cause, no worldly status or position can be something to attach our hearts to. These positions are nothing more than mere tools to help us convey the Divine message to those needy souls.

If we take these positions as the main objective, then we mistake instruments as the target. If we turn them into opportunities for fame, then we abuse what has been entrusted to us. If we abuse these positions and statuses for personal benefit, this becomes treason. What is it worth to hold these positions compared to the lofty cause of seeking God’s good pleasure? What is it worth to be famous when we have obtained our true objective in life? Maybe it is even better to be unknown so we can be safe from weaknesses like ostentation and self-conceit.

Reasons for loss of navigation

One major factor that has distanced us from our sources of knowledge has been our engagement with diverse social affairs. Many projects, which we think are necessary, engulf us so deeply that we always speak about them; we are even occupied with them in our dreams. When we get together, we spend time on these projects assuming they are our good work, but we forget what we should in fact devote ourselves to. In time, we lose our enthusiasm to read and understand—even that we need them. “Why do I need to read them?” we start asking with a false sense of self-sufficiency. The outward form, shell, and formalities replace the essence and meaning. As people get further away from truths of faith, many problems and shortcomings ensue.

Many activities that serve as an expansion of good services turn out to produce some unfavorable consequences. Now busy with opening cultural centers, dialogue institutions, schools, being employed in these organizations as a manager or as a teacher, meeting with other community leaders or public officials, even coming together with representatives of other faith groups, we distance ourselves from our own world, from our sphere of thinking. Many of us are now going through such a volatility, a loss of navigation.

To conclude, in order to rekindle our sense of enthusiasm, it is important to open ourselves up to the love of knowledge, research, seeking truth, and reconnect with our sources, as “the firsts” did in the best fashion in their time. We need to develop new methods to attract people’s attention to our works, those sweet wellsprings of treasure. This is how a new generation who can devote their lives to lofty causes can be raised.

Of course, there will be organizations and programs we put together for our mission. But these are secondary matters. Our meetings, organizations, etc. should primarily be about reading and studying, learning, and teaching, improving ourselves and helping others improve, and offering our prayers together in order to seek God’s good pleasure and spread His word.

The liberating document of Vatican Council II, Nostra Aetate, stirred up an enormous interest in interfaith inquiry. One of the distinctive modern Catholic voices belongs to David Burrell (b. 1933), a philosophic theologian and Professor Emeritus at Moreau Seminary, Notre Dame, Indiana. His book, Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), seeks to contribute to the young and yet ever-growing field of comparative theology. Boldly attempting to compare such loaded theological terms as creation, freedom of will, and grace, as exposed by leading medieval and modern thinkers in each Abrahamic tradition, Burrell’s book exercises what he calls “creative hermeneutics”: he explores illuminative “similarities-in-differences” within conceptual patterns developed by each tradition (xxii). Indeed, for Burrell, Jews, Christians, and Muslims “all worship the same God” (xi), each tradition elaborating the features of the divine in a remarkable parallelism. Methodologically speaking, Burrell espouses the post liberal Lutheran theologian George Lindbeck’s emphasis on the primacy of the believers’ praxis over their doctrines, considering the latter as “precipitations” or “distillations” of the former (1). Burrell also recognizes that the “tone” for his project was set by the famous Catholic theologian Bernard Lonergan’s “sense for the intellectual developments latent in a revelational tradition” and his invitation to grasp theological questions that undergird any doctrinal answers (xiv).

In Chapter 1, “Free Creation as a Shared Task for Jews, Christians, Muslims,” Burrell shows how each tradition helped shape the overall context in which the doctrine of creation was elaborated (11). Each, for instance, shared the belief—as unimaginable it is—that “creation can only be creation if God can be without creating” (i.e., can exist without the world) (11, 13). Burrell also mentions Ghazali, Maimonides, and Aquinas as thinkers who resemble each other in envisaging revelation as a corrective to the once-popular Neo-Platonic idea that Creation “emanates” from God of its own accord. At one place, however, it seems that Burrell reads into Aquinas something that neither Aquinas himself nor such neo-Thomists as J. Maritan or B. Lonergan would accept: Aquinas, despite all his endorsement for the idea of existence as a divine “act” rather than “substance,” can hardly be seen “dismissive” of the idea that God is “perfect” (21).

The next chapter, “Relating Divine Freedom with Human Freedom,” shows how resourceful Islamic and Christian traditions can be when it comes to a “zero-sum” game between the freedom of humans and their autonomous volition vis-à-vis the omnipotence of the divine as signifying Creation’s total subordination. Ghazali, for instance, points out that the issue outstrips human conceptualizing altogether, emphasizing instead the importance of one’s spiritual state (as opposed to knowledge) as one’s habitual capacity to align one’s personal responses to various events with one’s realization of divine omnipresence and omnipotence (35-6). Burrell is also beholden to Aquinas’ account of the “free gift” of divine grace—the latter equips one’s will with an inbuilt orientation and an initial “specification” toward “comprehensive good” and yet never predetermines the outcome of our choices; humans are thought of as “free creators” of their actions only when they deny the gift (37, 40). Burrell speaks of the notion of “situated freedom”—admittedly rhetorical as it is—as a stance implicitly affirmed by mainstream Christian and Muslim theologians. According to it, even if countless moral, political, social, economic, and other compulsions (“pushes”) and attractions (“pulls”) constantly inform the warp and weft of one’s life, there is still a room for one’s personal discretion and preference (37, 45).

Chapter 3, “Human Initiative and Divine Grace,” demonstrates how each tradition conceives of the divine not as the “biggest thing around” (which would be tantamount to idolatry) but rather as a “non-duality” in which the effect (Creation) can subsist in a way that detracts nothing from the ontological primacy of the cause (God). Far from being a remote “deistic god,” this divine is both self-same with Creation (58-60) and “interpersonally” related with Creation, be this relation expressed through “grace” (Christians), “covenant” (Jews), or “proximity to God” (Muslims) (51-53). Burrell, however, does not show if, and how, this “non-duality” can be defended against the possible accusation of monism or pantheism.

Chapter 4, “Trust in Divine Providence,” further expands—admittedly, rather rhetorically than demonstratively—on the intractable issue of the freedom of humans vis-à-vis God’s omnipotence and generosity, this time comparing the following two “key works in Christianity and Islam”: the Jesuit priest and professor Jean-Pierre de Caussade’s The Sacrament of the Present Moment and Ghazali’s Faith in Divine Unity and Trust in Divine Providence. For Ghazali, one can understand divine unity not by way of “philosophical schemes” but through a “life of trust” (tawakkul in Arabic), wherein one’s rigorous practice of faith will lead one to the “only understanding possible here,” namely mystical insight or “unveiling” (kashf) (69). De Caussade’s discourse offers a “remarkable parallel” to Ghazali’s: faith, while outstripping conceptualization, is confirmed in an inexhaustible trust that divine action “operates in each moment and in all things” (76, 78). This unyielding trust hardly succumbs to quietist resignation: a skilled musician’s “long practice” and “perfect understanding of music,” allows him or her to make music “impromptus” no less impressively than in the conventional manner (78).           

Chapter 5, “The Point of It All: ‘Return,’ Judgment, and ‘Second Coming,’” deals with humanity returning, in response to the free gift of creation, to the One as a point of humanity’s finality or perfection. Such is Jesus’ “second coming” for Christians, “Messianic era” for Jews, and a “last judgment” for Muslims: these are all “journeys in hope,” ones that are informed by revelation and yet shored up by one’s mystical, “post-rational” realization of the divine “Sun” as reflected deep within one’s consciousness (88, 103). Burrell, however, recognizes that Judaism makes very few references to the hereafter and focuses instead on “individual legacy rooted in progeny and lasting good deeds” (93). He also shows an ingenious “similarity-in-difference” between Islam and Christianity in that Islam perceives the “word of God” to be “made book” (the Qur’an), whereas Christianity perceives it “made human,” i.e., Christ. He eloquently shows how such a creative approach can unravel seemingly irreconcilable difference between the two traditions (112, 176).                  

