Washing our hands has become one major way to protect ourselves from Covid-19. However, ablutions have always had a central place in the practices and beliefs of many religious traditions. Christians perform baptism with water, in amounts varying from small sprinkles to larger vessels, to bring about purification, cleanliness, revival, and rebirth. Jesus’ washing the feet of his disciples as narrated in the Gospel makes the washing of feet an important practice in Christianity to promote cleanliness and is still carried out to this day. The Jewish tradition also has many instances of ablution where water is specifically used to promote cleanliness, including washing hands to reclaim or preserve purity and mikveh in which the feet or whole body is immersed in water.

The Islamic ablution, also known as “wudhu,” contains 24 washing movements to be carried out several times a day for the five daily prayers. If performed for all five prayers, it would consist of about 120 repeated actions as Muslims washed parts of their body.

A lover must undertake the required preparation to cleanse and beautify oneself before meeting with their Beloved. Likewise, a believer is required to wash specified parts of their body to stand before God in supplication, as instructed in Chapter Maidah of the Qur’an, verse 6: “O believers, when you stand for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands up to the elbows, and wipe your heads, and wash your feet up to the ankles. If you are unclean, bathe and purify your bodies fully. But if you are ill or in the middle of travelling or … you cannot find water, then take wholesome dust and wipe your faces and hands with that. For God does not wish to burden you, rather He desires to purify you and to complete His blessing and favor upon you so that, perhaps, you may be grateful” [5:6].

The spiritual cleansing that the act of wudhu provides is highlighted by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in numerous hadiths, or prophetic sayings, which has been collected under The Book of Purification. While water literally cleans the face and limbs, with every pure intention to do wudhu, the water droplets that meet the body also wash away the minor sins that were committed by the hands, mouth, face, ears, and feet. The famous hadith that “cleanliness is half of faith” [Sahih Muslim, 223] can be interpreted as applying primarily to doing wudhu in one translation [Wudhu: Fiqh, Rules, Purification and Blessings, Qadri]. Therefore, to perfect the faith, to be cleansed of our mistakes continuously, God has given us a simple mechanism through which to be purified and recalibrated countless times in a day.

Many of us perform this pattern of washing with little thought. It has become a routine that we seldom consider a medical protection that we apply to our body. Besides its effects on the soul, washing also has wonderful effects on the body. Over fourteen hundred years ago, the Prophet (pbuh) advised ablution before going to bed. Interestingly, yoga experts in recent years have also started to encourage the washing of the legs, hands, arms, eyes, and the mouth before sleep with cool water for a deeper undisturbed sleep. This is not surprising considering the relief that comes with the touch of water on a busy day.

Three of our principal systems benefit from wudhu; the circulatory system, the immune system, and the electrostatic balance of the body. In this way, the health benefits from the ritual of washing are threefold…

Circulatory system

The circulatory system is a magnificent circuit of blood vessels between the heart and the tissues that make up every other system of the body. The systemic circulatory system circulates oxygenated blood from the heart to the tissues around the body and back to the heart, whilst the pulmonary circulatory system transports deoxygenated blood to the lungs for detoxification and returns clean blood to the heart. The correct functioning of the blood vessels, which act as wires that connect our major organs, are essential to the efficiency of this circuit. These vessels divide into thinner branches called arterioles which in turn split into smaller capillaries which surround the cells of the body. The vascular resistance generated by blood vessels is overcome by the blood pressure generated by the heart to enable blood flow. Over time (due to ageing, or a diet high in fat), our blood vessels often harden and become constricted meaning that the heart has to work harder to overcome increased vascular resistance to maintain steady blood flow. The vessels in the limbs are the most peripheral to the heart and thus the most vulnerable to the process of hardening and narrowing over a long period.

The application of water in our daily routine “exercises” these blood vessels by alternately contracting and dilating them. Water can act as an agent of temperature gradients, thereby affecting the thermoregulatory response of the cutaneous circulation. When hot, water ensures that vessels in the limbs dilate, and when cold, that they contract. In this way, water ensures the flexibility of vessels distant from the heart, forcing nutrients deposited in tissues as a result of poor circulation back into the bloodstream through a temperature gradient.

Lymphatic system

The lymphatic system, on the other hand, is probably not the first to come to mind when we think of the body’s organ systems. Yet without this quietly working system our cardiovascular system would collapse and our immune system would be impaired. Our lymphatic vessels transport “leaked” blood fluids into our capillaries to prevent the accumulation of fluid in the interstitial spaces and eventual tissue damage. The vessels of the lymphatic system are much thinner than those of the cardiovascular system, ensuring the circulation of white blood cells which have an essential role in protecting the body against invaders and resisting disease. It is this fluid that we see oozing out when we have a cut or wound.

The optimal functioning of this system and its thin vessels, like those of the circulatory system, can be said to be closely linked with the effect of washing. The phagocytes and lymphocytes, which make up the immune system are housed by our lymphoid tissues and organs, are supported by the act of wudhu. The nasopharyngeal region behind the nose leads to the tonsils, which are small masses of lymphoid tissue that trap and remove pathogens that are entering the throat. Washing the mouth and nose three times with every wudhu therefore helps to remove the bacteria that builds up in the region of the body most exposed to the external environment. Moreover, the act of washing both sides of the neck during wudhu stimulates our cervical lymph nodes – a specialized mass of tissue which houses lymphocytes and particularly helps to protect the body by removing bacteria and tumor cells from lymphatic circulation. Our lymphocytes are arguably the most important component of our immune system, patrolling every point of the body many times a day and destroying cancer cells and pathogens along the way. Considering that the act of wudhu enhances the filtration effect of our lymphoid circulation, one can see the blessings that come with the divine command to “wash…and purify your bodies fully….”

Electrostatic balance

Our physiology is also closely related to the electrostatic balance of the body. While many psychosomatic diseases result from electrostatic imbalance, the most pronounced effect of static electricity is exerted on the subcutaneous muscles located under the skin, mitigating their function and inducing the onset of wrinkles which often start in the face. Maintaining the regular habit of washing the skin – particularly the face which is most frequently exposed to ultraviolet radiation – protects the surface and internal layer of our skin cells by constantly dampening the skin surface with clean water. It is a much simpler alternative to spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars on expensive skin care and makeup products to maintain a healthy complexion.

In regards to how wudhu can benefit our electrostatic balance, the part of the verse which sheds light to tayammum, “if you cannot find water, then take wholesome dust and wipe your faces and hands with that” highlights that the water substitute for wudhu significantly reduces static electricity, like water. This is why when wudhu is performed calmly with care, it often leaves one feeling refreshed and discharged.

The Quran is a grand source containing many prescriptions for good health. While every civilized person may wash their face and hands throughout the day, wudhu ensures that cleanliness and a sense of well-being is sustained by virtue of its association with worship. The worth and significance of wudhu is not limited to the medical benefits discussed here. However, for anyone else wondering why taking a pause on a busy day with wudhu feels so rejuvenating, I hope this humble article sheds some light to a grand prescription from among the many medicines revealed in the Qur’an.

Our hands are vital for performing tasks throughout our daily lives and must be taken care of and cleaned regularly. They can easily spread germs, bacteria, or viruses such as Covid-19 (Coronavirus). Coronavirus has spread rapidly throughout the entire world in the past few months and health officials are very adamant that hand hygiene can help prevent further escalation of the virus. The reason is simple; viruses can spread from our hands to other objects that we touch, to which other people can touch those same objects and possibly contract the virus by putting their hands on their face. According to the World Health Organization, proper hand sanitation that uses alcohol-based rub or hot water and soap can kill Coronavirus and other viruses [1].

