For this tree, the seed is intelligence, water is determination, air is patience, and effort is excitement. One thing to consider is that imagination and fantasy are not the same concept. Whereas imagination is the seed of realistic, logical plans and projects designed in accordance with long term goals regarding life and the future, fantasy involves short term projections out of proportion with reality, emotion, and rational thought. In this sense, there is no imagination that does not sprout its roots towards the goal and does not disperse the seeds of excitement to the human soul. This is because imagination is like a pile of emotions that sustain us in the years ahead. It is the energy that powers the heart, the mystery juice which injects excitement into our minds, a framework of desires that bind us to life. It helps us to believe that one man’s expectations for life are as good as his dreams; his earnings will match his excitement. Imagination and the resulting “excitement” is a great blessing that brings out treasures, love, and skills hidden inside us. Above all, imagination can help us to achieve success in all of our endeavors. This is true of science, too.

Defining scientific success can be tricky. It requires effort, hard work, and observation to achieve scientific success. But most importantly, it requires intelligence which is a blessing. Just like a licensed driver controlling a car, the brain’s performance improves with the skill of its driver. To maximize the brain’s potential, it is very important to integrate the heart and conscience with the use of intelligence.

Can we explain the reality that there is only a limited number of scientists because they were born as such or inherited this quality genetically? The reality is thousands of babies are born with brain capacities similar to that of scientists’ in terms of anatomy, histology, physiology, and biochemistry. Even though human intelligence is partly determined by inheritance, there are other factors. If the case was as simple as inheritance, would Einstein say, “I do not have any special skill, but I am passionately curious”? When Thomas Edison said, “1% of genius is inspiration and 99% is sweat,” he captured perfectly that one needs more than just intelligence to achieve success – one also needs to maximize that intelligence through hard work.

Scholar Bediuzzaman Said Nursi summarized the stages of knowledge development of the human mind in seven steps. “One first imagines something (tahayyul), then conceives of it, and clothes it in a form (tasawwur). Afterwards, one reasons and reflects on this thing (taaqqul), then confirms it (tasdiq), and then has full conviction of it (iz’an). Then they fully support it (iltizam); then they become committed or devoted to it (itiqad)” (The Words, Gleams of Truth).

Each of these stages is subject to different rulings. They form the ladder to higher meanings. Thus, if a person is unaware of the step occupied, he/she ends up remaining in the lower stages and acts according to the necessities of that particular level.

Therefore if we do not want to leave our scientific approach at the dimension of “sophistry,” which starts with imagination (tahayyul), we have to continue our intellectual and ideological journey all the way to the end. Imagination, which is often overlooked, bears the seed of intelligence, which is a blessing offered from the infinite ocean of God’s wisdom. Imagination is the unprinted photo of our intellectual aptitudes. How do you like to print and uncover your dreams?

Once I could see God in one thing – even though it was the vastest, most mysterious, and perhaps most obvious example in creation – I was able to see God in almost anything.

Before, there was no meaning. There was no cohesion. There was no contentment. Instead, there was sorrow. There was an endless search for pleasure. There was a fear of death, but also a fear of life. And there were questions. There were always questions. And the answers I found only made me ask more and more questions. I was under the impression that there was no certainty, no order, no higher meaning – that I was asking questions that were not meant to be asked.

To put it another way, during this time in my life, I had the perception that knowledge and belief were incompatible – a relatively common idea, as I have found. Many will say that science goes against religion. Some will choose religion; I chose science, because in many ways, it appeared to be the more difficult one to dismiss. In retrospect, I know that my conception of religion was simply wrong, that the two really can be, and are, compatible. After all, not only did God give us intellectual capacities for a reason, but also, the book of divine revelation cannot contradict the book of creation. Would that not undermine God’s wisdom? Regardless, at the time, my belief had melted away due to my increasing awareness not only of science, but also that scientific accuracy was lacking in my faith. As a result, a never-ending barrage of questions ceaselessly entered my head.

To me, life had no real meaning. Everyone at some point asks, “Why am I here?” Before, my answer to this question was, “To make myself happy.” Therefore, my life was centered on myself – I was the center of the universe. No one else mattered. All of my time was spent on seeking pleasure – physical pleasure, material pleasure, intellectual pleasure. I was focused on finding happiness, and I thought this happiness would be found in gaining the acceptance of others, in having many possessions, in being well liked, in indulging in worldly pleasures. In my career path, I did not desire to make a difference in the world nor was I concerned with earning lots of money, strangely enough – I simply wanted a job that I adored: a job that made me happy. Mind you, what this job was, I did not know, but this was my goal and my primary concern.

