The panel commenced with Professor Greg Barton from Monash University who introduced the panelists to the audience. The first speaker was Jon Pahl from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, USA who discussed whether or not the media can be moral. He illustrated how rethinking ‘sacred space’ and other commitments of historic religious traditions might help orient the media to something beyond mere market values. He compared shopping malls to sacred places of worship and the pilgrimage we take to get to this ‘sanctuary’. He expanded on the notion of the sacred space by discussing the 6 circles of sacred space in the Hizmet Movement. Through his analysis of the movement, Pahl concluded that sacred space cannot be market drive because it is and should be moral driven. 

Radhi al-Mabuk from the University of Norther Iowa, USA emphasized the role of media in reporting of morals and values in today’s world, highlighting the Fountain Magazines emphasis on values and forgiveness. He mentioned how unfortunate it was that there was very little mention of forgiveness, love and compassion in the media. He mentioned his surprise when reading Fethullah Gulens book titled ‘Love and Tolerance’ and seeing 61 references to forgiveness being made. He highlighted Gulen’s notion on forgiveness as a return to ones essence, becoming alienated with one’s self and in doing so, finding one’s self. He concluded by mentioning the importance of interfaith dialogue where oppressed, marginalized groups work together with encapsulated, superior groups and accept all other groups through dialogue. 

Peter Barnett, former director of Radio Australia addressed the issue of media from a global perspective including personal observations from the Watergate scandal in Washington which he covered as the ABC White House correspondent to report on the obstruction of justice. He mentioned the Tunisian revolution and how activists used social media to organize the uprising and helped spread the events minute-by-minute as they unfolded. As the author of Said Nursi’s autobiography “The Guardian of the Flame,” Barnett explained how Nursi, the 19th century Turkish scholar, was aware of the power of the media and how he stressed on the importance of inner jihad (inner spiritual struggle) to counter the power of the media. He concluded that the media are guardians of individual freedom and that they need to take this responsibility seriously.

Hakan Yesilova, the editor of The Fountain Magazine, outlined the aims and objectives of The Fountain magazine, focusing on the morals and values in the media and the need for interfaith dialogue in this modern day and age. Yesilova illustrated the power and influence of the media in everyday life, how out of the 100,000 words a person hears daily, over 97% of it is from media organs such as television, radio, computers and print media and only 1% was from formal education. He mentioned the power of the word in the bible (John 1:1) and in the Quran (Rahman 55:1-4). He reflected on how the year 1979 was a time when the world changed. A change Fethullah Gulen endorsed through the magazine initiative Sizinti which came out to address the needs of the youth and reach out to the world with a helping hand. He concluded by mentioning the importance of the media in finding the right wavelength to address their audience. 

Barney Zwartz, the religious affairs editor from The Age newspaper discussed his decade old experience in covering issues concerning Australian Muslims and Islam for The Age newspaper. Barney mentioned how his experience in reporting Muslims was different now compared to when he first started journalism three decades ago. He argues that Muslims are not alone by being stereotyped and that the media has a take on all religions. He argued that the media representation of Muslims is not false, but rather unbalanced. The fact that the media fail to mention the sacrifices and the good work Muslims do within their communities is what makes media representation of Muslims unbalanced. 

As a journalist, Barney prefers to put a human face to ordinary Muslims and report on them and their lives. He prefers to report on interfaith, focusing on similarities instead of differences. He explained that the media was not hostile towards Muslims, they were merely ignorant. He spoke about the dilemma that reporters like himself face when undecided on an issue only to find that Muslims are undecided among themselves. “How can we claim who speaks for Muslims when so many claim to do so?” he questioned. Zwartz concluded saying he was hopeful that a new generation of Muslim leaders are emerging, youth who are comfortable with the country they are living in and the media they consume. He said the media was also comfortable with them.