For some people, such as healthcare professionals, there are actually major consequences for neglecting hand hygiene. For example, the dirty hands of these professionals have a negative impact of 40% in the transport and spread of resistant microorganisms among patients. Hospital infections are actually among one of the main catalysts for increased disability and death rates in hospitals, along with additional healthcare costs [2]. In the United States, 1.7 million patients develop health-related infections every year, and 100,000 of them die. This increases the length of hospital stay by 20 times and the cost of treatment by 5 times [3].

It was not until the 19^th century that we began to understand that infectious diseases can be prevented by washing our hands. In the middle of the same century, the pioneer of antiseptic processes, known as the “savior of mothers,” Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, showed that microorganisms could be transmitted to patients via the hands of medical staff. This discovery began a new era of hygiene and healthcare. It is now well known that microbes reproduce rapidly, and that it is possible to prevent the spread of disease by keeping the hands and body, which is possible by following personal hygiene rules.

Hand hygiene is maintained in different ways in modern medicine. In daily life, washing hands with soap and water to remove dirt is called “social hand washing.” Common examples include washing after a meal and when visiting the toilet. For this purpose, it is sufficient to rub the hands and fingers for 15 seconds with a non-antimicrobial feature soap, rinse, dry with a disposable towel, and turn off the tap with a towel. Cloth towels used by many people in public places are not considered suitable for hygiene.

The more serious and professional form of hand washing is “hygienic hand washing,” where antimicrobial soaps are used in the washing process before and after contact with patients and bodily fluids. Other hand hygiene methods during surgical operations cover applications where alcohol-based 3-5 ml hand-disinfectant is rubbed until dry along with hand disinfection and surgical hand antisepsis, which includes washing the hands, including the forearms, with chemical solutions such as soaps, isopropanol, chlorhexidine specifically produced for this purpose for 2-3 minutes, and later wearing sterile gloves until the end of any procedures.

The World Health Organization published a guide on proper hand hygienics and explained when, how often, and how healthcare providers should wash their hands [4]. Despite the development of various programs and policies, especially hand hygiene, and increasing material expenditures in the fight against infections observed in health services, the control of infections remains well below the desired level.

Today, research also looks at the effects of hand washing on individual psychology. An experiment carried out by two psychologists from the University of Michigan, Spike W.S. Lee and Norbert Schwarz, shows that hand-washing reduces this classic post-decisional dissonance effect:

In individual sessions, 40 undergraduates browsed 30 CD covers as part of an alleged consumer survey as if they were in a music store. They selected 10 CDs they would like to own and ranked them by preference. Later, the experimenter offered them a choice between their 5th and 6th ranked CDs as a token of appreciation from the sponsor. Following the choice, participants completed an ostensibly unrelated product survey that asked for evaluations of a liquid soap; half merely examined the bottle before answering, whereas others tested the soap by washing their hands. After a filler task, participants ranked the 10 CDs again, allegedly because the sponsor wanted to know what people think about the CDs after leaving the store.

For those who merely examined the soap, the preference for the chosen over the rejected alternative increased from before choice to after choice by an average of 1.9 ranks, replicating the standard dissonance effect. In contrast, for those who washed their hands, preferences were unaffected by their decision. Thus, handwashing significantly reduced the need to justify one’s choice by increasing the perceived difference between alternatives. “Washing one’s hands after making a choice eliminates post-decisional dissonance effects, suggesting that hand-washing psychologically removes traces of the past, including concerns about past decisions” [5].

In another study conducted in 2008, Schnall, et. Al. “hypothesized that physical cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. In support of this idea, they found that individuals make less severe judgments when they are primed with the concept of cleanliness and when they wash their hands after experiencing disgust” [6]. This effect of hand washing, which relieves conscience, is called the “Macbeth Effect.”

Washing hands is one of those simple but compulsory practices we tend to take for granted and lose interest in as we progress in science and education. Simple practices like using each of our hands for different purposes and frequent hand-washing will surely contribute to the fight against healthcare infections and infectious diseases that threaten public health.

There are several traditions of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in which washing hands is strongly emphasized.

“The blessings of food lie in washing hands before and after eating.”

“Wash your hands after you wake up; you do not know where your hands have moved while you were sleeping.”

The Prophet advised using each hand for different tasks. It is narrated that his wife Aisha said: “The right hand of the Messenger of God (peace be upon him) was for his purification and food, and his left hand was for using the restroom and anything that was dirty.”

Notes

1. “Advice for Public.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public.
2. Pittet D, Allegranzi B, Storr J, Donaldson L. Clean care is safer care: the global patient safety challenge 2005-2006. Int J Infect Dis. 2006; 10(6): 419–24.
3. Allegranzi B, Storr J, Dziekan G, Leotsakos A, Donaldson L, Pittet D. The first global patient safety challenge “Clean care is safer care”: from launch to current progress and achievements. J Hosp Infect. 2007; 65(Suppl. 2): 115–23.
4. WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care, www.who.int/gpsc/5may/tools/9789241597906/en/
5. Lee SW, Schwarz N. Washing away postdecisional dissonance. Science. 2010 May 7;328(5979):709. doi: 10.1126/science.1186799.
6. Schnall S, Benton J, Harvey S. With a clean conscience: cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychol Sci. 2008 Dec;19(12):1219-22. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x. Also see https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-20922-011.html in which Johnson, D. J. et. al. suggest that “researchers investigating the connections between cleanliness and morality should therefore use large sample sizes to have the necessary power to detect subtle effects.”

It was a blustery February morning, and just a few days before my 40^th birthday, when my cell phone rang. I thought perhaps it was someone offering me early well wishes. But it was my mom, calling with news that would forever alter the course of my life.

“Hi, Mom,” I said as I sat down. “How are you?”
“Not good,” she whispered like a frightened child sharing a dark secret. “You know I’ve been feeling really down lately.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, matching her breathy tone.

She was talking so quietly that I cupped my hand over my left ear so I could hear her.
“I just swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills,” she blurted out.

My eyes widened as I sprung to my feet, nearly tripping over my toddler.

“A bunch? Like, how many?” I asked.

“I dunno,” she replied. “A lot.”

I raced to the kitchen, my hands trembling as I fumbled to dial 911 from the landline while trying to keep Mom talking to me on my cell.

A few moments later, I told her that the paramedics were on their way. She mumbled something incoherent. I could already feel her drifting away.

“Can you hear me?”

Numbing silence filled the line. Desperate to keep her awake, I continued talking, my voice growing louder each time I spoke.

“Are you still with me? Mom? Mom!”

Sensing the intensity to my tone, my 8-year-old son asked what was wrong. I wanted to comfort him, but I had to keep focused on Mom. Meanwhile, my toddler, who had only just realized his grandmother was on the phone, threw his goldfish crackers to the floor and pleaded to speak with her. He reached for the receiver with his tiny, cheddar-stained hands and shrieked, “I talk to Ga-ma!”

“Not now,” I said gently.

Both my boys burst into tears as my mind raced with worry. I paced the floor and repeatedly asked, “Are you still there, Mom? Keep talking to me.”

But I only heard a hint of monosyllabic mumbles, then a thud.

I stopped for a moment and stood beside the sliding glass door, shifting my weight from my right leg to my left as I stared out at the falling snow. I kept my eyes fixed on a specific tree branch in an effort to still my mind even as my restless stomach churned.

The wind whipped wildly, which made the snowflakes look as if they were engaged in a vicious game of tug-of-war. Blowing in umpteen different directions, the blustery scene depicted my current state of mind: frenzied, scattered, unsettled. My anxious eyes darted back and forth between the ticking clock, my wailing kids, and the straining pine trees in the backyard.

Finally, I heard the paramedics in the background and for the first time in forever, I took a breath.

I shot off a text message to my brother.

“Call me,” I wrote. “Mom just tried to kill herself.”

