It is recorded by Ibn Arabi, author of al-Futuhat al-Makkiya (The Meccan Conquests), that during the early centuries of Islam, righteous people would either write down or memorize their daily actions, thoughts, and words, and then analyze and criticize themselves for any evil or sin they had committed. They did this to protect themselves from the storms of vanity and the whirls of self-pride. They would ask God’s forgiveness after this self-analysis, and would repent sincerely so that they might be protected against future error and deviation. Then they would prostrate in thankfulness to God for the meritorious deeds or words that the Almighty had created through them.

Self-criticism may also be described as seeking and discovering one’s inner and spiritual depth, and exerting the necessary spiritual and intellectual effort to acquire true human values and develop the sentiments that encourage and nourish them. This is how one distinguishes between good and bad, beneficial and harmful, and how one maintains an upright heart. Furthermore, it enables a believer to evaluate the present and prepare for the future. Again, self-criticism enables a believer to make amends for past mistakes and be absolved in the sight of God, for it provides a constant realization of self-renewal in one’s inner world. Such a condition enables one to achieve a steady relationship with God, for this relationship depends on a believer’s ability to live a spiritual life and remain aware of what takes place in his or her inner world. Success results in the preservation of one’s celestial nature as a true human being, as well as the continual regeneration of one’s inner senses and feelings.

A believer, in his or her spiritual and daily life, cannot be indifferent to self-criticism. On the one hand, he or she tries to revive his or her ruined past with the breezes of hope and mercy, blown by such Divine calls as: Repent to God (Nur 24:31) and: Turn to Your Lord repentant (Zumar 39:54), which come from the worlds beyond and echo in his or her conscience. On the other hand, warnings as frightening as thunderbolts and as exhilarating as mercy and contained in such verses as:

O you who believe! Fear God and observe your duty to Him. And let every soul consider what it has prepared for the morrow (Hashr 59:18)

bring the believer to his or her senses and make him or her alert once again against committing new sins. In such a condition, a believer is defended against all kinds of evil, as if enclosed behind locked doors.

Taking each moment of life to be a time of germination in spring, a believer seeks ever-greater depths in his or her spirit and heart with insight and consciousness arising from belief. Even if a believer is sometimes pulled down by the carnal dimension of his or her being and falters, he or she is always on the alert, as stated in:

Those who fear God and observe His commandments, when a passing stroke from Satan troubles them, they immediately remember (God), and lo! they are all aware (A’raf 7:201).

Self-criticism resembles a lamp in the heart of a believer, a warner and a well-wishing adviser in his or her conscience. Every believer uses it to distinguish between what is good and evil, beautiful and ugly, pleasing and displeasing to God. Through the guidance of this well-wishing adviser, the believer surmounts all obstacles, however seemingly insurmountable, and reaches the desired destination.

Self-criticism attracts Divine mercy and favor, which enables one to go deeper in belief and servanthood, to succeed in practicing Islam, and to attain nearness to God and eternal happiness. It also prevents one from falling into despair, which will ultimately lead to reliance on personal acts of worship to be saved from Divine punishment in the Hereafter.1

As self-criticism opens the door to spiritual peace and tranquility, it also causes one to fear God and His punishment. In the hearts of those who constantly criticize themselves and call themselves to account for their deeds, this Prophetic warning is always echoed: If you knew what I know, you would laugh little but weep much.2 Self-criticism, which gives rise to both peacefulness and fear in one’s heart, continuously inspires anxiety in the hearts of those who are fully aware of the heavy responsibility they feel-the anxiety such as that which is voiced in: If only I had been a tree cut into pieces.3

Self-criticism causes the believer to always feel the distress and fear expressed in: The earth seemed constrained to them for all its vastness, and their own souls straitened to them (Tawba 9:118). The verse: Whether you make known what is in your souls or hide it, God will bring you to account for it (Baqara 2:284) resounds in every cell of their brains, and they groan with utterances like: I wish my mother had not given birth to me!4

While it is difficult for everyone to achieve this degree of self-criticism, it is also difficult for those who do not do so to be sure that they will be able to live today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today. Those who are crushed between the wheels of time, whose current day is not better than the preceding one, cannot perform their duties pertaining to the afterlife well.

