The human life, likewise, is marked by an experience of exhibition. The entire universe is out there for us to visit every day and every moment and cherish the beauties therein. The human being is no less an exhibition. As eloquently mentioned in the lead article we are blessed with a perfect physical structure that “whichever organ we may study, it is impossible not to feel admiration before its anatomy.” But the human is not only what it appears outside: “the depth of the inner world of a person has such rich potential to develop, and the potential to keep developing dimensions within; a complicated brain and a spirit with an elusive essence that evades material measure; and then the perfectly harmonious relation of these two phenomena-the physical and the spiritual together. . . mysterious beings… Within everything are meanings crystallized from the hues in the corona of that magnificent artwork-the human and her dignity.” The lead article is complemented with other articles in this issue on some of the fantastic abilities given to the human: the miraculous human birth, sneezing as a protective alarm system for our body, and the amazing Endoplasmic Reticulum which is the “industry district” in our cell where “most of the factories of molecules produced by chemical reactions are found.”

The Fountain continues to partner with civil society organizations and universities for international conferences and other events around the world. The earliest ones in the pipeline are the “Peacebuilding through Education” conference in New York, September 24, and “Ideal Human and Ideal Society” conference in Lahore, Pakistan, November 21. One concurrent event with the New York conference is Peace in a Frame photography competition. You will see ads of these events in this issue, and please refer to the listed websites for further information.

It was 3 o’clock in the morning. The rain outside beat on the windows and the loud thunder ripped through the night. A loud knock on the door startled the boy. All alone in the mansion, he was not really expecting anyone this late. But the stranger insistently knocked on the door. The boy got up hesitantly and grabbed the doorknob with shaking hands… Flash forward. He woke up with a scream, drenched in a pool of sweat. “Thank God, it was all a dream.”

I turned off the TV, feeling a mix of boredom and hunger gnawing hunger at the pit of my stomach. I headed down to the kitchen to grab a bite.

The world is full of wonders. We are amazed at how fish swim or how birds fly; by imitating their systems, we attempt to swim or fly. One of our most precious attributes is curiosity. Once I attended an exhibition associated with a popular movie. I was amazed at the power of human imagination and the dreams it can conjure, turning them into reality. The props and costumes used in this movie were displayed lavishly for the curious eyes of the fans and the flash of the cameras. We, as human beings, were being entertained with the products of the human imagination. Even the flow of events that happened at the exhibition, the flashing cameras, the décor and costumes, which seemed so important at that time, were all a design of the human imagination; they were not real. As the actors and actresses took on the personalities of their characters, they not only assumed the role of a movie character, but also became a player in a man-made dream world. We followed the entertainment with curiosity and interest. The characters, the story, the costumes, the light, and sound: all this captivated our attention. As the glow of the entertainment slowly faded off, I began to feel that this popular movie and even the exhibition itself existed within another movie… a more real movie in which we all played our roles.

My favorite pieces in the exhibition were the “magically alive” animated portraits. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the people in the portraits applauding us, as if we had accomplished some feat. I liked the idea of animated portraits and photos. A picture is ultimately just a 2D image, but an animated image encompasses a third dimension: time. A movie’s ability to capture the charm of time is what appeals to us and captivates our attention.

Early in the morning, I glanced out my window and noticed the autumn leaves falling from the tree in my back yard. About two or three weeks ago they were all green, but now the scene had completely changed. Tinted with different shades of orange, yellow, red and purple, the leaves ruffled on their branches with the whoosh of the light breeze.

I imagined that my window was an animated picture inside my home. There was someone insistently striking His brush against my easel, coloring this picture day by day, moment by moment, and giving it motion for me, making me feel the changes He brought about. Filled with these wondrous thoughts, words fell out of my mouth: “He is truly a magnificent artist.” At the moment, I recalled what the lead character in a movie had said as he looked, bewildered at the harmony of colors in the sky during sunset: “God must have been an artist.”

In order to make an animated picture or create a video sequence, the consecutive pictures or “frames” of a scene must be joined together. If the difference between the capture times of two consecutive frames is too long, the video will not run smoothly, stuttering like an old silent film, with intermittent flickers. Modern day movies use a larger number of frames per unit of time. The greater the number of frames, the smoother the images will appear. When I focused my attention on this outside “movie,” a movie in which I was an actress along with the rest of humanity, I couldn’t help but wonder what the number of frames was. Since we are living in a “perfect” movie, the movie of our world that we see through our eyes everyday must have an infinite number of frames. I contently followed the descent of a snowflake onto my hand. It made me admit once again that we’re part of a great cinematography and screenplay. The producer is not only an artist who covertly paints the pictures with His gentle brush strokes, but is also someone who strings an infinite number of picture frames with great skill and attention to detail, creating the perfect animation of “life.”

