80 miles. 80 long, traffic-filled miles ahead of me. Breathe. Yes. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. This isn’t working.

The call that I have been dreading for over ten years has come. “Andrew is dying. We don’t know how much longer he has. Get here as quickly as you can.”

Was it my mother or my sister-in-law’s voice that I heard over the phone?

I am at the wrong end of the Long Island Expressway and my brother, my only sibling and dearest friend, is losing his long, hard-fought battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

What am I doing here in the “wrong” place?

I have to do something, what is it? Yes, I have to call Matt and Linda, my son and his wife.

“Matt, this is mom, Andrew is dying. If you want to say ‘good-bye,’ now would be a good time to go to the hospital. Can I ask you a huge favor? I know that you are the only one who knows whether the baby (due any time now) is a boy or a girl…would you tell me so that I can let Andrew know?”

Of course, he tells me. Naomi will be the newest family member.

The traffic is not moving. I’m calling Martha. My sister-in-law will be able to hold the phone up to Andrew’s ear so I can tell him about Naomi.

He hears the news and I tell him that I’ll be there as fast as I can… “Please wait a bit longer?” I plead.

At last, Memorial Sloan Kettering is up ahead.

The car is parked, I’m running up the escalator and no one gives me a second look even though my face is streaked with dirt from the barn and tears are streaming down my face.

I’m at the door in the isolation unit. Nurses are standing there helping us with gowns and masks. A few of them have tears in their eyes.

Matt arrives with Linda. She has finished medical school classes for the day and is now suiting up. No, she shouldn’t be doing that. Naomi is due. But she’s going to be a doctor; surely, she knows what she’s doing.

We go in one at a time. Andrew has no voice, but his eyes are talking. He knows what’s going on and he whispers to each of us.

Our California cousins are en-route to New York. Please, please wait for them. Richard is his best friend, and Barbi has bags filled with rose petals from her garden.

We wait. We talk. We cry. The transplant team arrives. They are talking softly to Andrew. The lead doctor is telling me that I gave Andrew perfectly matched stem cells. He does not have cancer. Does it matter now?

Hours pass.

My cell phone is ringing. Who in the world would call me here? Now?

It’s Matt. Linda is having the baby. Now.

It should be a moment of joy. Why can’t I feel anything?

I’m back in a car. It’s a cab and we’re speeding across town.

Naomi, Naomi, your Nana is coming.

I arrive after she’s born. Linda’s had a c-section, and her mother looks so happy. My ex-husband is grinning, and Matt is in another world.

I’m holding Naomi and the tears won’t stop. Am I happy or am I sad? Does it matter?

How long can I stay here? I have to go back across town.

Andrew waits for Richard and Barbi. The rose petals surround him and he’s fading slowly. No one is wearing a mask. We are holding one another up.

Andrew dies.

I’m waiting for the fairy tale ending.

It seems that if there is a God, he or she or it, has more in store for us.

***

There’s something wrong with Naomi.

Linda knows. It’s swath-pattern hemangioma.

She’s not even a year old. Months of drugs, labored breathing and finally emergency surgery… But at last, we can rest easy.

Naomi is magical. She doesn’t know yet that she’ll need laser and cosmetic surgery. Right now, she’s just like all the other little girls. Only she owns my heart.

Is the fairy tale going to start now? No.

One year and one day after Andrew died and Naomi was born, my father dies.

He had Alzheimer’s. He was home, and he knew who all of us were.

Instead of saying “I don’t know,” to questions that the research team at Columbia asked him, he figured out how to count backwards by 7 from 100 (subtract 10 and then add 3 to the new number).

My dad was brilliant. He was brave. He was a gentleman. And he was gone.

I should have screamed. I should have cried. I should have collapsed.

How many waves can you withstand before drowning?

Turns out that I didn’t drown. I have mourned in my own way and silently moved on.

Naomi now has a baby brother, Elijah.

The holes in my heart will never close but I see the world from a new perspective.

***

How easy it is to see what really counts in life. I understand what it means to “live in the moment.” Money and jobs and position and power pale in comparison to those who we love.

So, love each other like there may be no tomorrow. Treasure every moment, every breath. Look back but do it without bitterness and anger.

80 miles was so far away but now it’s where I willingly go most days. There’s this horse, Gstaad, he lives out there, and he’s mine. I talk to him and he lets me bury my face in his fur on the tough days. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Tell us how you survive difficult times. Give us your best advice. Share your greatest life lesson. For details, go to our website: www.fountainmagazine.com/essaycontest.

As a highly competitive and commodified industry, sport is not only a weekend, sit-on-the-couch pastime, but is also a political arena where ideologies fight. The recent “take a knee” protest in the US is not a standalone incident. From the ancient Olympic Games to modern-day World Cups, sports have been a means of national pride, and the athletes are considered heroes. Their lifestyles, opinions, and choices are always newsworthy, even if these choices mainly relate to their home countries thousands of miles away.  