Chapter 6, “Realized Eschatology: Faith as a Mode of Knowing and Journeying,” further expands as to how each tradition limns the shape of its ultimate goal within the very ways (“pilgrimages,” spiritual and physical) it proposes for reaching it. Some adherents are even able to “exchange” these ways and become “border-crossers” (130). Burrell shares the detailed stories of such “crossers.” Ghandi’s principle of ahimsa (non-violence), for instance—Hindu as it is—was profoundly influenced by Tolstoy’s ideas (134). Louis Massignon, a French Islamicist, returned to his Catholicism after being deeply transformed by his study of Sufism (135). The Islamic scholar Jawdat Said is especially remarkable in his interpretation of the Qur’an as a book that imposes a position of non-violence that is not dissimilar from that of Tolstoy and Ghandi’s (145-153). Chapter 7, “Respectfully Negotiating Outstanding Neuralgic Issues: Contradictions and Conversions,” is unique with its emphasis on the differences rather than “larger common schemes”; still, it does so in a way that procures a surplus of clarity and fosters “mutual understanding” (166). Jewish tradition’s emphasis on the divine oneness as formulated in the shema (“hear O Israel, God our God is One”), for instance, helped early Christians to articulate their doctrine in a way that precluded Jesus’ idolization into a “being alongside God” (170, 186). Burrell sees Muslims’ unanimity upon the Qur’an being an inerrant “word of God” (and even as “God enbooked”) as prone to be misinterpreted by many contemporary Jews and Christians as “fundamentalism” (171). Moreover, Muslims conceive of God as speaking through the Qur’an as one recites it (172-3). Constructive analogies, however, might be seen with the way Christians believe Christ be “word of God” incarnate and receive the “body of the Lord” in communion, or with the notion lectio divina (the prayerful reading of the Bible) (173). Muslim theologians, however, can raise a quizzical brow at Burrell’s certainty that there is no way in which Muslims can see Muhammad as “mediator” between Muslims and God (174). Indeed, the very concept of “messenger” (rasul in Arabic) presupposes mediation: “And We have sent down unto you the Qur’an that you might explain clearly to men what is sent down to them” (Qur’an 16:44). Further, doctrines, for Burrell, play only rather grammatical, than theoretical, a role in our lives: they do not explain the real but rather provide the manner in which one’s response to the ultimate can avail one of the real as revealed by one’s personal transformation (158). In his view, it is the life and deeds of the notable figures of faith, therefore, that allow us to ground our “frame of reference” or “benchmarks” as to what a systematic doctrine can be when it is “embodied” in real life (158). Burrell then proceeds to contend that “neither adherents nor interlocutors are in a position to assess the truth of a revelatory tradition,” and that, as far as faith-claims go, “doubt remains endemic” (181). Burrell’s assertion that, for the sake of dialogic fruitfulness, all truth-questions be somehow “bracketed” (181), strikes as all too utilitarian—why would anyone, then, remain faithful, rather than doubtful, toward one’s own tradition in the long run, and how would a dialogue between distinctive traditions be possible at all?

All in all, Burrell books is impressive with the range of convoluted philosophical and theological issues it attempts to cover as well as its overall attempt to constructively engage “similarities-in-differences.” Every chapter demonstrates Burrell’s undeniably profound knowledge of each tradition and procures a wealth of practical dialogic insights. However, the book hardly apprises its readers of any “common theology” that might potentially underlie all three traditions—something that the book’s self-confessed Lonerganian “tone” would presuppose it to do. Such a tremendous task, however, cannot but require a robust methodological underpinning, and it is precisely at this point that Burrell’s “creative hermeneutics” generates more questions than answers. If the doctrines are nothing but the “distillations” of the practices, what, then, grounds the practices in the first place? To avoid regression ad infinitum, it must be something other than another practice. Praxis is unthinkable without values that propel it, and Lonergan himself would stress that any doctrinal foundations, while basing themselves on the answer to the question, “Is something valuable?” cannot but polymorphically relate to the answer for the antecedent truth-question: “Is something really so?” Burrell disregards any systematics as “pretentions” (5). One would suggest that Burrell’s work, insightful as it is, could reveal even greater surplus of ulterior meanings underlying the three traditions should it implement a more systematic approach.

Find this book on Amazon: Towards a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Theology 1st Edition

Sea sheep is a cute and cuddly animal, which could have been appropriately called “leaf sheep,” for it really looks like a sheep among lush green leaves. It is also called the solar periwinkle. What is unique with it is that photosynthesis, an event unique to the plant kingdom, takes place in this its body.

This tiny inhabitant of the seas (Costasiella kuroshimae) is a type of sea slug that runs in its body a process called kleptoplasty, by which it utilizes the energy of light and obtains food—a process normally reserved for plants. This is not a usual way for an animal to survive. It is an exception that does not only show the variety within creation but also lifts the veil of what could be perceived as monotonous in the universal order and regularity within the universe [1].

A marvelous phenomenon: Kleptoplasty

Kleptoplasty is the process by which a creature that cannot photosynthesize feeds on another photosynthesizing creature and moves some chloroplasts from that creature into its body for storage [2]. This unusual phenomenon occurs in some creatures that feed on algae, usually microscopic or macroscopic algae.

Some sea slugs, like the sea sheep, also feed on macroscopic algae. They retain only the chloroplasts of the seaweed Avrainvillea and store them in specialized cells in their digestive tract. The rest they digest completely [3]. They can keep these chloroplasts in their bodies for 10 months or much longer. The chloroplasts retained are used for photosynthesis to meet the sea sheep’s energy needs, as well as for food production and storage.

While we cannot claim that sea sheep and sea snails photosynthesize themselves, we can say photosynthesis takes place in their bodies. Through the chloroplasts hosted in their bodies, they photosynthesize through the phenomenon of kleptoplasty. With such a marvelous mechanism, light is transformed into nutrients and provides the tiny sea sheep with sustenance.

Several key experiments were carried out on the functional dimension of kleptoplasty, and the contributions of kleptoplasts—i.e., chloroplasts—to the living host [4]. The experiments suggest that chloroplasts function as a “pantry” that helps organisms survive periods of starvation, even when their photosynthetic activity is blocked. In addition, these studies revealed that kleptoplasts from algae remain functional in the cytosol of an animal cell for a long time.

A closer look at the sea sheep

Sea sheep belong to the Costasiellidae family of mollusks, a class of gastropods. After arthropods, mollusks are the second most diverse branch of the animal kingdom, with about 93,000 known species [5].

These creatures are rather tiny, ranging in size from five millimeters to one centimeter. First discovered in 1993 near the coast of the Japanese island of Kuroshima, the sea sheep (Costasiella kuroshimae) are prevalent in the waters of Japan, the Philippines, and Indonesia [6].

As is common in other mollusks, their bodies comprise three main parts: the muscular foot, the internal mass—which contains the viscera—and the mantle, which covers the internal mass. The organs called radula are vital in transporting food. Like a grater with small teeth on it, this organ is designed for scraping, and it allows them to rasp their food into their bodies.

Sea sheep have fascinated ocean researchers and divers since they were first discovered. Researcher Ara Juan said that when he first saw the creature in the Philippines, he was surprised by how tiny it was. Later, on his second encounter, he saw five of them perched on a leaf and likened them to sheep grazing on a field of algae [7]. These creatures have a world of their own, which they build on the algae leaves and in which they spend their entire lives. Occasionally you can even see their eggs laid in an impressively neat, measured spiral on the seaweed. The eggs, arranged as if drawn with a ruler, are a magnificent sign that the world is created with inimitably precise and delicate measurements.

Sea sheep are remarkable for their close-set, black, beady eyes, horn-like appendages resembling sheep’s ears, and dotted green cerata protruding from the upper surface of their bodies. Cerata are leaf-like structures with pink, purple, or white tips, similar to those of the aloe vera plant, and contain branches of the digestive gland. The guest chloroplasts involved in photosynthesis are also held in the cerata.

Besides these specific organs, the two tentacles on the back of the head, acting as chemosensors, have also been exclusively created and equipped. These act as the olfactory sensors of this sea slug, enabling the animal to find food sources by picking up and analyzing chemical signals in the water.

