The September 11^th terrorist attack was traumatic for many people. At that point in my life, I had been studying Islam for thirty-six years: first as a student, then as a professor of Islamic history and archaeology at the university level. My professional colleagues and I felt that we had been quite successful at communicating the richness and beauty of Islamic faith and culture. Once it became clear that Muslim extremists perpetrated the horrendous acts, it occurred to us that whatever success we had achieved in presenting Islam in a positive light would soon begin to unravel.

In one respect, at least for a while, the opposite happened. People rushed to bookstores to buy books on Islam. Television networks broadcast documentaries about Islam, and various educational, civic, and religious groups sought “experts” to explain this religion of which they knew little more than the name.[1] But that didn’t last. Under the guise of “justice,” some cried out for revenge.

For me, it seemed clear that what was needed were channels of communication, dialogue between Muslims and non-Muslims. Being a committed Christian and knowing that Jesus is extremely important to Muslims, I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the focus for that dialogue were Jesus? A few encounters that I had in the weeks and months that followed convinced me that such a focus was indeed possible.

The first was with a young woman from Pakistan. She was one of the students in my “Introduction to Islam” class. One of the questions on the final exam was to discuss Jesus’s role in Islam. She prefaced her entire exam by identifying herself as a “highly religious Muslim in nearly every regard… (who) uphold(s) the Quranic verses and hadith strictly.” In her answer to the Jesus question, she wrote:

“I find His (Jesus’) contribution to Muslim beliefs to be underestimated [emphasis mine]… He was one of the most respected and beloved messengers of God and He is the One who will descend on the Day of Resurrection to lead the Muslims in the world against evil…. I find it incredible that it is Jesus, not Muhammad, whom the Muslims will follow during the last days of the world. This reinforces my views of Islam as such an adaptive faith.”

After the course, to my amazement, she came to my office and thanked me for reminding Muslims how important Jesus is to them.

The second encounter is a bit more complicated. It was with the son of one of my colleagues. At the time of our conversation, he was enrolled in a PhD program in Islamic studies at Harvard University; he is also a United Church of Christ minister. This is what he said: “My study of Islam has helped me understand the mystery of the Trinity.”

I was startled. How could that be? I thought to myself.

He went on to explain: “The Muslim mystic Ibn al-`Arabi writes that God wants to be known and thus manifests Himself in a variety of ways. The first manifestation can be called God or Allah in Arabic, the name which includes all other names. Ibn al-`Arabi then parses the ninety-nine names of God in interesting ways. Many of the names form pairs. One can speak of God the giver of life, but also of God the bringer of death; God the all-just, and God the all-merciful; God the perfect master, and God the perfect servant.”[2]

“So, how does this relate to the Christian concept of Trinity?” I asked.

He continued: “In Christianity, we might think of the Father as the Perfect Master, and the Son as the Perfect Servant.”

One of my Moroccan friends asked which Arabic name for God translated as perfect servant. I answered “Al-Wali,” which can be translated as friend, not an ordinary friend, but rather a very special friend, a patron or helper. It was difficult for my friend to think of God as lowering himself to the status of a servant. But this is exactly the point. Jesus, by becoming the perfect servant, elevates servanthood to something noble.

Service (hizmet in Turkish), in this sense, is the cornerstone of the Hizmet Movement inspired by the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, who now resides in the Golden Generation Retreat Center near Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

My final encounter occurred when I met with the director of the Journalists and Writers Foundation in Istanbul.[3] The director talked about hizmet and the importance of cross-cultural dialogue. Our group was there on an interfaith dialogue mission. I mentioned to him that he was really preaching to the choir. I asked, “How do you promote this philosophy among people less inclined toward universal dialogue?”

He answered without batting an eyelash, “Through example and with humility, just like when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.”

Convinced that Jesus could be the focus of dialogue between Christians and Muslims, I proceeded to write a book, Jesus, One Man, Two Faiths: A Dialogue between Christians and Muslims.[4] The first chapter develops the metaphor that piecing together a composite image of Jesus is like working a jigsaw puzzle with pieces from two different boxes.

The book moves more or less chronologically through the life of Jesus beginning with the birth narratives in both Christian and Muslim traditions. The story of Jesus’ birth is remarkably similar in both traditions. There are differences, of course, but, for the most part, those differences complement rather than contradict each other.

The narrative moves on to the public ministry of Jesus. It is the story of Jesus the miracle worker, Jesus the perfect servant. Does Jesus perform the same miracles in both traditions? For the most part, he does. How is it and why is it that Jesus performs miracles in the first place? Again, there are some differences in the answers to these questions, but the similarities are striking. In both traditions, Jesus is seen as the perfect servant and, in both, the perfect servant becomes a suffering servant.