One striking recent case is that of Enes Kanter, NBA’s Turkish star, who is at odds with the current Turkish government. Kanter (25) has been an open critic of the government’s corruption. After the July 2016 coup attempt, he started speaking up even more loudly to protest the government’s persecution of tens of thousands of innocent citizens. Justin Pahl talked with Kanter on his life as a devout Muslim in the NBA and on his struggle as an advocate for the oppressed in his home country.

As a follow-up to the story of Abraham (pbuh) in the previous issue, here comes the story of Joseph (pbuh). Two authors, one Muslim and the other Christian, shares their respective scripture’s narratives about the fantastic life of one of the most well-known figures of human history. Joseph (pbuh) is not only a common name in the Abrahamic traditions; his story is filled with many morals to reflect upon, even if they are not Muslim, Christian, or Jewish.

Air, water, bread, and yes, social media – these are some of life’s essentials. No one seems to be unhappy because they are able to tweet or post on Facebook. But, Sage Chen thinks social media is no different than an authoritarian state. With all the data we freely share on social media, we are allowing the platforms we use to have access to an extraordinary amount of our personal information, much of which we would not normally share with others. Chen discusses the many implications of widespread social media use on security, commerce, and privacy.

Why do people have to struggle with illnesses and many other hardships during their lives?

How can the All-Merciful God allow harm to be inflicted upon people and other living beings?

We are living in an amazing world undergoing constant changes. There are transformations, restorations, and renewal taking place all around us. Seasons follow one another to bring rejuvenation, the life cycles of animals and plants, water and planetary cycles take us from one condition to another. Land masses move in certain directions to join or form new lands or mountains. Change and renewal are an inescapable reality for all living things. The world is in a constant flux of states which leaves us amazed and mesmerized about it, just as much as do the changes in our social and personal lives too. Societies develop, nations transform, and individuals go through peaks and troughs There are times when we lose our job, times when we become a parent for the first time and times when a loved one passes away. There is no monotone or smooth chain of events following each other. There are always ups and downs in everything that has been pinpointed on a timeline, while some of these events may seem unpleasant to us. There are disasters, calamities and plagues occurring simultaneously alongside apparently pleasant events and miracles in the world. Deaths, separations, or calamities in peoples’ lives evoke sympathy and pity on people.

What is the role of these calamities and disasters that take place in this beautiful world? Why do people have to struggle with illness and many other problems in their lives? How do we reconcile all this change happening in the world with calamities and disasters? How can God Almighty allow harm to be inflicted upon people and other living beings?

To be able to answer these questions we need to have a better understanding of what makes something good or evil. Almost everything good in this world comes with existence and almost all bad things in this world are associated with nonexistence. Goodness, perfection, and maturity require existence of many qualities, and the existence of these qualities require changes. A steady life with no change is not an ideal form of life or living. In such a life, even the greatest pleasures will transform into absolute emptiness. Keeping this in mind, it is as if existence requires calamities, for only with calamities and problems can good things can come into existence. Rejuvenation is the arrival of good events after the departure of nonexistence.

There are many examples from nature that point to revitalization that is induced by change. Take wildfires as an example. Although wildfires damage the habitat of many inhabitants of a forest, they have many benefits as well. Wildfires are great for biodiversity. After a fire, different habitats develop in forest openings. This creates a mosaic of new habitats that encourage new species to enter the area. Wildfires can also improve the health of a forest by removing trees weakened by insects or diseases.1

Storms may sound like another destructive natural event to us but when examined closely, we realize that they are very essential to our planet’s well-being. Up to 25% of the available rainfall is provided by tropical storms. They play a crucial role in maintaining the heat balance of the earth, which is essential to the well-being of all living things. Hurricanes act like the air conditioners of the earth. It moves the cold air masses to places where rain is needed.2 After all, all these events have a purpose that work for a reason.

Human life as a natural and most intelligent participant of this world displays a similar pattern. We suffer pain, endure sorrows, and experience many unpleasant events in our lives. However, most of the time, the true nature of these events are understood only after they are over. The after-shock of events makes us realize things we did not notice before or even during the event. Sickness helps us understand our weaknesses and forces us to develop strategies rather than depending on sheer power. Only with calamities can humans refine their capabilities and talents and attain high virtues. People will recognize that they developed their understanding of their environment after times of difficulties, rather than times of comfort. To put it differently, as William Frederick Halsy, Jr. says: “There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.” It is only with challenges that people are compelled to develop new solutions. If we want to advance, we have to change, voluntarily or involuntarily.

These examples are just a few of the countless events happening all around us. In fact, all sciences are the study of these amazing changes. The essential point in all these events is that true evil is the state of no change. It is only with change that we can observe the good outcomes. True evil is in idleness, stagnancy, and inactivity.

There is the well-known saying “every cloud has a silver lining,” that there is a purpose in every event. Nothing is meaningless but since people are short-sighted, they make quick decisions and reach conclusions utilizing poor judgment. Many of the developments in the world require time and consciousness to understand. We need to have a wider and more prudent look into the events. Every event is wonderful in its own way; it is almost impossible to find something meaningless in this world.