Several comparative studies have also been carried out on various species of Costasiella living on algae of the genus Avrainvillea [8]. It was observed that the eyes of the sea sheep were larger than those of the other species and were between two large tentacles extending like horns. When the ceratas were examined, it was found that they were orange and iridescent blue spotted, tapering from two ends, and containing albumin glands. For each species, all these organs are individually engraved and decorated with different colors and patterns.

What a precious grace it is for us to observe such astonishing works of creation, which are paraded before our eyes in the depths of the sea. Just as the sea sheep is provided with sustenance from the chloroplasts, we are provided with the sustenance of knowledge of the One who creates all of it for us, perhaps wrapped in concentric layers of meanings in one of which is the sea sheep found.

Notes

1. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Addendum to the Sixteenth Word, The Words, Risale-i Nur Collection
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3949400/
3. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaw4337
4. Gregor Christa, Sven B. Gould, Johanna Franken, Manjavleugels, Dario Karmeinski, Katharina Handeler, Wiliam F. Martin And Heike Wagele, Functional Kleptoplasty In A Limapontioidean Genus: Phylogeny, Food Preferences And Photosynthesis In Costasiella With A Focus On C. Ocellifera (Gastropoda: Sacoglossa), Journal of Molluscan Studies (2014) 1–9. doi:10.1093/mollus/eyu026
5. https://ekog.org/2020/12/26/yaprak-koyunu-costasiella/
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costasiella_kuroshimae
7. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210324-the-odd-sea-creature-powered-by-the-sun
8. Kathe R. Jensen, Patrick J. Krug, Anne Dupont, Masayoshi Nishina, A review of taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships in the genus Costasiella (Heterobranchia: Sacoglossa), with a description of a new species, Journal of Molluscan Studies, Volume 80, Issue 5, December 2014, Pages 562-574,  https://doi.org/10.1093/mollus/eyu048

One may feel inclined to avoid the obvious, but most thinking readers and writers will say that the defining factor of our century is fundamentalism. And yet, there is something that goes hand-in-hand with fundamentalism: the material savage that is raging around our planet. Wasn’t it always, one way or another, about God versus Mammon? It is hardly surprising that we should connect the strife as we know it today with money. “Of course,” the citizen in the street will say, “it is all about oil.” But is oil the real cause? As a tongue-in-cheek proposition, one might say that right now the cause could be solar panels—or more likely, the capacity to build electric- or solar-driven automobiles. As far as America and the West in general is concerned, it will be, and probably already is, all about energy independence. But perhaps personal independence for the citizen on the street could be approached in a different and more appropriate manner.

The German-speaking world, which gave us the likes of Freud and Adler and Jung, has also given us a word that expresses it all so neatly, so precisely. It was what National Socialism was founded on. Existenzangst is the explanation for most things deplorable within the human frame and is ultimately the forming factor of the human condition. Feelings of insecurity and fear are obviously not to be desired, and people will fight to avoid or subdue them. It is noticeable that panic fostered by poverty demonstrably leads to fanaticism—but that only according to the level of so-called civilized sophistication and through manipulative politics. In the developing world, where poverty is usually the given norm, apathy rules until parties with an interest start to exercise pressure. Apathy in the West, however, has never been seen when a nation hits a bad patch in its collective history; that nation gets up and fights. The extreme exaggerations of the fundamentalists today are financed—but by whom or what, is often not known. But they are financed to the point where warfare is an easily accessed option and the general public are coerced, often unwittingly, into taking part.

Money makes the world go round! How awful to be obliged to admit it. But the human psyche would have it so. Many years ago, an astute social observer was reported to have maintained that the hippy movement of the 1960s was made possible because the kids, supported by their perfectly solvent parents, were financially able to drop out. America was enjoying an upturn in fiscal endeavor. Things were going swimmingly. What to do? Well, the kids didn’t really rebel against materialism; they rebelled against a vague stirring within themselves. It was a stirring, a burgeoning feeling of frustration. They wished for freedom and were looking for the same through a medium that had not made them captive. Most never found that medium. To put it bluntly, they were—we are—very much of this world.

It means that when a certain material level has been achieved and sufficient outlets have been provided for disposing of one’s wealth, restlessness sets in. Restlessness among the young is no great novelty, and, one way or another, every generation pushes past the frontiers of convention. New standards are set, and old regimes are torn down.

It has always been so. The terrorists of today have been recorded in dismal similarity at regular intervals throughout what we are pleased to call human history. But why? What was really behind the so-called Protestant versus Catholic conflict in Ireland, or the war in Vietnam, or the mass-murder of Jews in World War II? What makes humans so inhuman? Is it simply a lack of money? Is it desperation to maintain a few bits of inconsequential civilization? Perhaps, even, the need to “be something,” or someone?

Physical attack admittedly requires defense, but for all else, one does have the option of simply turning away. “Brushing the dust from one’s heels,” so to speak. One finds the word “perverse” perfectly apt for describing the world’s ills, as perpetrated by the world’s troublemakers. My dictionary offers: wayward or contrary; obstinate; cantankerous as an explanation for perversity. It is all the stuff of self-will, and that sometimes to the point of madness. If one points out to world leaders that their policies and actions are costing the lives of women and children (men, too, of course), they seem incapable or resolutely contrary, nay oblivious, to what would be seen as being truly human. Our technological advance has apparently gone hand in glove with our decline as humans. One remembers Albert Einstein and his famous words after splitting the atom for us; “My God, what have we done?” Well, two steps forward, one step back really does seem to be the mode.

The age of connections. Rebirth of faith. Clash of civilizations. Age of the Internet. Rise of fundamentalism. Interstellar travel. Gender equality. Human trafficking. WWIII. Artificial intelligence. Genetics. Cooperation. Competition. Spiritual revolution. Secularism. Values and Ethics…

All will loom large in public awareness in the 21^st century. Nevertheless, the last theme on the list, Ethics, will possibly be our only hope if we wish to manage all of the rest in the future. An ethical approach is, of course, paramount for dealing with what will be our lot as we continue to flounder in our sea of uncertainty. Mr. and Mrs. Average, people like you and me, will be made subject to matters far beyond our control. It will be this lack of control—having everything out of our hands—that could foster frustration anew. This is where ethics will be of the essence.

Could there be a better way to live life? As humans awaken and walk forward into their day, their global difficulties will continue to flow towards them. For many a “heads down” approach will be all that is left to them. Heads down and somehow struggle or barge through. It may be well to remember Ernest Hemmingway’s admonition to “not confuse movement with action.” This will, for many, and especially our opinion makers, go against the intellectual grain. Listening to any of the news and discussion programs one must be aware that the name of the game is action and counteraction, which is obviously and commonly known as treating the symptom and not the cause.

Since ethics are sometimes to be first sought, one could find it useful to simply stand still. It could mean a neat sidestep from the shenanigans of what we may be forced to countenance. To make light for a moment of a serious matter, a sort of olé response could be adopted to counteract the obvious perversity that rushes, bull-like, at us. Imagine an elegant stance, a numbing of the thinking mind, a quietening of the jabbering mental voice. There would be no hectic rush when the body and mind are in accord. A mind slowly fading into its own background noise—almost you might say, a mind being modest. A modest mind would be quite an innovation. But standing still, reflecting a little, taking it easy, will give us time to really understand what is going on around us. After all, a headlong rush into the fray will usually only add fire to an already raging inferno.

Our children—my wife and I have four—are already pulling back, withdrawing their time, their money, and their energies from a world that is no longer governed by ethics. In their own small way they are refusing to be a part of the global materialism that is being thrust at them. They do not leap to buy the latest technology, do not need to have, come what may, the latest gadget or carefully construed merchandise. Perhaps the children of the 1960s were not so wrong in principle after all. But now could be the time to not only drop out in an endeavor to attain freedom from the advertised life; we may now be able to see freedom in a different light.