Imagine the animation of a falling bird feather; one would need to perform an enormous number of calculations between the sequences of frames. It would be necessary to run many computers in parallel to be able to process such animation in real time. Then I used this same information and applied it to the scene of the falling snowflake. Contemplating the details of each moment within that scenario and considering each moment to be a single frame helps you appreciate the complicated task of stringing these frames together in real time.

When you see a man inscribing circles with a light source you actually see a circle of a light. In fact, you perceive it as a circle because of the speed and the continuity of the motion. Life is analogous to that imaginary circle; it exists because of the continuity of the artist’s efforts. Yes, life as a “perfect” movie is similar to the continuity of this circle of light, because the artist’s magnificent skills continuously color and illuminate each picture frame, stringing them together in a perfect fashion.

Wait, wait, it doesn’t end here. I close my eyes; it is easy for me to see things that happened years ago in all their details. The time I dropped my ice cream on my favorite shirt when I was five, the gift that my brother gave me on my thirteenth birthday, the day I graduated from college… like a movie, I can watch all these whenever I like. This illustrates another issue in video processing, storing the videos, in other words, the frames, in an efficient way so that they can be accessed promptly when needed. I already have a good technique to store the story of my life in my memories. Moreover, in order to remember any sequence, all I need to do is just remember a small detail of the time, an event, or a memento. This is the fastest content-based image retrieval system I have ever seen! No moment of life is wasted and all is saved somewhere, providing relief for the human heart, which is helplessly attracted to eternity. Any art necessitates an exhibition and an audience. Then there must be a place and a time in which the whole movie will be watched again by the audience.

My brain not only stores my memories as videos, but also creates videos as I dream. These are mostly movies in the making; because I can do everything in my dreams, they do not need to be logical. I heard the phrase “Dream Theater” and I smiled. What else can one call a dream other than a grand theater full of surprises? Moreover, although the length of time that a dream takes up is not that long, it still contains a sizeable story that takes up days of real life. It’s one rabbit warren inside another.

As the rain hits the Boston ground, I look outside my window at my moving picture. Through this open window, I also hear the pitter-patter of the falling rain. The smell of wet soil seeps into my room. I shut my eyes and I can repaint the entire picture, using nothing but sounds and smell. What kind of magic is this? I cannot stop myself as I think about Him, the Producer of the real movie of my very existence. After all, I know that He loves me. No matter how busy I am watching man-made movies inside the real movie, I feel the presence of the true artist always with me and the imprint of His ever-lasting art in every moment of my life.

Even though nature is an exhibition of miracles, we prefer to call it a book, for we hear and read it like a book and watch it with admiration while walking through its colorful gilt embroideries.

Just as the elegant architectural details of a chalet whisper that there is more to the chalet than what we see, this marvelous book of nature directs our consciousness to the source of all beauty and order beyond itself–the source that creates and brings to light. With every formation, this source makes us feel the presence of a perfect organizer and displayer. However, it cannot be sensed because its greatness is beyond human comprehension and perception.

When we look at the skies (heavens), we notice that this architecture in nature appears to be concentric. The mountains seem to lean their heads majestically at the skies’ feet, and the skies’ self-surrender to the strong desire of togetherness are nice symbols of this architecture.

This excellent book and perfect exhibition, created by Eternal Mercy and offered for our observation and study, is now even less valued and cared about than a pile of garbage. It is being transformed into a desert and rubbish from all quarters. Today nature is shaken, ruined, and scattered. Air, the throne of Divine Command and Will, is full of malicious smoke, a whirlpool fluctuating with subjugation. Water, the symbol of Compassion, is no more than death canals of tar.

The land, although created as a symbol of God’s infinite Kindness and Benevolence, is now an infertile desert having very little to offer.

Like all other things entrusted to us, we have ruined this book and destroyed this wonderful exhibition. Actually, we have betrayed ourselves by transforming this beautiful world into a hell.

If humanity does not rebuild and cultivate this destroyed planet and return it to its original beauty, we will experience events like Noah’s Flood in the near future.

