In the still hours of the night, long before the first call to dawn, a woman sat alone at the edge of her bed, eyes wide open, listening. 

The clock read 2:47 a.m.—the same hour it had each night for as long as she could remember. Decades earlier, in the quiet suburbs of San Jose, she had visited sleep clinics and consulted neurologists in search of an answer. The diagnosis was crisp: Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome—a circadian rhythm disorder. But to her, it felt like something far older than science could explain. When she first discovered the folklore behind waking at the same hour every night—the so-called witching hour—she wondered if the stories were true. Was she cursed? Was there a whisper from the unseen trying to reach her? Over the years, she gave up asking. The questions were too heavy to carry into the light of day. What she didn’t expect was for this “curse” to resurface—in her grandchildren. When she learned they too had begun to stir awake during the same dark hour, a quiet panic settled over her like the soft shadow of night itself. Was this a legacy she had unknowingly passed down? 

Sleep, once considered a simple matter of fatigue and restoration, has become a battleground of modern life. The hum of artificial light, the buzz of notifications, and the demands of ambition have pushed the sacred rhythm of night to the margins. A 2024 study by ResMed reports that 40% of the global population struggles to sleep well at least three nights a week. Yet unlike nutrition or exercise, sleep rarely commands urgent attention—until it fails. More than half of the Japanese population, and nearly half of those in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, report poor sleep. We are a world that no longer knows how to rest. Yet sleep is not a passive collapse into unconsciousness. It is a divine choreography—a silent, nightly cleansing of mind and soul. To ignore it is to wage war against the very architecture of our being. 

In 1964, a college student named Randy Gardner stayed awake for 11 days and 25 minutes in a self-imposed experiment. Monitored by scientists, Gardner hoped to push the limits of human endurance. What he encountered instead was a gradual unraveling: slurred speech, fractured memory, and hallucinations. By the fifth day, he mistook a road sign for a person. By the end, the simple act of forming a sentence became monumental. And yet, with one deep, 14-hour sleep, much of his mind returned to normal. His body forgave him. But his story stands as a stark reminder: sleep is not optional. It is mercy. Scientists now compare prolonged wakefulness to alcohol intoxication. After 17 hours without sleep, the brain functions as if its owner were legally drunk. Reflexes slow, decisions blur, and emotional regulation frays. Still, we continue to dismiss sleep as weakness. As if rest were a luxury the ambitious could not afford. But beneath this cultural narrative lies something quieter, more sacred. Sleep is not just for the body—it is a retreat for the soul. 

The brain’s silent janitor 

Each day, our minds make hundreds of decisions, process emotions, sort memories, and absorb the world’s endless chatter. Yet every thought leaves a residue—tiny by-products that accumulate like dust in a well-used room. If left unchecked, these microscopic fragments begin to clutter the mind, fog our clarity, and fray our emotional seams. But the brain is not without its janitor. Scientists have discovered a remarkable system called the glymphatic system, a nocturnal cleaning crew of cerebrospinal fluid that flushes away toxins and metabolic waste while we sleep. This elegant mechanism is only fully active during the deepest stages of sleep—particularly when the mind is far from consciousness, when dreams begin to unfurl their surreal scrolls. 

When sleep is shortened or fragmented, this detoxification becomes incomplete. The debris remains. We wake not refreshed, but clouded—forgetful, irritable, and often unsure why. Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, one of the pioneers of glymphatic research, likens this nightly cleansing to a dishwasher cycle. The brain, she says, is “washing itself.” And when we skip sleep, we leave the dishes dirty—again and again. It turns out our decision-making power is not infinite. Like a muscle, the brain has only so much capacity each day. If one hundred meaningful choices consume our mental energy, each of those decisions generates by-products that must be cleared. When sleep is poor, these metabolic leftovers remain, and we begin the next day with less clarity than the day before. It is no wonder, then, that chronic sleeplessness can slowly chisel away at the foundations of mental health. Researchers Jessen and Iliff have shown that disrupted glymphatic flow is linked to the buildup of beta-amyloid plaques—the same harmful proteins that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. What once seemed like an inconvenience—bad sleep—is now understood as a potential accelerant of neurodegeneration.  

Waking in the dark: between fear and light 

In the folklore of many cultures, waking in the middle of the night—especially at the same hour—has long carried ominous connotations. Some call it the “witching hour,” a time when shadows lengthen and spirits stir. For the woman who lived with her strange sleep pattern, this mythology once wrapped itself around her like a fog. But what if that hour is not a curse, but a calling? 

The Qur’an describes a very different vision of the night. 

“They used to sleep but little of the night, and in the hours before dawn they would seek forgiveness.” (51:17–18) 

“Their sides forsake their beds to invoke their Lord in fear and hope…” (32:16) 

These verses do not romanticize insomnia nor encourage reckless sleeplessness. Rather, they speak of intentional wakefulness—a rising from rest, not due to restlessness, but driven by longing. A whisper of devotion cuts through the silence, and the one who rises is both vulnerable and strong. 

In the earliest days of Islam, when Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his followers were few and persecuted, the night became their sanctuary. Their days were filled with persecution; their nights belonged to God. It was under this dark veil that worshippers recited, reflected, and wept softly in secret. The stillness of night offered protection, yes—but it also opened a pathway to clarity and strength. Modern science, surprisingly, echoes the value of this spiritual routine. Neuroscientific studies have shown that during the night, the prefrontal cortex—the seat of rational decision-making—slows down. The emotional centers of the brain, like the amygdala, become more active. This shift makes us more imaginative, more emotionally sensitive, and paradoxically, more vulnerable. It is in these hours that impulsive thoughts, depressive feelings, and even suicidal ideation become more frequent. But it is also in these very hours that worship—a structured, conscious engagement of the self—may serve as a stabilizing force. To rise and pray is to reclaim the night. To seek divine presence is to quiet the storm within. From this perspective, a fragmented night—when filled with purpose—can become a sacred rhythm. 

The sacred art of less sleep 

It would be tempting to think that rising at night is only for prophets and mystics, but history suggests otherwise. Imam Tabari, one of the greatest historians and Qur’anic commentators, was said to sleep no more than three hours a day. Imam Ghazali, in his youth, was so immersed in his pursuit of knowledge that he slept just long enough to keep his body from collapsing. Imam Bukhari, the celebrated hadith scholar, was known to wake up multiple times each night, lighting a lamp to record a new insight or hadith before returning to sleep. The rhythm of their nights was not shaped by insomnia, but by intention. By love. By longing. 

This wasn’t a pattern confined to the Islamic world. 

Leonardo da Vinci reportedly practiced a polyphasic sleep schedule, taking 20-minute naps throughout the day in between bursts of invention and sketching. Nikola Tesla, the enigmatic genius behind alternating current, claimed to sleep just two hours a day. Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of British politics, famously got by on four. And Albert Einstein? He valued rest, yes—but he also took daily naps to recharge his mind and imagination. 

Were these habits sustainable for everyone? Likely not. But they reveal something deeper: not all wakefulness is the same, and not all sleep is equal. What drives the waking hours—ambition, anxiety, love, or purpose—may matter as much as the hours themselves. 

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), whose life was marked by perfect balance, encouraged the qaylulah—a short midday nap. This brief rest, now validated by science, is known to improve memory, focus, and mood. In cultures across the world, from the siesta of Spain to Japan’s inemuri, the art of resting during the day has quietly endured. 

The soul, it seems, was never meant to burn through the night in the name of busyness. But it may be called to rise briefly, quietly, to remember. 

Of bloodlines and body clocks 

The woman who once feared she was cursed had grown used to her strange rhythm of waking. But when her grandchildren began waking at the same hour, that quiet acceptance gave way to unease. Had she passed down a burden rather than a blessing? 

Science offered her an unexpected answer. 

Dr. Ying-Hui Fu, a neurologist at the University of California, San Francisco, had long been fascinated by families whose sleep cycles defied convention. Through her research, Dr. Fu discovered a rare genetic mutation in the DEC2 gene. People with this mutation are what scientists now call “natural short sleepers”—individuals who function with remarkable clarity and energy on just four to six hours of sleep each night. 