We can say “no” because it is our right and privilege. This may well imply division between the warring classes and the pacifists, but the division is already becoming a reality. To recap on the theme of perversity, one should try to understand that there is no way to counter it. This is a given fact. As obvious as it may be, a person or party bent on action that defies all reason will be beyond their capacity to be reasoned with. There are hard-headed policies to contend with; they tell of a need to somehow “win” at all costs. Escape from the round of win-and-lose could be seen in the sophist’s claim: “I cannot be beaten by you because I have no wish to win.”

Ethics must prevail or all else will be lost. In the end we may be able to become responsible for our ideas, endeavors and attitudes, and above all our feelings. “Live and let live” must sooner or later become more than an empty phrase because it is clear that humans are largely unable to leave each other alone. Going one’s own ethical way and proceeding in a quiet and sincere manner seems reasonable, I feel.

I remember reading an observation by a literary light who suggested that there existed a very special club that people can join. There are no badges or insignia, and its members do not know each other, but when they chance to cross paths recognition is instant, although they may never even converse. Perhaps a nod sponsored by a deep awareness may be given. The club, of course, comprises true ladies and gentlemen. They are people of a quiet, even reticent, demeanor. They display no attitude or flair. They are slow to anger, and they are to be encountered at places and in situations that means they are where they are due to purpose and not whim. It is often these people who anonymously sponsor charities and are much involved in giving aid to the world’s poor and oppressed.

Is it too much to ask that we become ladies and gentlemen? The inner world of humans is fraught with desires and feelings that are all too often less than useful. It is by now common knowledge that the real meaning of jihad, a word largely associated with terror, is all about a personal inner battle and not a battle with someone else. One need not be a Muslim to see the possibility of undertaking our own inner battles. One may perhaps not become a superstar, but one does have the chance of becoming truly human.

“Change yourself if you wish to change the world,” is the old adage. I believe it is not even a matter of changing ourselves in the accepted sense (although I for one could discard a few bad habits) but tapping into a long-forgotten birthright. A birthright that is still there but has been overcharged with “needs” that are not really needs.

Personal ethics as the given norm would be a good place to start, for without them all else that is damnable is a foregone conclusion.

When God Almighty stated that He would place the human as His vicegerent / steward on earth, the angels endeavored to understand the truth of the matter. They asked, “Will You set therein one who will cause disorder and corruption on it and shed blood?” (al-Baqarah 2:30). This verse is followed by God’s teaching Adam the “names” (talim-e asma) in order to “clarify the supremacy of humankind and the wisdom in their being created and made vicegerent on the earth,” quoting from Ali Unal’s commentary on 2:31 [1].

Nursi stated that the miracle of the teaching of the Divine Names is intended to make the angels acknowledge the merit of humanity’s stewardship [2]. The stewardship bestowed upon humanity means they are to execute God’s commandments and enforce His laws on earth, and this depends on knowledge, hence the teaching of the “names.” God Almighty bestowed Prophet Adam an exalted nature, a lofty capacity, a sublime conscience, and equipped him with comprehensive emotions. He also equipped him to perceive and delve into the truth of all things and taught him all the “names.” Hence, Prophet Adam and his descendants were created with the apt willpower and ability for all the sciences that later developed. The human being, who acquired the ability to comprehend the truth of things having learned the “names,” could discover the laws God has established in the universe. Different branches of science have thus developed, and humanity has progressed materially and spiritually.

In his book Reflections on the Qur’an, M. Fethullah Gülen explains that the interlocutor in this incident was not only Prophet Adam, but the whole of humanity, and that all the things taught to him were in the form of seeds. Gülen also states that thanks to the feelings of neediness and obligation—and the desire to learn—God placed in humanity’s essence, humans have the ability to comprehend both the “names” and the things that correspond to them [3].

It can be said that the teaching of the Divine Names—and specified as the reason for the superiority of Prophet Adam over the angels—demands that humans combine information and events to reach conclusions and constantly develop new things. Thanks to this ability, which God Almighty bestowed upon Adam, humans learned the names of objects, perceived the relationship between cause and effect, as well as the mechanisms of their occurrence, and attained new compositions and continuous innovations. Humanity’s discovery of the laws of creation and order in the universe, and the technological innovations based on them reflects this miracle. Accordingly, when humankind discovered the existence of gravity and the buoyancy of water, or when they traveled into space, they traveled in the shade of this miracle. Nursi drew attention to the fact that all scientific and technological developments registered by humans are expressed through the “teaching of the Divine Names” [4].

Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır, stated that the phenomenon of the teaching of the Divine Names did not occur in a flash, but gradually, consistent with proper education and nurturing (tarbiyah). He explained that what is meant by the Names is not only the names of things as uttered in a language, but also their properties as well as the knowledge derived from them. In his own interpretation, Yazır comments that “teaching the names” includes their meanings and implications. He also emphasizes that it was not because Adam’s stewardship that he was taught the names, but he was given stewardship after he was taught the names [5].

God wishes appreciators and contemplators to appreciate and contemplate the universe He has decorated with His perfect arts [6]. Therefore, we can say that the secrets placed in the universe and human beings will be discovered, to a great extent, by scholars and scientists seeking the truth so the value of these secrets will be realized and appreciated.

As a doctor I observe the human being every day and see how a marvelous creature it is. As a part of my job I listen to the patient, analyze their complaints, and try to reach a diagnosis. Reaching a diagnosis happens after a complex cognitive processing, and I can do this, just as all doctors do, with the cognitive capacity I am given as a result of learning the “names.” I remember how amazed I was when I witnessed one of my colleagues manifesting this capacity in an emergency situation early in my career.

It was one of my first shifts as a doctor in the emergency room. I was nervous because I had no real-life experience. I had read many articles about triaging emergency patients, but being in the ER is different than just reading about it. At one point, I saw the ER door being opened quickly and a young patient with blood oozing from his mouth was brought in on a stretcher. Trying to remain calm, I learned the patient’s complaints: chest pain and shortness of breath. I took his blood pressure and pulse rate and examined him. I checked his basic blood tests, EKG, and chest x-ray. The chest x-ray showed a smooth, circumscribed mass, but I could not decide what it was. Due to a general lack of experience and a little panic, I could not put together the information I obtained and reach a conclusion. I consulted a senior specialist. He asked the patient if he had wounds in his mouth and genital area and acne-like lesions on his body. When he received a positive answer, he said, “This is an enlargement and ballooning of the main lung vessel [a pulmonary artery aneurysm] due to Behçet’s disease.” We admitted the patient to the ward, started treatment, and his condition started to improve soon. As an inexperienced physician, I was impressed by how my senior colleague diagnosed the disease so quickly based on myriad findings.

Many advances in medicine have been accomplished by accurate interpretation of patient findings and treatment results. For instance, the vitamin folic acid was first isolated by Subbarow, an Indian scientist, in the 1940s. It was discovered that folic-acid deficiency in humans caused anemia and that the symptoms improved with folic-acid treatment. Later on, since similar findings were observed in childhood leukemia patients with folic-acid deficiency; folic-acid treatment was also tried on them. The results were disappointing, as the rate of disease progression increased dramatically after folic-acid treatment. However, Dr. Sidney Farber, a pathologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who dedicated his research to the treatment of patients with childhood leukemia, turned this tragedy into an opportunity. According to Farber, if folic-acid treatment accelerated the growth of cancer cells, a treatment that reduced folic acid should stop cancer cells. Folic acid is a molecule that plays a fundamental role in the syntheses of DNA and RNA, which are critical for cell survival and proliferation. It is also essential for rapidly dividing cancer cells. With Farber’s encouragement, Subbarow developed a drug from a molecule that stops the synthesis of folic acid. Farber first used this drug in 1947 on children with leukemia and revealed that when folic-acid starvation was induced, the division of rapidly multiplying cancer cells was disrupted, and many patients recovered [7]. Drugs that stop the synthesis of folic acid are still used in medicine to treat certain types of cancer and inflammatory rheumatism.

We humans are unique in the way we think, analyze, diagnose and in all other cognitive processing we are able to do. Having the inborn knowledge of the “names” is what makes us unique and able to treat patients and produce healing drugs.