This is where the story separates in the two traditions. In Christianity, the perfect servant is sacrificed, crucified to atone for the sins of humanity. Most Muslims, on the other hand, believe that Jesus was not crucified. Someone else was crucified in his stead. This is potentially one of the most serious conflicts in interpretation between Christianity and Islam. But a closer look is warranted. The chapter “The Suffering Servant” provides a wide range of interpretations in both Christianity and Islam.

I had a long talk about the crucifixion with Brother Nahidian, imam of the mosque in Manassas, Virginia. In the end, he said to me, “We can debate the issue of whether or not Jesus was crucified all day long. But that would perhaps miss the more important point, Jesus’ ultimate triumph over death and God raising him up to heaven.”

It is the narrative about the resurrection and the second coming where the stories come together again. It was my student from Pakistan who put me on to new insights. Let me repeat what she wrote: “He [Jesus] is the One who will descend on the Day of Resurrection to lead the Muslims in the world against evil.”

Jesus’s return in the Gospel of Matthew 24:27-31, on the one hand, sounds as if it could be metaphorical. But it also sounds like there will be some kind of real, physical event. And it will be universal, “from the East…visible to the West” and involving “all the nations of the earth.” It will follow a period of turmoil or, as the scripture says, “after the distress of those days.” Jesus will be triumphant; he will “send his angels with a loud trumpet call.” And he will somehow play the role of judge: “he will gather his elect from the four winds.”

Some Muslims minimize Jesus’s role in this event. His role is to announce when the event will take place. But some Muslims, like my student from Pakistan, see Jesus’s role as much greater. Quran 4:159, at the very least, confirms Jesus’s presence on the day of judgment (yaum al-qiyama), as he serves as witness for or against those whom God judges. The hadiths of al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim give Jesus another role. He will come as the just ruler; he will break the cross and abolish the jizyah, the tax theoretically paid by non-Muslims.

Jesus will break the cross. At first sight, this sounds particularly and specifically anti-Christian. Does it confirm the Muslim denial that Jesus was crucified? Does it nullify the importance that the cross holds for Christians as a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice? Or, can Christians, as well as Muslims, find meaning in Jesus breaking the cross? In this latter case, could the breaking of the cross mean something like Jesus’s ultimate triumph over the evil in the world that sought to kill him, his ultimate triumph over death itself, or the ultimate triumph over death of all righteous people who, in both the Christian and Muslim traditions, will in the end be resurrected from the dead?

Always in the background is the issue of the Trinity, the Christian mystery of three persons in one God. When Christians think about God the Father and Jesus as his only begotten Son, what exactly does “Father” mean in this context? When Muslims say that God does not beget nor is begotten, what does the word “beget” mean to them? What role does the Holy Spirit – or “the Spirit of God,” as the Quran phrases it – play in both traditions? Potentially, these questions are the most divisive between Christianity and Islam. Picking up certain pieces of the puzzle that are laid out in the preceding chapters in the book, the chapter “I Believe in One God” offers answers.

How Christians and Muslims relate to God is the subject of the final chapter. How personal is the relationship? How do they pray? Could they conceivably pray together? I was asked by a university student in Morocco, if I thought that the interfaith dialogue that I described in the book could succeed [his word]. This is what I said to him: “If honest dialogue between Christians and Muslims even begins to address these issues, then it is successful. And that has already happened in my research for the book. If Christians and Muslims actually prayed together, then it would be a smashing success.” And that has happened too.

Quoted from Kirkus Reviews:

Messier [author of Jesus, One Man, Two Faiths] meticulously investigates the points of intersection between the Christian and Islamic traditions. He chooses Jesus, a prominent figure in both faiths, to demonstrate that profound spiritual affinities outweigh scriptural variations between the two… Although the author certainly acknowledges disagreement between the two religions’ teachings, he continually uncovers points of harmony. In fact, he contends that even the differences are ultimately more complementary than contradictory… Although a scholarly work, the book clearly desires to replace endless debate with fruitful conversation: “Praying together would carry with it a willingness to dialogue, to dialogue with self, to dialogue with the other, and possibly to dialogue with the Spirit of God.” Messier’s writing will be impressively accessible to the layperson and tries to illuminate a theologically defensible path to détente between two rival faiths.[5]

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-One-Faiths-Expanded-Second/dp/1937937070/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Ron+Messier&qid=1551100391&s=gateway&sr=8-1

[1] For examples of a surge in interest in Islam, see: Liam O’Brien, “The French are buying a lot of books about Islam these days.” https://www.mhpbooks.com/the-french-are-buying-a-lot-of-books-about-islam-these-days/; Sara E. Quay, Amy M. Damico, September 11 in Popular Culture: A Guide, ABC-CLIO, Sep 14, 2010 – Social Science – 319 pages; Clemence Brunet, Embracing Islam in the Age of Terror: Post 9/11 Representations of Islam and Muslims in the United States and Personal Stories of American Converts, A Thesis Presented to the Graduate and Research Committee of Lehigh University in Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts, 2013.