Even as I hit “send” with my quivering thumb, the moment seemed surreal. Did this really just happen? How? Why?

As I drove to Missouri, I tried to imagine what was running through my mom’s desperate mind as she ingested an entire bottle of sleeping pills. I envisioned her in her soft flannel pajamas, sitting on the cold tile bathroom floor, swallowing one handful of pills after another. My eyes squeezed shut and a lump formed in the back of my throat. I knew clinical depression was scary, but I’d never seen it up-close-and-personal.

When I stepped inside the hospital room, Mom’s eyes revealed a mixture of sorrow, regret, guilt, and fear. I sat next to her on her bed. She clasped my hand in hers, gripping it tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Mom said softly, staring at the floor.

It’s okay,” I replied.

The truth was that it wasn’t okay. Not even a little bit. But what else could I say?

I stayed with her for several days, trying to soothe her by offering hugs and encouraging her by offering advice.

“Go to group therapy. Go to individual therapy. Do anything and everything to help you feel better,” I suggested. “Snarf up every resource possible.”

But instead of concentrating on getting better, she seemed more concerned with how her behavior would be perceived.

“What will people say if they find out what I did?” Mom asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

After she was released from the hospital, I went back home to Indiana. The following month, I was cautiously optimistic when Mom invited me, my husband, and our sons to visit her for her birthday and stay through Easter weekend. I took it as a good sign that she wanted to reconnect with her grandsons, so we packed our bags and drove west.

Though it was great to spend time with Mom, she was anxious and unsettled, worried that the kids might make a mess in her house. This was a far cry from the woman who in the past would often jump into the lake to entertain her grandsons. She spoke slowly and methodically yet still stumbled on her words. She seemed uncomfortable in her own skin. She wouldn’t even sit down to eat meals. Instead she stood by the sink, nervously nibbling at her food like a rodent.

One morning when the house was quiet, Mom approached me and said meekly, “Christy. I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

I didn’t want to rush her or force her, but I was desperate to hear what she had to say.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she said, squeezing my hands as if to relay some sort of message to me through code.

“Honest about what?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. I pressed her a bit more.

“You can tell me, Mom. Whatever it is, I’ll help you. What are you not being honest about?”

“We’d better get ready,” she said tersely, releasing my hands. “The boys want to go to the zoo today.”

Just like that, the moment was gone.

At the zoo, the kids had fun seeing the animals and riding the train, but I couldn’t get past the vacant stare in Mom’s eyes. It was like she was looking past everybody—like she wasn’t all there. Anytime I tried to engage with her, I’d get the same response: “I’m tired.”

That evening after tucking the boys into bed, I asked Mom if she wanted to talk. She looked at me with a pained expression, like she was gripping a hot plate without a pot holder.

“Well, I…um, I,” she muttered.

I don’t know if she couldn’t speak or wouldn’t speak or what was going on. But her mind definitely seemed muddled. I knew something was gnawing at Mom, but I didn’t know how to pull it out of her.

When I laid down to bed that night, tears welled up in my eyes as I confided to my husband, “I think Mom may still be suicidal.”

I hated to admit it out loud, and yet, I could sense a definite heaviness to her spirit.

“Why do you say that?” Eric asked.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s definitely not herself. She’s apologized profusely for trying to kill herself, but earlier today she told me that she’s not been completely honest with me, and when I asked her what about, she clammed up. Have you noticed how empty her eyes look?”

“What do we do? Your dad won’t listen. He’s adamant that she’s getting better.”

“But clearly she’s not. I wish I could get her to confide in me, but I feel like us being here is stressing her out more,” I said. “If the boys’ energy is causing her anxiety to spike, maybe we should take off and let her and Dad have a quiet holiday weekend.”

“Okay,” Eric agreed.

The next morning, I found Mom in the kitchen. She wasn’t eating, cooking, or doing dishes. She was simply standing in her housecoat staring into space. Until she caught a glimpse of my oldest son. Then her eyes moved to him and she watched him intently, like she was memorizing his every move. She did the same when my younger son entered the room. When I sat down, she acknowledged me with a weak, forced smile like she was using every last bit of energy to keep from crying.

I approached her and said softly, “Mom, we’ve decided to leave early.”

“When?”

“Here in a few minutes,” I said. “Eric’s packing the car.”

Confusion, sadness, and relief simultaneously spread across her face.

“Why today?” she asked.

“I can tell you’re struggling, Mom, and I know the boys have a lot of energy. I want you to be able to rest so I think it’s best if we get out of your hair.”

Her lips began to quiver, her brows furrowed, and she said with palpable remorse, “I’m sorry, Christy. I’m so sorry.”

It was a phrase she had repeated numerous times over the past three days so I didn’t think much of it. I replied in the same way I had all weekend—by telling her, “It’s okay.”

We hugged and I told her I loved her.

“Things will get better,” I whispered into her ear. “I promise.”

Those were the last words I ever spoke to my mother.

Six weeks later, my phone rang again. When I answered, I heard my dad’s voice, low and scratchy, say my name, followed by a long pause.

“She did it again,” he said quietly.

My gut clenched as all the color drained from my face.

“What?” I asked.

“She was doing better. She seemed stronger….” he said, his voice cracking.

My entire body began to tremble.

“It’s far worse this time,” he continued. “She swallowed hundreds of pills of all different kinds.”
My knees buckled.

“No-no-no-no,” I repeated.

How could this be happening again?

“I’ll jump in the car,” I told my dad as tears sprang to my burning eyes. “I can leave right now and be there by midnight.”

“Even if you left now, I don’t think you’d make it in time to say goodbye.”

Wait. What? Goodbye? Oh, Jesus!

My breath caught in my throat as my heart splintered.

When I got news in the middle of the night that Mom had died from the overdose, my world faded to grey.

Why? Why? Why? Why?

A thousand other questions bombarded my brain, but this was the predominant one. I could not, for the life of me, make sense of the fact that my sweet, loving, kind, compassionate mom would choose to take her own life. It defied logic and left me feeling helpless, hopeless, and hollow. How was I supposed to go on? How was I to let go of the guilt that gnawed at me round the clock? How was I to ever smile again? None of it seemed possible.

“Everything’s possible with God,” well-meaning people told me. But their platitudes and looks of pity only pissed me off. They didn’t know what it felt like to be leveled by grief. Though friends encouraged me to find peace through prayer, I did the opposite and gave God the silent treatment. What did I have to say to Him, anyway? I was angry that He had not only taken away my mom but that He had allowed her to exit the earth in such a terrible, tragic way. Having been a Christian all my life, I’ll admit it felt strange to cut Christ from my life, but I didn’t know what else to do. Many days, I found myself curled in the fetal position, sobbing and gasping for air.

Over the next six months, everything was a chore—driving, cooking, reading, even sleeping. Then one night I fell into a deep slumber and was met by a vivid dream that seemed to carry with it a distinct message.
I was at home when suddenly bright blue skies began to darken as a slight breeze tickled the shutters. Instantaneously, the sky transformed into a greenish-black hue. A small hiss followed a rumble, then a booming crash. The ground shook with a sinister force. Giant tree limbs snapped. Heavy shutters broke. Tin mailboxes crumpled. Wooden dog houses cracked. As the wind continued to howl, dirt, debris, and trash swirled through the air like frenzied snowflakes. Fence sections and lawn ornaments crashed through windows and dented car doors.

The scene was chaotic and scary. I glanced out the window, helpless and weak. Then, just as quickly as it built, the storm died out, and the world grew eerily still. I stepped outside to assess the damage and my jaw dropped at the sight of the devastation. Our beautiful house—a house I had always perceived to be strong and indestructible—was now a shell of its former self.

As I walked the perimeter of the house, I saw that it was uprooted from its foundation. It became evident that we wouldn’t have access to power or water anytime soon. It was going to take a lot of time and effort to rebuild this foundation—to start fresh. As a result, we would not be living comfortably for quite some time.