References

1. Ünal, Ali. 2006. The Qur’an With Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, NJ: Tughra Books.
2. Nursi, Bediüzzaman Said. 2007. İşârâtü’l-İ’câz [Signs of the Miraculousness], İstanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2007, pp. 207.
3. M. Fethullah Gülen, Kur’ân’dan İdrake Yansıyanlar [Reflections on the Qur’an], İstanbul: Nil Yayınları, 2011, pp. 54.
4. Bediüzzaman Said Nursî, Sözler [The Words], İstanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, pp. 279.
5. Elmalılı Muhammed Hamdi Yazır, Hak Dini Kur’ân Dili [The Language of the True Religion of the Qur’an], İstanbul: Eser Neşriyat, 1992, pp. 297–312.
6. Bediüzzaman Said Nursî, Sözler [The Words], İstanbul: Şahdamar Yayınları, 2010, pp. 187.
7. Anand N. Malaviya, “Landmark papers on the discovery of methotrexate for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other systemic inflammatory rheumatic diseases: a fascinating story”, Int J Rheum Dis, 2016, 19:844–51.

In the language of Sufism, when used together, sayr u suluk (journeying and initiation) denotes becoming free of bodily and animal appetites to a certain extent within the framework of certain principles, searching for ways to reach God and traveling toward Him by the heart in order to lead a life at the level of the spirit and heart. It also signifies becoming refined from evil nature and morals and adopting Qur’anic morals in order to be able to travel toward and meet with God.

Journeying and initiation have connotations with regard to the Divine manifestations that come during the journey. From the viewpoint of these manifestations and an initiate’s being favored with them, journeying has been dealt with in two categories:

Journeying downward (sayr nudhuli): In order for the restricted, conditioned, transient, contingent existence to emerge, the Absolute, Necessary Existence manifests Itself with mercy and blessings. In other words, the Almighty, Ultimate Truthful graciously condescends beyond all concepts of modality to manifest Himself. He does so universally, with all His Attributes and Names, and gives existence to and maintains all beings and things (wahidiya), and He does so particularly, with some of His Attributes and Names, and bestows its particular shape, character, quality and capacity on and maintains each being and thing (ahadiya). This can also be regarded as the expanding manifestation of the Absolutely Necessary in the spheres of the contingent, and the Absolute in the spheres of the conditioned and restricted. This journey extends from the earliest determination of beings and things in the Divine Knowledge to the step expressed in the Prophetic saying, “The first thing which God created is my light,” and from here to all degrees of existence in the whole of the universe, and finally to the realm of humankind.

Journeying upward (sayr uruji): Human beings, the most comprehensive fruit of the tree of creation, set out for a long spiritual journey with their willpower, power of perceptiveness or mechanism of feelings, consciousness, and spiritual intellect (the core of the heart) to return to their original home or source. At the end of the journeying, they find themselves annihilated with respect to their bodily associations or appetites in the Light of the Existence of the Absolutely Necessary Being. Here we will try to explain this spiritual journeying in four steps or stages:

The first stage is “journeying toward God,” (sayr ilallah) which is also called the first journey as it is the beginning of traveling toward God. It begins in the realm of the manifestation of the Divine Acts and continues through the realm of the manifestation of the Divine Names and ends in reaching the Name Which determines a traveler’s existence with all its peculiarities. There are many who set out for this journey, but few who can continue it. Whether this journey is made in the outer world—through reflection on God’s works in the universe—and called “journeying in the outer world,” or it is made in the inner word of travelers—through self-purification—and is called “journeying in the inner world,” when it ends, the travelers no longer feel interested in anything save God and find themselves in tides of “annihilation in God.” This favor has been described as “minor” or “lesser sainthood.”

The second stage is “journeying in God” (sayr fillah). Since it requires another determined attempt and beginning, it is regarded as the second journey and is sometimes called “absorption.” Travelers at this stage are freed from evil morals and mortal attributes and acquire praiseworthy or Qur’anic qualities, and represent the Divine Names according to their individual capacity. They reach a higher horizon where they begin to discern what lies beyond material existence and feel that knowledge from the Divine Presence flows into their heart. They gradually melt away in the face of the rays of the knowledge that concern the realms of the Divine Names, Attributes and the Qualities that are essential and indispensable to the Divine Being, and they are favored with a full perception of what belonging to God means. This favor has been called “subsistence with” or “by God” (baqa billah).

The third stage is mentioned with different names, such as “journeying with” or “in the company of God,” (sayr maallah) “the third journey,” or “distinguishing together with absorption.” One who has reached this final point only sees Him beyond all concepts of modality, knows Him, and feels Him, and is surrounded by the lights of knowledge of Him. The manifestations of His “Facial” Light destroy everything and everywhere it is echoed: “All that is on it (the earth) is perishable, but there remains forever the “Face” (very Being) of your Lord, the One of Majesty and Munificence” (55:26-27). All other existent beings, and kinds of knowing, seeing, and feeling begin to be reduced so that they are of only a nominal nature in the initiates’ deep knowledge of God and their overflowing spiritual pleasures. Feeling the existence of all others, even if only temporarily, is distressful to the heart. Travelers who are not among the successors of the Prophet in his mission of representing, practicing and conveying the Divine Message, are lost in the depth of their spiritual pleasures in their private worlds. The final point of this stage, where all opposites are lost in the sight of a traveler, is called “absorption itself.” Nasimi expresses this spiritual state of pleasure where all appearances have disappeared, in a typical style of immersion as follows:

The space where I am has developed into no-space;
this body of mine has wholly become a soul;
God’s look has manifested Itself to me;
and I have seen myself intoxicated with His meeting.
A call has come to me from the Ultimate Truth: “Come, O lover, you are intimate with Us!
This is the station of intimacy;
I have found you a faithful one!”

This is also the station where, like a wine glass, one becomes filled with and emptied of His love, loving and urging others to love Him madly. One who overflows with the gifts of this station regards any speech that is not about Him as being a mere waste of words, and any other consideration as being disrespect for Him. One desires that every word should essentially be about Him, every meeting should end with mention of Him, and everyone should talk about Him alone in the manner of a lover. How nicely one of His lovers says:

I wish the people all over the world loved Him Whom I love;
and all our words were about the Beloved.

The fourth stage is “journeying from God” (sayr anillah). This journey has also been called “the fourth journey” or “coloring after self-possession.” One who has got to this point, where one is favored with meeting with God in a relative sense, turns towards the realm of multiplicity with new interpretations of the way of unity after having reached unity. In other words, descending while following the way of the Messenger, who descended after having ascended as high as “God’s Presence,” the traveler returns to be amidst people in order that others may also feel and experience what he or she has felt and experienced during some degree of meeting or reunion with God. Such returning travelers devote their life to saving others from “dungeons,” causing them to rise to the holy Presence of God, attaining what they have attained, seeing what they have seen, and arousing in others a burning desire to meet with Him. Guiding those baffled by the depths of darkness to the light; guiding those bewildered to the horizons beyond the corporeal world; educating those who have decided to follow the way to Him; making the hearts of those who aspire after His good pleasure content and at rest; assisting those who have found a light to overflow with a knowledge of God; and helping those favored with this knowledge to travel amid the hills of spiritual pleasures—all these are among the tasks incumbent upon the travelers upon their return to people from God. This is the state of the special apprentices of the Prophets, which some leading Sufi scholars described as “subsistence by God and with God” or “distinguishing after absorption.”

Those who have attained this horizon see unity in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity; they experience at the same time two depths with one dimension, and they set out for a new meeting with God at every moment with the pleasure of feeling His company and the pleasure of others whom they lead toward that meeting. They neither fall into confusion and make utterances of pride that are incompatible with the rules of Shari‘a, nor do they show feigned reluctance to attract His mercy. Instead, they always breathe self-possession. They feel breezes of journeying in God in journeying toward Him, and they observe the truth of journeying from God in journeying in Him. They are in a state of having found Him when they seem to have lost Him, and they appear to have fallen distant from Him while they are with Him, and they feel both nearness to and distance from Him at the same time.