[2] Ibn Arabi, Unveiling the Secret of the Most Beautiful Names, Translated by Friends    of Kazi Publications; Kazi Publications, Chicago, IL, USA, 2018.

[3] To visit the Website of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, see http://jwf.org/

[4] Ron Messier, Jesus, One Man, Two Faiths: A Dialogue between Christians and Muslims, New Expanded Edition, Twin Oaks Press, Murfreesboro, TN, USA, 2016.

[5] For the full review, see https://www.kirkusreviews.com/search/?sf=r&q=Jesus+One+Man+Two+Faiths

After that question, I found myself at the doctors.

“If your heart is OK, then your body is OK,” she told me with worrying eyes.

“I’ve never had pain in my chest for this long,” I told her. “It feels as if somebody is sitting on my heart. But if I put my hand on my chest, that warmth helps to alleviate the pain.”

She was concerned. We stopped and she urged me to go to the ER immediately.

“I need to pray,” I told her. “It will take ten minutes and I will be at the hospital praying room. There are always a few people there, so don’t worry.”

She nodded. “I believe in the power of the prayer and meditation,” she added. And she ensured that I see a specialist for the chest pain.

I left that building and crossed the road to go to the other building. I was holding my heart, thinking the metaphors that we think of as a mundane saying. None of the metaphorical descriptions were solely poetry or were merely linguistic elaboration. Rather, they all meant what is untold and unseen and indescribable. At that moment I realized this heart was given to me. I was doing my best for a month to satisfy her needs and to ease her tension. But she was behaving as a separate and independent unit that has her own free will. I realized this for the first time in my life. Maybe the metaphor for this case would be extending a helping a hand to my heart, or to surround her with muscles. Maybe I forced too much on her, or did not appreciate the help my individual organs, my body as a whole, have given me.

That night, a friend of mine, not knowing what I had been thinking during the day, told me that we should talk to our bodies. “You should thank your feet that carried you all those years, my friend,” she said. “You should appreciate your eyes, which never gave up on you. You should thank your arms and hands since you would be speechless without them as a writer. You should thank your brain, for she listened to her Owner all these years and served you to be a better human every day.” “You know,” I added, “you are so right. After all, the one who cannot thank people and things cannot thank their Owner, the Beautiful, the Merciful, the Wise, the Choice Maker!”

I have been reading a lot lately. But there is something we learn from life and other people that no book can cover. Thus, I believe humankind is a unique book, its own kind of scripture. Humans read the universe with one eye, and the Scriptures with the other. Thus, we are given double eyes. And humans stand at the conjunction of these two books of meaning, being ourselves the third book which is uniquely because it is not just a book to read but also a reader. The more humans read these two books, the more we become a readable book.

So what is written in me? I suppose the basis of all lines is this sentence I heard from my doctor today: Save your heart, if the heart is good then your body and mind will be healthy. I wish I knew the language of the heart that would make my body healthy and would make my mind a reader and my self a book. The heart is at the center of human life, both in the physical and metaphysical senses. The heart is at the heart of the fact that humankind is a book to be read and discovered. The heart defines what we feel and motivates us in life. The heart defines which way the mind will travel. The heart is the teacher of the mind. Do you think we can unravel the language of the heart?

I’m calling you friend, oh friend.

Thousand pieces torn apart

I’m calling you friend, oh friend.

I’m filled with the love of thee

Mistaken my piety,

Lost my mind in ecstasy

I’m calling you friend, oh friend.

On the road and on the lane,

In the sacred or profane

Among pious with the vain

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

In the river, I’m a haze

Through mountains, I will gaze

For all the world, to amaze

I’m calling you friend, oh friend.

A bird in deserted land

Found comfort at roses’ hand.

So my bleeding heart will stand

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

Passing the world of worry

Flapping wings in the empty.

Your love and joy lifted me

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

Timeless feelings unspeakable

A condition incurable

On a canyon unbridgeable.

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

All I see is my friend’s face.

Towards you I have to pace.

Hope has never lost a case,

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

Seas and Oceans become breath.

Lungs shatter calling your path.

Till the day this voice be death,

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

I’m not sick or healthy,

Not heavenly or earthly.

But everywhere, constantly,

I’m calling you friend, oh friend

Walking behind my friend’s ways,

Smelling rosebud through the hays,

Saying what Niyazi’s says,

I’m calling you friend, oh friend.