I did not know the meaning of life, nor did I know why or how I got here, so seemingly, the only reasonable solution was to enjoy the life that I had. Why I had this life was of little import. So, I set off on a journey in search of lasting, worldly happiness, but I did not find it. Instead, I found that this abstract entity was very elusive. When it seemed I had found real and genuine happiness, I would lose it. The pleasures I partook in on this journey were only transitory, so when the contentment I found in them was gone, there was only pain. This left me still feeling empty, feeling that there was no real deep and lasting contentment to be had in this world. It was akin, in a way, to an addiction. I was always trying to get my “fix,” and over time, it became increasingly difficult to satisfy myself, to hide the pain – pain that resulted from wanting, from desiring even, to live a life of higher meaning, all the while not knowing how to attain it.

Regardless of the fact that, initially, it was knowledge and questioning that caused my belief to wither, during this time, I was not at all interested in increasing my knowledge – not in reading or in learning. I was simply apathetic; perhaps I had become burnt out due to knowledge causing me to ask questions that seemed unanswerable. Pondering frustrating existential questions was not pleasurable, nor was it, seemingly, a path to happiness, so I just ignored my thirst for knowledge and answers. In lieu, I spent my time on shallow frivolities, but this got very old, very fast.

Despite my pulling away from intellectual endeavors and from belief, there were still some topics that occasionally caught my interest. It was my seemingly innate fascination with space, with the universe, that made me reconsider my belief in God. I could not look at the order and perfection inherent there and think that it was all just a random occurrence. This was simply impossible to me. There are innumerable examples, but for one, if the earth were any closer to the sun, it would be too hot to sustain life, and gravity would be too strong. If it were any further away, the opposite would be true – it would be too cold and gravity would be too weak. As I see it, the earth’s distance from the sun could not have been a mere coincidence. In the words of Nursi, the universe is a “macro Qur’an,” and I was able to discern this even before my personal beliefs were solidified; I could clearly see that the universe is brimming with God’s signs, and that the sheer vastness of it is a testament to His infinity and oneness.

Once I could see God in one thing – even though it was the vastest, most mysterious, and perhaps most obvious example in creation – I was able to see God in almost anything: the tides of the ocean, the composition of the atmosphere, a seed sprouting into a small tree, the uniqueness of a fingerprint, the utter complexity inherent in an atom, despite its size, or even the varieties of difference – and remarkable similarity – between people. To emphasize this, God repeats over and over, “Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?” And it had thus become clear – I cannot deny any of them because all of creation is a reflection of its Creator.

At this realization – that God does indeed exist, for He manifests Himself everywhere – my thirst for knowledge made a swift resurgence, but first I had to forget everything I had previously known about my beliefs, my desires, my goals, my life’s purpose – I even had to forget everything I knew about myself. I had to gain a new mindset and refine my worldview. I had to reevaluate my own personal motto. I had to change even the minutest aspects of my daily routine. There was so incredibly much to learn, as there had been so much time that I had wasted. The turnaround seemed hasty or even abrupt, but it had been in the works, covertly, for a long, long time. Those times when I pushed aside my questions? They were the final moments of calm before my life would be flipped upside down, losing every last bit of resemblance to my previous life.

Now, I feel guilt if I waste too much time. I have, seemingly, almost a compulsion to learn something new every single day. I read – constantly – about anything and everything. My desire for knowledge is no longer in a vacuum, as it was before, because now I know that knowledge could be used to increase faith and belief, and faith and belief could be used to increase knowledge. For every question of faith or of the nature of life that knowledge led me to ponder, belief gave me answers – answers that satisfied me. The satisfaction was in seeing how knowledge and faith were not only compatible – they were intertwined. I could see the perfect order in everything created by God, and I could see all of the problems inherent in the society created by man – materialism, narcissism, and a lack of faith. But these problems were not only on the macro scale of society; on the micro scale, they had been my problems. They had been the obstacles to my happiness and contentment. I had life, and I had knowledge. Faith was the missing piece.

I still partake in worldly pleasures – I am not an ascetic, nor do I claim to be. These pleasures, however, are not the means to happiness. Belief is the means to happiness. Worldly pleasure is a gift from God, and so I experience pleasure for what it gives me – temporary pleasure. I no longer expect it to give me lasting contentment. Faith gives me that. Life for me is no longer this endless search for worldly satisfaction because happiness cannot be found among things of this world; it can only be found through certainty of belief. With certainty of belief, I now know that even pain and suffering has a greater purpose – everything has a greater purpose.