Those travelers are the most perfect of travelers, the greatest of guides, and the masters of human education and upbringing. They cause the hearts of those who turn to them and follow them as masters of guidance to overflow with the feelings of belief, knowing God and loving Him. Modeling their actions on the Prophetic saying, “Make God loved by His servants, that He may love you,”[1] they both love God and are loved by Him. Their purity of intention and feeling, the profundity of their thought, their earnestness in their representation of Islam, and the refinement in their manners make them such a source of the water of life and a torch of light that everyone who aspires to the Divine gifts and radiance appeals to them, and every lover of Divine light takes refuge in their guidance. Because:

Good actions originate in good nature and being virtuous; traces of perfection are found in good nature and virtues.

Initiation means acquiring the ability to meet with God, living in constant consideration of journeying, which is regarded as an important means of being always together with Him, showing continuous resistance to bad morals, adopting good morals or a good nature and laudable virtues as one’s character, purifying the heart, in which God is known to be as a “hidden treasure,” refraining from worrying about and considering all else save Him, and of being inwardly prepared to entertain the Dearest of guests. Concerning this, Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum says:

The heart is the home of God;
purify it of whatever is there other than Him,
so that the All-Merciful may descend into His palace at nights.

As mentioned before, the word “initiation” is used on its own to express the spiritual journey discussed, and it is also used together with journeying as in “journeying and initiation.” Sometimes the word spiritual is added and the concept is expressed as “spiritual journeying and initiation.” What is meant by all is that we should turn away from everything else save God, in the sense that we should not feel interest in or attachment to other things with respect to their own being and our worldly considerations, and that we should give our attention to Him exclusively. It also includes the guidance of those who represent the Qur’an and the Sunna perfectly in belief, thought and action, and appealing to them in cases of doubt, hesitation and bewilderment. Initiation also denotes living in perception of our absolute need for the Almighty in awareness of our helplessness, poverty, and neediness; having a heart overflowing and empowered with love and zeal, feeling with observation of the Divine manifestations, willpower and all other faculties with asking God for forgiveness, and praying so that inclinations to evil may be uprooted and inclinations to good strengthened.

Note

1. at-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jamu’l-Kabir, 8:91.

We are witnessing technological advancements far faster than any other time in history. We are able to use many of them in our daily lives: computers, smart phones, and cars come with new features that are meant to serve us with a more pleasurable and safer use. But many of us use them without fully understanding their functions. For instance, almost all people in a developed country have used a computer in their lives. But the number of people who truly comprehend the nitty-gritty of its aspects is very few, as computers, along with other technologies, are complicated machines.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, science advanced to fields beyond the comprehension of the average person (atomic theory, quantum mechanics, discovery of DNA, etc.). Many scientific fields today require very complex explanations in terms of advanced mathematics and complex scientific arguments, and it has become almost impossible to understand these concepts without prior knowledge. Scientists of our time often cannot explain the results of their research in a way that ordinary people can easily understand.

We cannot expect everyone to understand scientific facts and results. Understanding the general concept of a scientific argument requires at least some relevant educational background. For example, a person watching an astronaut walking on the surface of the Moon on TV must have some basic knowledge to understand why it is not the same as walking on the Earth. If one knows that the gravity on the Earth’s surface (about 9.8 meters per second per second) is different on the Moon’s surface (about 1/6th as powerful or about 1.6 meters per second per second), he or she would know why they were different.

One solution to explain complex scientific theories and discoveries to the lay person is scientific modeling.

Scientific models are used to describe and predict the behavior of real objects or systems and are used in a variety of scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, ecology, and the Earth sciences. There are many types of modeling in science and education that have a physical, conceptual, or mathematical representation of a real phenomenon which cannot be easily observed with a naked eye. Especially in learning particular subject matters, they are very useful tools that generate discussion and mental models, improve explanations, make predictions, and provide visual representations of abstract concepts (Treagust, Chittleborough, and Mamiala, 2003).

Generally speaking, models can be grouped into three general types which can be utilized in all science branches: mathematical models, visual models, and computer models. The last-mentioned are sometimes named computational or simulation models as well. Mathematical representations, analogies, physical replicas, equations, theories, words, diagrams, flow charts, 3D models, graphs, and computer simulations, etc. are a few examples of the models which can be compatible with effective learning styles.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in scientific modeling, with a booming increase in techniques, collection of methods, and meta-theory, in many fields such as education, systems theory, knowledge visualization, and philosophy of science (Frigg and Hartmann, 2009). Especially in the field of education, scientific models have been given more attention in textbooks and other educational sources, as they make it significantly easier for one to imagine things that they cannot physically see in real life. For example, to understand a process like DNA replication, words alone are often insufficient without a diagram or video showing the separation of the leading and lagging strands, the chain of nucleotides added to the separated strands, and the final formation of a complete, double-stranded DNA from a single strand. We cannot picture these processes in our minds, as we can neither see the DNA nor are able to feel its presence in our bodies. The following diagram of DNA replication modeled by Yokoyama (2019) shows the above-explained process:

If you do not know the process of DNA replication beforehand, the initial explanation of it does not help you understand it much. Yet, the diagram makes it easier for you to picture it in your mind.

Within various fields of science, many well-known models in literature can also be cited as examples. They include but are not limited to the billiard ball model of a gas, the centrality models, e.g., inflationary models in cosmology, the Bohr model of the atom, general circulation models of the global climate, evolutionary models in biology, Lotka-Volterra model of predator-prey interaction, agent-based models in social sciences, Mundell-Fleming model of an open economy, general-equilibrium models of markets in their respective domains. While some of these models are developed to present various complex scientific cases in a digestible form, some are also developed to make predictions. Climate models and weather models in Meteorology, and the models used in semi-empirical calculations in Chemical Physics can be given as examples among many others.     

What are the criteria for a successful model? Undoubtedly, the proposed model should correspond with the scientific concept/process in which it is used; it has to be straightforward in terms of explaining its ideas.

The scientific method is about (i) making observations, (ii) searching for a pattern (or patterns) in the observations, (iii) developing ideas, (iv) testing them for proper explanations; in addition to these, the purpose of scientific models should also include sharing the findings with the wider community. The last is indeed the goal of scientific models and where they are most needed, as it is the community that needs a better understanding of the concept being presented, not the researcher.

To conclude, scientific models serve their purposes best when they are realistic, offer predictions, and explain observations. Scientific ideas should be represented by various means such as graphs, drawings, three-dimensional structures, simple words, and equations. While structuring these tools, a scientist must make the results accessible by lay people. That is how the modeling will find its use in communicating the concepts/processes to other scientists and ordinary people. What is more, the advancement of science depends on the communication between both current and future researchers. Scientific models can disseminate knowledge across generations in a comprehensible fashion; their development is said to be of utmost importance.

References

Treagust, D.F., Chittleborough, G.D., and Mamiala, T.L. (2003). The role of submicroscopic and symbolic representations in chemical explanations. International Journal of Science Education, 25 (11), 1353-1369.  

Frigg, R. and Hartmann, S. (2009). Models in Science”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Yokoyama 2019, Copying the Recipe of Life, diagram by Maho Yokoyama, News Medical, accessed 8 October 2022, <https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/Mechanism-of-DNA-Synthesis.aspx>.

We learn from the history of religions that Prophets performed miracles, by God’s permission, to convince their people into faith. By God’s leave, Abraham was not hurt when he was thrown into the fire; the sea divided by God’s leave so Moses could lead his people across it; Jesus revived the dead by God’s leave; and Muhammad healed many by God’s leave, peace be upon them all.

These miracles, according to Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, set the zenith humanity should strive to reach through the sciences [1]. For example, the miracles of Jesus (peace be upon him) raising the dead and making the blind see can be considered the ultimate goals of medicine. As gleaned from these examples, it is as if God is encouraging humankind to achieve extraordinary accomplishments by showing these wonderful miracles through His Messengers.

The greatest miracle of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the Qur’an, but with the permission of God, like other Prophets, he also presented other miracles when necessary. On more than one occasion, as reported in hadith collections, he used his saliva to heal people. For example, Ali, his son-in-law, had sore eyes due to a severe illness, and he was cured the minute the Messenger of God applied his saliva to his eyes [2]. In another example, he “replanted” the hand of Muawwiz ibn Afra, which was severed during the Battle of Badr, by applying his blessed saliva [3]. Of course, we do not claim that today we can apply saliva and re-connect a severed limb, but we do say that saliva should be studied to see if it can be of any benefit for healing purposes. Some recent scientific research shows that it can be beneficial.

