Literally meaning to separate, abstract, peel away, or to isolate oneself from every occupation and engagement, tajrid (isolation) denotes the state where one isolates oneself from worldly things and abandons all carnal or bodily desires. It also denotes turning away from all else save God and being freed from any attachment to wealth, status or position or any worldly expectations, and setting one’s heart totally on Him without expecting anything in return.

The scholars relate isolation to the Qur’anic statement, Take off your shoes (20:12), and interpret this as the purifying of the heart, which they call the home of God, of all worldly and otherworldly considerations, and preparing it for the visit of the All-Holy Sovereign. Some go a step further and regard this as turning to the Light of Lights with all one’s heart and setting one’s heart totally on Him without leaving any room for anything else in one’s feelings, according to one’s capacity. From another perspective, isolation has been approached as resistance against all carnal or bodily appetites and impulses and against the attractions of the world with whatever is in it. Initiates who have not been able to isolate themselves from carnal appetites, the attractions of the world, the attachment of the heart to anything else save Him, or from any worldly or otherworldly consideration, cannot attain His private company and the spiritual pleasure inherent in this.

Concerning this significant point, the author of al-Minhaj

says:

So long as you do not isolate yourself
from considerations about everything save Him,
You will not be able to reach privacy
with the Beloved in His private room.

Ibrahim Haqqi expresses the same point, as follows:

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

Isolation, which, in the words of Sayyid Sharif [1], is cleaning the heart and other innermost faculties from the dirt and dust of attachment to anything save Him, requires that the people favored with a vision of Him should isolate themselves from whatever they see or hear, and that they live immersed in the lights of the Existence of the Eternal Witness. Every initiate feels this and is favored with its gifts according to the individual’s capacity.

When those who are in the initial stages of the spiritual journey find themselves growing in the knowledge of God that is developing in the heart, the information acquired concerning Him gradually fades, and they begin to receive glimpses from beyond things. Then all of their material or bodily necessities, and even the entire world with whatever is in it, gradually lose their importance and value for them and they become polished mirrors to the truth, or function as some misty medium to reflect Him. One who feels this favor sometimes says, like Fuduli,

The way of isolation is a home
requiring full renunciation and sacrifice to settle in,
so abandon whatever worldly things you have,
and do not have a house.

or sometimes cries, like Yunus Emre:

I have found the unique, matchless honey;
Let everybody come and plunder my existence.

One who has reached the final point of the spiritual journey is freed from all considerations concerning other existent beings save God, and is left with no trace that belongs to anything else except Him. If those favored with this degree of isolation do not follow the principles of the Prophetic way or the rules of Shari‘a in their considerations, they may lapse into negating the “reality of things”— the established originals or essences of things in God’s Knowledge. This is a rank where many initiates live in a daze. Whereas, those who strictly follow the signposts and lights of the Prophetic way during their entire journey, though admitting the reality of things, see in everything only He Who is the One, only know the One, only mention the One, only call the One, and only turn to the One in thousands of signs of “dawn,” turning their eyes from all others.

Ahmedi [2] describes this rank according to his feeling as follows:

I have submitted all my being to that Friend, having no home any longer;
And purified my hands of any worldly things I had, being left without both of the two worlds.
For God’s love has come and drawn me to itself: opening the eyes of my heart, awakening me from an intoxicated sleep.
His Unity has become manifest to me, so that I have seen Him with all certainty.
I have driven away polytheism, having no doubt any longer.

As for the state of those who have completed their journey toward God, it is such a deep, indescribable state of pleasure, where efforts toward isolation have ended in perfect isolation and they have all but lost their own being, that those who do not experience it cannot know or describe it. Anybody who attempts to describe it cannot be saved from confusion. Such a relation between the Almighty, Ultimate Truth and an initiate whom He has favored with such a degree of spiritual attainment must be a mysterious gift of secrecy of His to His distinguished servants. What we should do is to feel respect for this gift of secrecy.

O God! Show us the truth as being true and enable us to follow it, and show us falsehood as being false and enable us to refrain from it. And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad, the guide to the truth, and on his Family and Companions, godly, noble and honorable.

Notes

1. Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani (1339–1413), was one of the leading theologians of 15^th century. He lived in Iran and taught in Shiraz. He visited Istanbul in 1374. Sharhu’l-Mawaqif is his most famous work.
2. Emir Muhammed ibn Emir Ahmedi lived in the same age as Jalalu’d-Din Rumi. He lived in Bayburt, in the Eastern Turkey. He was also the leader of the Ahis (The Brotherhood of Craftsmen and Tradesmen) in the region. (Tr.)