Before, I wanted happiness at any cost. That was my motto. Now, I focus on increasing my belief and my faith. I study, read, and reason since exercising my intellectual capacities is a way to do that and because I must not waste the gifts I have been given. My life has a different purpose now – to contribute to the greater good, to use my free will responsibly, to live rationally and reasonably, and to remember God in everything I do. One can always strive for this and never tire of it because there are infinite rewards and there is infinite room for improvement. So now, the motto that I live by is “knowledge to increase faith, faith to increase contentment.” Now, I have found all of the missing pieces.

I have so far read hundreds of books on Islamic literature both in Urdu and English. I have even gone through a number of different translations and interpretations of the holy Qur’an and Hadith. But I do think that this book is unique in its own way. It has not only broadened my horizon of thinking but filled my empty heart with the precious pearls of wisdom and knowledge. It has left within me the craving to receive wisdom and knowledge all the time. This book has helped me to become a firm believer and an admirer of our Prophet and his equally great Companions. The vast shades of their lives and struggles which went to achieve their overwhelmingly great targets set by Almighty God left me mesmerized and completely engrossed.

Any person who enjoys reading would not be able to keep himself or herself unmoved if he or she gets the chance to go through such an emphasis made in this book encouraging readers to try their best to emulate the Prophet in every possible way and guide them to become a human as God has envisaged for them so that they can understand the intricacies of this world and the next.

While most of the literature available about the Prophet can be categorized as biography, The Messenger of God is different in its own sense. Gülen’s methodology in this volume lures the intellectual minds. He has picked up some best incidents and traditions first and then argues after that in the light of his life and works and how the Qur’an was a help and guide at each and every moment of his struggle in preaching the religion of Islam. After reading the whole book, one feels that not a single aspect of the Prophet and his Companions’ lives is left untouched. We get the opportunity to know each and every detail that needs to be known about such a great personality.

Whether you want to know about his intellectual and spiritual strength, or of his long journey with his beloved Companions, every aspect which comes into mind is addressed. Its first chapter, for example, starts with a description of the Prophet’s life as mercy upon all human beings and jinns because he was sent to both of them. Then it takes readers towards the other serious discourse like why Prophets are sent, why they are important and why we needed them so urgently. This discussion is followed by a new chapter that opens with a new set of stimulating ideas as to which type of characteristics the Prophets were given by God, particularly to the last Prophet including the essentials of Prophethood.

The book could easily be divided into two parts as it was done before, because after the long and elaborate discussion on the intellectual aspects of the Prophet, it delves into the other side of his life, like how he lived his life as a family head, social, political and military leader and so on.

The other strength of the book is that it is thoroughly well-researched and never asks the readers to jump on an opinion or accept an idea only on the strength of their belief but it allows them to accept after weighing the facts on the scale of their own wisdom and intellect.

The writer has truly taken a deep pain to complete all these vast topics which require a special book separately to discuss all things in detail. You simply fall in love with the book as it takes one so easily on its vast journey of thoughts with its own strength and merit.

Today, those who have made it their business to identify and cure these feelings of emptiness and the consequent loneliness that is experienced by the human self have presented panoply of solutions, usually gift-wrapped in various intellectual discourses. People struggle with each discourse, hoping that maybe one will, after all, be their stamped pass through the golden gateways of enlightenment. Time unwraps each solution and lays its contents bare. History stands as a graveyard, giving testimony to the inadequacy of the philosophical critiques and theoretical discourses of modernity and post-modernity. The world is still in a state of chaos and, within this existentialist milieu, human beings still question their solitary existence.

It seems that history has selected a fistful of people who deem themselves destined to step into the arena of intellectual combat, jumping to the rescue of humankind. The common man finds themselves in a literary laboratory where they are left to experiment with the latest medicines that have been prescribed for their affliction. In a desperate attempt to break free from the onslaught of isms hurled at us by the age of modernity and post-modernity, the intellectuals of our age have come up with a new literary concoction. The era of isms has ended. It is now the age of paradoxes. There is an increasing trend of juxtaposing ironies in the guise of facts and universal truths. Language is the best-seller in the market for dressing-up contradictions with such frills; one is often left so dazzled by the linguistic niceties that they are unable to detect any lacuna in the logic presented. People develop unique dictionaries for each of these. The logic presented for this discrepancy in the repertoire of every person is simple: each person’s world is made up of their distinct life experiences, their memories of the past and their imagination of the future, as well as their comprehension of the now and their plans of action for grappling with the present. Thus, the language one employs and the peculiar meaning it entails is contingent upon one’s very own, individual privé monad. It is these self-concocted dictionaries, composed of their distinct vernacular along with their numerous subtleties, which form one’s individual mental architecture by which the affairs of one’s life are orchestrated.