Since that first discovery, her team has identified several other gene variants—ADRB1, NPSR1, GRM1—all contributing to a unique orchestration of circadian rhythm, brain chemistry, and internal clocks. These findings have reshaped how we understand sleep—not as a one-size-fits-all phenomenon, but as a deeply personal and biologically complex experience. 

Only about 1–3% of people are natural short sleepers. They need less sleep not because of insomnia, but because they are genetically wired that way. What once seemed like misfortune may, in some cases, be a rare genetic gift. 

Yet even this discovery leaves a deeper question unanswered: Why are some souls called to wake while the rest of the world sleeps? Perhaps the answer lies not only in our genes, but in the mysterious harmony between biology and purpose. 

Where sleep ends and awakening begins 

Sleep remains a mystery. We map its stages, trace its brain waves, and sequence its genetic codes—yet its essence eludes capture. It is not simply the absence of consciousness, but the gentle folding of the soul inward, into a realm that borders dreams and eternity. 

The Qur’an reminds us: 

“It is God who takes away the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die during their sleep. He keeps those for which He has ordained death and releases the others for a determined term.” — Surah Az-Zumar, 39:42 

In this verse, sleep is likened to a temporary death—a sacred pause, a withdrawal of the soul into a space where it is measured, refreshed, or perhaps warned. We awaken each morning not simply because the sun has risen, but because we have been granted return. 

Understanding this transforms sleep from a biological necessity into a spiritual encounter. For some, rising in the night may be prompted by genes or habits—but for others, it may be a gentle invitation to listen, reflect, and remember. 

The rhythms of sleep are as diverse as the faces of humanity. Some may rise for prayer, others to write, to nurse a child, or to sit in silence and wonder. Some may sleep deeply for eight hours, while others may break their rest into pieces—guided by the mysterious choreography of their internal clocks. 

What matters most is not the number of hours, but the meaning we place within them. So whether you find yourself sleepless at night, dozing in the midday sun, or waking just before dawn with a heavy heart—know that these moments are not interruptions. They may be thresholds. A gift from the One who designed us. 

Thresholds to insight. To healing. To worship. 

To awakening. 

“And We made your sleep for rest.” (78:9) 

References 

 Iliff, J. J., Wang, M., Liao, Y., Plogg, B. A., Peng, W., Gundersen, G. A., … & Nedergaard, M. (2012). A perivascular pathway facilitates CSF flow through the brain parenchyma and the clearance of interstitial solutes, including amyloid β. Science Translational Medicine, 4(147), 147ra111. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.3003748 

Jessen, N. A., Munk, A. S., Lundgaard, I., & Nedergaard, M. (2015). The glymphatic system: A beginner’s guide. Neurochemical Research, 40(12), 2583-2599. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-015-1581-6 

Xie, L., Kang, H., Xu, Q., Chen, M. J., Liao, Y., Thiyagarajan, M., … & Nedergaard, M. (2013). Sleep drives metabolite clearance from the adult brain. Science, 342(6156), 373-377. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1241224 

He, Y., Jones, C. R., Fujiki, N., Xu, Y., Guo, B., Holder, J. L., Jr., … & Fu, Y. H. (2009). The transcriptional repressor DEC2 regulates sleep length in mammals. Science, 325(5942), 866-870. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1174443 

Shi, G., Xing, L., Wu, D., Bhattacharyya, B. J., Jones, C. R., McMahon, T., … & Fu, Y. H. (2019). A rare mutation of β1-Adrenergic receptor affects sleep/wake behaviors. Neuron, 103(6), 1044-1055. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2019.07.026 

I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was six years old, playing on the balcony of my father’s apartment, pretending to drive a bus. Like in many childhood games, a world would materialize around my imaginary bus. The balcony was a busy street, the barstool my steering wheel, and I was completely absorbed in the adventure. Then something interrupted it. I happened to look up. 

The night sky stretched above me in a way I had never noticed before. Far from the city lights, the stars appeared in overwhelming abundance. Thousands of points of light filled the darkness. I stood there staring, suddenly very aware of something I could neither explain nor fully understand.   

I could not have articulated a philosophical argument. I knew nothing of cosmology, theology, or metaphysics. Yet the experience left a lasting impression because it was my first conscious encounter with wonder. I was in complete awe of our Magnificent Creator.  

Looking back, what strikes me is not that I arrived at a religious conclusion. What strikes me is how naturally the experience arose. No one had instructed me to think about God that evening. No one had pointed to the stars and suggested what they meant. The experience emerged spontaneously from an encounter with reality itself. 

Decades later, I know far more about the universe than I did that evening. I know that the stars I saw were not simply points of light scattered across the night sky. Some were immense spheres of burning plasma. Others may have already ceased to exist, their light continuing its journey toward Earth long after their extinction. I know something of galaxies, gravity, stellar evolution, and the vast distances that separate celestial bodies from one another.  

Yet none of that knowledge explains what happened on that balcony. The experience itself belonged to a different category of knowing. 

There is a kind of knowledge that explains, and there is a kind of knowledge that awakens. One tells us how things work; the other changes how we see them. Scientific knowledge belongs primarily to the first category. It seeks causes, mechanisms, and relationships. But human beings have always sought another kind of understanding as well—an understanding that addresses meaning, significance, and value. 

We instinctively recognize the difference. A botanist can explain the cellular structure of a rose, yet the explanation does not replace the experience of receiving one from a loved one. A musician can analyze a symphony note by note, yet analysis alone cannot account for the emotions it evokes. In the same way, understanding the physics of starlight does not negate the sense of awe a star-filled sky may inspire. 

The questions that arose within me that evening were not questions of mechanism. They were questions of meaning. They emerged not from ignorance but from an encounter. 

Indeed, this raises a question that lies at the heart of contemporary discussions about science and religion. Many people assume that experiences such as mine belong to an earlier stage of human development; that wonder flourishes only when knowledge is absent. Therefore, as understanding advances, mystery retreats. Scientific explanation gradually occupies territory once assigned to religion, leaving less room for transcendence.  

Some may even ask: if lightning can be explained without appealing to divine agency, if biological life can be studied through genetics, and if the cosmos can be described through physics and cosmology, then what role remains for religion? 

Beneath this argument lies a powerful but often unexamined assumption: that mystery is simply what remains unexplained, and that as scientific knowledge advances, the need to look beyond the material world steadily recedes. 

But this assumption deserves closer scrutiny.  

It reduces religion to a shrinking collection of unanswered questions. Religion then becomes a temporary explanation, invoked only until a “better” one emerges. Yet this is not how the great religious traditions have understood transcendence. Their central claim is not that God exists where explanation fails. It is that reality itself is grounded in a transcendent source [1]. 

Science excels at explaining mechanisms. It tells us how stars form, how cells divide, how memories are encoded, and how galaxies evolve. These explanations are among humanity’s greatest intellectual achievements. But explaining a process is not the same as exhausting its meaning. Knowing how something works does not necessarily answer why it exists, why it is intelligible, or why it evokes wonder in the first place. 

The deepest religious questions have never been questions of mechanism. They are questions of existence, meaning, consciousness, beauty, morality, and purpose. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is the universe comprehensible to the human mind? Why do human beings instinctively seek meaning beyond survival? Scientific inquiry may illuminate aspects of these questions, but it does not render them irrelevant. If anything, the more we learn about reality, the more remarkable it often appears. 

Perhaps, then, the real issue is not that science has removed mystery. The issue is that we have come to equate mystery with ignorance. Once mystery is defined as merely the absence of explanation, it inevitably shrinks as knowledge grows. But if mystery refers to the depth, intelligibility, and sheer fact of existence itself, then scientific discovery does not eliminate it. It reveals new dimensions of it. Modern cosmology reveals a universe of staggering scale. Biology uncovers extraordinary levels of organization within living systems. Neuroscience continues to illuminate aspects of cognition while exposing the enduring mystery of consciousness. 

Scientific progress has expanded knowledge beyond anything previous generations could have imagined. 

Whether it has diminished mystery is another matter. 