Notes

1. For more see, “Yellowstone’s Rebirth by Fire: Rising from the Ashes of the 1988 Wildfires” by Karen Wildung Reinhart, and “Fire Effects on Ecosystems” by Leonard F. DeBano, Daniel G. Neary and Peter F. Folliott.
2. “The Benefits of Hurricanes,” Time Magazine September 24, 1973.

Answer: By courtesy of belief, all living and non-living things smile into people’s faces as if they change their color, shape, pattern, nature, and therefore transform and fly into the hearts of believers to become spirit and meaning. Stone and soil, tree and leaf, rose and flower, bird and insect-everything, yes every single thing, whispers something to the souls of believers from the horizon of the heart. Moreover, all the laws ordained in nature, line by line, paragraph by paragraph, turn into a significant message and make feelings and consciousness listen to the most effective sermons that do not have letters or words.

The real reasons for disasters

In fact, the laws in nature take effect, sometimes at individual and other times at social level, in accordance with people’s spiritual life and their relations with God Almighty. Unfortunately, when the reasons for floods, earthquakes, catastrophes, and even the corruption of whole ecosystems cannot be fully understood, they are considered to be natural events, and consequently the message that they are to convey cannot be interpreted properly.

Humans, however, are a conscious and intelligent fruit of the universe. Looking into the connection between the universe and humankind, we can consider two perspectives. From one perspective, humankind has been created in the context of the natural world, and we have developed and attained our present level in relation to nature; from another perspective, the general circumstances of the universe have been shaped to be suitable for them. In the former perspective, the universe is the cause and humans are the effect, and in the latter perspective, people are the cause, while the laws in nature and the universe are the effect. Understood in this way, the laws in nature and human beings are closely interconnected. Thus, an earthquake, for instance, is strongly linked to a tremor in people; yet this can only be seen by the eye of a believer.

In one’s individual and social life, as in the laws in nature, experiences of failure or the occurrence of undesirable events are themselves closely connected to spiritual well-being. Almost all misfortunes begin within one’s inner self; then, being nourished in the earth of the self’s weakness, they gradually develop and appear in existence. Hence, the true cause of disasters is humankind, and it is impossible to make realistic comments on the cause–effect mechanism until this very particular relationship is understood.

In this sense, the first step toward searching out and finding the real cause is to question oneself. To say, “This misfortune occurred because of me; my inconsistencies and my disconnection from God caused these things happen!” and to recognize the connection between the disaster and failure to manage one’s free will, and consequently to seek forgiveness is the attitude of a true believer. Indeed, when an individual sees himself or herself as the source of problems, this manner becomes indirect remorse, penitence, and repentance.

Regarding this issue, the Holy Qur’an states, “Whatever affliction befalls you, it is because of what your hands have earned; and yet, He overlooks many (of the wrongs you do)” (42:30). Therefore, troubles that target believers are penance for them. Nevertheless, some disasters are not the direct results of sins. For instance, the troubles of one who strives to serve on the path of God cause him or her to attain higher levels of righteousness. Thus, when other people are involved, thinking that their sins are the source of disasters is an erroneous belief. Believers, who are enjoined to think well of others, should suppose that other people, through disasters, attain the splendor of God’s closeness. On the other hand, they should think critically about themselves thus: “Drought and famine are occurring; it’s because of me! Things are not going right; it’s because of me! That issue ended up as a fiasco; it’s because of me!”

Do not destroy my nation because of my sins!

As is widely known, during the era of noble Umar’s caliphate, a great famine took place. The famine was so severe that new regulations for the rationing of provisions were instigated and people were supplied with limited food and drink. Noble Umar (may God be pleased with him) said that his standard of living should have been the standard of the poorest person in Medina. When he learned that the majority of the people were eating bread dipped in olive oil, he did the same thing, too. As someone who had always lived in a humble way, the great caliph was very sensitive about obeying the new rules on rationing. As long as the famine continued, he never put a delicious dish such as meat or fish into his mouth; moreover, he thought that the common disaster was his own fault. He offered supplications such as, “O God! Do not destroy the nation of Muhammad by famine because of my own sins!”

Noble Aslam, who never left noble Umar’s side, reports, “If the famine had lasted a little while longer, the Leader of the Believers would have died of his sorrow! I often saw him prostrating. He was always offering supplications and weeping. Sometimes, he was totally drowned in tears. He kept moaning, “Oh, God! I think that the famine and drought are the results of my sins. Please, do not destroy the nation of Muhammad because of me!” and shaking with sadness.

This example above is an expression of perceiving things with the eye of the heart and a sign of being connected to God. It is only those who are detached (from the true path) who, when some bad incident happens, always impute sin to others, and seek different reasons to blame, and accuse others. They never ever say, “This problem happened as a result of my fault.” They do not see events from this perspective. Consequently, they do not feel a need to repent (for their sins), to try hard to compensate their fault, or to plead with God. They cannot find the real culprit since they do not link the incident to themselves. They cannot be saved from the fault of blaming others.