This novel concept of individual dictionaries rotates round and round the dining tables of the most “progressive” of humankind. People prize themselves as being part of what is now being hailed as a grand intellectual revolution. This revolution, it is believed, gives one the ability to guard one’s pristine exclusivity. Inherent within this exclusiveness of the individual self from the “other” is the championing of the self, and a sense of security prevails, giving humankind the assurance that the esoteric nature of our pristine binaries of right and wrong, true and false, beautiful and ugly make all that we do and say a private matter. And, some like to believe, within this privacy, within this unique sphere of personal space lays the epitome of freedom that humanity has ever been able to reach.

It is within this multiplicity of one’s private, peculiar lingua franca that they are able to ascribe meaning to their very existence. One’s conceptualization of the self and one’s ferocious defense of this newly-acquired perception of freedom are what form the basis of one’s interaction with those around them and the world that they live in. This sense of exclusivity leads to what Habermas has called a breakdown in “communicative action”-the absence of common relatable backgrounds to the extent that no one can any longer imagine being in another’s shoes. Without this mutual taking of perspective, the very precious element of human emotional intelligence that is known as “empathy” is automatically removed from many people’s dictionaries. Empathy is the same trait that makes a child burst into tears when another one cries in front of them, thinking that the pain is not the other’s but their own. This quality of being able to relate to, to actually understand and feel not only the other’s pain, but also their happiness, is what forms the main spring of the concept of rescue, a concept upon which entire literary laboratories have been established. If it were not for empathy, the demarcation between the self and the other would make it unimaginable for anyone to surmount those towering walls to rescue another; this would have been a thing of fairy tales and folklore. This is the point when an eagerly embracing the age of private dictionaries, with their golden masquerade of personal freedom, draws one actively into an intellectual maelstrom against the “other,” and against tolerance.

Confronted by such tempestuous times, when I look upon the glorious pasts of our ancestors in an attempt to find some point of reference that could aid in navigating, one string of events presents some relevant points to my argument. While growing up, my life, just as that of any other child who was growing up at the same time, was colored by numerous stories and legends. Over time, I managed to dust off images of flying horses and heroic men coming to the rescue of people who were being tortured by brutal potentates. But the more human memories have remained with me to this day. As a young child, I often saw my grandmother leave the house and walk over the next-door neighbors’ house with some delicious dish she had prepared. The visits had an almost ritualistic feel to them, since every single time some delectable dish was cooked and brought over to our house; I knew some of this would find its way to our house. On the occasions when I was allowed to accompany my grandmother on these visits, I would witness her place the dish on the table, and then either herself or the recipient would divulge some important piece of news, each launching off into a torrent of complaints and remarks about this, that and the other. On one such occasion, the meeting took a sudden unpleasant twist. I remember quite vividly that my grandmother severely rebuked one of our neighbors, a regular receiver of sweets and meals. The hot halawa lay on the table in front of her, sending off sweet enticing whiffs while both grownups were engaged in a heated verbal brawl. The point of contention was indecipherable to me, as grown-ups at that time had a way of skillfully employing a code language in front of children; perhaps this was part of an attempt to protect our innocence from being tarnished by the realities of adulthood. At the end of the quarrel, my grandmother apparently had the last word and made her way home with the hot dish of sweet-smelling food still sitting on the neighbor’s table. From that time onwards, there was a continuation of exchanges of harsh words over hot delicious meals or sweet mouth-watering delicacies. My young mind was at first befuddled and later exasperated by the on-going quarrel, the continuation of which was clearly contingent on the exchange of meals. I knew that all the trouble would effortlessly come to a halt if neither lady were to cross the fence that demarcated their house from the other. No ties of blood bound them and the cessation of any contact whatsoever would not have disrupted the routine of our lives. It was as simple as that.

What left my young mind baffled in the past was the persistence of my grandmother and our neighbor to maintain contact, despite the conflict; however, this makes sense to me now. People in the past had a more wholesome experience of life because it was framed within a sense of collectivity. Their dictionaries were not discrepant from others and they spoke a common language based on a certainty that their essence was unique to them not as individuals, but as an individual human race. It was their recognition of the unity of essence, shrouded within a multiplicity of existence, which enabled them to forge ties that were so tenacious. This notion of being united in essence, in their human proclivity to do good and believe in the Absolute Truth, was translated into their relationships and their persistent efforts to maintain relationships that had been forged willingly. The entire saga of my grandmother’s quarrels with the neighbor is intelligible to me now as a part of ongoing effort to remind her friend not to detract from this natural inclination towards goodness that was rooted within her very makeup as a human being. The whiffs of sweet-smelling treats were left as a message that her act of reprimanding her friend did not spring from a desire to claim a higher moral ground based on her own personalized set of rights or wrongs, but rather from an active concern for the community that she perceived herself to be a part of. The fact that the neighbor welcomed her at the door each time before the drama took place relates the moral pattern of people at that time, or at least within the confines of such interactions. It reflects a broad moral consensus of the entire neighborhood; they were actively involved in saving not just the one who was being wronged, but also the one who was doing wrong. Each person comprehended the fact that the underlying reason for the argument between the two found its source in the legacy of mutual concern, handed down to them from their elders. An active sense of empathy, of the fear that the wrong that was being committed today could be committed by them tomorrow, the fear that if it was not ended it would form a part of the legacy of their children, existed among these neighbors.