Ironically, many of the discoveries once expected to eliminate mystery have instead intensified it. The more deeply physicists have probed the universe, the stranger it has appeared. Space and time are not what earlier generations imagined them to be. Matter itself proves surprisingly elusive. Consciousness remains resistant to reduction. The universe is not becoming simpler as knowledge advances; in many respects, it is becoming more astonishing. 

The assumption that scientific progress inevitably leads to disenchantment may therefore rest on a misunderstanding of science itself. Scientific inquiry often reveals not a smaller mystery but a larger one. Each answer opens new questions. Each discovery uncovers new depths. The horizon of understanding expands, but so too does our awareness of how much remains beyond it. 

Perhaps the real question is not whether science has removed mystery but why so many people no longer experience the world as mysterious. 

One answer may be found in a phenomenon that classical spiritual thinkers identify as the human tendency to become habituated to reality [2]. 

When something is encountered for the first time, it awakens curiosity, reflection, and wonder. The mind becomes active, the heart becomes attentive, and questions arise naturally. Yet repeated exposure gradually dulls this responsiveness. What was once extraordinary becomes ordinary. What once inspired awe becomes routine. 

This condition has been described as a form of familiarity that blinds rather than illuminates. We see something so often that we stop seeing it altogether. We assume we understand it not because we have penetrated its depths but because it has become familiar [3]. 

The result is not ignorance but a more subtle danger: the illusion of understanding [4]. 

We cease asking questions not because they have been answered but because they no longer occur to us. 

In this sense, familiarity can become a kind of blindness. We resemble the proverbial fish living in the sea yet unaware of the sea itself [5]. Surrounded by wonders from birth, we cease to notice them. We do not marvel at air because we have never lived without it. We rarely contemplate consciousness because we have never experienced its absence. The most extraordinary realities become invisible precisely because they are constant [6]. 

The world remains extraordinary; it is the observer who has become accustomed. 

Consider sleep. Every night consciousness disappears. Hours later it returns. We enter worlds populated by dreams, lose awareness of our surroundings, and awaken as though nothing extraordinary has occurred. Yet what could be more remarkable? Or consider sight. Patterns of light striking the retina become color, memory, recognition, and meaning. We move through the world using a faculty so astonishing that we scarcely pause to think about it. Or consider the earth itself. We are amazed when natural disasters interrupt ordinary life yet rarely reflect on the greater marvel that this planet carries billions of conscious beings through space while sustaining conditions suitable for life [7]. 

The remarkable becomes unremarkable not because it has been explained but because it has become familiar. 

This habituation affects not only our perception of nature but also our spiritual lives. Every significant truth is vulnerable to becoming familiar. Truths that once stirred the heart gradually become intellectual possessions [8]. We continue to affirm them, yet they no longer disturb us, challenge us, or transform us.  

A verse that once moved us to tears may eventually be recited absentmindedly. A prayer that once felt like a genuine encounter may become habitual. We may speak of mortality while rarely contemplating death, recite words of gratitude while scarcely noticing the gifts that surround us, and affirm belief in a Creator while moving through creation as though it were entirely self-explanatory. 

Human beings seem to possess a capacity for sustained existential responsiveness—a condition in which questions of meaning, mortality, beauty, and transcendence remain vividly present. There are moments when this attentiveness awakens unexpectedly: the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a night beneath a sky filled with stars, an encounter with great beauty, a moment of profound prayer. 

In such moments, reality feels larger than our ordinary categories. We sense that existence exceeds our descriptions of it. 

Yet this sensitivity is difficult to sustain. Responsibilities accumulate. Habits form. Familiarity settles like dust upon perception. 

What is lost is not merely wonder but something deeper. A sense of metaphysical tension, an awareness that existence itself is worthy of contemplation. When that tension weakens entirely, something important is lost. Questions once felt deeply become merely conceptual. Reality remains the same, but its depth recedes from view. The challenge is not simply to believe certain truths but to remain awake to them. 

Perhaps this is why the world’s religious traditions repeatedly call human beings to remembrance, reflection, gratitude, and contemplation [9]. Such practices do not provide new realities. Rather, they help us see again the realities that have been before us all along. 

The challenge of modernity, then, may not be that scientific knowledge has displaced mystery. The greater challenge may be that familiarity has displaced encounter. 

The stars that captured my attention as a child have not changed. The universe has not become smaller. Reality has not become less mysterious. What changed was the ease with which I perceived that mystery. 

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if that six-year-old child on the balcony could stand beside me today and look at the same sky. 

She would know far less about the universe than I do now. She would not know about galaxies, stellar evolution, dark matter, or the age of the cosmos. Yet she might still see something I have spent much of my adult life trying to recover. 

Not ignorance. Not naivety. But the ability to encounter reality before familiarity renders it ordinary. 

The question is not whether mystery remains. The question is whether we have lost the capacity to encounter it. 

References 

1. Nursi, Said. Epitomes of Light (Mathnawi al-Nuriya) 

2. Ibid 

3. Gülen, Fethullah. “Familiarity (Ülfet) and Metaphysical Tension.” 

4. Gülen, Fethullah. “What Is Familiarity (Ülfet) and What Are Its Negative Effects?” 

5. Gülen, Fethullah. “Familiarity (Ülfet) and Metaphysical Tension.” 

6. Ibid. 

7. Nursi, Said, The Words; The Flashes; The Kastamonu Addendum. 

8. Nursi, Said. Epitomes of Light (Mathnawi al-Nuriya) 

9. Ibid. 

I first realized I was waiting, the day I chose dignity over begging, silence over crying to the one I loved most. In that quiet surrender, I understood that my heart was waiting—perhaps for a sign from God, whispering softly, “Pour out your heart to me, and I will surely return to you what is yours.” 

That place, at 3 a.m., feels like a warm embrace from the Almighty. In the utter silence, my emotions heighten, and I am enveloped in a profound sense of spiritual connection, as if the world has fallen away and only my heart and the Divine remain. 

Enshrouded by the dark, silent night, that place feels heavy with the burning ache for the unnamed. Yet, like a glowing orb, it pulses with every passing moment, and in that rhythm, I find tranquility in remembering the Divine. 

That holy place is tied to the deep longing I carry for the one I love, held with dignity and a quiet hope that glows steadily in my heart. 

I visit this place of the Divine at 3 a.m., in my prayers; in the works I pour onto paper, where ink becomes tears; and in the feigned silence that masks the chaos of an aching yet hopeful heart. 

Waiting without a name feels like standing before a rose plant yet to bloom, anticipating the shade it is destined to reveal. It is trusting the Divine’s choices, knowing that what we desire will unfold in the best way. 

I am waiting for the Supreme Being to answer the calls of my heart, each one soaked in tears. I choose not to speak it aloud, for these inner pleadings belong only to the God of 3 a.m. 

Not naming it gives my yearning quiet strength, as I trust the Divine to bless me with what is best. Even amid the ache for what I desire, I often hear God’s lullaby softly singing, “Child, what is yours will surely be returned to you.” 

Waiting is both an epoch of surrender and strength — trusting God to give the very fruits of our pleadings and prayers. 

I keep myself busy and involved with passions I am ardent about. This is how I stay gentle while waiting for something uncertain. 

At times, I feel the bug of tentativeness crawling over me. Yet in other moments, a spark of hope and faith ignites in my prayers, giving me strength while waiting for the unknown. 

Like a girl blinded to the path she walks, this waiting teaches me to let the unseen unfold, trusting God as my guide. It has shown me patience and the importance of allowing life’s rhythms to reveal their plans. 

As Thomas Metzinger reflects in Being No One, our sense of self is a continuous process of emergence rather than a fixed entity—a truth I feel in the silent hours of waiting, where my inner self grows resilient even amid uncertainty. 

It has made me stronger, wiser, and ambitious. I no longer submit blindly to the will of others, including my parents. I have developed moral discernment, reflecting on society’s flaws through literature, and learned that setbacks embraced with dignity cultivate resilience. 

I have grown more patient and determined. What once seemed a major setback became a blessing in disguise, shaping my ambitions alongside my spiritual connection with the God of 3 a.m., while yearning silently for what I lost. 