There was a silver lining, however. Despite such extensive damage, we determined that we could stay in the house, which provided a degree of comfort.

I stood in stunned silence, beholding the wreckage that surrounded me. I couldn’t believe the massive devastation that had leveled my life in the blink of an eye. But…I had survived.

For the first time since Mom’s suicide, I woke up with a sense of peace. I knew I would still face challenges and cry countless tears. But I had survived the worst, and though my foundation was shaky, I was still standing. And I could feel God standing beside me.

In the weeks and months ahead, I began surrounding myself with others who needed love and support, and, together, we journeyed through our pain: we shared tears, smiles, and embraces, and we held one another up, day in and day out. I learned that being in a community is perhaps the most important piece of life’s puzzle when it comes to maintaining a healthy existence. I also found that even in the deepest, darkest pit of despair, one can find a sliver of light, a glimmer of hope, a hint of peace. And that is what propels us forward, enabling us to breathe in, breathe out, and carry on.

In an era when many parts of the world were defeated by darkness, our horizon was everywhere emblazoned with colors, and the festivals of dawn came one after another. At breakneck speed were the heralds of light, with brightest torches in their hands, calling the people to revival in every land. Those to whom they drew near found new life, as though having felt the breath of the Messiah, and the lands through which they passed turned green, as though Al-Khidr had stopped by. With one eye on this world and one fixed upon the Hereafter, these entrancing countenances were turned to Divine whilst amongst the people. Their minds and hearts were joined hand in hand in this worldly adventure. With those magical travels sometimes here and sometimes beyond, they experienced a separate festival each day.

The firmaments were interwoven and converged with this world. Our cities and villages were like the layers of the heavens. We imagined journeying across these heavenly layers as if on land, from continent to continent. We were like children as our days and nights passed with the sweetest of dreams. We felt our existence anew with each dawn and sunrise, and we returned to life all over once more. Breezes of Paradise forever blew in our horizon of thought, and it was as though we heard the flutter of angelic spirits above us. We lived an entire past intertwined with this day, and this day with the near and distant future. At a time when our contemporaries writhed in different crises due to the narrowness of the present, we perpetually breathed an air of tranquility and joy, as though strolling across the spacious and relief-laden slopes of Paradise.

Once upon a time, our magical world was like the wellspring of life of the earth and the heart of the heavens.

In this world forever agleam with lights from eternity were our villages and cities dazzling with their celestial profundities and our glistening homes resembling a bridal chamber. In this world, the rose was reconciled with the thorn, the cat side by side with the pigeon, the nightingale friends with the magpie; everything oscillated so deeply while singing the song of eternity. In everything we saw and heard we straightened ourselves and rose up once again: as if having received the sound of the Trumpet of Resurrection, took to walking toward the Divine at an even greater pace, and felt as though our roads reached all the way to the heavens. Especially for the luminous souls who have attained the happiness of walking along the trajectory of a life of the heart and spirit, living in this world was a privilege, so to speak.

With the sounds of the call to prayer, a call to eternity at each dawn, we experienced a new resurrection and felt the faith with the freshness of the day it was first revealed from the heavens, feelings refreshed, hearts wakeful to the utmost, and our spirits neck and neck with the angels. It was as if we could see the smiling countenance of the Infinite Light, peace be upon him, just a few steps ahead and stood dazed with reverence. Our thoughts were as profound as to project to the beyond, evaluated life with the gravity of the angels, and spent every moment like hearts familiar with God.

Our magical world back then was like the wellspring of life of the earth and the heart of the heavens; this heart constantly proclaimed the Almighty with its rhythmic beating, and with its living and inanimate accessories it offered us unimaginable surprises reminiscent of the beauties of Paradise. Everywhere was aglow; looking to our surrounds, we felt the dazzling magnificence of the world beyond in the face of existence and creation.

Our nights always passed with the luminosity of a “daybreak” while our days were as bright as the slopes of the highest level in Paradise. The atmosphere hanging over us and the natural landscape it encircled were refulgent, as was spring, summer, autumn, winter, and indeed all creation. In this colorful climate, we always asked for that which surpassed our will by means of our supplication and entreaties and incessantly mumbled utterances that would please Him. With feelings alive and our hearts quivering like the lowest note struck, we always presented to Him melodies with a different tune each time! The lamentations breaking loose from our hearts from time to time and rising from our bosoms ascended like the heartfelt cries of Prophet Jacob, and the winds blew with the fragrance from the shirt of Prophet Joseph, peace be upon them. All around, the sugar-sweet words were woven with pure feelings, and accompanied with deeds of righteousness. These “good words” (Qur’an 14:24) rose to the best of their “dew points,” and then poured back upon us as another form of Divine favor.  Those days were the days promised to the believers, those places were places from the Ka’ba and Mount Sinai, and we were the auspicious inheritors of the earth.

Then, the day came when the ruthless assaults of the enemies combined with the disloyalty of friends, and we were no longer able to stand where we once stood. We experienced tremors one after another and thus toppled over suddenly. Who knows, perhaps if we had not been subjected to all those betrayals, this world would have continued to bedazzle until the end of time with its own particular beauty.

Then, the day came when the ruthless assaults of the enemies combined with the disloyalty of friends, and we were no longer able to stand where we once stood. 

It is a great pity that in an inauspicious age, all the lights of this luminous world were ravaged, the hands holding the torches broken, the mouths speaking the truth gagged, and a group of monstrous souls sat upon our life springs. The sun no longer rose with its own color. In the shadow of the stains upon its countenance, the moon was like a poor creature, and the earth had taken on the form of an arena of savagery where malicious demons ran wild. The damage had been done and no longer were the roses with which we were familiar blossoming, nor the flowers diffusing their fragrance to their surrounds, nor the nightingales singing. Replacing the people showering smiles upon their surroundings with serenity and jubilation were dark-spirited night demons who were overwhelmed by hatred, rancor, and enmity, and dejected souls growling with wrath. It seemed as though all people of heart and spirit had dissolved into thin air, along with that luminous era. Villages and towns were abandoned and our minds were as empty of spirit, meaning, and respect for our own values, as were the plains and prairies of life.

The masses were dead on their feet as though subjected to an illusion, those holding the reins in their hands were in pursuit of a different fantasy each day, people scattering helter-skelter away from their own values, and disorder on the societal scale was experienced. There was no respect left for the family tree, nor regard for its fruit; axes hacked away at the tree’s roots and our thousand-year legacy was cast away to the scrapheap just to spite our forebears. Hypocrisy was popularized and dissension reverberated in all quarters. Deception was considered prowess and subterfuge, in the hands of its professionals, witnessed its golden age in favor of besmirching the believers. Deviators were wilier and quicker than ever before; on the contrary, many of the believers were worship-weary, service-spent, and addicts of rewards, and matters requiring patience, determination, sacrifice, and resolve had of course been entrusted to extraordinary occurrences. As a matter of fact, how many people believing in extraordinary manifestations had actually remained, God knows!

Considering our recent history, was it at all possible for us to get back up on our feet and pull ourselves together as a society facing such a degree of disarray? Were we going to be able to stand on our own feet once more as ourselves? It was very difficult to say anything positive with respect to the apparent causes; however, for believing hearts, causes were not everything. After all, what could not happen when God manifested His Favor! How many times humanity had encountered surprise springs until the present day, at the very moment when they fell defeated to sleet and snow. How many times they had witnessed “coolness and peace” (Qur’an 21:69) in the bosom of the most formidable infernos. Each and every time humanity turned to the door to which they needed to turn with faithfulness, confided and expounded their troubles to Him, the death pits in which they found themselves were transformed into ramps of elevation and at a stretch, in the very same breath, reached peaks that had hitherto appeared unattainable. Why could it not happen once more!