The potency of saliva

Numerous studies have been published on saliva, mainly in relation to oral health protection. Several significant enzymes found in saliva, such as amylase, lysozyme, and lipase, are known to initiate digestion in the mouth. Saliva is also rich in antimicrobial compounds such as hydrogen peroxide, lactoferrin, and lysozymes that are crucial in the defense against microbes. It is also thanks to our saliva that we can taste, chew, and swallow food.

Saliva has been revealed to have protective and healing properties against disease-causing microbes, especially when combined with the non-harmful and beneficial flora in the oral cavity. A study by Professor Mary Ann Jabra-Rizk and her colleagues from the University of Maryland reported that human saliva contains numerous antimicrobial compounds and has wound-healing properties. The histatins group, one of the several antimicrobials found in saliva, are a type of protein and exhibit broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity against a wide variety of microorganisms in the mouth. In particular, histatin-5 has strong activity against the fungus Candida albicans.

According to a study published in 2018 by researchers from Boston University School of Medicine, saliva protects the intestine from infection by altering the mechanisms by which diarrhea-causing Escherichia coli bacteria bind to the small intestine. Thanks to this first “line of defense” in the mouth, E. coli bacteria transmitted from external sources is reduced to a harmless amount. E. coli can enter our body in bigger amounts and cause intestinal infection when, for instance, hands are not washed well after excretion.

The lysozyme enzymes in saliva also damage the cell walls of bacteria and prevent their proliferation, allowing beneficial flora to take hold in the mouth and making it difficult for bacteria such as Streptococcus and Porphyromonas.

Antimicrobial peptides in saliva play a vital role in innate immunity. These positively charged proteins easily bind to the negatively charged membranes of microbes, poke holes in them, and kill them by allowing their cellular fluids to flow out. Some of these antimicrobial proteins (defensins, cathelicidins, and histatins) have broad-spectrum antimicrobial properties and are produced both by neutrophils in the blood and by salivary glands and are involved in wound-healing, stimulating the immune system, and the formation of new blood vessels. This feature of the saliva can be related to the fastening of severed organs and their immediate healing, thus to the miracle of the Prophet.

Traumatic or accidental injuries, like when caused by biting the tongue and cheeks due to misshapen teeth, often heal much faster than skin injuries. This healing capacity of the oral cavity is mainly attributed to the wound healing properties of saliva and its cell growth factors. The main growth factors found in saliva with reported wound-healing properties include epidermal growth, vascular endothelial growth, transforming growth factor alpha, transforming growth factor beta, and nerve growth factors. The healing of mouth sores is also related to additional factors that promote the growth of fibroblasts, prevent the degradation of essential proteins, and increase cell migration into the oral cavity. Histatins strengthen the regeneration process of epithelial tissue and promote the adhesion of cells in the inner lining of blood vessels (endothelium).

Over 100 molecules detected in saliva samples are being evaluated as markers for potential diagnostics and preliminary information, including dental caries, gum disease, cancer, diabetes, and several other systemic disorders. Saliva is an impressively reliable source of material for measuring doses of metabolic compounds, microorganisms, cancer markers, and drugs, and for diagnosing some diseases [4].

Saliva as a painkiller

The zinc-containing ectopeptidase enzymes found in mammals function specifically in the transmission of sensory signals. These enzymes play significant roles in shutting down and stopping pain signals that come through nerves or hormones at the cell surface. The enzyme opiorphin, a quintuple peptide molecule discovered in human saliva, shows strong pain-relieving activity in chemical and mechanical pain. To measure the pain-suppressing power of opiorphin, acute mechanical pain was induced in rats, and the test showed that it was as effective as morphine. This substance in saliva has been shown to have the potential to stop pain, especially pain associated with mood-related conditions [5].

When Catherine Rougeot and her colleagues at the Pasteur Institute in Paris “injected a pain-inducing chemical into rats’ paws, 1 milligram of opiorphin per kilogram of body weight achieved the same painkilling effect as 3 milligrams of morphine.” This substance was also found to be six times more effective than morphine at blocking pain in a test in which rats were made to stand on upended pins. The substance was so successful at blocking pain that, in a test involving a platform of upended pins, the rats needed six times as much morphine as opiorphin to render them oblivious to the pain of standing on the needle points. Opiorphin heralds the possibility of a new generation of painkillers that relieve pain “without the addictive and psychological side effects of the traditional drug” [6, 7].

Anti-depressive effect

According to researcher Catherine Rougeot, the painkiller’s effect is similar to that of morphine, but since it is not a pure painkiller, its side effects need to be studied. It is also possible that it could be an anti-depressant. Rougeot and his colleagues discovered that the painkiller works in the nerve cells of the spine. Rougeot says that opiorphin is a simple molecule and that it may be possible to produce it in large quantities without having to synthesize it and isolate it from saliva, adding that it may also be possible to find drugs that trigger patients to produce more of this molecule in their own bodies.

Pulmonary fluid mixed with saliva

Another research claimed that special proteins found in pulmonary fluid could be used to develop new methods for diagnosing and treating cancer. According to this study, special proteins found in fluid from the lungs could serve as a rich source of biomarkers for tumor diagnosis. It’s possible that if a cancer tumor develops, it will release its own molecules into its surroundings.

Our body’s immune system is endowed with the ability to distinguish between what belongs to us and what does not. This mechanism can be called the HLA system (Human Leucocyte Antigen) or “tissue compatibility certification,” which can ask for identification, recognize, and fight against foreign substances. It’s like the officials who check passports at the borders. If this system fails to recognize foreign substances (viruses, bacteria, etc.) entering the body and mistakes them for its own, it cannot fight them. The tissue type differs from a person’s blood type. HLA genes recognize foreign proteins that attach to our cells and signal our body’s defense cells to attack them.

Scientists from the Israel Institute of Technology and Sheba Medical Center discovered that HLA molecules are present in pulmonary fluid and devised a method to separate the molecules from the fluid. They studied liters of fluid taken from patients’ lungs and showed that the HLA proteins in this fluid actually “store” adequate information to detect types of lung cancer [8].

At a later stage, Dr. Michael Peled from the study team suggested that cancer could be diagnosed using proteins in the pulmonary fluid and eventually a cancer-fighting vaccine could be produced. Since these molecules are made with a rich army of antigens originating from cancer cells and their environment, an important step has been taken for early detection and to fight cancer.

If these antigens are used to stimulate the immune system by studying the fluid that mixes with saliva from the lungs of cancer patients, they can be used to attack the tumor and pave the way for immunotherapy. This is because our immune system is already prepared for this battle, but if the immune system becomes inactive and dysfunctional due to various factors, cancer cells are activated. This new method has the potential to reactivate idle or dysfunctional immune cells [9].

In the light of all these, it is worth considering the miracles of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, when he healed people by God’s leave. In another example with his blessed saliva, the Prophet also practiced “tahnik,” which he did when a newborn was brought to him: he would chew a date and then rub it on the baby’s palate, in the way mothers at times soften small morsels in their mouths before feeding them to their offspring. The fact that birds feed their young with half-digested food from their mouths and that injured animals lick their wounds and apply saliva to them may also shed light on other beneficial aspects of saliva in the future.