Today, people find a false sense of security in the notion of privacy and personal space. A sense of relief is felt that no busybody from the neighboring apartment will come knocking on the door, with the sense that the gift of a sole meal or a plate of sweets grants them the moral right to correct one’s wrongs or to criticize acts. One finds themselves comfortably ensconced in this preservation of private space and thus fails to recognize that the so-called privacy that is so aggressively guarded is actually shrinking with every passing day. In the past, at least one was able to walk down a street without having some person or another trying to sell them expensive means to look socially acceptable. But the case today is the total opposite of this. The alienation that is a direct cause of protecting what we now term “personal space” has curtailed our freedom to guard our natural proclivity towards goodness which connects us with humanity. The percolating sense of otherness and spreading intolerance are just two sides of the same coin.

The decisive factor in the above discussion is that no time is in and of itself golden. It is the people who are living at that time who cast it in varying hues, hues by which the future generations will remember them. Only if people could burst their own bubble which divides them from the other and embrace the unified proclivity towards Good and Absolute that is part of their human makeup, will they be able to live up to the moral responsibility that they have, not only towards themselves and their contemporaries, but also towards their future progeny. In this hour of need what we need is not another so-called glamorized intellectual revolution, but rather a grand intellectual revival of the human estimation of one’s own self. In my opinion, expensive intellectual laboratories and large think-tanks can help, but a revolutionary revivalism of that which can help us find a positive continuity with the past and a beneficial connection to the future could play a small start. The muddy hand of a child is enough to hold up a mirror to each and every one of us, shattering any claims of uniqueness or separateness. This brief muddy treasure will remind us of what we are made of and of what we mean to one another. Within this humbling realization, I believe, flickers a great hope.

Raaza Jamshed Butt has an MA degree in international relations from the International Islamic University, Malaysia.

True civilization is based on refining one’s manners, thoughts, feelings, and strengthening one’s willpower. Some identify civilization with dazzling advances and innovations in sciences and technology-from trains to spaceships, broad streets and skyscrapers to dams and nuclear power stations, telecommunication systems to electronics. But these are no more than means of an easy, luxurious life. Modern facilities can help “modernize” life’s outward appearance, bul this does not mean that people of that society are civilized.

It also provides an environment that encourages people to develop their potentialities. And truly civilized people are those who serve their community, in particular, and humanity, in general, according to the thoughts, feelings, and abilities developed and refined within that environment. Thus civilization is not to be sought in riches, luxury, and a comfortable life in large, richly furnished houses, or in production techniques and amounts of goods consumed, for such things are no more than elements of material pleasure and physical well-being. Rather, true civilization is to be found in purified thinking, refined manners and feelings, and sound views and judgments.

Civilization lies in people’s spiritual evolution and continuous self-renewal toward true humanity and personal integrity-to realizing their full potential as the “best pattern of creation.” People must realize that civilization is not, as some blind imitators of the West believe, something to be bought from a store and worn. Rather, it is a final destination that can be reached only by following a rational way passing through time and circumstances.

Civilization differs from modernism. Civilization means changing and renewing people’s views, ways of thinking, and personal habits; modernism means changing their lifestyles, pursuing physical pleasure, and developing living facilities. But many people are not aware of this distinction, for their generations have been bewildered with misused concepts and misled in their way of thinking. As a result, their belief, language, national ihonghts, morals, and culture have been corrupted.

Western people who enjoy technical facilities more than others, as well as the so-called Muslim intellectuals who consider themselves civilized and view others as uncivilized, commit an unforgivable sin against civilization and culture. Such people should know that just as civilizalion does not mean modernism, being an intellectual is quite different from being a school graduate. The number of true intellectuals who have not studied at an educational facility is not insignificant when compared to the numbers of high school or university graduates. Misusing such fundamental concepts may cause a long-lasting deception characterized by people confusing white with black, justice with injustice, enlightenment with ignorance, being intellectual with being ignorant, and civilization with savagery.