Indeed, no one who had turned to Him sincerely until now had ever come away empty-handed, and there were none amongst those remaining independent of Him who had been delivered. Thus, with all these considerations at the present time, our faces are darkened, but our hearts tremble. Fixing our hopes on the vastness of His mercy, confiding our inadequacy, inconsistency, and of course our helplessness to Him, we ask that He enable us to reach a fresh phase of revival with a brand-new celestial calendar and entrust our hopes and aspirations to His favor.

They will not be free riders who just fiddle and suffice with what is given. No, when need be, each and every one of them will be sure to strike water from the hardest stones as Moses did and split rampant waters to lead the way.

They will know to wait when they need to wait, and they will know to act when they need to act. At times, they will come down on the earth like lightning. Yet, at other times, they will know to avoid violent storms and wait for the season of clear breezes. They are quick and bold, but their actions do not lack thought. Their minds are enlightened, their decisions exact, and their conduct measured.

They see no harm in relating to any idea or school of thought. But the direction of their hearts is immutably fixed on their own foundation of faith. For them, even the most lustrous movements of thought are not worthy of concern if they ultimately fail to relate to their faith. That is, they will not struggle to reclaim rivers that will not water their lands or feed their lakes.

Their power is derived from the truth and it is the truth for which they endeavor. However, they know that power is not without aim or place, and they know to be prudent when they cannot match the power of their adversaries. Shallow in appearance, they are smart and wise.

They are candid and sincere with friends. Their insight warmly accommodates their foes. In their world, heart and reason go hand in hand; friends are not ignored and foes are not cast away by vitriol.

Their anger never extends to cruelty. Yet, their leniency does not tolerate injustice. Their blessed atmosphere is free of the wantonness of the cruel and the wailings of the downtrodden.

They have resolve and determination. Neither worldly concerns, nor the desire for Paradise can entrap them until the day of true festivity. They incessantly exude the unparalleled incense of the transcendence.

They serve as a spiral cord between their communities and the truths of the realms beyond the heavens. This cord will never break, even though malevolent hands try to tear it apart, time and again. They are neither scared of the flames nor intimidated by the cannons of tyranny, because they have often countered infernos and crushing blows.

For them, true liberty lies in connection to the Divine Truth. Therefore, every exertion of the carnal self on the path of the Divine engenders an exhilaration of worship and infuses the faithful with interminable joy. This is particularly true when the soul is way beyond the primal human wants and pleasures, nestled in the safe haven of the heart …

Those who will shape tomorrow are always in confrontation with the carnal self. They are so composed that they will not be deceived into the positions granted by the good will of other people. They are never spoilt by their own achievements, grand as those achievements may be, or by the respectful ranks others ascribe to them. When the time comes that their names are heard everywhere and their reputation knows no limit, they will remain the same modest and unpretentious individuals they were when they first assumed the sacred duty. This modesty and this unpretentiousness will be embroidered with nobility and dignity.

They will never become beggars who seek reciprocation in return for the deeds they perform for the sake of their people. For them, beggary is to be abhorred, even if they are in utter need. For begging would mean doing what they despise most – receiving double of what they gave to their people.

Once again, we beseech the help of an elevated generation whose approach is imminent on the horizon. We pray, knowing that the Merciful God will not disappoint us.

“It’s very hard to grow a tree,” he said. “Just like it’s very hard to grow a person.”

“Well” my brother said, “if you and mom could grow me, I can grow a tree.” He was eleven at the time.

By the end of the summer, only one of his sprouts was still alive. He’d forgotten what kind of tree it was – in his enthusiasm, he hadn’t time for labels. On a Sunday in early September, after church, my family went out to our backyard with hand shovels and a rake. On our hands and knees, we took turns digging in the soft, wet earth. It was a warm day, and the late-season sun spilled like gold filigree through the leaves of our large oak tree. My brother and father, rich earth worked into the fissures of their hands, tenderly planted the sapling. I could tell, by my father’s face, that he didn’t give the tree a chance. But my brother believed completely, and when the planting was finished to his satisfaction, he stood and said a prayer, a brief benediction and blessing for our house.

He spent that autumn tending to the sapling. He would water it daily, and measure its progress with a ruler. Against all odds, it continued to grow.

So, too, did my brother. As the years passed, and the tree grew thicker, my brother grew taller. He fell in love, had his heart broken, lost his way. By the time he left home, seven years later, the tree had grown into a healthy, albeit small, tree. It had claimed its unceremonious space in our backyard. But it hadn’t borne fruit, and we had mostly forgotten to notice that the tree was there. We still had no idea what kind of tree it was.

“A defective tree,” my father said one night, bitterly. “A tree incapable of growing fruit.” My brother had been gone a year then, and we heard word of him sparingly – a postcard from Louisiana, or a phone call from a hotel in Oklahoma. I left home the next year. I took my first trip to Paris, where I fell in love with the city, and a woman, my future wife. Another year passed, and my brother and I did not speak.

When I received word that my brother had died in a car crash in Texas, I was living in the south of Spain with my wife. She was pregnant by then, a small sapling growing inside her, and when I hung up the phone on my father, the first thing I thought of was what my brother had said all those years before: There’s a whole tree in this little seed. I looked at her and thought: There’s a whole person in this little seed. Then, naturally, I cried.

It was late June. We arrived in Philadelphia just in time for the funeral. It was a small affair at a church outside the city, on a small plot of land overlooking a creek. The grave had already been dug, the fresh earth piled high beside it. I remembered my brother’s small hands, their crevices grooved with dirt. Afterwards we returned to our house. It had grown quiet in the years since my brother and I had left, and my parents would soon sell it.

That night at dusk, my father took me out to the backyard. “I have something to show you,” he said. We walked barefoot through the grass, the cicadas murmuring in the dense, sultry summer air. When we got to my brother’s tree, I noticed something moist and wet beneath my foot. I knelt down. It was a plum. There were plums all over the ground, and more on the tree.

“It’s the first year it blossomed,” my father said. “I couldn’t believe it.”

We roamed through the gloaming, prospecting the luscious, purple globes from the low branches, biting into the soft flesh, the juices spilling down our chins. They tasted good. As I ate, I picked out the seeds, put a few of them in my pocket. They came with me on the plane back to Spain. I planted them in cups all over our house, much to my wife’s amusement. I watered them diligently, checked them daily for growth. When we planted one of the seedlings at the end of the summer, my wife’s stomach was already large, and while I worked in the earth, she sat on our porch and watched. “It will never grow,” she called out to me. “Seedlings never grow.”

As I write this, our son is playing in our backyard, his small, growing body shaded by the small, growing branches of a plum sapling.

As the only Muslim woman in the room, outside their prayer circle, I was there to observe their prayer session by the invitation of my friend C. As they sighed and tried to find words to console and inspire one another, I could feel their despair about creating a more peaceful and understanding world. They were truly concerned about America’s position in maintaining peace in the world, but after the events of the last decade, they ran out of hope.

When they don’t have hope, what could they pray for?

Pitched into this darkness, I heard myself say, ‘Well, actually, I am feeling hope.’ There was an uneasy creak of folding chairs and tired faces. Their looks said, ‘Please, not another voice of denial…’ but they were kind enough to listen to what I had to say. ‘I think America has the greatest potential for peace,’ I continued. Glimmers of candlelight played across the eyes in the room. Having heard a Muslim woman say this was new for them.