Constant self-criticism and self-reprimand show the perfection of one’s belief. Everyone who has planned his or her life to reach the horizon of a perfect, universal human being is conscious of this life and spends every moment of it struggling with themselves. Such a person demands a password from whatever occurs to his or her heart and mind. Self-control against the temptations of Satan or the excitement of temper are practiced, and words and actions are carefully watched. Self-criticism is constant, even for those acts that seem most sensible and acceptable. Evening reviews of words and actions said or done during the day are the rule, as are morning resolutions to avoid sins. A believer knits the “lace of his or her life” with the “threads” of self-criticism and self-accusation.5

So long as a believer shows such loyalty and faithfulness to the Lord and lives in such humility, the doors of heaven will be thrown open and an invitation will be extended: Come, O faithful one. You have intimacy with Us. This is the station of intimacy. We have found you a faithful one. Every day he or she is honored with a new, heavenly journey in the spirit. It is God Himself Who swears by such a purified soul in: Nay, I swear by the self-accusing soul! (Qiyama 75:2).

Notes

1. If one despairs (of Divine mercy) concerning his or her eternal life because of his or her sins, relief from Divine punishment is sought. Such a person then remembers and relies on past good deeds. However, this way is utterly inadequate, for only through Divine mercy can one be saved from God’s punishment and enter Paradise.

2. Bukhari, Kusuf, 2; Muslim, Salat, 112.

3. Tirmidhi, Zuhd, 9.

4. Ibn Sa‘d, Al Tabaqat al-Kubra, vol. 3, p. 360, Beirut: 1980.

5. In other words, all moments of one’s life are spent in self-criticism and constant awareness of what one says and does.

While you are comfortably sitting in your chair or leaning against a pillow reading this article, you are rotating around the Earth’s axis at a speed up to 1000 miles per hour depending on how far you are from the poles. In addition, our planet is revolving around the Sun, in an orbit 186 million miles wide, at a speed of 67,000 mph. The Sun is taking its planets on a ride around the center of the Milky Way. In turn, the Milky Way, where the Solar System appears as no more than a small dust particle, is retreating from some galaxies and approaching others. For example, the Andromeda Galaxy is getting closer to us at a speed of 200,000 mph. And, even if you know all this, the apparent uniformity and order under which these movements occur enables you to feel at peace and to ignore them.

In distant space, new galaxies are being formed and many others are swallowed by mysterious black holes. Old stars collapse and explode to become supernova, or shrink and become little white dwarfs.

On our home planet which looks like a calm, blue marble from the space, atmospheric conditions from above and the volcanic forces from below cause continuous change in the layout of the continents and the oceans. Again, several centuries of scientific discoveries have shown that the continents are in constant motion, colliding on some fronts, and pulling apart in some other places. The theory of plate tectonics tells us that the continental plates float over the Earth and that when they collide, great mountain ranges (for example, the Himalayas) occur. For similar reasons, the Atlantic Ocean widens by four-tenths of an inch every year.

On the surface of the Earth, volcanoes rise and empty their contents as the building material for new lands. The wind and the rivers erode the soil, leveling the heights or causing deep canyons, slowly but steadily changing the layout of the land.

Animals and plants that sustain life on Earth come into existence and then disappear in lives that range from a few hours to several centuries. The plants recycle the soil and the gases and feed the animals, which return back to the soil when they die.

Your body is renewing itself without you being aware of it. Wounds heal, nails and hair grow. You breathe unconsciously and provide oxygen to blood cells that carry energy and nutrients to each and every cell in your body. The cells multiply for growth and renewal. The body fights against unknown intruders by producing its own medicines. The connections between your brain cells are constantly reestablishing themselves to enable you to understand and react to what you read or experience. Numerous decisions are made in the genes in the billions of cells in your body every moment to produce one or another kind of protein, which ultimately determines how your body functions.

The atoms, the building materials of all living or non-living matter in the universe, interact with other nearby atoms or even with atoms that are millions of light years away, reacting to their gravitational or electromagnetic forces. Atoms are bound to their neighbors, forming strong compounds or breaking bounds and releasing energy.

Even inside a single atom that is seemingly stable, a constant movement and renewal continues. The electrons circle the atomic nucleus at one percent of the speed of light. Even though matter in an atom constitutes a negligible part of the observed volume of the atom, the movements and resulting forces form the illusion of solid matter. When you are looking at a solid rock, are you aware that you are looking at an object that is 99.999999999 % empty? While the electrons continue their restless turn around the nucleus, they jump up and down the energy levels. The electrons seem to disappear from one level and reappear at another level without any continuum in between-hence the term “quantum leap.” When changing levels, electrons emit or absorb photons that are the building blocks of light.