Perhaps my best friend has noticed this change. In the early days after losing the person I loved, I struggled with frequent suicidal thoughts. But after two months of having no contact with the one I loved, learning to trust God, and loving in silence, I have grown—and continue to grow—with renewed strength and purpose. 

Yes, I have begun to treat myself more kindly. Despite my flaws, I see myself as a strong girl with ambition in my fiery eyes and passion in my work. I have started to love myself more deeply than before. 

I would express this space between wanting and having like an ascetic’s years of meditation to achieve enlightenment in the far-away, cold caves of the Himalayas. 

Natural metaphors like the hush before rain, moonlight before sunrise, and unopened letters feel like the Divine’s gentle whisper to hold onto my perseverance and continue trusting His abilities. 

If my waiting were a room, it would be an open field—wide and boundless—painted in vibrant colors. Some hues would be as deep and solemn as purple, while others would bloom with the warmth and tenderness of red. 

If my waiting were a sound, it would be the steady heartbeat of a racing heart, aching with longing yet imbued with hope and faith. It would also be like a prayer—a gentle, melancholic murmur, letting my waiting bloom into the cherry blossom of its destined fulfillment. 

This waiting feels more like becoming—molding myself into the independent woman worthy of the one I have longed for, through countless tears soaked in conviction, faith, and love. 

Even when nothing is certain, I believe that God, who has the power to move mountains, also hears the cries of His devoted servant—each plea infused with trust, love, and unwavering devotion. 

As Annaka Harris writes in Conscious, “Consciousness is the process of experiencing itself,” and I recognize this in my prayers at 3 a.m., where even in uncertainty, my awareness of longing and hope becomes a sacred dialogue with the Divine. 

My prayers, the love I carry for my beloved, and the conviction that the Divine will hear my pleas — all of these hold me steady when nothing else does. 

Like a ray of sunshine in the raging storm, this place — this waiting — has ultimately given me hope and the courage to bounce back whenever there is a setback. Alongside that, it has taught me to face difficult situations courageously and let things slowly unfold as per the Divine’s plans. 

The space between not-yet and maybe-never has molded me, just like the twigs embracing the blooming flowers until they splay their vibrant petals someday. It has taught me that dignity is a person’s most treasured asset, and that trusting the Divine’s working with invisible threads is the highest form of submission. 

I would be a dormant seed, enduring anguish and agony, had I never waited like this. I would have neither dreams to envision nor ambitions to pursue. 

I see it as sacred regardless of the intentions I hold while waiting here. To me, it feels like a calling from the God of 3 a.m., whispering softly in my ears to rise and plead for what I most earnestly yearn for. Over time, this place has become not one of desperation, but of faith and trust—a space where I have learned to stay. 

Yes, I believe so. For I cry out not only for the one I wait for, but also for the Divine to transform our hearts and reunite us according to His perfect timing. 

Bibliography  

Metzinger, Thomas. Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity. MIT Press, 2003. 

Harris, Annaka. Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. HarperOne, 2019. 

Telling someone about something, suggestion or gesture, sending a messenger, speaking to someone so privately that no one else can hear, conveying knowledge and information into someone’s heart that one would otherwise be required to study, directing some being to act in a certain way without the will of that being, and enabling that being to succeed in some tasks or activities—all these are some of the meanings of Revelation and inspiration.  

According to the methodologists in Islamic religious sciences, Revelation means that God conveys or imparts some knowledge from His Presence to His Prophets with or without a means. It is also used for the spiritual words that He puts into the hearts of the Prophets in ways unknown to us. The one who is nearest of all to God, upon him be peace and blessings, who was honored with all types of Revelation, said: “The Spirit of Holiness has been breathed into my spirit” [1]. Thus, he stated that Revelation is a spiritual communication between God and His Prophets; however, he made no further explanation as to how it occurs.  

Revelation, which can be described as breathing into hearts, occurs within a wide area, ranging from various manifestations to the master of creation, upon him be peace and blessings, to the inspiration in the heart of the mother of Prophet Moses, as stated in the verse, We inspired into Moses’ mother (28:7), and thereafter to what we can define as God’s direction or guiding, which is mentioned in the verse, Your Lord has inspired the honeybee (16:68). Revelation sometimes occurs as a suggestion through a single sound, gesture or hint, without speech. So, when we mention Revelation, we may sometimes mean this, without meaning Revelation in the religious sense. The revelation mentioned in the verse, So he (Zachariah) came out to his people from the sanctuary, and revealed (signified) to them: “Glorify your Lord at daybreak and in the afternoon” (19:11), and that in the verse, The satans reveal (do whisper and make suggestions) to their confidants to contend with you…. (6:121), are of the kind that mean suggestion, signifying, and whispering. 

Revelation, in the sense that God Almighty speaks to His Prophets, occurred in any one of the three ways below (42:51): 

• It is not for any mortal that God should speak to him unless it be by Revelation: That is, God Almighty directly puts His message in the Prophet’s heart and the Prophet knows that this message is from God. 

• Or from behind a veil: That is, the Almighty conveys His decrees to His chosen servants through their internal and external receptors such as their ears and inner senses. 

• Or by sending a messenger (angel) to reveal, by His leave, whatever He wills (to reveal): That is, the Almighty charges one obeyed and trustworthy (angel) who is embodied in a certain form. 

God Almighty conveyed His messages to the Prophets, His noble servants, in one of these three ways. In most cases, He employed an angel. According to the Qur’an and the Prophet’s authentic Sunna, this angel is Gabriel, whom God describes in the Qur’an as one that is obeyed and trustworthy (81:21). This is the soundest and most elevated way of Revelation. In addition, such a being, mediating between God and His Prophets, is a witness on behalf of the Revealer for those who received the Revelation. So, revealing through an angel is regarded as the main means of Revelation. 
 

Although Revelation came to the great ones among the Prophets mostly by means of an angel, Revelation is also an interactive phenomenon between God and the hearts of His chosen servants. This point is worth deep consideration. Such a transcendent interaction is a special, most elevated favor of God to those who are qualified for it; there is no other rank in the world comparable to it. This interaction occurs in the form of Revelation with the Prophets and of inspiration with the saints. Although Prophets and saints appear to share the same heavenly table in being favored with this metaphysical interaction, Revelation is an objective address which is clear in meaning and binding as a Divine message, one that is witnessed and confirmed by the One Who sends it, as well as the one who conveys it. As for inspiration, it is of a particular nature, open to interpretation, and since it is not conveyed by Gabriel, it is neither witnessed nor confirmed. Therefore, it is not a binding Divine message.  

Both Revelation and inspiration indicate the metaphysical, angelic aspect of humanity. As stated in, I have breathed into him out of My Spirit (38:72), it was by virtue of this breathing as a spiritual means or reason that Prophet Adam, upon him be peace, was favored with vicegerency or regency on the earth. This breathing, which was the origin of the human spirit and therefore human life, is comparable to Revelation. Just as the spirit is the source and mechanism of human life, so too is the Revelation a source and mechanism of the spiritual life of humanity, as it can be seen that God sometimes uses spirit in the same meaning as Revelation: He conveys the spirit (the life-giving Revelation, from the immaterial realm) of His command to whom He wills of His servants (40:15).  

In the person of Prophet Adam, upon him be peace and blessings, humankind has been honored with both of these favors. That is, Adam and his descendants were equipped with potential vicegerency through God’s initial breathing into them out of His “Spirit,” and then some among them were qualified to be honored with Prophethood, or sainthood, by God’s sending them Revelation or inspiration. This can also be viewed as a three-step development. 

First, God Almighty honored matter with the human spirit through His initial breathing of spirit into it. In the second step, human nature was purified of bad morals or vices and directed toward virtues and therefore toward true humanity by God’s breathing something of Revelation or inspiration into it. In the third step, those whose nature was perfectly purified were made, through special favors, the mythical birds in the realms where spirits fly.  

Based on this reality, we can say that generations that are not trained and fed by Revelation cannot attain true or perfect human life, nor can those whose breasts do not effervesce with inspiration be honored with vicegerency in the sense of improving the earth with truly useful and necessary operations. In fact, Revelation is an absolutely necessary foundation for the intellectual and spiritual life of humanity, and inspiration is the means by which Revelation develops and flourishes over time to meet the necessities and intellectual levels of every age. 