Translated by Mustafa Tabanli

It was on one of these sunny days that I had a guest. He was a generous young man. Soon after he came nearby, he served his blood to the mosquitos. Considering all the things humans pick from nature, their blood is the fruit that nature can pick in return, right? Anyway, the reason that I called this guest generous is that he did not kill the mosquitos while they were sucking his blood. He sat near me, and started pondering over the nice valley below. I didn’t know at first if I should talk to him. The snail creeping on me preferred to keep silent too. So I decided not to speak to him.

Soon after, a friend of this young man arrived. They started talking about finding water here. I thought “How do you think water can be found at this height of the hill?” But they started digging with the special equipments they had. I had heard about these things when a group of students had come on a field trip. They talked about the different kinds of rocks and the minerals in them, their story of formation through the depths of the earth or under deep water, and how one could find invaluable fluids by digging through them. Seeing these two young men, I better understood what they meant.

Anyway, after a few hours of extreme noise, I felt the wetness that touched me from below. The water was indeed rising in the well the two young men had made, and soon they were screaming from joy. As they indulged in their celebration, I was engulfed by that uncomfortable feeling I had when they’d arrived. After all, this was my place, and they had invaded it.

As if this invasion wasn’t enough, the man who had arrived first stepped on me and spread a cloth. I was enraged at the thought of this man celebrating his victory over me. But my rage stumbled upon what I saw as I watched him. He started offering thanks and praying. It was then that a sense of warmth seeped between us, and I began talking to him everytime he came. During his visits, he used to drink some fresh water, sit on me looking towards the valley, and delve into reflections and prayers. I thanked God for giving me this flat surface so that someone could pray on me. Our relationship became so special that when he was not around, I used to pray for his return.

Years passed by. Things didn’t change much with me, but the man changed a lot. His once smooth face now looked like the wavy ocean surface. His body was bent like trees on steep hills. Things were changing incredibly fast for humans. I felt pity for this man who was troubled by his daily affairs. I prayed that I could be closer to him to help relieve his pains. My prayers were accepted and this respectable man spent more and more time on me. Sometimes lying, sometimes sitting, but always contemplating or praying.

At times, he brought his grandchildren. These kids did not enjoy being here as much as their grandfather. They constantly kept looking at the glasses in their hands that entertained them. But sometimes, they had funny talks with their grandfather. For example, this one time they talked about putting the stones in water or burrying them in the soil so that they can grow like plants. When I heard those words, I thought about my genesis through the ocean beds and the inferno compartments in the earth. My life story was so naively and elegantly put into those few words of the children. It is curious how the little ones can formulize complex things so easily.

Those times of amusement used to make me think about myself. I was a mature rock, and I wanted to have youngsters around me. I prayed to have little ones that were eager to “rock ‘n’ roll.” But perhaps those little ones would not show up as soon as they did for the humans, and they would not be as rambunctious as their human peers. Anyway, with my innate desire, I kept praying to have them around.

Strange enough, my prayers were answered sooner than I thought, and I started seeing these little pebbles parting from me. In my maturity, I had the blessing of giving birth to children all around me. Now, whenever the old man came with his grandchildren, they played with mine, and that gave me immense pleasure.

At last one day, I saw a group of people coming near by with a wooden box on their shoulders. Yes, that was him, brought to meet his Lord… He was burried in the cemetery at the peak of the hill.

…

You know, it’s not easy to lose someone you love. It’s feels like burying a part of your heart before you actually die. I cried a lot, and I still do, silently, in my own way. I don’t want my sorrow to assume the form of a complaint against the decree of our Lord. Yet, I cry nonetheless. Maybe this grief is what has made me so weak nowadays. I am feeling that my end is near, too. The increasing number of little ones all around is making this message impossible to ignore. But at the same time, I am developing a hope of continuity; because the water that is springing under me penetrates into my pores, and water means life.

However, the peace that comes with this hope is always followed by the grief of losing my friend, and I am crying all my water out. To quench my sorrow, God sent me lots of people. They are all around, now that my tears are making a waterfall. But I’d rather have my friend pray on me than these people laugh with negligence at my sorrow. “Oh my Lord, my friend in the heavens… Oh my Lord, my friend in the heavens…”

If life is a book of colorful pages, I cherish each color I shared with you. Colors of laughter, love and joy, emotions I can never pen down. Such were the 20 young pages of my life, with 85 of yours. Your companionship was indeed incomparable to any other object of the world. But holy wisdom lays in a calm surrender my friend; life is in fact no more than a brief existence, and we are sole travelers. It’s neither ours to give nor ours to take. Like a shell imprisoning the pearl. This body is a prison for the soul that demands to fly away one day, without any khalil, close friends, up onto the final abode, where He has blessed the Prophets, the foremost believers, martyrs and the righteous ones. So today is a plain deal my friend, conditioned by death and remorse, tomorrow all the spirited ones leave the world at a constant loss.