‘Well, I think so because…’ I paused for a moment to search for the right words, and continued, ‘… because it all began with French fries.’ Once I saw their puzzled faces and the half smiles playing on their lips, I knew I had caught their attention to tell them my story. When I saw, for the first time, people calmly dipping individual fries into cups of ketchup with bare fingers, I had just arrived in America to go to the graduate school. I couldn’t believe that they used no forks, no toothpicks—just eating greasy fries with their bare hands. How crude, I thought. But then another foreign student from Morocco shared with me that in her country, people ate with their hands, too, and that eating with one’s hands enhances the flavor of the food. I saw her, also for the first time in my life, enjoy chicken biryani with her fingers. It was my first glimpse of just how wide the world was. It was the fragrance of my own budding tolerance.

After I saw how eager they were to hear about it, I continued my story. I told them I had come to the United States ten years before, on a college scholarship from Turkey. I’ll be honest. Before coming to America, I had never spoken to a person who was not Muslim, much less shared a meal with them. But here, in America, where I met fellow graduate students from India, China, Africa and Europe, I experienced first-hand that we could all live and eat in our own unique ways, learning side by side, and live in peace. My tolerance grew.

Then I walked in to the Islamic Center of the city I lived in. I saw different Muslims, from around the world, in different clothing, of different races, speaking different languages, bowing down in reverent prayer side by side. All those differences seemed like jewels and beads on an elegant dress, enriching and beautifying the fabric in harmony. It was a vision, and witnessing it, I felt such a profound peace. I thought, though they, my fellow Muslim brothers and sisters, dress or talk and eat differently, we all bow down in front of God the same way. We are all the same in the important stuff, and only different in the minor issues. What significance does it have if one eats with their hands, with a fork, or with a couple of chopsticks?

In later years, I was blown away when I witnessed how Christians worshipped at my friend B’s church. They sing, listen to the sermon, read passages from the Bible, which is considered a holy book in Islam and to be respected, and they get connected with the God. And when I noticed how the stories, values, and traditions we claim as ours were also shared by them, my first image of Americans collapsed completely. Before I came to this country, the only Americans I knew were from the movies and soap operas. Naturally, I thought all American women were blond, tall, and beautiful, and all the American men were tall, rich, and handsome. They didn’t have any financial problems, health problems, or any real-life problems; they had only relationship problems and cared about no one but themselves. This was the image in my head about Americans. How wrong I was! I was surprised and fascinated when I observed my friend B’s church worship, when I came together with other families from my son’s school for play dates, or when our neighbors invited us to their Thanksgiving dinner, and also when they came to ours for a Ramadan iftar. It came to me in a flash: Americans have similar family values, religious values, holiday traditions, and love and compassion for their neighbors, just as we do. They are not actors in a soap opera!

What is more, they welcome thousands of foreign students, scholars, refugees, and immigrants from many different countries around the globe each year. Every year Americans are exposed to many cultures, languages, and faith traditions, and hardly anyone is jumping down anybody’s throat for being different. Of course, there are occasional negative comments toward what is different, but even then, most people come together to neutralize that negativity with support and compassion. Different is viewed as richness, as variety, and as interesting. My own tolerance and appreciation of other cultures blossomed because of these experiences.

The United States can have a great ability to bring about peace, as I shared with the ladies that night, because American culture is already open, tolerant of religious freedom, and welcoming to people around the globe. These are the perfect ingredients for peace. America has the power to wage peace in other countries, not with war or fear, but with goodness, faith, acceptance, and aid, to build hospitals and schools, and create jobs and programs that acknowledge human rights and generate good will.

America has long been a mixed salad. Its unique blend of people from around the world, stirred together with mingling flavors, develops a taste for tolerance, for freedom, for the savory experience of diverse cultures living together. May our prayer in this post-9/11 world be this: that we move beyond the ineffectual and destructive politics of warfare and fear, and hold fast to the goodness and power of this nation’s moral tolerance, constitutional freedoms, and potential for peace. God has created us with this potential. More powerful than any military force, I hope my experiences of tolerance and good will in the United States offered a recipe for hope for my friends that night.

Indeed, not only the dizzying development of modern technology our contemporary age rush towards the luxurious and prosperous life that is promised, toppling our inherited values; in addition, with a determined sense of destruction – which can be more suitably called “social delirium” – and with a sense of disloyalty, a manifest war is waged against our collective system of belief, traditions, customs, cultural and religious dynamics, a system that has been passed down to us from a glorious past. In so doing, they divorce the soul of our society from God and His Messenger, and from its history as well; compelling us to live through years of separation, one after another. In the meantime, a great many inept souls in an impetuous rush for identity bustle from one delirium to another, while many others crumble into the void for the sake of a pure nothing. During this term it was essentially the destiny of our society to spend each day in search for a new direction, each morning turning towards a new niche. Masses, in a confusion of tides between taboos, rushed hither and thither spending their lives chasing vanities, while months and years became wasted and spilt into nothingness. In the meantime, that traditional holy privacy of the family has been smashed into pieces for the sake of a fantasy and our homes have virtually been transformed into arenas of clashing contrarieties. Our homes, which are softer and warmer than the birds’ nests, have been rendered into inns and hotel rooms for short stopovers and swift migrations. Those who imagined living in these unfortunate shelters are always longing for genuine and permanent happiness; they effervesce with the pleasures of ephemeral amusements and lead their lives as the victims of their bodies, serving a life-sentence in the narrow confines of corporeality with feeble willpowers, unbelieving hearts, starving souls, bleak horizons, and shaken hopes.

Those who became suitors for alien unlawful qualities instead of adopting positive aspects in terms of science and technology, those who have trampled upon their own ethical values, through the mendacity of nothingness within abundance have displayed a different form of mendicancy at each doorstep, disappearing into the deadly whirlpools of their sad lot, having become enslaved to their soulless ambitions. It all happened at the same time, when they dreamt of ruling the entire world in a very near future, setting up interstellar travel agencies, solving the secrets of existence, elongating the lifespan of humankind with unnamed inventions, even providing a cure for death, attaining the absolute satisfaction after overcoming the pangs of their passions, and bringing in new profundities to the current amusements and pleasures of the life they lead. Nowadays there are a myriad of people who are intoxicated by the enchantment of these false dreams and this plenitude, closing their eyes tightly to the sun of reality, striving to lead a life in the candlelight they kindled within their delusion. However, neither is it so easy to base life upon whims and illusions, nor is this extremely long journey that awaits humankind so trivial as to be weathered with a false candle. God knows that in a very near future, when the strings of their hopes have become completely unraveled through an unknown cause, their expectations will scatter all around like beads from a rosary, and all along the itinerary everything will be invaded by unexpected things, distances will be reversed, dreams will collapse, all whims and illusions will be blocked under ruins and then, when neither any of those pretentious inventions or those pompous philosophies nor those rose-colored hopes will remain, they will not remain equal to commemorative archaic artifacts exhibited in the museums.

I wonder if we should pity, scold, or sit down and weep for the condition of these unfortunate ones who have been rendered lonely between existence and non-existence, who cannot receive remitting news from any aspect of existence, having been distracted and delayed by alienation and separation at a certain junction that is intersected by so many paths.

Contrary to these unfortunate ones whose hearts are filled with fog and smoke, whose willpowers have been paralyzed by various contrarieties and those who think keeping on walking around the whirlpools of death is walking towards life, in the same arena are the souls whose eyes of the heart watch the beyond, whose emotions froth and bubble with the ecstasy of turning towards the Truth (Haqq); their hands are opened up to God with the entire treasures of their bosoms and souls, like rain-laden clouds, lying in wait for breezes into which they will pour themselves, the feeling of chastity in their hearts is apparent in all the lines on their faces; respect for humankind and the feeling of freedom is the most prominent color of their attitude; their manners and expressions are enchanting to the extent of arousing the feeling of eternity in each heart; every behavior is a discourse reflecting their relation with the Truth sans letters or words; their human relations are extremely warm and sincere, like that of spiritual beings; their homes, schools, and garrisons are virtually like temples, while their temples are a sacred fountain serving the river of Paradise (kawthar) through their most profound mysterious Divine nature – souls busy in waiting.