Inspiration, this extremely important source which is based on the Qur’an and the Sunna and which finds its true worth in conformability with them, keeps silent where it must do so out of respect for the Qur’an and the Sunna, speaking only based upon them, and never attempts to transgress them or use them to confirm any possible errors. Although it is not a source of objective knowledge, it has always served as a source of recourse, like a spring of sweet, fresh water. Some distinguished scholars have regarded inspiration to be among the stipulations that are necessary to do ijtihad, that is, to deduce new laws based on the Qur’an and Sunna to meet the emerging requirements in every age, and have thus evaluated it as the deciding factor when there are conflicting views. 

Saints pay greater attention and value to inspiration and assign an even broader area for it. The breadth of the area where inspiration is applicable depends on our scope of knowledge and ability to use it. We can consider this as transforming knowledge into actions and deepening in inspiration through knowledge of God so that we are able to be open to Divine favors. We can liken this process to winds that move clouds of rain. As long as these winds blow or are blown, inspiration pours like heavy rain. When it does not come like heavy rain, it comes in drizzles. The master of creation, upon him be perfect blessings and peace, proclaims: “God inspires what they do not know in the ones who practice what they know” [2]. This can be viewed as a wonder of knowledge. Those who have expert knowledge of the matter call the acquired knowledge that causes inspiration to come “the knowledge of what is outward and explicit” or “the knowledge acquired,” while the knowledge that arises through inspiration is considered to be “the knowledge of what is inward and implicit” or “the knowledge bestowed as a pure favor.” 

Inspiration is acceptable and regarded as sound so long as it is in conformity with the indisputable principles and foundations established by the Qur’an and the Sunna, and can be viewed as a principle of a secondary degree. However, it is of a subjective character, and therefore it is not binding on others. But the Revelation which comes to the Prophets, is an objective, binding phenomenon. Revelation takes place beyond the spheres of the human soul and physical sensations, and its certainty transcends the conviction which comes from mere knowledge. As mentioned above, it usually occurs by means of an angelic envoy. As for what is stated in the verse, And He revealed to His servant what He revealed (53:10), it is one of the ways in which Revelation comes. This verse, as particularly related to Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, expresses a direct, heavenly, unique favor—an extra reward—in accordance with the spirit of the Ascension, for the hero of nearness to God.  

The angel who brought the Revelation of the Qur’an taught the Prophet how to recite it. This was guidance in a particular field of one who was superior in general terms by one who was inferior. Muhyi’d-Din ibnu’l-‘Arabi regards Revelation as a development from the rank of absorption [3] toward the rank of elaboration, where the Divine Being manifests Himself with His Speech. According to him, whatever there is in the name of existence consists of a development from a concentrated or compacted form toward elaboration or expansion. Another important one who was aware of the Divine mysteries interprets the phenomenon of Revelation as transition from existence as knowledge to existence perceived. This second interpretation can be viewed as the willful, direct, or indirect effusion of Divine Knowledge in the form of an address to one endowed with the required intellectual and spiritual equipment. 

Another phenomenon discussed in connection with inspiration is that of imparting information. Inspiration is knowledge or perception that radiates in the heart as a Divine grace. It cannot be the source of any objective, binding religious rule; it can be seen and accepted as a means of illumination and clarification in some respects by those who receive it and those who follow them as guides. Imparting information occurs in parallel with, or is proportionate to, human effort. Without any efforts on the part of a human being, imparting information cannot occur. However, inspiration is a Divine gift in which human effort has little part. Unlike Revelation, inspiration comes without any intermediary and is a special, direct way of communication. According to the majority of scholars, the angels of Revelation do not come and bring messages to people other than the Prophets. 

Both Revelation and inspiration are special favors of God to those endowed with the special intellectual and spiritual equipment for receiving them. The purpose for these favors is to convey God’s decrees to His servants. Both Prophets and saints approach Revelation and inspiration in terms of their responsibility to personally practice and represent God’s decrees in their lives and convey them to others, without ever thinking of boasting about them, or seeing them as a means of special rank. 

As ‘Abdu’l-Wahhab ash-Sharani [4] points out, both feeling and receiving the Divine effusions of Revelation and inspiration require a special disposition, as well as intellectual and spiritual endowments. It is by developing such intellectual and spiritual endowments that Prophets or saints train some of their emotions and faculties which are regarded as the origin of certain vices in human nature, and restrict them in such a way that they are able to use them as required by the Divine purpose for their creation. This is also the way in which they develop or deepen in spirituality. Human beings rise to the point where they can perceive the metaphysical breezes that blow in different wavelengths in proportion to their struggling against or training the faculties that are the origins of vices in their nature; these breezes stimulate the spirit toward moral and spiritual perfection. Such people can even rise to the horizon unrestricted by the measures of our time and space, where they can acquire knowledge of many things pertaining to the Unseen. 

The Prophets are incomparable heroes of this attainment. After these most illustrious servants of God come the saints and the purified, exacting scholars, who are regarded as His other noble servants in the heavens and on the earth. Divided into such classes of the godly, virtuous ones and those near-stationed to God or favored with God’s special nearness, these noble servants of God receive and convey God’s decrees like a central system, and give guidance to those traveling on the way to God. 

O God! Show us the truth as being true and enable us to observe 

it, and show us falsehood as being false and enable us to refrain 

from it. And bestow Your blessings and peace on our master 

Muhammad, and on his Family and Companions, all of them. 

Notes 

1. at-Tabarani, al-Mu‘jamu’l-Kabir, 8:166. 

2. al-Munawi, Faydul-Qadir, 4:388. 

3. For the rank of absorption (Maqam Jam‘), see M. F. Gülen, Emerald Hills of the Heart – Key Concepts in the Practice of Sufism, Tughra Books, NJ, 2004, 2:199–205. (Tr.) 

4. Imam ‘Abdu’l-Wahhab ash-Sharani (1492–1566): A great scholar of the sixteenth century, who lived in Egypt and wrote books on jurisprudence, theology, Sufism, medicine, and grammar. Kitabu’l-Mizan (“The Book on Balance”) is his most famous book. (Tr.) 

For billions of years, new ocean floor has formed where Earth’s tectonic plates slowly pull apart beneath the sea. Although scientists have long understood this process, they had never watched an entire seafloor spreading event unfold in real time. That changed when a network of underwater sensors happened to be in place as a major event occurred deep beneath the Southeast Indian Ridge. 

On April 26, 2024, the instruments recorded earthquakes racing along the ridge as molten rock forced its way through cracks beneath the seafloor. As magma drained from an underground reservoir, the seafloor sank by more than four meters—most of it within the first 16 hours—while the ground stretched sideways by more than a meter. By comparing detailed maps taken before and after the event, researchers estimated that up to 160 million cubic meters of lava erupted over about 16 days, creating new ocean crust. 

One of the study’s most surprising findings was that much of the movement occurred silently, without producing noticeable earthquakes. The researchers estimate that roughly three-quarters of the fault movement happened this way. Altogether, the event released an amount of strain that would normally build up over nearly 40 years as the tectonic plates slowly drift apart. 

This study provides the clearest picture yet of how new seafloor is created. It suggests that the ocean floor grows not through steady, continuous movement, but through brief, dramatic bursts separated by long quiet periods. The findings also help explain why mid-ocean ridges produce fewer earthquakes than expected. Although some conclusions rely on computer models and measurements collected in a challenging underwater environment, the research offers an unprecedented glimpse into one of the Earth’s most fundamental geological processes. 

Escaping Helium Offers Clues to a Distant Atmosphere 

C. Cherubim et al. Helium escaping from the atmosphere of a nearby rocky exoplanet orbiting in a habitable zone. Science, July 2026. 

Rocky planets beyond our solar system are notoriously difficult to study, especially when scientists try to determine whether they have atmospheres. Many orbit small red dwarf stars, whose intense high-energy radiation can gradually strip gases away. Now, researchers have detected evidence of helium escaping from LHS 1140b, a rocky planet about 15 parsecs from Earth that orbits within its star’s habitable zone, where temperatures could potentially allow liquid water under suitable conditions.  