Indeed sometimes to say goodbye to someone you love is quite impossible.

I know memories tend to fade away but they say the heart retains its scars longer than any other part of the body. Along with the pleasant memories I hold in my heart, there are some regrets too that make me ache but make me love you more and more with each passing moon. Surely, I stand firm because of Him whose love is greater than our disappointments. It’s not easy my friend, but it’s His decree. I hear, I obey, and I surrender. So does every man.

You have gone away my friend. Your soul is free. But you’re still alive in my heart. I like to go back in time and remember old days, our offering Jumu’ah, Friday, prayer together in your favorite mosque, that white dress of yours and your beautiful embroidery veil, a veil that sheltered me once from the sunrays, on our return to home; your old kind eyes full of wisdom and your face gentle and calm. The times you used to sit by my side whenever I was sick and pray with tears in your tender eyes. I still dream of your hands my friend, when I think of you, so soft like silk caressing my teary face.

Indeed sometimes to say goodbye to someone you love is quite impossible.

They say I am your reflection my friend, what a lie they tell. How could I possibly be as pious as you? You were the height of righteousness while I… Oh! How badly I wish, if I could turn back time and end my grief. How badly I desire to right the wrongs of yesterday, bring you back and sit next to you again. But Alas! Life is momentary and uncertain my friend, death is its part.

As patience is retained by the desert without rain, I shall have patience and remember you as my friend, O my beloved Nano . I shall pass your love to my children’s children. I shall walk in your footsteps and keep you alive in my heart. As time goes by, my memories will fade away but I shall always remember the one who caressed me and took my worries away. You and I belong to different worlds now but death is only a pause in this momentary life, a new life awaits. So when He will shower His rain upon me I shall meet you again. Until then I pray thee peace, my friend, whenever I kneel before Him in my prayer. I’ll grow older and older with each fleeting moment and memories will grow fainter so they say, but as long as my mortal heart will beat, I’ll keep in heart the day the angel of death took you to your heavenly abode, an unseen place…

Indeed sometimes to say good bye to someone you love is quite impossible.

But …We All belong to God my friend, and to Him we shall return!

May God rest your soul in peace, my beloved Nana! I miss you. But One day, if God wills, we’ll surely meet. They ask me over and over again Nano, why life does everything in its power to return to death? I say hush, silent…believe and pray. Death in itself is a desire to live young, forever and ever again!

“God is He to Whom belongs the sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. He gives life and causes to die. And you have, apart from God, neither a guardian (who will protect you and to whom you can entrust your affairs) nor a helper.” (Tawbah, 9:116)

Pervisha Khan is a student of B.S. Hons. Mass Communication at Lahore College for Women University, Pakistan.

The heart is the home of God, clean it of others than Him,
So that the All-Merciful may descend into His home at night.

The couplet above, recorded by Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum in his Ma’rifetname (Book of Knowledge), expresses the intention of obtaining true love and His pleasure, and tells how to realize it. It concisely describes the way between decision and resolution and from resolution to destination. The only way to obtain peace of mind and be at rest without going to extremes and being exposed to spiritual trouble and pain is to seek the love and pleasure of God, and then order one’s life around this aim. Rumi says:

A heart devoid of the Friend and seeking Him cannot be freed from trouble and pain. [As for] a head in which there is no love of the Friend, do not attempt to find any meaning and value in it, for it consists of bones and skin.

Those who have set their hearts on Him and have decided to reach Him never neglect to follow a way toward Him and to meet the necessities of traveling on it. [1] Even if they turn their eyes from Him for a single moment to look to others, they sigh for a whole lifetime. How unfortunate is the one who lives unaware of a way leading to Him. What a great loss, impossible to compensate, it is to fall and get stuck on the way after taking it.

Decision first appears and develops in the heart, grows firmer and stronger as a feeling, and then becomes a very powerful drive directing one toward his or her destination. In this context, decision signifies an intention and resembles a seed sown in the heart’s soil. If the one who has this intention or seed in his or her heart receives help from God Almighty, the seed germinates and grows into an elaborate, fruitful tree. After a few steps traveled in decision, one finds resolution, which is defined as being determined to do something, steadfast in one’s pursuit, and consciously fulfilling all responsibilities undertaken. Resolution is the first step toward the “heavens” of reliance and surrender. The Qur’an describes this step and the final point to be reached: When you are resolved, rely on (or put your trust in) God (3:159). If this first step can be taken through reliance on and submission to God, then the road becomes level and easy to walk on, and one travels it as if flying through the air.