I am not a tailor, I do not make or sell clothes for a living, I am not in the textile business in any way. Even so, what had brought me to this exhibition was curiosity about such devices as stitches, stitching needles, scissors and the like. More precisely, I had come to see what I could find out about the history and development of such devices in relation to cutting and joining in surgical procedures, especially sutures. 

Every display in the great hall was presented by a team of experts who were there to answer questions. I asked many. In the end, rather to my surprise, I met one expert who was able to give me the kind of help I was looking for. He was Paul Breuer from Aachen, representing the German company SNF MANF, who, as it happens, manufacture surgical needles. Paul Breuer astonished me with his knowledge of a wide range of methods for sewing skin, including the use of ants. Naturally, I was intrigued, and Paul promised to post to me a photograph of an ant being used as a skin stitch, after his return to Aachen.

An embroidery equipment specialist, Caroline Sayers, of the company DATA STITCH, said she could design an ant stitch, if I could supply her with a suitable photograph. The very next day after I had supplied the photograph, the ant was scanned, digitized and an embroidery machine executed for us the amazing ant stitch.

My curiosity about this unusual suture technique led me to further investigations which finally bore fruit when I came across Welcome Institute for the History of Medicine’s 1973 publication, Albucasis on surgery and instruments. This book is a definitive edition of the original Arabic text with English translation and commentary by MS. Spink and G.L. Lewis.

In Book 2, Chapter 85, on suture materials used by the Arab surgeons, Albucasis (the Latinized version of Abu l-Qasim) mentions two techniques. Spink and Lewis, 1973, p.538, comment:

1. Ants’ nippers. This is not a classical method; but is said to be used by African tribes as a way of bringing skin edges together (modern Michel clips); evidently the Arabian ant-nippers acted in the same way.

2. Gut sutures. Gut was used by the earliest Greeks for bow-strings; but it is not mentioned as used for surgical purposes until the Arab era of surgery. Albucasis then describes it as ‘rubbed-down gut, well cleansed’. This may be the earliest reference to this now universal suture material.

Abu l-Qasim’s own account (ibid., p.550) is a vivid description of sutures using ants and cat gut:

Some men of experience have said that when a wound occurs in the intestine and it is small, it should be sutured in this manner, namely: ants with large heads are taken; then the edges of the wound are brought together and one of these ants is applied by its jaws then the head is cut off, and it will stick and will not loosen. Then another ant is applied near the first; and you proceed after this manner with a number of ants according to the size of the wound. Then reduce the intestine and sew up the wound; for the heads will remain sticking to the intestine until it is healed up; and no harm will come to the patient.

The intestine may be sewn up with fine suture which is extracted from an animals gut and sticks to it after being threaded in a needle. The method is that the end is taken of this suture made of gut, well scraped; and to this end is fixed a linen thread, twisted, and then that thread is passed through the needle affixed to the suture of animalis gut, with which the intestine is sewn and then replaced in the abdominal cavity (Abu l-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Al-Tasrif, Book 2 Chapter 85).

Abu l-Qasim Al-Zahrawi (936-1013) wrote his remarkable surgery manual Al-Tasrif during the period of Arab/Islamic rule in Spain about a thousand years ago. I felt a curious and wonderful sensation at the link between an ant stitch, mentioned and talked about in an exhibition of textile craftsmanship in Manchester near the end of the twentieth century, and the dedication and craftsmanly skills of the Muslim scholar who, a millenium before, had adapted the use of ants, and invented the use of cat gut, for making sutures. This was not the only contribution this extraordinary man made to the development of modern surgery techniques, nor was he the only Muslim to have made significant and striking advances in the field of medicine.

It is hard not to feel awe (and, naturally, some pride) at the achievement of the Muslims in that great period of Islamic civilization. I have no doubt that their success was owed to the excellence of their faith and their consequent commitment to working for the improvement of human well-being and the advancement of learning. And I realize that I am merely at the beginning of a long quest for information about what was achieved by Muslims dedicated to Islam in the broadest sense-namely, a way that improves the quality of human life and the quality of our understanding of the world we live in.

This ‘book’ or exhibition was once much more dazzling; like a magnificent vessel sailing in the ocean of love and ecstasy or a chandelier with one thousand and one lights, it was beautiful beyond imagination. With its emerald hills and slopes and exhilarating valleys and plains, with its forests inhabited by thousands of kinds of cheerful animals and paradise-like gardens, fields and orchards, and with its singing birds and merry-making insects, this ‘book’ was the realm neighboring the other world. Divine mercy poured onto it in the form of rain to make the earth more fertile and, in return, hands were held open towards it in profound gratitude.