A community’s enlightenment and freedom from confused thoughts, expressions, and convictions require the existence of a group of true intellectuals-not just school graduates. A community must have specialists in different branches of science, but such people cannot enlighten it. That task can be achieved only by those true intellectuals who, in the awareness of their age, live at the level of the spirit, are awake to existence in soul and intellecl, and use their willpower in accordance with the truth’s dictates. By combining scientific truths with the Unseen’s inspirations in order to form an inextinguishable source of light, their souls and intellects are revived and they are able to open the way to their community’s revival through the messages they disseminate. Only such intellectuals can bring a true civilization into existence.

Every new civilization is born through attempts based on a unique love and belief. Without these two elements, it is impossible to talk about civilization. If despotic pressure or intervention are added to this lack of love, belief and zeal, even conquering space and discovering subatomic worlds will not be enough to found a civilization.

A community whose ordinary people have no belief, love, zeal, or feeling of responsibility, whose ordinary people live aimless lives unconscious of their true identity and unaware of the age and environment in which they live, cannot be considered civilized. Even if they have changed all their institutions, achieved a high standard of life, and adopted a “modern” lifestyle, they are not civilized. Civilizalion is an intellectual and spiritual phenomenon that has nothing to do with technology, dress and finery, furniture and luxuries. The bloodshed, continued but disguised colonialism, unending massacres and conflicts, unchanging human attitudes, unrefined manners, unenlightened intellectual life, as well as materialism’s dominance in science and worldviews and other signs of savagery, prove that neither the “developed” peoples nor their “developing” imitators have founded a true civilization.

It is unfortunate that some members of the intelligentsia in developing countries have mislead their people by letting them believe that modernizing their lifestyles-or “becoming totally dependent on Western countries”-would make them civilized. Such indigenous Westernized modernists do not hesitate to carry out what some Western countries “inspire” in their minds.

We hope that the world will witness true civilization once more. The signs of this civilization, which will be founded on belief, love, knowledge, and universal moral values, are already on the horizon. This sacred cause can be realized if the new generations that have undertaken it continue on their way with a strong belief, willpower, and ever-deepening resolve.

A: There are many worlds, among them those of plants, animals, people, and jinn. Our visible, material world addresses itself to our senses, and is the realm where God Almighty gives life, fashions, renews, changes, and causes things to die. Science concerns itself with its phenomena.

Above this world is the immaterial World of Divine Laws or Commands, the spirit’s home. To learn about this world, consider the following: A book cannot exist without meaning, the main part of its existence, regardless of our excellent printing press or paper. The essence of life and the law of germination and growth stimulate a tree’s seed to germinate underground and grow into a tree. In their absence, there would be no trees.

Menstruation prepares a womb every month for insemination through a (biological) law. Millions of sperm head for the womb, but only one fertilizes the ovum. Another (biological) law causes menstruation to stop until birth. An embryo develops into a person through other (biological or embryological) laws. The Qur’an says: We created man from a quintessence of clay. We then placed him as a drop in a place of rest firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure suspended on the wall of the womb, and then of that leech-like structure We made a chewed-like substance. Then We made out of that chewed-like substance bones (skeletal system). Then We clothed the bones with flesh (muscles). Then We developed out of it another creation. So blessed be God the best to create (23:12-15).

This process occurs within three veils of darkness: He created you in the wombs of your mothers, in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness (39:6). These are the belly, womb, and caul or membrane; the fetal membranes’ constituents; or the decidua’s three regions: the decidua basalis, decidua capsularis, and decidua parietalis. The verse includes all of these meanings.

We derive such laws from these processes’ almost never-changing repetition. Observing surrounding (natural) phenomena reveals other laws, among them gravitation and repulsion, and water’s freezing and vaporization.

The spirit also is a unique living and conscious law issuing from the World of Divine Laws or Commands: Say: The spirit is of my Lord’s Command (17:85) If the spirit had no life and consciousness, it would be a regular law; if a regular law had life and consciousness, it would become a spirit.

Science Cannot Define or Perceive the Spirit

All matter is composed of atoms, and atoms are made up of more minute particles. But the spirit is a simple, noncompound entity, invisible but knowable through its manifestations in this world. We accept its existence and see its manifestations, but cannot know its nature. Such ignorance, however, does not negate its existence.

We see with our eyes. Although the main center of sight is located in the brain, the brain does not see. You do not say: My brain sees, but rather: I see. But what is this I? Does it have a brain, a heart, and other organs and limbs? Why are we unable to move when we die, although all our organs and limbs are there? Does a factory operate by itself, or does something else (i.e., electricity) cause it to work?

Any disconnect between the factory and its electrical source can reduce the factory to a heap of junk. Is this comparable to the spirit“body relationship? When death severs this connection, the body must be disposed of quickly, before it begins to rot and decompose.