Decision and resolution are two important dimensions or functions of willpower. Every traveler who intends to make a long journey must stop at the station of decision and resolution to receive the permit or visa, given by God, in order to progress to higher stations. Only after this does the journey truly begin. One who has taken the wings of decision and resolution feels attracted toward the goal and, no longer advancing by his or her own power, is taken to it. A friend of God says: Whoever overflows with the desire to meet with God, despite his inability to fulfill the requirements of the way leading to his goal, God Himself comes to him. God then becomes his or her eyes with which to see, ears with which to hear, and tongue with which to speak.

For the traveler who flies along on the wings of decision and resolution, meeting with God means finding subsistence in or through annihilation. For those with whom God wills and desires to meet, it means subsistence within subsistence, [2] and they suffer no trouble or pain in the “virtuous circle,” [3] where they encounter good after good. In this circle pain changes into pleasure, and wrath or chastisement are manifested as favors. One who has reached this point always utters in pleasure: Whatever comes from You, whether it be a favor or punishment, is good. With a cup of resignation in one’s hand, he or she sips whatever comes from God, the Truth, as if it were the water of Paradise.

Notes

1. There is more than one way to God. It is said that there are as many ways or paths to God as there are breaths of people. Such a statement is said to express the differences in people’s temperaments and moods. In addition, spiritual orders use different rituals to help their initiates make progress on the spiritual path.
2. This phrase denotes the concept of compound subsistence, defined as a “firmer subsistence” and as “being well-versed or grounded in subsistence.”
3. This is the opposite of the “vicious circle” that so many people encounter in their daily lives.

Autism is a childhood cognitive disorder impacting brain development. Both children and adults with autism typically show difficulties with verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and leisure. Numerous physical symptoms and disorders are common as well, including impaired motor skills such as walking, repetitive behaviors, and chronic gastrointestinal problems. The causes of autism are not known, but increasing scientific evidence pinpoints the genes involved in brain development. Many genes affect information processing in the brain. More than one gene is usually involved in this disease, so autism is a spectrum disorder, and it affects each individual differently and at varying degrees. The incidence rate of autism is approximately 1 per 150 children, and it is scientifically not clear, but boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed with autism than girls [1, 2].

When we visited them, I realized that my friend’s son, who was 2.5 year old then, would not look at or talk to his parents or to us. Instead, he sat by himself in a far corner of the house and made bizarre vocalizations. He screamed when we tried to talk with him. Most of the time, he was sitting inches away from the TV screen when it was turned on and playing with the cable when it was off. He had low muscle tone and problems with fine motor skills, so he could not actively play like our son. Instead, he was repetitively flapping his hands or rocking his body. Sometimes he engaged in self-injurious actions like head-banging or hand pinching. His parents, especially his mother were depressed due to all his tantrums, crying, and behavioral problems.

Finding an appropriate setting for an autistic child can be difficult. His parents decided to send him to a day-care for half-days so that the mother could refresh her mind from all the problems, and the boy could learn to socialize and begin to talk. Just two days later, she called me, crying, and telling of his bad experience in the day-care. “The teacher couldn’t figure out what to do with our son, and she put him in a room by himself. I think he is frustrated; he is more aggressive now.” She blamed herself thinking she had not made a good decision, causing her son to suffer more. I realized that she needed psychological and spiritual support to overcome this difficult period. It was certainly difficult to have a child that did not socialize, communicate, or even look at you. But as a believer, how does faith inspire us in this situation? What counsel is given to all sufferers by the Holy Books?

The Qur’an says we are “tested” in this life with different levels of challenges, and only the rightly guided believers will deserve Paradise:

“We will certainly test you with something of fear and hunger, and loss of wealth and lives and fruits (earnings); but give glad tidings to the persevering and patient: Those who, when a disaster befalls them, say, ‘Surely we belong to God (as His creatures and servants) and surely to Him we are bound to return.” (And they act accordingly.) Such are those upon whom are blessings from their Lord and mercy; and they are the rightly guided ones” (1:155-157) [3].

According to Islam, children with mental illnesses are considered as pure and innocent as angels. Parents who take care of sick children with affection and mercy are promised heaven. The merits accruing from such illnesses wash away all sins of the parents, and particularly those of the compassionate mother [4]. Also, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, encourages us to find treatments and cures for any disease. He declared:

“God did not send down an illness for which He did not send a cure.” [5]

The Bible many times describes children as a gift from God and reminds us that unhealthy children and adults are not sinners. Instead, God reveals His works on the human body with sickness and healing:

“Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.” (John 9:1-3)

After a long discussion of the above verses and others in Holy Scriptures, my friend and her husband refreshed their minds with positive thoughts and decided to search for a special autism center to lessen their son’s symptoms and to increase his functional independence. They found a center only ten miles away. The center practices “Applied Behavior Analysis” (ABA) for the treatment of cognitive disorders. In this program, correct behaviors are rewarded with positive reinforcement, such as a snack, riding a bike, or going outside, and negative behaviors are ignored. By rewarding the positive, students lessen their aggressive or self-injurious behaviors, begin to communicate with their parents, and develop an internal awareness. When they become confident in their communication skills, they can learn anything with an ABA program. Within six months, my friend noticed a change in her son’s behavior. “He, for the first time ever, looked at us and hugged us. My husband and I were both moved to tears,” she said.