Today, how many people consider themselves responsible even for changes in the laws in nature, run to their prayer rugs, and mourn as in, “Please, O God! Do not destroy the nation of Muhammad because of me”? How many people are in tears of repentance considering themselves as the cause of deprivation from the help and mercy of God. Indeed, the number of real believers in this world is equal to the number of the individuals who believe that some misfortune happening in their country is because of their sins and feel sad to think of their share in Islam’s unsolved problems.

It is narrated that in a time when misfortunes rained down on people, Salim ibn Qasim, a pious person, visited Muhammad ibn Muqatil, a great scholar of the time. He said, “There is a severe storm of disasters; earthquakes are happening one after another, and people are exhausted by poverty. You are our leader; please, for the sake of God, pray for us!” The humble scholar responded, “Indeed, how I wish that I were not the reason for your destruction! I am afraid that the storm rose because of me, the earthquakes never cease because of me, and my sins hinder Glorious Mercy from coming and embracing you.”

Next morning, Salim ibn Qasim once again, ran to Muhammad ibn Muqatil’s door. This time, however, Salim was smiling with great pleasure. He exclaimed, “Last night, in my dream, I saw our master the Messenger of God, the honor of the universe, saying, ‘God the most Glorious, released dreadful disasters and misfortune upon people. Yet, for the sake of Muhammad ibn Muqatil, who despises himself, prays, and begs humbly, God the Almighty turned the disaster away from your country!’”

Do you see how considering oneself responsible becomes great repentance and supplication in God’s view? On the one hand, think about how God’s servant sees himself or herself; on the other hand, look at his or her value in God’s view. Do you understand how judging the self (nafs) to be the cause of disasters and asking for forgiveness with a sense of shame can raise people?

Assuming responsibility

Some people may think, “What sins have we committed so that we should blame ourselves for disasters?” Actually, the thought, “What sins have I committed?” is a major sin in itself; one who think in this way commits a major lapse. A very sinful person will be on the way of forgiveness if he or she asks for pardon with very deep regret, while one who thinks, “What sins have I committed?” will be considered to be falling into the pit of catastrophe due to this question. For, individuals who are aware of their sins always have the chance of purification by repentance, whereas it is inevitable that those who suppose themselves to be pure will be crushed under the full consequences of their overlooked minor sins. Yes, indeed, “What sins have I committed?” expresses a lack of knowledge of what sin is. Nonetheless, for those individuals, not establishing a relationship with God in accordance with God’s blessings on them, not understanding the great value of being Muslim-by preferring it even over the leadership of the world-and not doing their best to obtain the pleasure of God means that they are poor ones who have closed their eyes to the Glorious bestowal, and therefore it is unnecessary to search for any other sin for one who is sunk in ingratitude up to the neck.

On the other hand, some people admit their sins, but they say, “Who am I that there should be changes in the sky, famine should appear, or rain should fall because of me?” Since they do not attribute any value to themselves, they never imagine that they have a share in causing misfortunes and disasters. This way of thinking can be seen as a sign of modesty and poverty from one point of view; however, it can be a temptation to escape from responsibility at the same time. In this manner, it is possible that a person who says “because of me!” for all kinds of disasters, whether major or minor, might become arrogant through a hidden channel under responsibility, since that kind of person assumes that many incidents happening in the universe are linked to him or her. “I am such a sinful person that everyone is afflicted with disaster because of me!” expresses feelings of shame at first; however, if proper limits are not drawn, and if Satan’s tricks are not defeated, this expression can be transformed into a claim that “I am such an important person that events in the heavens and the earth are shaped in relation to me!” Consequently, it is essential to find the middle path and maintain the balance.

Yes, indeed, it is huge heedlessness for those not to consider that there can be their own share in collective disasters; this negligence can be a result of not comprehending how God Almighty values human beings. On the other hand, while saying, “All these events are related to me, I am the reason for things that do not go right,” hidden arrogance can enter one’s heart. There is a danger of veiled arrogance in the thought, “God Almighty pays attention to me; if I am in good shape, He administers events in a good manner; but if I have a bad attitude, he ruins the balance of events,” since one is imagining one’s ego as the ruler of vast realms.

From this angle, every believer, as part of a larger community, should feel the responsibility for every disaster to a certain extent. Also, with regard to responsibility, every believer should always be committed to the following criterion: If I were involved in all the areas that are relevant to Islam and had decision-making power, I would certainly have to assert that “Today, all the troubles in Muslim communities and all that hinders the nation of Muhammad, peace be upon him, is happening because of me.” Yet, I am not a strong agent in all areas; therefore, I am primarily responsible for the hindrances that are somehow relevant to me. I should see every negative occurrence in my area from the “because of me” point of view and approach general disasters with the idea that “I have a share, too.”