The spirit is not an electrical power, but rather a conscious, powerful thing that learns and thinks, senses and reasons. It develops continually, usually in parallel with the body’s physical development, as well as mentally and spiritually through learning and reflection, belief and worship. As the spirit determines a person’s character, nature, or identity, each person is unique, although all of us are created from the same elements.

The Spirit Needs Our Body

The spirit must use material means to be manifested and function here. As the body cannot contact the World of Symbols or Immaterial Forms, the spirit cannot contact this world if there is no human heart, brain, or other bodily organs and limbs to mediate. The spirit functions through the body’s nerves, cells, and other elements. Therefore, if bodily systems or organs go awry, the spirit becomes disconnected and unable to command the body. Death occurs if this failure or illness severs the spirit“body relationship. Some meaningless hand or finger movements can be produced by stimulating certain areas of the brain, but these are only automatic bodily responses. The body needs the spirit, which is conscious and has free will, to produce meaningful movements.

Although psychoanalysts have offered explanations for dreams, dreams cannot be said to consist of the subconscious mind’s jumbled activities. Almost everyone has had true dreams. Many scientific or technological discoveries were seen first in dreams. Therefore, dreams point to something”the spirit”within us that can see in a different way while we sleep. Although the spirit sees with our eyes, smells with our nose, hears with our ears and so on, some people can see with their fingers or the tips of their noses, and smell with their heels.

The Spirit and Our Face

Our face opens on our inner world, for it discloses our character. Psychologists assert that almost all movements reveal character. Such observations resulted in physiognomy, the art of judging character from facial features. The spirit determines these features.

Our body’s cells are renewed continuously. Every day, millions of cells die and are replaced. Biologists say that all bodily cells are renewed every 6 months, and yet the face’s main features do not change. We recognize individuals through their unchanging facial features and fingerprints. A finger’s cells change, but its print never does. Each individual’s unique spirit stabilizes these distinguishing features.

Our Spirit Makes Us Unique

Our body experiences uninterrupted change via physical growth and development until a certain period, gradually becoming stronger and more perfect. Decay begins when this growth stops. Unlike our body, we grow in learning and development, decay spiritually and intellectually, or stop and change direction while developing or decaying. Our moral, spiritual, and intellectual education does not depend on our bodily changes.

Furthermore, our physical structure does not affect our moral, spiritual, and intellectual differences. Although composed of the same elements, we are morally and intellectually unique. Which part receives this moral and intellectual education? Which part is trained physically? Is physical training related to learning or moral and intellectual education? Are physically well-developed people smarter and more moral than others? If not, and if physical training or development do not affect our scientific, moral, and intellectual level, why should we not accept the spirit’s existence? How can we attribute learning and moral and intellectual education to the brain’s biochemical processes?

Our physical changes engender no parallel changes in our character, morality, or thinking. How can we explain this, other than by recognizing the spirit and its function as the center of thinking and feeling, choosing and deciding, learning and forming opinions and preferences, and causing character differences?

Our Spirit Feels and Believes or Denies

Each person has innumerable complex feelings: love and hate, happiness and sadness, hope and despair, and so on. We like and dislike, appreciate and disregard, experience fear and timidity as well as encouragement and enthusiasm. We repent, become excited, and long for various things. We have hundreds of words that express human feelings. Moreover, we do not all feel the same way.

We may reflect on our surroundings, the beauty of creation, develop ourselves through learning, compare and reason, and thus believe in the Creator. Worshipping and following His Commandments develops us morally and spiritually until we are perfected. How can we explain this if we do not have a conscious spirit? Can we attribute them to the brain’s biochemical processes?

If we are no more than a physical entity and attribute all our movements to the brain’s biochemical processes, why should we obey any laws? As our body is renewed every 6 months, the following conversation would be entirely logical:

– Judge: When did you murder the deceased?

– Defendant: One year ago.

– Judge: The murder was committed a year ago. The defendant’s cells, including those of his trigger finger, have been replaced. As the actual murderer cannot be punished, the jury should vote for acquittal.

How can anyone be no more than a physical entity, made up of movements, feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and decisions due to the brain’s biochemical processes? Such assertions are untenable. The main part of our being is our living and conscious spirit, which feels, thinks, believes, wills, decides, and uses the body to enact its decisions.

The Spirit Is the Basis of Human Life

God acts in this world through causes. However, in many other worlds (e.g., those of ideas, symbols or immaterial forms, the inner dimensions of things, and spirits), He acts directly, and matter and causes do not exist. The spirit is breathed into the embryo directly, making it a direct manifestation of the Divine Name the All-Living and therefore the basis of human life. Like natural laws, which issue from the same realm as the spirit, the spirit is invisible and known through its manifestations.