She observes that her son, now six, swims and plays with other children. He sounds out some words and practices more appropriate behaviors that they never thought they’d see.

Children with autism can come out of their shells by early diagnosis and intervention. If parents accept their child’s behavioral problems and collaborate with professional centers at an early age, children can adapt themselves well to family and social life. With patience, family members and their autistic child can experience success. What is needed is a solid determination combined with true respect and compassion and a deep trust in the goodness and mercy of God.

Esen Bakhautdin is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cell Biology, Lerner Research Institute, Cleveland Clinic.

References

1. National Autism Association: http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/index.php
2. Autism Society of America: http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homepage
3. Unal, Ali. 2007. The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English, NJ: Tughra Books.
4. Nursi, Bediuzzaman Said. 2010. 25 Remedies for the Sick, NJ: The Light, Inc.
5. Al-Bukhari (1980), Jami al Sahih.

Our Friend

in the beauty of

countless vibrant hearts

strongly sinewed

in purifying love.

We meet you

Our Friend

in the steadfast

prayerful care

of blessing hands

and radiant faces.

We meet you

Our Friend

in attentive minds

and quickened spirits

devoted to guiding

our journey together.

We meet you

Our Friend

in crescendoed voices

reverberating the praises

of the Only Holy One

Whose lowly servant you are.

Salaam.

– Bernadette & Daniel Skubik

Bernadette and Daniel live in Riverside, CA. Daniel Skubik is a professor of law, ethics, and humanities in California Baptist University.

The dark breathing its last, lights panting for air.

Fog and smoke dissipate in my vision

There! New spring with its emerald hair.

Like a conquering army, a generation marches forward

The walls of the fortress bent down in awe

Earth and heaven smile at my bliss

To the arch of victory, the paths lead

When all these dreams come true, one by one

Invigorated is the friend’s heart while petrified is the foe’s.

According to a study by researchers of the Human Footprint Project [1], humans have influenced 83% of the earth’s surface. The study is based on four factors: population, travel routes, land use, and lights. One of the findings of the study shows that an average American is responsible for more carbon emissions in one year, than a person in Tanzania in a lifetime. This significant difference is certainly related to the average lifespan, income, culture, and climate. However, do any of us have the rights to disturb the environment more than others? Are we consuming something that doesn’t belong to us, and leaving an unsustainable environment for future generations? To answer these questions, it is imperative that we understand and acknowledge exactly what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will leave to future generations.

Our influence on the earth and environment in a general sense is not limited to the consumption of goods. One of the most influential yet less-visible traces is the footprint we leave in the digital environment. There are active or passive traces left in a digital environment by personal activity. An active trace is left when personal information is released by a person himself, whereas a passive trace (digital shadow) is left when personal data is collected during personal activity. These traces, also known as digital footprints, can spread very quickly and may reach to millions in a very short time. One can leave digital traces by simply visiting a website, sending a blog post, or posting a photo or message to a friend’s website.

Our digital traces affect the environment in many ways. Every trace takes our time to generate it and for others to read it. It consumes storage and network resources on the server that increase the costs, power usage, and eventually our carbon footprint, or the total greenhouse gas emissions. We need to seek a balance in our use of digital media in order to utilize the benefits efficiently and to minimize our consumption of time and other resources.

Have you ever wondered “how often a person leaves digital traces behind every day?” or “how much of our privacy are we sharing with others?” A recent study reveals some figures about the size of the digital universe as 281 billion gigabytes (GB) for 2008 and 1.8 billion terabytes for 2011 [2]. The digital trace generated by the average person on a daily basis was about 45 GB in 2008. This includes private information such as emails, photos, VOIP calls, and instant messages.

How about passive digital traces we leave behind by credit card purchases, bank accounts, phone records, web searches, general backup data, medical and hospital records, surveillance cameras, and so on? There are more passive traces collected than our active digital traces, which provide more personal information.

As of 2006, there were over 1 billion Visa credit cards worldwide and counting [3]. Credit cards give a lot of private information about a person: stores we prefer, movies we watch, places we travel, books we read, prescriptions we take, rent and utility fees we pay; mainly our lifestyle is hidden in our credit card statements. It might contain a lot of details we want to keep private. We can easily learn a lot about our social life just by analyzing one of our credit card statements.