The following hadith of our noble master, the Truthful Messenger of God, peace be upon him, draws attention to the criteria by which we should judge ourselves: “Beware. Every one of you is a shepherd and every one is answerable with regard to his flock. The ruler is a shepherd over the people and shall be questioned about his subjects. A man is a guardian over the members of his family and shall be questioned about them. A woman is a guardian over the household of her husband and his children and shall be questioned about them. A servant is a guardian over the property of his master and shall be questioned about it.”

From this perspective, since Umar was the caliph of the noble Messenger of God and Leader of Believers, it is natural that he thought himself responsible for the whole nation. One who leads a country takes on the great responsibility for a whole nation; similarly, the head of an institution or an association is particularly responsible for his or her area. Everyone should believe that his or her own mistakes could result in negative occurrences, especially mistakes connected with their own duty and responsibility; thus, they should be scared of this danger and live carefully.

In this sense, Sultan Alparslan’s example is noteworthy, showing how one should behave in accord with a wide area of responsibility: on the Manzigert plain, when the Muslim soldiers were all anxious, the Sultan came in front of them in his white clothes, which he called his shroud, prostrated to God, and wept, begging, “O my God! Make our army victorious; do not let them be defeated because of my sins.”

Collective repentance

Yes, indeed, it is veiled repentance for those individuals to identify their limits, positions, responsibilities and areas of responsibility, to ask forgiveness of God the Almighty after relating the problems in these areas to their own mistakes, and to revive their dormant enthusiasm in order to eradicate their mistakes. This kind of repentance is more sincere since it is not revealed, unlike that spoken aloud; this kind of repentance is more heartfelt than one that everyone testifies to. Hence, those individuals who judge their self as responsible for every disaster burn inside with great agony, but no one sees the fire; and they do not reveal their secrets. All alone, expressing penitence without letting anyone hear, they ask for forgiveness thousands of times, remembering their sins, and continue, “O my God! It is not enough to ask for forgiveness once for my sins, I repent millions of times!” seeking numbers that can express infinity in order to show regret at the fear of having broken with the Almighty Lord.

In fact, if salvation is desired at the level of society, all members of the society should repent together and look for ways of atoning for their own sins. This is because regret for an individual mistake should be felt individually; sorrow for a sin in a family should be felt by every family member; likewise, a nationwide sin requires nationwide repentance. Hence, for the salvation of a society, every individual in the society should be purified from the dirt of rebellion.

It is narrated that Prophet Moses, peace be upon him, performed the ritual prayer for rain with his tribe. Although they prayed for several days, it did not rain. Then he asked of the Wisdom of God, “My Lord! You told us to pray for an end to drought, but You have not made it rain though we begged You with open hands.” God Almighty said, “There is a sinful person among you who has not repented yet!” When Moses asked for the name of that person who was an obstacle to the mercy of God, God Almighty said, “I am the Veiler (Sattar), and I veil the sins of my servants. I do not disclose their mistakes and make them ashamed. Repent together so that this individual will be purified from sins, and thereafter your prayers will be answered.”

In brief, we should think that the troubles that confront us are because of our sins. To avoid these troubles, we should repent for our mistakes, faults, sins, rebellious actions and every time we have overstepped the limits, whether in a major or minor way. In addition, we should keep in mind that although repentance from the heart is enough for sins at an individual level, for the faults of society there is a need for deeper trembling, and a more sincere awakening and social repentance. Yes, we should not forget that success in attaining prosperity and peace in our society depends on the repentance of people who are connected to the destiny of this society in a material and spiritual way, especially the repentance of those who have dedicated themselves to the prosperity of their people.

In his collection of Lem’alar (The Flashes), he dedicates an important section to the story of the prophet Job (Ayyub), who suffered from severe illnesses. Through this story Nursi speaks of the problem of suffering and how it is perceived from a theological perspective. He refers to the Qur’anic verse: “And (remember) Job, when he called upon his Lord saying: ‘affliction has touched me and You are the most Merciful of the merciful’” (21:83). In this story, Job’s illness cleansed his soul while his body suffered. In this way, Job’s suffering served his spiritual healing. Nursi comments on this, saying that an illness is not only physical, but it can also be spiritual. He says, “If our inner being was to be turned outward and our outer being turned inward, we would appear more wounded and diseased than Job.” Nursi continues, “Every sin that we commit, every doubt that comes to our mind, inflicts wounds on our heart and spirit.” Job’s wounds were threatening his worldly life; our spiritual wounds, often, threaten our eternal lives. Because of this we must say a prayer that is one-thousand greater than that of Job. We, like Job, need this prayer, even if we are healthy in body.

Nursi divides disasters into two types. The true disaster, according to Nursi, is the religious disaster. For example, if a Muslim abandons their faithful performance of their religious obligations this would be a religious disaster, and is graver than any physical disaster. Another example that can be given is the harboring doubts; for example, one may doubt God’s existence. This too is a religious disaster if these doubts do not ultimately strengthen one’s faith. In such a case, a person should pray to God for His mercy and ask for guidance and deliverance from this affliction.