A: There are many worlds, among them those of plants, animals, people, and jinn. Our visible, material world addresses itself to our senses, and is the realm where God Almighty gives life, fashions, renews, changes, and causes things to die. Science concerns itself with its phenomena.

Above this world is the immaterial World of Divine Laws or Commands, the spirit’s home. To learn about this world, consider the following: A book cannot exist without meaning, the main part of its existence, regardless of our excellent printing press or paper. The essence of life and the law of germination and growth stimulate a tree’s seed to germinate underground and grow into a tree. In their absence, there would be no trees.

Menstruation prepares a womb every month for insemination through a (biological) law. Millions of sperm head for the womb, but only one fertilizes the ovum. Another (biological) law causes menstruation to stop until birth. An embryo develops into a person through other (biological or embryological) laws. The Qur’an says: We created man from a quintessence of clay. We then placed him as a drop in a place of rest firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure suspended on the wall of the womb, and then of that leech-like structure We made a chewed-like substance. Then We made out of that chewed-like substance bones (skeletal system). Then We clothed the bones with flesh (muscles). Then We developed out of it another creation. So blessed be God the best to create (23:12-15).

This process occurs within three veils of darkness: He created you in the wombs of your mothers, in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness (39:6). These are the belly, womb, and caul or membrane; the fetal membranes’ constituents; or the decidua’s three regions: the decidua basalis, decidua capsularis, and decidua parietalis. The verse includes all of these meanings.

We derive such laws from these processes’ almost never-changing repetition. Observing surrounding (natural) phenomena reveals other laws, among them gravitation and repulsion, and water’s freezing and vaporization.

The spirit also is a unique living and conscious law issuing from the World of Divine Laws or Commands: Say: The spirit is of my Lord’s Command (17:85) If the spirit had no life and consciousness, it would be a regular law; if a regular law had life and consciousness, it would become a spirit.

Science Cannot Define or Perceive the Spirit

All matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are made up of more minute particles. But the spirit is a simple, noncompound entity, invisible but knowable through its manifestations in this world. We accept its existence and see its manifestations, but cannot know its nature. Such ignorance, however, does not negate its existence.

We see with our eyes. Although the main center of sight is located in the brain, the brain does not see. You do not say: My brain sees, but rather: I see. But what is this I? Does it have a brain, a heart, and other organs and limbs? Why are we unable to move when we die, although all our organs and limbs are there? Does a factory operate by itself, or does something else (i.e., electricity) cause it to work?

Any disconnect between the factory and its electrical source can reduce the factory to a heap of junk. Is this comparable to the spirit“body relationship? When death severs this connection, the body must be disposed of quickly, before it begins to rot and decompose.

The spirit is not an electrical power, but rather a conscious, powerful thing that learns and thinks, senses and reasons. It develops continually, usually in parallel with the body’s physical development, as well as mentally and spiritually through learning and reflection, belief and worship. As the spirit determines a person’s character, nature, or identity, each person is unique, although all of us are created from the same elements.

The Spirit Needs Our Body

The spirit must use material means to be manifested and function here. As the body cannot contact the World of Symbols or Immaterial Forms, the spirit cannot contact this world if there is no human heart, brain, or other bodily organs and limbs to mediate. The spirit functions through the body’s nerves, cells, and other elements. Therefore, if bodily systems or organs go awry, the spirit becomes disconnected and unable to command the body. Death occurs if this failure or illness severs the spirit“body relationship. Some meaningless hand or finger movements can be produced by stimulating certain areas of the brain, but these are only automatic bodily responses. The body needs the spirit, which is conscious and has free will, to produce meaningful movements.

Although psychoanalysts have offered explanations for dreams, dreams cannot be said to consist of the subconscious mind’s jumbled activities. Almost everyone has had true dreams. Many scientific or technological discoveries were seen first in dreams. Therefore, dreams point to something”the spirit”within us that can see in a different way while we sleep. Although the spirit sees with our eyes, smells with our nose, hears with our ears and so on, some people can see with their fingers or the tips of their noses, and smell with their heels.

The Spirit and Our Face

Our face opens on our inner world, for it discloses our character. Psychologists assert that almost all movements reveal character. Such observations resulted in physiognomy, the art of judging character from facial features. The spirit determines these features.