Web searches provide more insightful information about a person. 113 billion web searches were conducted in July 2009, a 41 percent increase compared to 2008 [4]. Besides all the information we leave with our credit card, web searches may show things we have not actually done. They contain information about our future plans, such as travel, job search, health related issues, meetings, and education. Websites can provide smarter search results and personalized advertisements according to our search habits. Search engines even know how fast we type or process information, our typos, languages we speak, how smart we search, and even our physical location from the IP address.

Today many cars have GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities and smart phones have GPS sensors. GPS devices can show our exact location anywhere in the world, provide turn-by-turn instructions from one location to another, provide a list of nearby stores, and warn us about traffic problems. A recent market research [5] estimates that the mobile location technology market that crosses the US will be $75 billion by 2013 with growing usage of GPS capabilities in automobiles and consumer electronics. Beside all the benefits, GPS devices leave an important digital trace behind, our exact location, which can be stored for later use or tracked by third parties.

Even if a person doesn’t have a GPS sensor with him, there are cameras all around the city that can help capture one’s location. We can see cameras inside and outside of the banks, stores, traffic lights, and even closed-circuit TV (CCTV) surveillance cameras in some cities. The total number of CCTV cameras in England is 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people according to an estimate. According to Scotland Yard, one crime per 1,000 CCTV cameras is solved in a year [6].

The number of smart phones increased 13.9 percent worldwide, compared to 2007, and reached 139 million in 2008 [7]. Many smart phones have real-time video streaming capabilities and are widely used. Users upload hundreds of thousands of videos per day to YouTube about themselves or people around them. Considering that there are thousands of video sharing websites like YouTube, sharing videos on these websites lies at the center of important privacy concerns. There are websites to share videos, photos, music, location, blog posts, and personal updates. With the rise of the micro-blogging trend, we can see real-time updates about a person on websites like Twitter. This allows us to track every minute of a person’s life.

Social networking is a new way of communication. Many websites provide tools to build online communities of people, who want to share and learn interests and activities of others. We can build our friend list and share photos, videos, and updates about our life. According to Nielsen Online’s report on Internet usage in June 2009 [8], users spent an average of 4 hours and 39 minutes during June on one of the most famous social networking sites, Facebook, which has 87 million visitors. Normally these websites provide privacy settings to limit who can access our friend list, photos, or other information. Since most of the people don’t refuse friend requests, it is very easy to be added as a friend and get access to all the private information of people we do not even know. Once we get accepted by a person as a friend, it gets easier to be accepted as friend by his/her friends, since we have mutual friends. These connections increase our friend list exponentially.

I had known about this process for some time, so I wanted to confirm it myself by setting up an account with fake information and identity on Facebook in 2008. I selected a college and input random personal information to my profile. I visited some group pages on Facebook and joined them. Then Facebook started to offer possible friend lists that have common interests with me. I started to make random friend requests to many users on these lists. In one day, I had around a hundred friends in my list that I don’t know personally. As a friend on their list, I have access to all information they share with others. Most of the users are using default settings and are not aware of privacy issues. Even if we are careful about all these settings and our privacy, our information is accessible by website managers. Digital traces left by users are valuable commercial assets for companies, and most of them share or sell this information to third party companies which provide online advertisements, products, and services.

There is a positive side of these digital traces. Websites provide better recommendation of products and services, targeted advertisements, smarter search results, and personal news. Entertainment businesses can provide appropriate suggestions by using location services. However, erasing our digital traces is difficult or even impossible in some cases. To protect our privacy and identity, it is essential that we are aware of places our personal information is stored. It is the responsibility of websites to protect user’s data. However, it will be a good start to be aware as users of our traces on the digital universe and to share personal information carefully.

With various effects on our natural and social environment, digital traces are one of the most influential and yet less known by-products of consumption. It is an important responsibility for us to decide how we affect our environment, how we spend our time, and what we are going to leave to future generations. With all the unique values given to humans, we need to learn to make meaningful contributions and carry more responsibility for our actions, especially in the digital world where boundaries are unlimited.

Acknowledgment: This article is produced either in part or a whole at MERGEOUS [9], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

Halil I. Demir is an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer.

References

1. Wildlife Conservation Society [http://www.wcs.org/humanfootprint]
2. EMC Report, “The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe,” 2008.
3. Visa USA Internal Statistics, Q4 2006.
4. ComScore Press Release, August 31, 2009.
5. RNCOS Market Research Report, “World GPS Market Forecast to 2013,” April 2009.
6. Telegraph, 24 Aug 2009.
7. Gartner Press Release, Worldwide Smartphone Sales, Mart 2009.
8. Nielsen Online’s Report, June 2009.
9. Mergeous [http://www.mergeous.com]