The space-time continuum, first explained by Einstein, tells us that we will not be in the same place or at the same time twice. You will have traveled thousands of miles in the universe by the time you have finished reading this sentence.

In summary, everything in the universe, from the little subatomic particles to gigantic clusters of galaxies, is in a constant state of change.

In all this seemingly chaotic rush, there is a hidden order that keeps everything on course. When astronomers inspect the deep skies, they gasp when observing the beauty of celestial objects, like the nebulae structures recently discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope. On Earth, life continues to function on its course. Your body works until it has fulfilled its expected life span. And, despite all the electrons that are flying, disappearing, and reappearing, the book you left on the desk this evening will be there tomorrow morning-unless you have children at home.

It should be clear that any mishap, even for the slightest moment, might render the universe useless. So, why isn’t everything turning into a chaos of colliding, rotting, disappearing particles? What is the force that sets the harmony in the universe? This is best explained by Said Nursi, who wrote a century ago:

“The Glorious Creator of the universe is Self-Subsistent, that is, He subsists, continues, and endures of Himself. All things subsist and continue through Him, they remain in existence and have permanence. If that relationship of Self-Subsistence was cut off from the universe for even the fraction of a second, the universe would be annihilated.”

References

• See “The Great Attractor” at http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/GtAttractor.html.
• Charles Flowers , Instability Rules: The Ten Most Amazing Ideas of Modern Science, John Wiley & Sons, 1st edition, March 15, 2002.
• See “Complete Coverage of the Hubble Space Telescope” at http://www.space.com/hubble.
• Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said, The Flashes, Sozler Publishing, 5th edition, December 1996.

The theory is simple: Cosmic particles coming from outer space continuously collide with stable carbon-12 atoms in CO2 molecules, which are widespread in the atmosphere. Each carbon-12 atom takes up two neutrons and is converted into a radioactive carbon-14 atom. Radioactive carbon-14 atoms rapidly mix and become uniform throughout the atmosphere. Deep oceans, the biosphere, and carbonate rocks are giant reservoirs of carbon and with the addition of the atmosphere they constitute the carbon cycle of the Earth. Within this cycle, radioactive carbon-14 is continuously created and disintegrated. Both processes are in equilibrium. Since the total amount of carbon on the Earth is constant, a constant ratio is established between the amount of stable and radioactive carbon. This same ratio is valid in all the reservoirs of carbon in this giant cycle. In the biosphere, both carbon-14 and carbon-12 atoms are added to the food chain via assimilation; first by plants through photosynthesis and then by animals through consumption of the plants. For an animal or a plant, a carbon-14 atom is no different from a carbon-12 atom in assimilation. Living beings continuously take up both atoms, so the ratio of both atoms in their bodies remains constant throughout their life. When an organism dies, the uptake of exogenous carbon is terminated. After this point, although the amount of carbon-12 remains constant, carbon-14 continues to disintegrate and the ratio starts to decrease after the body dies. Because the ratio after death is related to the time that has passed since death, it is possible to determine the date of death by measuring the amount of radiocarbon present.

The half-life of radiocarbon is 5,730 years. This means that after 5,730 years half of the total amount of radiocarbon in a dead body disintegrates. The remaining half decays in the following 5,730 years and only a quarter of the first amount remains. This goes on until a very minuscule, undetectable amount remains. In bodies less than 50,000 years in age the amount of radiocarbon can be detected. For an older body, the amount of radiocarbon is so small that the instruments would be unable to measure the amount of radiocarbon present. In addition, such a test obviously works only on the remains of things that were once alive, such as bones or wooden parts of an old structure.

But how accurate is an age determined by this method? How dependable is this technique for enlightening us about the past? Although the theory seems quite consistent from a general outlook, one can see it is not the case when analyzed more rigorously.

Archeologists have tried different ways to test the accuracy of the method. The results have revealed long-term and short-term variations from the actual ages. Long-term variations show systematic deviations of the radiocarbon age from the real age; that is as the date of the sample gets older the deviation increases. On the other hand, short-term variations show irregular fluctuations in the radiocarbon age from the real age. These deviations apparently reveal that the assumptions made concerning the radiocarbon technique were not accurate. The results of these important abnormal conclusions in radiocarbon dating were summarized in the Introduction to Prehistoric Archaeology as follows: “for years, it was thought that possible errors could have minor effects, however, recent research shows that the natural concentration of carbon-14 deviates at some certain periods, significantly affecting the calculated ages.”