Those who sensed nature in that manner could not help but establish a deep heartfelt relation with the sound, melody, taste, smell and beauties which issued from it by the Hand of Power. For they were so intimate and familiar with it that whenever they gazed on it, they felt different things pertaining to the worlds beyond.

Like the elegance and grace in the architecture of a palace inspiring in us different things beyond the palace itself, nature, this exhibition of the miracles of Divine art, inspires in our hearts an intuition of the existence of One who, being the real source of all harmony and beauty, has brought it into existence and designed it, One who, although He makes us feel Himself through every work of His, is beyond the capacity of direct human perception.

The natural world and the heavens are as if in each other’s arms. It is as if in response to the strong desire of mountains to meet with heavens which they show by making their peaks lean on their skirts, heavens hang their skirts down over them. Like bees flying from one flower to the other, human imagination travels through the reflections of the Creator’s beauty and goes as fas as the horizon. When it reaches the horizon, thinking that the road goes on far into eternity beyond heavens, it sets out for a new journey and man begins to hear the melodies belonging to the worlds beyond. Those who, through their imaginations, can stay in those worlds for a long time, succeed in meeting the true beloved, with the love of whom they are consumed and for the union with whom they long.

For those who have resolved to make a journey through this realm of nature which provides knowledge of God for the traveller and where the heart, spirit and conscience overflow with innumerable kinds of pleasures, with its exhilarating spectacles, multi-coloured hills and slopes, impressive mountains that lead one into day-dreams, amorous gardens, awe-inspiring forests, streams and rivers murmuring in their way to union with seas-it is especially in spring and summer, a realm of joy, pleasure, peace and imagination. 

There is a magnificence, a charm, and a poetical harmony in every corner of this ‘book’ or exhibition. It is as if-with all its variety of beauty diversified in colours and forms, and the sheer charm of its general appearance, such that one would say, It is impossible for it to be more beautiful than this!-nature were in a sort of beauty competition. Those who have awakened to those beauties observe it differently and hear from it melodies of unimaginable beauty. Those ‘intoxicated’ spirits see trees dancing mentioning His Name and flowers announcing Him in the languages particular to themselves, and they hear everything in nature whispering peculiar messages from that symphony of beauty.

There are parts of nature which know of neither winter nor autumn. They are so dazzling and charming that you feel near the pont of touching the ultimate reach of beauty where this and other worlds are as if concentric with each other. The slopes of those places give you the impression that you are in gardens of Paradise, the rivers flowing through them bring to your mind the rivers of Paradise, and the swaying of their trees bring you a gust of breezes in gardens of Paradise. In short, in the beauties exhibited in those places you feel and observe the eternal beauties and, thinking that the worldly life is too short to experience all those beauties perfectly, you feel an earnest desire for eternity and turn to the Infinitely Powerful One so that that vital desire of yours may be realized.

What a pity it is that this magnificent book, this charming exhibition, which the Infinitely Merciful One has created and presented to man to observe and study and to be exhilarated by, is no longer given any more care than is given to a heap of junk or rubbish. Worse than that, it is more and more becoming a wasteland and like a dunghill.

Today, air, that magnificent conductor of Divine commands, is a suffocating smoke and a perilous ‘whirlpool’. Water, that source of life and other Divine bounties, is either a hazardous flood or forms desolate expanses of pitch. And earth, that treasure of Divine grace and munificence, is a wilderness no longer productive and a ruin without any ecological balance.

Like everything else entrusted to us, we have deplorably treated this ‘book’, this magnificent exhibition, which is an embodiment of Divine grace and mercy. How deplorably and awkwardly we have treated plains and residential places, which we have changed into deserts and heaps of ruin. How deplorably and gracelessly we have treated seas and rivers, which we have polluted. Again, how deplorably and awkwardly we have treated air and water, and fields, forests, and gardens, which we have made unfavorable to any life. Truly, by changing this Paradise-like world to a hell, how deplorably and awkwardly we have treated ourselves!

Unless we improve this world, whose order we have destroyed and which we have polluted, and restore it to its essential beauty and magnificence, it will inevitably collapse on us in heaps of wreckage.