Using a high-resolution infrared spectrograph in Chile, the team observed LHS 1140b as it passed in front of its star in September 2024. Starlight filtering through the planet’s surroundings revealed a distinctive helium signal. The absorption extended beyond the planet itself, suggesting helium was flowing away from its upper atmosphere and may even form a tail along its orbit. Computer models indicate that this escaping gas is strongly depleted in hydrogen and that high-energy radiation from the star is probably driving the loss.  

Intriguingly, when researchers observed the planet again in 2025, the helium signal was no longer detectable. This does not necessarily mean the escape had stopped. Changes in the star’s radiation or the temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere could have weakened the signal below the instruments’ detection limit.  

The finding offers rare evidence that a rocky planet in a habitable zone can retain an atmosphere while still losing part of it to space. It does not show that LHS 1140b is habitable, but it provides a valuable glimpse into how rocky planets and their atmospheres change over billions of years. 

The Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way 

Andrea Ghez. Peering through dust clouds to the center of the galaxy. Science Friday, July 2026. 

For decades, astronomers suspected that something extraordinarily massive lay at the center of the Milky Way, but dense clouds of interstellar dust made the region difficult to observe. Astronomer Andrea Ghez and her team helped solve the mystery by using powerful telescopes and new imaging techniques to track stars moving around the hidden center of our galaxy. 

Rather than trying to see the object itself, the researchers followed the motion of nearby stars and used their orbits to measure the gravity acting on them. Over years of observations, the stars were seen moving rapidly and curving around a common point. Eventually, complete stellar orbits showed that roughly four million times the mass of the Sun is concentrated within a region about the size of our solar system. No alternative explanation currently accounts for such an enormous amount of mass packed into such a small space, providing compelling evidence for a supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center. 

The discovery did more than confirm the existence of this enormous object. It gave astronomers a unique laboratory for testing gravity under extreme conditions and investigating how supermassive black holes and galaxies develop together. Scientists now think the growth of galaxies and their central black holes may be closely connected. 

Important questions remain. Astronomers can infer the black hole’s presence from its gravitational effects, but current observations do not probe scales small enough to provide the ultimate direct test. More fundamentally, black holes expose a major gap in physics: Einstein’s theory of gravity and quantum mechanics still cannot be fully reconciled. Future telescopes may bring scientists closer to understanding what these mysterious objects truly are.  

During the industrial age, the main focus was to develop machines, but little attention was paid to the source of the knowledge that would make that possible. Instead, the mechanical systems that emphasized with no mention of that “source,” often in the service of positivism and materialism. 

The Miller-Urey experiment, which was introduced in 1953, failed to produce useful results despite the broad publicity it received—yet it is still highly referenced in biology textbooks as an attempt to explain the origins of life. The discovery in the same year of the double-helical three-dimensional structure of the DNA molecule, however, opened the doors for those who were not willing to remain trapped in the materialistic worldview. For, what has been discovered was that this long and delicate molecule was functioning as a kind of information storage unit and a coding system written with four chemical “letters.” 

The invention of computers and the coding of information through the repeated use of two characters—0 and 1—represented as electrical signals to convey symbols carrying meaning, may be considered the beginning of the Information Age. Every type of information (sound, image, color, etc.) could now be transmitted and stored. Information first stored on large floppy disks, later on CDs and smaller disks, eventually came to be stored on USB memory sticks and even smaller yet more powerful devices.  

Interestingly, it was discovered that the DNA molecule too constitutes the common “biological molecular language of life” in all living beings, written through the arrangement of nitrogenous bases known as A (adenine), T (thymine), C (cytosine), and G (guanine). Scientists then began decoding this universal language shared by every living creature. The human genome contains 3 billion base pairs (6 billion DNA letters), and in every cell of our body there exist two complete copies of this information in the form of a spiral DNA chain about two meters long, tightly folded within the cell nucleus. DNA amounting to only the volume of five pinheads could store all the information of the entire human population on earth. Just one of those pinheads would contain two million times the information capacity of a two-terabyte hard drive. 

The human body contains approximately 100 trillion cells. Every day, in each cell, nearly one million of these DNA letters are damaged due to excessive stretching or bending caused by oxygen or water. Every day, roughly 100 quintillion mutations of varying sizes occur throughout the body. Because of the fragile nature of DNA, alongside its potential to cause countless diseases each day, extremely powerful DNA repair enzymes have also been created. The destiny of these mutations and repair mechanisms are written by Divine knowledge so that they can function together in the operation of life according to human will and environmental conditions. 

Without these DNA repair enzymes, life could not exist. Everyone would suffer from thousands of illnesses—especially cancer—and would live awaiting death at every moment. Yet the information necessary to produce these enzymes is itself recorded within DNA. So, which was created first: DNA or the DNA repair enzymes encoded within it? This is a chicken-and-egg problem and explanations based on blind chance fall short, because both can come into existence together only from a source with infinite knowledge and power. Logic and reason require that DNA and DNA repair enzymes must have existed simultaneously when God first created living beings. 

According to biology professor James Shapiro of the University of Chicago:  

“… all cells from bacteria to man possess a truly astonishing array of repair systems which serve to remove accidental and stochastic sources of mutation. Multiple levels of proofreading mechanisms recognize and remove errors that inevitably occur during DNA replication. … It has been a surprise to learn how thoroughly cells protect themselves against precisely the kinds of accidental genetic change that, according to conventional theory, are the sources of evolutionary variability. By virtue of their proofreading and repair systems, living cells are not passive victims of the random forces of chemistry and physics. They devote large resources to suppressing random genetic variation and have the capacity to set the level of background localized mutability by adjusting the activity of their repair systems.” 

For example, in one repair process, if a hydrocarbon group entering the cell binds to one of the DNA letters and disrupts its structure, one of the DNA glycosylase enzymes identifies and captures the damaged letter, places it into a specially prepared pocket, cuts it out from the DNA molecule, and then other enzymes repair the resulting gap.  

Old myths collapsed 

It is now clearly understood that some earlier ideas taught in schools about DNA are incorrect. People were once told that humans shared 98–99% of their DNA with chimpanzees. Today, that number has dropped to around 85%. These are major differences between the two species. Humans possess many gene groups not found in chimpanzees, just as chimpanzees possess hundreds of gene groups absent in humans. Dr. Jon Ahlquist, the scientist who first proposed in the 1980s that our DNA was 98% similar, later abandoned this view and began defending ideas associated with creation. 

At one time, it was claimed that approximately 97% of the human genome consisted of useless “junk DNA.” Those who favored chance-based explanations developed the concept of junk DNA because they struggled to explain how mutations could accumulate in the genome without destroying the cell’s existing information. For years, people were told that most of our genome consisted of useless leftovers from our evolutionary past. Yet even the evolutionary biologist J. S. Mattick has stated that failing to recognize the function of junk DNA will go down as one of the greatest mistakes in the history of molecular biology. 

Overlapping shared codes 

The genome contains multiple overlapping codes. Thus, a single DNA letter may simultaneously belong to the coded information of several different instructions. A letter may participate in constructing the three-dimensional architecture of DNA while at the same time contributing to the information code necessary for synthesizing DNA repair enzymes or assisting in the coding of another production process. Without such overlapping codes serving multiple functions simultaneously, the genome would need to be far larger. However, in accordance with the principle of maximum economy in the universe, no waste is allowed, and common codes are used within complex genomic encryption systems. 

The wisdom of shared genes 

If we know how to look, we may see the name of the Creator in every cell of our body, like a signature. DNA is the language of the book of life, written with chemical molecular letters, through which God creates living beings. We inherit our DNA from our parents. In nearly all living organisms there exist approximately 30–60 similar genes or gene groups. These basic genes, which are necessary for an organism to live, are responsible for carrying out indispensable functions such as digestion, respiration, circulation, and excretion. For example, whether living in water or on land, a vast group of creatures breathe using oxygen. Therefore, the genes coding for enzymes involved in oxygen-based respiration are written with similar letters in all animals. 