Our body’s cells are renewed continuously. Every day, millions of cells die and are replaced. Biologists say that all bodily cells are renewed every 6 months, and yet the face’s main features do not change. We recognize individuals through their unchanging facial features and fingerprints. A finger’s cells change, but its print never does. Each individual’s unique spirit stabilizes these distinguishing features.

Our Spirit Makes Us Unique

Our body experiences uninterrupted change via physical growth and development until a certain period, gradually becoming stronger and more perfect. Decay begins when this growth stops. Unlike our body, we grow in learning and development, decay spiritually and intellectually, or stop and change direction while developing or decaying. Our moral, spiritual, and intellectual education does not depend on our bodily changes.

Furthermore, our physical structure does not affect our moral, spiritual, and intellectual differences. Although composed of the same elements, we are morally and intellectually unique. Which part receives this moral and intellectual education? Which part is trained physically? Is physical training related to learning or moral and intellectual education? Are physically well-developed people smarter and more moral than others? If not, and if physical training or development do not affect our scientific, moral, and intellectual level, why should we not accept the spirit’s existence? How can we attribute learning and moral and intellectual education to the brain’s biochemical processes?

Our physical changes engender no parallel changes in our character, morality, or thinking. How can we explain this, other than by recognizing the spirit and its function as the center of thinking and feeling, choosing and deciding, learning and forming opinions and preferences, and causing character differences?

Our Spirit Feels and Believes or Denies

Each person has innumerable complex feelings: love and hate, happiness and sadness, hope and despair, and so on. We like and dislike, appreciate and disregard, experience fear and timidity as well as encouragement and enthusiasm. We repent, become excited, and long for various things. We have hundreds of words that express human feelings. Moreover, we do not all feel the same way.

We may reflect on our surroundings, the beauty of creation, develop ourselves through learning, compare and reason, and thus believe in the Creator. Worshipping and following His Commandments develops us morally and spiritually until we are perfected. How can we explain this if we do not have a conscious spirit? Can we attribute them to the brain’s biochemical processes?

If we are no more than a physical entity and attribute all our movements to the brain’s biochemical processes, why should we obey any laws? As our body is renewed every 6 months, the following conversation would be entirely logical:

– Judge: When did you murder the deceased?

– Defendant: One year ago.

– Judge: The murder was committed a year ago. The defendant’s cells, including those of his trigger finger, have been replaced. As the actual murderer cannot be punished, the jury should vote for acquittal.

How can anyone be no more than a physical entity, made up of movements, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and decisions due to the brain’s biochemical processes? Such assertions are untenable. The main part of our being is our living and conscious spirit, which feels, thinks, believes, wills, decides, and uses the body to enact its decisions.

The Spirit Is the Basis of Human Life

God acts in this world through causes. However, in many other worlds (e.g., those of ideas, symbols or immaterial forms, the inner dimensions of things, and spirits), He acts directly, and matter and causes do not exist. The spirit is breathed into the embryo directly, making it a direct manifestation of the Divine Name the All-Living and therefore the basis of human life. Like natural laws, which issue from the same realm as the spirit, the spirit is invisible and known through its manifestations.

In this world, matter is refined in favor of life. A lifeless body is lonely, passive, and static. But life enables a bee to interact with almost the entire world so that it can say: This world is my garden, and flowers are my business partners. The smaller a living body is, the more active, astonishing, and powerful life is. Compare a bee, a fly, or even a micro-organism with an elephant. The more refined matter is, the more active and powerful the body is. For example, burning wood produces flame and carbon, and heated water vaporizes. We cannot see the electrical energy in the atomic and subatomic worlds, but we know of its presence and power though its manifestations.

And so existence is not limited to this world. Rather, this world is only the apparent, mutable, and unstable dimension of existence, behind which lies the pure, invisible dimension that uses matter to be seen and known. As the spirit belongs to that dimension, it is pure and invisible.

The following arguments for the spirit’s existence also point to the Creator’s existence:

– Just as our body needs the spirit to command and govern it, the universe needs God to bring it into existence and to command and govern it.

– Each body has one spirit that makes it alive and governs it. So there must be a single Lord, without partner, to create and govern the universe. Otherwise, disaster and confusion are inevitable.

– The spirit is not located in a specific bodily place or part. It may even leave the body and, as while dreaming, maintain its connection via an attached cord. Likewise, God Almighty is not contained by time or space. He is always present everywhere and nowhere, whereas the spirit is in the body and contained by time and space.

– There is only one sun, and the world is far from it. However, the sun is omnipresent through its heat and light, and through its reflection can even be in every transparent thing. Therefore we say it is nearer to things than things are to themselves. The spirit has the same relation with the body and each cell. This analogy may help us understand God’s relation with existence. He controls and directs all things at once like one thing, and although we are infinitely far from Him, He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.