“The Fountain” is a bimonthly magazine full of articles that cover themes on life, belief, knowledge, and universe. You can find out more about the publication by visiting the website below: www.fountainmagazine.com. In order to take advantage of what this unique magazine has to offer, we will be starting a monthly discussion series here at our LA office in Westwood Village. “Around the Fountain” will be an interactive program, relying on audience participation. During the program a moderator will manage the discussion by asking several key questions pertaining to the article. The author of chosen articles or an expert in the related field will be invited join in the discussion as moderator.

“Roundtable” will meet in the first week of every month on a Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. Discussion will last around 60 minutes.

Our First Article is titled “Philosophy of Science” by written in partnership by: Dr. Yamina Mermer, a member of the Scriptural Reasoning Group based at the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, UK & Dr. Eren Tatari, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rollins College, Florida.

Discussion will be moderated by:
Dr. Ozgur Koca, Assistant Professor of Muslim Studies at Bayan Claremont College. Link to the article:

http://www.fountainmagazine.com/Issue/detail/the-philosophy-of-science-november-2013 Sounds interesting? To join in on the conversation and be heard, please register below for the upcoming “Around the Fountain” program by clicking the link at the bottom. Light snacks and tea will be available during the program.

For any questions, concerns, suggestions or requests to be a speaker in one of the discussions please send your emails to aataizi@pacificainstitute.org, subject: Around the Fountain.

Date: October 1st, 2014

Time: 7:00 pm

Location: Pacifica Institute – LA, 1019 Gayley Avenue, Suite A, Los Angeles, CA 90024

The human condition is one with many challenges and blessings, concurrent and successive. To believers, both hardship and abundance are a matter of perspective, at least in most occasions; everything we face is a test on the path to our perfection. Poverty and wealth are two of these tests – while the former comes in the guise of hardship and deficiency, the latter is cloaked in material abundance and outward comfort.

Wealth does not guarantee peace in one’s heart, in this life or in the hereafter, for it usually comes with a heavy bill – compromising one’s time and health, responsibilities to family and the larger community, a self-struggle between fully claiming the wealth or attributing it to God’s grace, and the question of how to best use this abundance.

Poverty, on the other hand, is not an easier challenge, as one is required to keep his or her patience in the face of hunger and lack of sufficient means for a life of self-sustainable dignity. Despite these difficulties, however, poverty comes with much less to be accountable for.

The story goes that one day, the famous Sultan Harun Rashid asked Bahl al-Dana, a Sufi mystic of his time, what would happen on the Day of Judgment. Bahl told him to order his servants to set a metal sheet with fire under it. After it became really hot, Bahl jumped on it barefoot and said, “I ate cheese and bread, wore a robe and underwear,” and then immediately jumped off.

“Now, it’s your turn,” he told the Sultan, who then had already realized that wealth in this world was quite a responsibility to answer for in the hereafter.

This conference aims to explore what the three Abrahamic religions have to teach us with regard to this human condition from a wide spectrum of themes, including philanthropy, globalization, gender, business, ethics, and mysticism. The Fountain is proud to be a contributor to this event, which we wholeheartedly believe reflects the worldview we strive to emphasize in our pages: a meaningful understanding of this life drawing on faith and reason.

We are grateful to Peace Islands Institute for making The Fountain a part of this event. We wish you an enjoyable stay in Istanbul and a successful conference.

Hakan Yeşilova
Editor
The Fountain

The Fountain organized a three-day conference in Istanbul featuring scholars and academics from diverse disciplines to convene and discuss some philosophical themes The Fountain covers. Aspiring to be a platform for peaceful exchange of ideas, invigorating discussions on the big questions of life, and to generate more of those questions, The Fountain invited 12 international speakers and a dozen intellectuals from within Turkey to participate in this conference. The Fountain, now distributed and read worldwide, has its origins in Turkey which started as an offshoot of global initiatives by renowned Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen and the Hizmet Movement that grew out of his inspiring ideas.

The themes that were covered in this conference were as follows:

• Fethullah Gülen and The Fountain Worldview
• Cross-cultural Dialogue, Media, Pluralism, Spirituality
• Scientific Thought, Faith, and Philosophy