Saliva functions and components

1. Antifungal / Histatin 5; ß-Defensins; Cathelicidins
2. Wound healing / Growth factors; Histatins; Secretory leukycte protease inhibitor; Trefoil factor; Leptin
3. Buffer / Bicarbonate; Phosphate; Proteins
4. Teeth mineralization / Cystatins; Histatins; Proline-rich proteins; Statherins
5. Food digestion / Amylase; Mucins; Lipase
6. Coating & lubrication / Amylases; Cystatins; Mucins; Proline-rich proteins; Statherins
7. Antiviral / Cystatins; Mucins
8. Antibacterial / Amylases; Cystatins; Histatins; Mucins; Peroxidases
9. Painkiller / Opiorphin

Vila T, Rizk AM, Sultan AS, Jabra-Rizk MA (2019) The power of saliva: Antimicrobial and beyond. PLoS Pathog 15(11): e1008058. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008058

References

1. Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, The Twentieth Word, Second Station.
2. Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, The Nineteenth Letter (Miracles of Prophet Muhammad); Sahih al-Bukhari, Jihad, 102, 143, Fadail al-Ashab, 9, Maghazi, 38; Sahih al-Muslim, Fadail as-Sahabah, 34.
3. Nursi, The Nineteenth Letter; Qazi Iyad, Ash-Shifa.
4. T. Villasi et al. “The power of saliva: Antimicrobial and beyond”, PLoS Pathog, 2019, 15(11): e1008058. doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008058
5. A. Wisneret al. “Human Opiorphin, a natural antinociceptive modulator of opioid-dependent pathways”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., November 21, 2006. 103 (47) 17979–17984, doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0605865103
6. A. Coghlan, “Natural-born painkiller found in human saliva”, New Scientist, 13 Nov. 2006
7. “Painkilling saliva beats morphine”, New Scientist, 15 Nov. 2006.
8. S. Khazan-Kost, “Soluble HLA peptidome of pleural effusions is a valuable source for tumor antigens”, Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, 2022, Vol. 10, Issue 5 e003733. doi:10.1136/jitc-2021-003733
9. N. Jeffay, “Lung fluid may provide basis for cancer-treating vaccines: Israeli research. Scientists say specific proteins found in lung fluid could theoretically be used to develop new methods for diagnosing and possibly treating cancer”, The Times of Israel, 30 August 2022.
10. Vila T, Rizk AM, Sultan AS, Jabra-Rizk MA (2019) The power of saliva: Antimicrobial and beyond. PLoS Pathog 15(11): e1008058. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1008058.

When the first color TV entered in our lives in the 1980s, it made a huge difference. It was only a few of our neighbors who had one, and we always wanted to go to him to watch cartoons in color, which was much more fun than in black-and-white. Younger generations who are reading this article were directly introduced to color television, so they probably could not fully realize its value.

The same is perhaps true of nature. We have come to know the nature, trees, flowers, fruits, vegetables, rocks, and animals all in their own beautiful colors – that’s how we have observed them since we were born, so sometimes we are not aware of their value. Can we imagine oranges, apples, strawberries, tomatoes, eggplants, daisies, magnolias, tulips, and roses without color? We cannot describe colorlessness, so we use “black” and “white” to express the contrast.

Colors of plants

Part of the earth is covered with snow in winter. Almost black and white during this period, our world becomes colorful with spring’s arrival and reminds us of the resurrection after death. In different seasons, almost every shade of color parades before our eyes: the white, yellow, red, and pink of roses, tulips, carnations, apples, and plums. Yet, how do these colors emerge? How do plants—whose only contact is dark soil and colorless air and water—attain their colors?

As with inanimate objects, the color reflected by plants depends on their pigment [1] molecule. Usually yellow and red in color, there are three types of carotenoids (biological pigments): carotene, lycopene, and xanthophylls. The green color in several fruits and vegetables come from chlorophylls. Flavonoids are substances that give plants their white, light-yellow color. Anthocyanins are color pigments that range from pink to purple. Anthoxanthin are pigments that give colors like white and cream. Tannins are substances that turn red and solidify when heated with acid.

The correlation between colors and pollination

Plants are an indispensable part of the food chain and nature’s balance. Pollination [2] is essential for the reproduction and growth of flowering plants. Although the wind and some animals are instrumental in pollination, this task is largely assigned to bees and similar small insects. The colors of flowers also matter to attract the attention of bees. Bees fulfill a vital role in the pollination and subsequent fertilization of flowers, while there are also flowers purposely not pollinated by bees. For example, since bees cannot distinguish the color red, they cannot pollinate flowers having this color. Some red plants such as laurel, red carnations, and wild flax, which do not have other colors, are pollinated by other insects. Since the nectar of these plants is located deeper in their bodies, insects such as butterflies with long mouthparts like proboscis have the duty to reach for them. As in this example, all living beings have been given certain skills and potentials in order to do certain tasks so the ecosystem and the symbiosis between plants and animals can be maintained.

Anthocyanins

Anthocyanins are the largest group of pigments, and they color plants on the red, blue, and purple spectrum. Anthocyanins are the pigments that make several fruits and vegetables such as raspberries, blackberries, sour cherries, damson plums, purple carrots, red cabbages, beets, eggplants, red radishes, pomegranates, tree strawberries, black and red grapes, and many more.

Anthocyanins have properties other than color. These water-soluble substances are also highly-potent antioxidants which prevent the oxidation of vital molecules in the cell and the oxidation of the cell itself. Studies have even shown the inhibitory effect anthocyanins have on cell growth in some types of cancer. Studies conducted at the University of Michigan have revealed the positive effect these substances have on relieving muscle pain, lowering sugar levels, and reducing fat in the liver.

Anthocyanins obtained from some fruits and flowers are also used as colorants in various foods.

Anthocyanins absorb visible light with wavelengths between 400-800 nm, and the reflected part is seen as color. There are over 600 anthocyanins known today. Flowers can also accumulate a mixture of anthocyanin types, resulting in numerous color variations. Thus, these pigments function as masterpieces of art in hundreds of thousands of different shades of red, blue, and purple.

Changes in the molecular structure of the cited substances is what lies behind plants’ having thousands of different colors and shades. With the differentiation of the R1, R2, and R3 groups shown in the figure, anthocyanin absorbs different ranges of light and gives the plant different colors. These molecules’ structures change at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. When the groups indicated by (R) in the figure are replaced by hydrogen (H), hydroxide (OH), or alkyl (R), the color changes. If a green leaf turns yellow at first and red later, it means these chemical changes are taking place in its molecules.

While we watch the colorful flowers and fruits spread before us without knowing these details, the pigment molecules, dispatched like officers or soldiers in the background, repeat the same chemical processes every year, fulfilling their duties in full submission. Hundreds of publications on anthocyanins attempt to both reveal the intricacies of this system and illuminate the functions of these molecules within the cell.

Color vision

It has been found that a healthy human eye can distinguish approximately one million colors. How is this possible?

After passing through the cornea, pupil, and lens of the eye, the incoming light falls onto the retina, the wall of the eye’s posterior dark chamber. Special cells here, resembling very complex electronic circuits, convert light into electrical signals and transmit them to the brain. This is an immensely complex system in which the light energy is converted into electrical energy of certain intensities, and as a result an image is formed in the brain. Photoreceptor (light receptor) cells in the retina are of two types: cone- and rod-shaped. Cone cells are designed for color vision, while rod cells are designed for black-and-white vision. The task of these two types of cells is to convert the light falling on them into electrical signals. Humans have three types of cone cells (blue, green, red) that react differently to various wavelengths of light. Each cell has a different sensitivity to light. The wavelength of light to which blue cone cells are most sensitive is about 430 nanometers, green cone cells about 530 nm and red cone cells about 560 nm.

Our eyes were not created with the capacity to perceive all the wavelengths that exist as colors. Therefore, animals can see certain color wavelengths we cannot. Wavelengths such as infrared and ultraviolet can be seen as colors by some animals. For example, one study found four types of cone cells in the eye of the broad-tailed hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus) [3]. This hummingbird also appears to detect ultraviolet wavelengths invisible to humans. Scientists think this may play a vital role in their feeding and predator avoidance behavior.

The wonderful harmony of colors we see on earth and in the sky soothes our souls and gives us peace.

“And whatsoever He has created for you on earth of varying colors (and diverse forms and qualities): surely in that is a sign for people who reflect and are mindful.” (The Qur’an, 16:13)

Notes

1. Colorant organic or inorganic molecule.
2. Pollination is the process by which pollen produced in the male organ of the plant is transported to the apex of the female organ on various occasions. Mary Caswell Stoddard et al., “Wild hummingbirds discriminate nonspectral colors”, PNAS, June 15, 2020117 (26), 15112–15122, www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/09/1919377117