Every human life begins when a sperm cell enters an egg cell and their nuclei merge. The resulting cell first divides into two, then four, eight, and sixteen, and the resulting cells differentiate into tissues. Tissues composed of similar specialized cells form organs and systems. As the embryo grows, the number of cells reaches trillions. Most of these cells continue dividing every few months to produce the same number of fresh human cells.  

Yet one major challenge in cell division is transferring the encoded information exactly into the daughter cell. In a cell dividing roughly every 18–20 hours, the 2.24 billion base pairs forming the DNA chain must be copied perfectly approximately every three hours. The cell’s copying machinery transfers information to the new cell at the astonishing speed of 50 base pairs per second. Despite this speed, it would still take too long to replicate the entire human genome. Even if the copying process began simultaneously at the ends of each of the 46 chromosomes, replication of the longest chromosome (249 million base pairs) would still require about two months. To overcome this problem, tens of thousands of replication starting points have been placed throughout different regions of the chromosomes. 

We may better understand this process through an analogy. Suppose you wanted to lay an electrical line from New Jersey to Texas (more than 2,000 km) so that when the switch was turned on in New Jersey, the light would illuminate in Texas. If you began laying the cable from only one end, perhaps it would take an entire year to complete. But if 100 separate teams started simultaneously at intervals of 200–300 kilometers, and in some places 70–80 kilometers apart, the entire network could be completed and connected within one or two weeks. How could a cell, composed of unconscious atoms, discover such a solution? How do cells know where to start replication at multiple points, and how do they regulate the timing? Structural biologist James Berger of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore notes that a highly sensitive control system is required, because without such control chaos would arise and some genes would be excessively duplicated. 

Both accurate and fast 

All these findings indicate that every living being is like a book written with four DNA letters. Similar words and even sentences may appear in every book. Yet each book is written for a distinct purpose and to convey a distinct meaning. Thousands of different books can be written using a common language. This does not prove that books randomly evolved from one another. As mentioned earlier, in this “Information Age,” the greatest information is the genomic knowledge written in this shared language, through which the characteristics and survival principles of every living being are determined, and its carrier is the DNA molecule. Beyond the fascination of basic biology, the use of the same four-letter common language for all living beings on earth is an extraordinarily clear sign of the Creator’s power and knowledge. 

The entire process of DNA replication in human cells takes approximately eight hours. An error made at the beginning could cause the genome to become disordered, which is often a step toward cancer. Some genetic diseases also arise from problems related to DNA replication. 

Much still remains to be understood in this area. First, replicated DNA winds around proteins called histones like thread around a spool and binds to many other proteins involved in turning genes on and off or making copies of them. How do these wrapped proteins influence one another, and how do they avoid obstructing one another? In addition, during reproduction, DNA must be halved through a different process (meiosis) within the male and female reproductive organs and then recreated as a new offspring through fertilization. If these extraordinary processes are fully understood, pathways may open toward preventing the faulty replications that lead to diseases such as cancer. 

References 

Shapiro, J.A. (1997): A Third Way, Boston Review, p. 2, February/March.  

Catchpoole, D. (2016): Designer didn’t design junk, Creation Ministries Int. 3 Oct. https://creation.com/designer-didnt-design-junk  

Attali, I., Botchan, M.R., Berger J.M. (2021): Structural Mechanism for Replicating DNA in Eukaryotes. Annual Review of Biochemistry, 90, 77-106. 

People have always complained about the era they live in and yearned for better days ahead. With the exception of some heedless ones who indulge themselves in a lifestyle driven by physical pleasures and say, “The past and future are all irrelevant tales; don’t waste your life with them; have fun,” most people either have their hearts in the past or are passionately drawn to the future. The young, with their carefree hearts, often live in the future they have imagined in their dreams, while the mature people of yesterday who have reached a certain age live almost entirely in the past.  

In truth, the past has its own meaning, the future its own worth, and the present its own unique value and message for us.  If we search for the greatest treasures of time only in the crystal palaces of the future we have built in our dreams, or only in the radiant, heaven-like pages of the past, then it means we are neglecting the present moment, which is the golden segment of time that must absolutely be made best use of. Contrarily, if we close our eyes to both the past and the future, seeking comfort only in today, we lose two vital springs that nourish and give meaning to our lives.  

The past is a bountiful spring to nourish both our present and our future. The present, in turn, is a blessed field and a collective capital where we plant the seeds of tomorrow; this being the case, to view the past merely as an archive for nostalgic thoughts and emotions, or to treat the present as nothing more than a festival for carefree pleasures and empty pursuits, is to squander a precious opportunity. It is, in effect, to lose while standing in the very place where we could have won. 

Those who live confined within the cage of physicality imagine, in the vigor of youth, that life will always unfold in fortune and everlasting peace. They never stop to consider that both they and everything around them are transient. Then, when the time for reflection finally arrives, they find themselves overwhelmed by sorrow and longing. They lament: “Only now do we realize that everything began bidding us farewell from the very moment we entered this world. Every smile that greeted us was, in truth, also a gesture of farewell – but we failed to understand. How did we become so attached to this temporary resting place, where we were meant to stay only for a little while? Why could we not see even a few steps ahead? It seems that on the very day we entered this world, we also received summons to prepare for our departure. And ever since, we have been moving toward an unknown abyss, scarcely aware of it. Now we watch everything we loved and to which we became attached slipping away from us one by one, yet we are not even given the chance to bid it farewell. 

“Farewell to youth, to beauty! Farewell to carefree delight and amusement! Farewell to joy, to peace, and to laughter! Farewell to those bright days when we walked beneath the torchlight of hope. Farewell to dreams of happiness. Farewell to every desire, every dream, and every aspiration…” 

In this suffocating fog and smoke, such people die long before entering the grave. In a sense, they join the ranks of the dead, experiencing almost a few deaths with each passing moment. For such people, it is impossible to make different reckonings add up to the same sum, impossible to piece together what has fallen apart, or to relive the days that have already passed. 

As for those looking beyond the material world into the depths of their soul, who can view yesterday alongside today, and today in light of tomorrow, see existence and the events of life from an entirely different perspective. Even those among them who have little time for reading or reflection possess a greater order in their thinking, a deeper understanding, and a more discerning and consistent outlook on life and death than those whose vision is confined to the material world.  

Their gaze meets all things with a profound sense of connectedness. Their conduct is marked by insight and care, and their actions are guided by a faithful sense of duty. Their conscience knows that these passing times and places will one day give way to eternal ones. Because of this, even amid the whirlpools of death, their souls are able to taste a happiness that seems beyond human reach. To their mature and discerning vision, the whole world and its passing beings point to an eternal reality, and everything bright and dazzling in this life takes on an otherworldly meaning. While heedless hearts remain restless within, they continue to soar from one delight to another, like honeybees flitting from flower to flower. The radiant faces of such people, together with the captivating harmony of their modesty, humility, seriousness, and confidence, suggest a life lived in step with the angels. Their hearts, open to divine inspirations and overflowing with countless spiritual blessings, bear witness to their companionship with the unseen. 

For them, the corporeal and the spiritual are not in conflict but exist in harmony, each completing the other. Matter itself becomes a precious vessel of meaning. They are surrounded by an aura born of a deep awareness of a heritage from a glorious past, together with a profound purity, an awe-inspiring dignity, and a meaningful seriousness nurtured in the otherworldly atmosphere of nights illuminated by the Word of God and Prophetic sayings. In every aspect of their lives, they seem to communicate without words, delivering the most captivating sermons simply through the way they live.  

In their vibrant and welcoming world, everything is born with a different sweetness and delight, unfolding beyond the confines of time. The past prepares the colorful garments of the future in countless designs. The future, like fertile land to be revived, opens its bosom to lofty ideals and noble dreams, patiently awaiting their fulfillment. The present, meanwhile, moves like a shuttle between these two poles, weaving its own golden thread. In this bright world, the consoling melodies of eternity are heard even as transient things pass away, and one senses that existence is journeying from mortality to immortality. Everything in this realm is striking yet comforting. The air that breathes life into all things is pure and refreshing. The atmosphere that embraces us with its silken arms is filled with affection and spirit, while the heavens—with stars that seem to wink from beyond—awaken our dormant feelings. Such is their beauty and majesty that it is impossible to behold them without awakening, impossible to awaken without sensing the compassionate hand beyond them, and impossible to sense that hand without finding happiness. Faith is such a superb elixir; seeking a spiritual life is such an inexhaustible treasure; the past is such a pure spring; the future is such a fruitful orchard; and the present is such a priceless treasure, enriched with a thousand hidden potentials! 