– The spirit is invisible and its nature is unknown. In the same way, we cannot think of or imagine God as He really is, for His Essence cannot be known. Like the spirit, God Almighty is known through the manifestations of His Names, Attributes, and Essence.

Since the mid-1980s, there has been increasing interest in developing so-called “electronic noses” (e-noses), that is, electronic instruments that can detect and recognize simple and complex odors.1 And since the mid-1990s, nearly 20 years after the concept was originally published, the commercialization of e-noses has started to take place. The main reasons for this delay were the complex nature of the problem and the need for advanced technologies. However, the recent development of microsensor technology has led to low-cost integrated chemical sensors and application-specific microprocessing devices. This, coupled with our greater understanding of artificial intelligence, has allowed us to construct electronic instruments that perform in a manner similar to our own olfactory system.

E-noses are now being developed as systems for the automated detection and classification of odors, vapors, and gases. They are generally composed of a chemical sensing system (e.g., sensor array or spectrometer) and a pattern recognition system, such as an artificial neural network (ANN). At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), e-noses use ANN technology for the automated identification of volatile chemicals used in environmental and medical applications.2

The electronic nose works as follows. While a chemical vapor or odor is blown over a sensor array, sensor signals are digitized and fed into a computer. The ANN (implemented in software) then identifies the chemical. The benefits of e-noses include compactness, portability, real-time analysis, and automation.

FOOD INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS

Currently, the largest market for e-noses is the food industry. In some instances, e-noses can augment or replace panels of human experts and can reduce the amount of analytical chemistry performed in food production, especially when only qualitative results will do.

An electronic smelling device is a valuable tool for analyzing whether a product has gone bad. Potential applications of e-noses in the food industry are numerous: inspecting and grading food quality by odor; inspecting fish and beverage containers; controlling fermentation, automated flavoring, and microwave cooking; monitoring the ripening of cheese; verifying if orange juice is natural and/or fresh; testing plastic wrap for containing the odor of onions; and classifying grains and blueberry ripeness.

Using human odor panels to evaluate and control the quality of raw materials or finished products is extremely labor intensive, time consuming, expensive, and error prone. E-noses can quickly identify a characteristic odor classified as “good” or “bad” by the odor panel, thereby decreasing the workload, improving throughput, and reducing the cost of screening many samples at different stages of the manufacturing process. The system is applied easily to the manufacture and quality control of perfumes, cosmetics, and fine chemicals, as well as to packaging, monitoring environmental quality, the automotive industry, medical and diagnostic matters, and microbial classification.

ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING

The PNNL is exploring the technologies required to perform cost-effective environmental restoration and waste management. This effort includes developing portable, inexpensive systems that can identify contaminants in the field in real time. Environmental applications of e-noses include identifying toxic wastes and household odors; analyzing fuel mixtures; detecting oil leaks; monitoring air quality, factory emissions, and hazardous chemicals; and testing ground water for odors.

MEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Since the sense of smell is important for physicians, an e-nose can be used as a diagnostic tool to examine bodily odors (e.g., breath, wounds, bodily fluids, etc.) and identify possible problems. Odors in the breath can indicate gastrointestinal, sinus, and liver problems, as well as infections and diabetes. Infected wounds and tissues emit distinctive odors, and odors coming from such bodily fluids as blood and urine can indicate liver and bladder problems. Currently, an e-nose for examining wound-related infections is being tested at South Manchester University Hospital.

In similar applications, ANNs have been used to track glucose levels in diabetics, determine ion levels in bodily fluids, and detect such pathological conditions as tuberculosis.

While the inclusion of visual, aural, and tactile senses into telepresent systems is widespread, the sense of smell has been largely ignored. PNNL recently proposed a more futuristic application of e-noses for telesurgery. In this application, an e-nose would identify odors in a remote surgical environment. These identified odors then would be transmitted electronically to another site, where an odor generation system would recreate them.

The next decade should see the cost of e-noses fall dramatically, with the result that they will be used not only in industry but also in everyday life. They can be used, for example, to detect tainted foods in the refrigerator, ensure clean clothes in the washing machine, detect poor air quality in the car, and perhaps even help us monitor our own health.

FOOTNOTES

1. J. W. Gardner and P. N. Bartlett, Electronic Noses (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999).
2. http://www.ivanhoe.com/docs/backissues/electronicnose.html.