The second type of disaster is physical, not religious. This type of disaster often acts as a divine reminder. According to Nursi, this type of disaster does not suggest a wrathful God, but rather a merciful God. He gives an example of a shepherd who is concerned about his sheep: If a shepherd throws a stone at his sheep when they trespass on another’s pasture, they understand that the stone was intended as a warning to save them from a perilous action; full of gratitude, they turn back. Nursi similarly states that there are many apparent disasters that in fact remind us of God and awaken us. Some disasters, likewise, cleanse us of our sins. Some disasters remove carelessness and remind people of their weaknesses and vulnerabilities; it is through these events that we experience a kind of divine presence. Nursi, with regard to illnesses, refers to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad stating that sins fall away through the trembling caused by a fever, just as a tree drops ripened fruit when shaken.

Nursi says that there are three reasons that humans have no right to complain about di-sasters and illnesses. The first one is that God has made human beings a reflection of his art, clothing them with the cloth of existence. God has made people a model for the reflection of His Names. Therefore, the name of God “The All-Healing” is made known through human illness, while the name “The All-Provider” is made known through human hunger. Existence itself is a great bounty from God; that is, it is a great bounty in comparison to non-existence. According to Nursi, through calamity and illness people are purified from their sin and they attain a higher spiritual rank while they leave this world which is in fact a testing ground for human beings. A monotonous and indolent life is closer to non-existence, which is the absolute evil; existence is the absolute good. Life led monotonously on the couch of ease and comfort resembles not so much the pure good that is being, as the pure evil that is non-being; it tends in fact in that direction.

Nursi goes on to elaborate on the fact “worldly life is a place of testing and an abode of service. It is not a place of wages or rewards. Illnesses and disasters, as long as they do not affect belief and are patiently endured, are beneficial and relevant to worship, strengthening and making every hour of life the equivalent of one day of worship. Instead of complaining, one must be thankful.” In Nursi’s understanding, worship is divided into two types: positive worship (the common form of worship with which we are familiar) and negative worship (e.g. being patient in unpleasant conditions). He includes disasters and illnesses in the category of negative worship; it is through these that humans can understand their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. They pray to their Merciful Lord to help them in these matters, thinking of Him and sincerely appealing to Him. Nursi suggests that if a person is aware of these things, and if they think of the reward that God has prepared and remains thankful then their limited life will bear the fruit of an unlimited life. If these are done while suffering, then one minute of this worldly life becomes like one day spent at worship.

In another section, Nursi speaks of the creation of evil, especially the creation of Satan, and how this can be compatible with the wisdom of God, Who is the Owner of infinite beauty and mercy. How could such a One have created Satan, who is evil and ugly? Nursi tells us, “In the creation of Satan, there are minor evils set beside major good goals and human progress toward perfection. Yes, in the capacity of human progress, which is found in the essence of humanity, there are more stages than even those found in the growth of a seed into a tree. One can even say that these stages are as great as the difference between the size of an atom and the Sun. The development of such human capacities requires movement and action. The mechanism for such an action of development is struggle. Such a struggle requires the existence of Satan, demons, and evil things, against which humans must struggle. Otherwise, the stages of humanity would be static, like those of the angels.” Thus, Nursi says, abandoning thousands of good things in order to prevent the occurrence of one evil is not an action of wisdom or justice. Responding to the statement of “the creation of evil is evil, and the creation of ugliness is ugly,” Nursi says “the creation of evil is not evil, but committing evil is evil. This is because creation-either by creating something out of nothing, or through transformation-is to be evaluated in terms of its results. For example, rain has a thousand results, all of which are beautiful. Some people may suffer because of rain as a result of their neglect to take precautions. Yet, despite the fact that some people have suffered, no one can say that rain is not a mercy, that rain is not good. No one can say that the creation of rain is evil. On the contrary, those who suffer have made rain evil for them through their own neglect.” Nursi continues in this vein, using the example of fire. He argues that in the creation of fire there are many benefits. All of them are good. Some people, however, may make fire harmful for themselves and may suffer as a result. Such people cannot say the creation of fire is bad, but rather the way that they employed fire was bad. Fire was not created to harm people, but people often use fire to harm others and themselves. A simple example of this is the person who does not use fire to cook their dinner, but rather puts their hand in the fire, making it harmful. At this point we need to mention that in some acts of God, like the recent tsunami in the Asia, there are many more dimensions involved than just human neglect and any human precaution simply cannot resist Divine Decree.

Nursi elaborates on this subject by raising the problem that there are many people, who under the temptation of evil go astray. Is such a result still good? With regard to this, Nursi draws our attention to the importance of quality and not quantity. He gives an example of planting one thousand and ten seeds, saying that if a thousand of these seeds whither away and only ten survive to grow into trees one cannot say that planting these seeds was bad, even though a thousand seeds were lost. The ten seeds that became trees will result in thousands more seeds. In humanity, many people go astray because of the creation of Satan, but many others, with great qualities, have benefited humanity in extraordinary ways.