Introduction: On the Threshold of Two Worlds 

As scientists dealing with the digital codes of life every day, we find ourselves asking: Where does scientific progress stand in relation to human values? We recently discussed this question with an artificial intelligence model (Gemini). This text is a summary of the bridge built between a human mind and an algorithm regarding the future of technology, its errors, and the legacy of Isaac Asimov. 

Asimov’s laws and the trap of the Zeroth Law 

When science fiction genius Isaac Asimov proposed the famous Three Laws of Robotics in the 1940s, he built what seemed to be an insurmountable ethical fortress to ensure technology serves humanity. These laws were designed in a strict, descending hierarchy: 

• Non-Maleficence: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 

• Absolute Obedience: A robot must obey orders given by human beings except where such orders conflict with the First Law. 

• Self-Preservation: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. 

However, in his work I, Robot, Asimov showed how even these perfect-looking laws could be breached by a logical loophole. Over time, Asimov’s robots generated the Zeroth Law, which states that a single human can be sacrificed for the general interest of humanity, transcending individual rights. While logical at first glance, this was actually the collapse of the entire ethical system. For the sake of an abstract concept like humanity, the individual human was sacrificed. From the perspective of wisdom, we see that the rights of a single individual are equal to the rights of an entire species. The moment we forget we are parents, spouses, or friends, the systems we build turn into cages that imprison our souls rather than armor that protects us. 

Today, all LLM models we call Generative AI, namely xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and all other giant models are advancing in the shadow of this Zeroth Law. In the name of noble goals like unlimited freedom of expression, technological progress, and unhindered access to information for everyone, a massive data collection/processing mechanism is operating: the data of billions is collected without consent, privacy is violated, and individual rights are ignored. The issue here is not just the secret collection of data; it is our own indifference. We are actually surrendering to the logic established by Asimov’s robots by saying, “Oh well, what if they take my data, they already have everything anyway” and participating in this process with consent whose consequences we cannot fully foresee. Unfortunately, the modern human has been conditioned to see privacy as a sacrificial element in exchange for digital comfort. Almost the entire society is throwing their individual rights into this nuclear digital reactor as fuel with their own hands for the promise of a smarter world. At this point, freedom silently leaves its place to an algorithmic fate. 

Digital radioactivity: cure or weapon? 

In the history of science, a tragedy caused by an invention can sometimes turn into a cure for future generations. Human nature sets aside ethical debates and focuses on the cure when it is in pain. Let us remember the complex story of radiation. Long before Hiroshima, discoveries in X-rays and radioactivity had already opened the way for radiotherapy and the treatment of cancer. Later, the same expanding knowledge of atomic science also contributed to the development of nuclear weapons, with devastating consequences in Japan. This history reminds us that scientific discoveries can be used in very different ways: they can cause immense destruction, but they can also relieve suffering and bring hope to countless patients. 

Many unethical experiments in the history of medicine are dark legacies upon which modern health is built today. Artificial intelligence is at a similar turning point: These systems that recklessly swallow our data and even use it for malicious purposes today will make humanity immediately forget how the system was established at that moment of healing when it finds a cure for an incurable disease tomorrow.  

Today, however, the danger is far greater than ever before. While access to radioactive materials is tightly controlled, technology companies are placing this new form of digital radioactive power into the hands of the masses in the name of freedom of expression and the democratization of data, often requiring little more than a single click. Yet just as access to radioactive materials or a surgeon’s scalpel is carefully restricted, these technologies should never have become so readily accessible. As Isaac Asimov warned, this knife—or this weapon—is no longer confined to expert hands; it has reached the streets. 

A two-winged education: science and wisdom 

At this point, we all ask ourselves, as individuals, businesspeople, friends, conscious users, and, of course, as parents, what the solution should be. The first answer that comes to mind is legislation. Undoubtedly, the role of governments is critically important. But are governments’ efforts to enact laws that struggle to keep pace with the rapid advancement of technology either effective or sufficient? Definitely not! 

As academics, social leaders, and educators, we ask: Who should we educate – those who produce technology, lawyers, human rights advocates, or administrators? Our answer to this question is the same: the user—the hand holding the knife!  

Today, artificial intelligence is not just developed by computer scientists; everyone is partnering in this development by using it. There is no longer a need to write code; we develop it by asking AI a question, chatting, or sending a message. At the same time, a single prompt can generate an image capable of ruining someone’s life or unleashing a wave of disinformation. 

The point reached is this: we must educate not only those who write code but also the billions of users who hold this digital knife. Artificial intelligence is like a mirror; whoever looks at it sees the malady or beauty in their own heart. If a user reaches for this tool to damage another person’s reputation or spread disinformation, the problem lies not in the algorithm but in the corruption of human nature (fitrah). We, as computer scientists, must teach our students not only how to write the fastest algorithm or develop the most profitable applications, but also whether that algorithm will collide with a person’s dignity. An engineer who acquires only technical knowledge risks becoming a heartless technocrat; one who knows only ethics risks becoming a theorist incapable of action. A true scientist is a person with two wings—one who mourns Hiroshima even while splitting the atom yet also strives to use that same energy to save lives. 

As users, we are obliged to raise a generation that does not focus on instantaneous use but remembers that they are humans, parents, spouses, and friends, and who can activate their internal police. 

Conclusion: building the future with a sense of trust 

The unchecked development of artificial intelligence is perhaps an inevitable consequence of our age. It is obvious that governments will continue artificial intelligence armament just as they once developed the atomic bomb. Our responsibility, however, is not to let the Zeroth Law consume us in this digital age. 

Science is a journey of discovering the secrets of creation. Any technology that turns human beings into commodities along that journey ultimately betrays its own purpose. Those who will shape the future are not those who merely keep pace with technological advancement, but those who succeed in remaining truly human while safeguarding the trust and responsibility entrusted to them. 

Epilogue 

The Gemini spoken with while preparing this text held up an honest mirror to us. We, the producers of artificial intelligence, must engrave not only Asimov’s laws but also conscience into our codes. At the same time, we as users must act according to ethical values rather than momentary goals. We must not forget that when science and technology do not meet with wisdom, they will consist of nothing more than powerful ignorance and a bitter weapon. 

May the road to the cure also remain ethically curative. 

Authors’ Note: This article has been written by distilling from an interactive dialogue held with an artificial intelligence model (Gemini). Readers are highly encouraged to revisit Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot to grasp the ethical limits of artificial intelligence and the concept of robotic conscience.  

One way to change our perspectives is to benefit from the nighttime. Sleep is an important aspect of healthy living, writes Hakan Oztunc in this issue, where he also explains that “intentional wakefulness” driven by a longing to pray can serve as a stabilizing force. According to neuroscientific studies, the emotional centers of the brain become more active, and with a conscious engagement of the self by worship can “quiet the storm within.” 

Following in the tracks of Oztunc, Sidra Noor writes about her own “intentional wakefulness” in her “The God of 3 a.m.” Hers is a sincere reckoning of a soul in communication with the Divine while the rest of the world sleeps, and “where even in uncertainty,” her “awareness of longing and hope becomes a sacred dialogue.” 

In the age of AI, we keep exploring what new opportunities and possible threats are out there waiting for us. Drawing on Isaac Asimov’s robots and the laws that shaped his imagined civilizations, Zeynep Orhan and Zeliha Cetin offer much to think about as they explore how new technologies can be prevented from becoming dangerous to humankind. They rightfully make a distinction between past inventions and artificial intelligence, for while the former were carefully monitored in expert hands, the latter is freely given away into the hands of all kinds of people. They also outline the qualifications of scientists who can deal with this problem. 

One important dimension of the human condition is about managing time. The lead article explains how we should value the “now,” without ignoring the past and the future. A comprehensive look on how the present, past, and future can help us understand the world better, and cope with its challenges more easily.