These souls, with bowls of offerings in their hands, in the excitement of awaiting the turning of pure consciences towards themselves as a means of opportunity, without indulging in expectation of return, support and influence, roam above the heads of everyone, like the clouds; pouring down as rain and flowing everywhere; cracking open like the soil and opening their bosoms to the sprouts, sometimes above heads, sometimes under the feet, forgetting to live for their own behalf, they are busy with the passion of letting live while they roam around, blowing resurrection everywhere. Indeed, the world they will carve and shape and the historical inheritance they will bequeath to future generations will bring smiles to the faces of both this society and future generations. Such a formation, which will eternalize our love and fervor with a fresh revival and ignite our willpowers in the name of constructing the future, will be the final fruit of the effervescing love that is like gushing springs, the exhilaration of worship abreast with the pleasures of Paradise and the determination, hope, and faith that will voice our existence with the songs of eternity, the launch-pad and quay of sailing to infinity.

In short, just as there are lights descending upon us continuously, the foul-smelling smoke is rising at the same time. What can one say about this as the Divine decree has always occurred in this way – we pray it does not last long – but from this time onward it seems to continue in the same.

Everything flows; water, history, stars, men and thought;
Double are the troughs; radiance flows from one, and filth from the other.
Bunched together in the same stream are large and small, and the universe;
Watch that cloud rising, just out of spite for descending water!
Necip Fazil

The road, although not very long, took her back in time by a fast train of memories. She remembered how her newborn son had caught his dad’s finger in an unbreakable grip as he was whispering the call to prayer to his little ear. She saw her son waddling his first steps and her husband clapping his hands for joy. Every curve of the road took her to another stage. His first day in kindergarten was unforgettable. Seeing him walk in line behind the teacher had made hide her tears behind her husband. Separation, though a short one, had been hard to bear. Then she saw herself sitting on the sofa by her son’s side, teaching him how to read the Holy Book. She remembered her son’s excitement when she told him the prophetic tradition that the parents of those people who read the Qur’an a lot in this world would have shiny faces on the Day of Judgment. “Mommy,” he said, taking her face between his hands, “You and daddy will have the shiniest faces of all people, I promise.” Aisha had laughed at his genuine promise and kissed his head many times. One of the memories she cherished most was going on a bug hunt with him, to return home with a jar full of creepy crawlies for his science project. Her son had been fascinated to see all the different shapes and colors of life around him. She had reminded him to be respectful to every creature. She once overheard him pray to God to grant him a flying dinosaur in paradise. Aisha caught herself smiling in the rear-view mirror. “Life is a journey,” she thought. “My son reached the destination and he is waiting for us. O God, please reunite us in your paradise and give us patience meanwhile,” she prayed.

She parked the car in the graveyard’s little parking lot. Aisha took her copy of the Qur’an and got out, not minding the cold at all. “It is always so quiet here,” she thought. “I can even hear my own heartbeat.” She stopped by her son’s grave, bent over to touch the ground, and felt the knot in her chest tie up again. “Now, now, hold strong,” she ordered her heart. “It’s just a temporary separation. Just like in kindergarten, only a lot longer. O God, I am thankful for my faith in You. How would I have endured all this pain had I not known You will raise the dead and then everyone will be with their beloved forever. Thank you, thank you very much,” she whispered, feeling the knot loosen. She opened her copy of the Qur’an and started reading the chapter “The Merciful.” The first time she read it in this graveyard, it sounded as if it was being read from heaven. One verse repeated thirty-one times in this chapter had kept her from rebelling in her grief: “Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?” She had never understood its message better before. Aisha finished reading and opened her hands in prayer. “Our Lord, grant us bounties in this world and in the hereafter and save us from the torment of hell. Do not let us go astray once you have guided us to the truth and grant us mercy from Your Presence. Surely You are the Most Generous One. Amen.”

She rubbed her hands over her wet face and was preparing to go when she suddenly heard someone sobbing not too far from her. She turned to her right and saw a woman crying over a grave. Her black hair touched the ground and hid her face completely. Next to the grave, a big balloon was waving in the wind. Something was printed on it. Aisha read it and was stunned. The white letters materialized the pain of a mother’s heart: Happy birthday, son! “The grave is new. Her wound must be still bleeding,” Aisha thought to herself. “It took two years for mine to cover with a thin layer.”

Aisha went close enough for the woman to sense her presence. The woman stopped crying, looked up, and then tried to stand up, but her knees would not hold her. Aisha reached out her arm and kept the woman from falling. They looked at each other. It felt like looking in the mirror. The same tears formed traces in their faces resembling riverbeds in summer. The same longing to go back in time for one more chance to live the past could be read in every line and wrinkle. A small shiny pendant cross hanging below the woman’s chin caught Aisha’s eye. For a moment, neither spoke. Aisha looked at the cross, becoming aware that the woman was staring at her white scarf. After that short moment of bewilderment, Aisha spoke first.

“I’m Aisha. I just want to let you know that I understand how you feel.”

“You do?” asked the woman.

“Yes, I lost my only son two years ago.” Then with empathy, she added, “It’s OK to cry, and if you need a shoulder you can cry on mine.”

“But how can you…?” The woman could not finish her words as her eyes met the warmth of Aisha’s face. Then something wonderful happened that only angels witnessed. She hugged Aisha and both of them cried. The two women hugged for a long time despite the white scarf, despite the pendant cross. Had they met in a store or at gas station they might not have exchanged anything more than a wry smile, they might have thought that they belonged to different worlds. Yet here they had become indivisible in their maternal pain.

“This place helped me understand better not only my Holy Book,” thought Aisha, “but also my humanity. Praise is to you, God,” she whispered with the delight of someone who has just found a lost friend. The two women, leaning on each other, walked toward the parking lot, realizing with great surprise that the wind was not chilly anymore.

There are two different types of rules in the universe. One of these consists of the principles of the sciences, such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, astrophysics, biology and medicine, all of which occur in the universe. These sciences can be considered to be the “book of the universe.” This book does not have a language in the usual sense, but contains signs of God that are read through the eyes of wisdom. The second of these sciences consists of the rules that God has sent to us through the prophets; there is the Qur’an, brought by Prophet Muhammad, as well as revelations brought by other prophets, like the Psalms, the Torah, and the New Testament. It is essential that the revelations and the Book of the Universe, along with their contents, are known and the requirements within them adhered to. Generally speaking, the reward of reading and applying the Book of the Universe is granted in this world. The reward of adherence to the Qur’an is given in the Hereafter. Therefore, if believers only read and adhere to the sections concerned with worship in the Qur’an, they will be rewarded only in the Hereafter. If they read the Book of the Universe and adhere to it, they will be rewarded in this world. Happiness in both worlds is dependent on both these books being read and applied in balance. In actual fact, these two books are like the two sides of one reality. The same hand and authority is present in both. God, Who presents the universe to us, with all its richness and depth, speaks of this in the Qur’an. He tells us about ourselves-we are also a part of the Book of the Universe-through the Qur’an.