According to Nursi, everything that is created in this world is beautiful because it is a reflection of God’s name, “the All-Beautiful.” To support this, he refers to Al-Ghazzali’s famous statement: “In the world of possibility, there is no better one than the current one.” Nursi refers to opposites: There are some evils, yet these are relatively beautiful because they bring to the fore the character of their opposites. “Ugliness that brings out many beauties is relatively beautiful: Ugliness becomes beautiful. If ugliness, through its disappearance, causes the disappearance of many beautiful things, it becomes even uglier. Humans can understand the existence of warmth because there is cold and the existence of light because there is darkness.” Therefore, according to Nursi “through minor evil, harm, misfortune, and ugliness, some important good acts, encompassing benefits, great bounties, and important beauties appear.”

What we deduce from Nursi’s explanations is that Divine Wisdom may allow seemingly evil things, such as catastrophes, to happen. Disasters happen through His knowledge and His natural laws. Even within the greatest di-saster, God is there with His mercy and beauty. He bestows His private bounties upon those who suffer through such catastrophes. The believers who die in these catastrophes are considered to be martyrs, and their lost property is considered as having been (donated to) charity. 

References

• Nursi, S., The Flashes, tr. Sukran Vahide, Sozler Publication, Istanbul: 1995, pp. 21-28.
• Nursi, S., Risale-i Nur Kulliyati, Nesil, Istanbul: 1996, Vol. I, p.582-83
• Ibid., p. 618. 

As to the former, the main causes of such disasters, where people are capable of significantly of influencing events are carelessness, inaptitude and inertia. We are often able to cope with and even learn from them. Learning lessons from these bitter experiences leads to improvements in safety conditions. Public places are built to be safer and redesigned to minimize the element of human error and to reduce the risk of accident. However, there is little man can do to arrest or mitigate the great eruptions of the earth.

Nowhere to run

The movement of the earth now affects more people than ever before, according to a recent report from the UN (Kerpelman, 1994). The number of people killed, injured or displaced by disasters has increased by 6 percent a year over the 30 years covered by the report. Charles Kerpelman, its author, says floods killed more people than any other type of disaster. In terms of numbers of people killed and injured, Southern Asia and Southern Africa have been the worst. However, ‘there is no area in the world that is really safe from disasters’.

Almost every part of the world is susceptible to at least one kind of disaster that has the potential for causing a large number of deaths and significant damage. In the past 100 years, 1 million people have died in earth-quakes, another million in hurricanes, typhoons and tropical cyclones, and as many as 9 million in floods-these figures do not include the millions of deaths from diseases and famine directly caused by these catastrophes (Robinson, 1993). We can learn from examining the several types of disasters and their effects.

The Atlantic is prone to storms, although the most lethal known storm occurred in the Bay of Bengal in November 1970, when winds of more than 160 kilometres per hour led to the death of an estimated half a million people. Over 45,000 people have been killed by hurricanes and intense tropical storms, in the region this century. The Pacific is not exempt. Hurricane Flora killed 5000 in 1963 on Haiti (Knapp, 1990).

Hurricanes are made of strong winds spiraling around the area of calm which is a few kms across. The largest hurricanes spread over hundreds of kilometres and last for many days. When Hurricane Frederic rushed into the Caribbean Sea in September it reached a speed of 230 kilometres per hour. Within a few hours, $2 billion of damage had been caused, explaining why hurricanes are called the insurer’s nightmare in America. They caused a total loss of $44.2 billion from 1987 to 1993 (Legget, 1993).

Volcanoes occur when the earth’s surface is breached and magma flows forth as lava exploding into the air as tuff. All volcanic eruptions are driven by rapidly expanding gases within the magma. The two factors that determine the violence of an eruption are the amount of dissolved gases and how easily they can escape (Beazley, 1992). In the past few decades we have seen the worst volcanic disasters since the start of the century with 25,000 people killed as a result of just three eruptions, El Chichn in Mexico (1982), Nevada del Ruiz in Columbia (1985) and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (1991).

Another class of disaster includes earthquakes. There are 150,000 noticeable earthquakes every year, and over a million can be measured using sensitive apparatus. Nowhere is totally free of earthquakes although the must serious ones are concentrated at the well known ‘faults’. The earth’s crust is not stable, several kinds of cracks and faults lead to earthquakes. In Tokyo 140,000 people-two-thirds of the city- were killed in 1923. More recently, 10,000 people were killed in Mexico City in 1985 and on 30 September 1993, Killari, a village in India, was reduced to rubble within seconds leaving 10,000 people dead. Of course, earthquakes themselves do not usually kill, the deaths are caused by the collapse of buildings, roads and other human artefacts. Considerable destruction is also caused by the aftereffects like fire, flood, landslide and tsunamis-tidal waves. As it is widely known, earthquakes alone are sufficient to destroy the prosperity of any country.

It is obvious that man cannot resist the giant force of the earth’s shock, however, we can hope to reduce the damages by predicting these events and being prepared. Unfortunately, scientists have not reached a reliable way of prediction.