The method is based on two assumptions that should be examined carefully: Firstly, the method assumes that the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 has remained constant in the atmosphere from the time the body died to the present. However, recent scientific research has proven that this ratio has not remained constant during geological time.

Secondly, the method also assumes that the carbon supply to the organism was made only by the global carbon cycle and no other source of carbon has affected the system.

Initial concerns about the possible sources of error were focused on the constant ratio assumption. So, why did the constant ratio assumption turn out to be incorrect? Actually, many reasons were found to refute the validity of this assumption. The most important ones are explained below:

Changes in the Earth’s magnetic field are believed to be responsible for long-term deviations in radiocarbon dating. By investigating the orientation of magnetic minerals in ancient rocks, geologists have proven that the magnetic field surrounding the Earth has not been constant throughout the time. Today, it is widely accepted that both the strength and direction of the Earth’s magnetic field has changed. Interestingly, these changes are appreciable even within a century. Changes in the geomagnetism affect the radiocarbon production in the upper atmosphere; cosmic rays are deflected according to the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field. If the magnetic field is high, more cosmic rays are deflected away from the Earth and the production of radiocarbon falls. If it is low, production rises. When the production rate changes, a new equilibrium concentration in the carbon cycle as a whole can only be established after a considerable amount of time has passed. The likely time scale for achieving the complete new equilibrium level is about 10,000 years. This is about the same as the age of the sample that is to be dated! The bottom line is that anything that affects the density of cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere will affect the rate of radiocarbon production, thus affecting the ratio.

Short-term changes might be the results of different factors. One of these is the variation in sunspot activity. Sunspots appear as dark places on the surface of the Sun for a short period of time and generate strong geomagnetic storms. Sunspot activity increases the Earth’s magnetic field and leads to a decrease in the radiocarbon production rate. Therefore, again, anything that causes a change in the Earth’s magnetic field will affect this ratio.

Other effects for short-term variations are the changes in the Earth’s climate. It is widely accepted that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere during geological time is strongly related to temperature changes on the Earth. This fact is also key in understanding the global greenhouse effect, which occurs with the release of high amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by hydrocarbon combustion. The global sea level has also been affected by these climatic changes. During low temperature seasons (ice ages or glacial periods), large ice sheets covered most of the continents and as a result of this, the sea level dropped appreciably. During these periods, a high amount of carbon (as carbon-dioxide) was kept inside glaciers and they became C-14 depleted (dead carbon). By the end of the Ice Age, large amounts of dead carbon had been released into the system and they had decreased the global ratio of radiocarbon.

Actually, three more resources of dead carbon make a negative contribution to the ratio. One of them is the dead carbon that comes up from deep Earth through volcanic eruptions. Radiocarbon dating of an organism that lived in the vicinity of a volcano gives inaccurate results. Because of the expulsion of dead carbon, samples found close to volcanoes have less radiocarbon in their body than others. Consequently, the age determination of these samples gives significantly incorrect results.

As is obvious from the previous examples, the main problem arises in the lack of knowledge about the history of the sample being dated by this method. Another example is when the sample being tested is wood from the inner part of a tree; the radiocarbon method gives an incorrect result in this case. The reason for this is that the innermost part of a tree finishes the carbon cycle before the tree dies. If a sample was made from this part of the tree (it is impossible to know which part of a tree is being used) then the date produced would be greater than its real age.

Even human activity is an important resource for dead carbon. Although only effective since the last century, a high amount of dead carbon in the carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere by the burning of fuel. So the ratio of radiocarbon has decreased. Actually, compared to the factors above, this effect has a more profound influence on the application of radiocarbon dating: No recent organic material can be used as a modern standard. Because of this, the zero point of the timescale chosen is to be 1950 AD, as determined by the US National Bureau of Standards for quoting radiocarbon results.

Consequently, the ages determined by the radiocarbon method are not taken seriously by archeologists because of the problems in the basic assumptions upon which the method was established. Occasionally, the radiocarbon method is used to roughly determine whether an object is modern or of considerable antiquity; in essence, it is used as an authenticity test. Even then the answer may not be clear-cut; for example, an old piece of timber could have been carved to produce an authentic looking sculpture!

Radiocarbon dating is an example of how scientific tools should be used carefully to unfold the reality around us. Scientific theories are only poor models of what is happening in reality. The history of science is full of such examples, which sometimes may be misleading if not handled carefully.

Reference

Radiocarbon Dating, Sheridan Bowman, University of California Press, 1990