Within the guidelines of physical laws, He tells us about all creatures. He informs us of the irrevocable damage that will occur when something is missing from either of these two books. The verses in the Qur’an and the sayings of the Prophet concerning work are focused for the most part on earning a livelihood. This situation should not be interpreted to mean working in a limited circle and neglecting other areas. There are two essential components concerning working. One of these is the necessity for the individual to work to secure their basic needs in order to survive, that is, working for their livelihood. The second is to work on the principles of making life easier. The Prophet encouraged working on both these points and personally taught the Companions how to work. In the Hadiths of the Prophet, working for earning a living has been is esteemed. For example “There are some sins that neither prayer, nor fasting or Pilgrimage can assist in forgiving, they can only be forgiven through the work carried out for one’s livelihood,”¹ “No human being has eaten anything more virtuous then what they have earned themselves. A messenger of God, the Prophet David also used to eat what he had worked for.”² It is also worthwhile to mention the following events to highlight this point. One day the Prophet met with Sa’d ibn Muadh and shook hands. The Prophet saw that the hands of Sa’d were calloused and asked the reason why, to which the latter replied ‘they are like this because I was working for my family’. Then the Prophet stated that ‘here are the hands that God likes.’” The Prophet set an example through working himself and also in teaching others how to work. On one occasion, after telling a man who was begging how bad begging was, the Prophet asked him, “Do you have nothing in your home?” to which the man replied he had nothing other than a cloth and a pot. Upon this, the Prophet asked the man to bring those to him. Then the Prophet auctioned off these objects to the Companions, raising two dirhams (the currency of the time). He gave the two dirhams to the man, telling him to use one dirham for his family and to buy a rope and an axe with the remaining dirham. The man came back with the rope and axe and the Prophet told him to cut and gather wood from the forest and sell this at the market, giving him a fifteen-day period. After a fortnight the man returned with ten dirhams.⁴ It is important to note that one aspect of how this topic is dealt with in both the Qur’an and the Hadiths is the balance between the two worlds. This balance is described in Sura Qasas, verse 77: With the things that God has endowed on you try to gain the Hereafter. Do not forget your share from the world. The Prophet indicates this balance in the hadith “do you know who is best of you? Those who do not forgo their world for the Hereafter or their Hereafter for their world, people who are this way will gain both the Hereafter and this world and will not be relianton any other.” It is apt to focus at this point on the theme of reliance on God (tawakkul). Understanding the connection between resigning oneself to God’s will and working has occasionally been problematical in the Muslim world. Even though reliance on God means to expect results from God and to have full faith in Him after having completed all the necessary requirements, there have been, amongst Muslim communities, those who have come to believe that reliance onGod means abandoning all rationale and believing that work is against such an entrustment of oneself in God’s hands. These people have argued that resignation to God’s hands means “to trust purely in God and refrain from carrying out any activities in relation to work; to do so enables people to connect with God and provide protection against (attaching one’s heart to) worldly possessions.” It is also possible to find religious principles that endorse this belief. People who think in this way give the following hadith as proof of their ideas “Your God orders as follows ‘O Mankind! Put aside time to worship so that I may fill your heart with richness and your hands with livelihood. O Mankind! Do not stray from me, otherwise I will fill your heart with poverty and your hands with preoccupation.’” “Whoever leaves all other activities and gives themselves over to the worship of God will fulfill all requirements for livelihood from where they least expect it. Whoever devotes themselves to the world, then God will make them a deputy to the world.” However such an understanding of placing oneself completely in God’s hand can only be applicable and reserved to those few who have devoted themselves purely to worship; it is not for the general public. The grindstone of social life is working. If there was no labor, communal life will come to a standstill. What we are saying is not that everyone forego the requirements of this trust, but rather they should hold steadfast, and the heart should be content after having done all that is necessary, and wait for the outcome. An Arab asked the Prophet “O Prophet, shall I rely on God after I tie my camel or after I let it go? To which the Prophet replied “Tie your camel then put your faith in God’s hands.”⁷ This answer is enough to resolve the issue. It is appropriate to give an explanation of the hadith that is used as evidence for reliance on God, but which is often misinterpreted. In this hadith the Prophet says “Had you placed yourselves in God’s hands sincerely, you would be fed like the birds. Birds leave their nests in the morning hungry and return full.” This hadith, on the surface, seems to mean that one should not do anything but wait for everything from God. But if you look at the sentences carefully, you will see that it stresses that the birds leave their nests to look for food and that they find their food in this manner; they do not stay in their nests waiting for food to come to them. Accordingly, true reliance on God means to do all that is necessary, then to wait for the results from God. This hadith also clearly highlights the difference between reliance on God and laziness. In fact, the annotator Qurtubi points out that the verse “Take your provisions for the Hajj. In truth, the best provision is righteousness and piety…” (Baqara 2:197) which deals with the pilgrimage, is another warning. He quotes this hadith in parallel to the following event: “The Yemenis who come to Mecca without provision to perform their Pilgrimage, begging there to satisfy their hunger then classing themselves as ones who have put themselves in Gods hands. When this verse was revealed it was a warning for people to get their own provisions on their travels.”⁹ It can be understood from the statement that “the best of provisions is piety” that it is considered pious to be content with what one gets without asking for more from others.

The two sides of piety

1) “(Piety is)… abiding by what is allowed and prohibited,in other words, adhering to what the religion says to ‘do’ and ‘not to do.’

2) “Abiding by the laws of creation, in other words, acting in accordance with the prevalent rules in the universe.” “It is important not to neglect this aspect of reliance on God. If we look at the life of the Prophet we can see that he lived his life by reading the rules of the universe and adhering to them, without neglecting all the causative factors. For example, he asked his Companions to “extinguish all fires in the house before going to sleep.” In this and similar examples one can see that it is important to adhere to causative factors so that no harm comes to the house through a fire.”¹⁰ Umar ibn Khattab, who was well aware of this fact, expelled all the Yemeni people who used to beg, saying they had resigned to God’s will, from the streets of Medina. He told them that they had not actually resigned themselves to God’s will, but rather they were like parasites. He went on to say that “One who resigns themselves to God’s will plants a seed”¹¹

It can be seen from this that resignation to God’s will and work are not opposed to one another. Scholars who see no contrast between working and resignation to God’s will have offered the following explanation: “One can work and place their faith in God’s hands at one and the same time. Reliance on God means placing your faith in God and believing that everything is from God and the place for this is in the heart. Fulfilling the requirement of causes is through the organs. Accordingly, it is possible for things to do with the heart and the organs to co-exist in one person”¹² It is also possible to give the following explanation: As much as it part of God’s will that we expect results from God, it is also His wish for us to adhere to the causal factors. Therefore it is inconceivable that these two wishes contradict one another. On the contrary, adherence to these two wishes is compulsory and it is the one who adheres to these who will be successful in both this and the other world. In conclusion, we can say that both the Qur’an and the Sunna glorify any form of work that increases productivity and production. In other words, in line with Islamic principles, Islam places great value on any production that meets the needs for continuing life or to making life easier and more enjoyable. This being the case, it is also possible to see that the Muslim world does not present a picture that is parallel to this thought. This must be related to ideas that are placed in our mentality through basic teachings. We see it as necessary to rethink these values that have been embodied in our minds.

Notes

1. Sahawi, Ahsanut Taqasim, Beirut, 1994, p. 157.

2. Bayhaqi, Sunanul Kubra, Ijara, 15.

3. Sarahsi, Al-Mabsut, vol.30, p:246, Darul Marifa, Beirut.

4. Abu Dawud, Zakat, 26; Ibn Maja, Tijarat, 25.

5. Ajluni, Kashful Khafa, I, 393.

6. Tirmidhi, Qiyama, 30; Ibn Maja, Zuhd, 2.

7. Tirmidhi, Qiyama, 60.

8. Tirmidhi, Zuhd, 33; Ibn Maja, Zuhd, 14.

9. Qurtubi, al-Jamiu li Ahkamul Qur’an, 2:411.

10. F. Gulen, Kirik Testi (Broken Jug), Istanbul 2004, p. 165.

11. Ibn Abud Dunya, Kitabut-Tawakkul, p.1; Ahmet Naim, The Principles of Islamic Ethics, p.70).

12. Bajuri, Sharhu Jawharatit Tawhid, p.442–446; Kushayri, ar-Risala, p. 163.