Forecasting or monitoring?

Having suffered many horrifying cataclysms, man has been trying to develop technologies to predict when and where the next disaster emerge. Today, the technical description and analysis of disasters is far more detailed than the past, but we cannot say that man has achieved any reliable forecasting method. Scientists monitor the catastrophes, that is, they record the earth’s activity, they do not predict.

This century has brought scientists a better understanding of some aspects of hurricanes. Many of the major questions remain largely unanswered. We still have relatively little idea, for instance, why some storms turn into hurricanes and others do not; why some hurricanes make landfall and others remain at sea; what causes a hurricane to wobble or even to reverse. Until the arrival of satellites, hurricanes were awkward phenomena to study, impossible to encompass in their entirety. There are still many things to learn, as noted in Science in 1990 that after 30 years of advances in weather satellites, computer forecasting models, and basic research, forecasters have reduced error in predicting the paths of hurricanes by just 14 percent.

Despite the astonishing technology of the late twentieth century, volcanic eruption prediction remains a humbling science, The history of a volcano, both its geology and its eruptions, if known well enough, is often a good guide to its future behaviour, however, monitoring restless magma is one thing, forecasting when it will erupt is another The chairman of the Coordinating Committee for Prediction of Volcanic Eruptions wrote in Nature that ‘the prediction of eruptions is extremely difficult….the prediction of the date and time of initial outburst is still like a kind of betting’ (Robinson, 1993). Recently, radar systems have been used to study erupting volcanoes, however, Rick Hobblit, a volcanologist admits that the single most important piece of information you can have is whether an explosive eruption is in progress’ (Pendick, 1993).

The introduction of a special issue of The Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America stated that ‘earthquakes do not have to occur where and when we want them or forecast them to occur and our understanding of how and why earthquakes occur and recur, even along the best studied active crustal fault in the world, is rudimentary and incomplete’. Brian Brady, a geologist studying quake-like rock bursts in mines, had made a notorious prediction that a giant earthquake would strike Peru in June 1981. The people of Peru, 66,000 of whom had died in an earthquake as recently as 1970, became jittery and restless as June 1981 approached. The result? Nothing happened. Later Brady wrote, defending himself that ‘our expanding knowledge of the earth derived from the extraordinary sophistication of new instrumentation, has ironically served to magnify our lack of understanding’ (Robinson, 1993).

Not only to destroy

So far, we have attempted to show the damage caused by disasters and the level of our understanding of them. Bearing in mind that everything in the universe exists or happens for a reason, we may ask ourselves what is behind these catastrophes which cause such great loss to destruction. As Charles Darwin said reporting the ruin of Concepcion in Chile, by an earthquake, ‘it is a bitter thing to see works, which have cost man so much time and labour, overthrown in one minute’. But unlike Darwin, we believe every event in the universe is planned. Elsewhere, our scholars have explained this more fully. Here it is sufficient to say that like everything in the universe, disastrous activities of the earth, too, have some benefits to earth and its inhabitants.

Storms and hurricanes help disturb the whole depths of the sea so that plankton-tiny creatures on which most fish swimming near the surface feed-get their food as chemicals from the sea bed. They carry heat from the tropics to the poles helping to even out the world temperatures. If this did not happen the tropics would get hotter and hotter. The poles would ice over without the heat from the tropics. Storms and hurricanes simply do the vital job of carrying surplus energy quickly across the earth. Severe storms such as hurricanes help drought-stricken lands recover. When dry air sits over continents like Asia, a great concentration of energy is needed to make big clouds that will bring rain. This is usually provided by hurricanes (Knapp, 1990).

It is widely known that volcanic eruptions have an overall cooling effect on the earth. Volcanoes cool the globe by injecting large quantities of material into the stratosphere, especially droplets of sulphuric acid. Once in the stratosphere, this material absorbs heat from the sun, preventing it from reaching the ground. This influence can last for several years.

Already, the Pinatubo eruption has cooled the earth’s surface by an average of 0.5 °C. One other benefit of volcanic eruptions is their 20,000 atm- pressure from magma to surface which helps the earth harden and provides protection from earthquakes. The idea that the volcanoes diminish the ozone layer is denied by recent research which argues that ‘the chlorine emitted during volcanic eruptions is not responsible for the damage to ozone layer. Two researchers in the University of California have shown that although large amounts of hydrogen chloride are released during some volcanic eruptions, the compound is efficiently washed out in the rain that always accompanies such eruptions’ (Science, vol.260, p.1O82).

Conclusion

We have attempted to show the effect of disasters in terms of loss of life and money and how far we are from understanding the earth and its activities. Even the dazzling technological advances of the twentieth century could not help us overcome the violence of the earth-shaking events, apart from showing us our lack of understanding. Scientists need to carry on experimenting and studying the mysteries of the world so that man can cope with nature. We must always bear in mind that all those horrifying activities of the earth are not purposeless and free from reason but help maintain the earth’s vitality. They perform tasks that cannot be carried out in more gentle conditions.