In this world, matter is refined in favor of life. A lifeless body is lonely, passive, and static. But life enables a bee to interact with almost the entire world so that it can say: This world is my garden, and flowers are my business partners. The smaller a living body is, the more active, astonishing, and powerful life is. Compare a bee, a fly, or even a micro-organism with an elephant. The more refined matter is, the more active and powerful the body is. For example, burning wood produces flame and carbon, and heated water vaporizes. We cannot see the electrical energy in the atomic and subatomic worlds, but we know of its presence and power though its manifestations.

And so existence is not limited to this world. Rather, this world is only the apparent, mutable, and unstable dimension of existence, behind which lies the pure, invisible dimension that uses matter to be seen and known. As the spirit belongs to that dimension, it is pure and invisible.

The following arguments for the spirit’s existence also point to the Creator’s existence:

– Just as our body needs the spirit to command and govern it, the universe needs God to bring it into existence and to command and govern it.

– Each body has one spirit that makes it alive and governs it. So there must be a single Lord, without partner, to create and govern the universe. Otherwise, disaster and confusion are inevitable.

– The spirit is not located in a specific bodily place or part. It may even leave the body and, as while dreaming, maintain its connection via an attached cord. Likewise, God Almighty is not contained by time or space. He is always present everywhere and nowhere, whereas the spirit is in the body and contained by time and space.

– There is only one sun, and the world is far from it. However, the sun is omnipresent through its heat and light, and through its reflection can even be in every transparent thing. Therefore we say it is nearer to things than things are to themselves. The spirit has the same relation with the body and each cell. This analogy may help us understand God’s relation with existence. He controls and directs all things at once like one thing, and although we are infinitely far from Him, He is nearer to us than we are to ourselves.

– The spirit is invisible and its nature is unknown. In the same way, we cannot think of or imagine God as He really is, for His Essence cannot be known. Like the spirit, God Almighty is known through the manifestations of His Names, Attributes, and Essence.

Besides searching for new techniques to substitute man in the fields of labour, modern scientific inquiry is also directed to finding analogues for human mental activities. Since their assumption is that man is merely a physical-material entity (a complex of physical, biological and chemical processes) many scientists are hopeful that they can produce a complete copy of human functions. It is their assertion that since at least nothing in existing physical theories accounts for the existence of non-computable processes in the brain, all of man’s intellectual activities can be computed. However, Roger Penrose, the famous Oxford mathematician, argues against this assertion. He argues from Godel’s theorem which states that for every consistent formal system that has the power to do arithmetic, there will always be a true statement. That is, a formal system is a set of logical or computational rules; termed consistent if it never produces contradictory statements. Yet, as human beings can see that that statement is true, this constitutes a sign that our minds can go beyond the powers of any formal system. However, since Penrose himself (like many others who share his opinions) cannot free himself from the confines of (materialistic) physics and nothing in existing physical theories accounts for non-computable processes, in order to be able to find a physical foundation for his theory, he pins his hopes on future elaborations of the theory of quantum mechanics. In his attempt to explain human consciousness, Penrose notes that the biggest mystery of all is how electrical activity in the brain gives rise to the experience of consciousness. It is hard to understand why an inner life should arise from the mere enactment of a computation, no matter how complex. However, his alternative is not more convincing that what he rejects. He tries to explain human consciousness with quantum processes in microtubules – collapsing quantum wave functions (the mathematical functions describing the position and momentum of a particle) in protein structures found in the skeletons of neurons.

The main problem arises from accepting the physical body as the origin of all activities of mans intellect. The problem is also true for the expectations from Artificial Intelligence. Dr Aksoy has a simple but meaningful objection to the assumptions underlying those expectations: ‘A man-made system can be very smart and artificially very intelligent but no such system so far has been awarded a prize for its innovative abilities. It is the human being who made it who wins the prize. What is prized, what is of higher worth, is not the system but its maker or builder.’ Another more simple objection can be raised here. For example, after doing a spell-check on a word-processor. you may come across many mistakes which the software has not recognized. Any sentence can be written in several ways in which the words are correctly spelt but are not the words you intend to use. For example, if we type the sentence ‘What is prized is not the system but its maker or builder’ as ‘What is priced is not the system but its make or build’, most people who know the language will recognize it immediately and effortlessly as nonsense. But the software’s spell-check and grammar-check will pass the sentence as OK. Such examples can be multiplied for a great variety of tasks requiring experience and understanding which cannot be analogued or translated for Al machines but which humans cope with quite easily.

According to what we are asked to believe, the brain continually self-organizes, learns and adapts throughout our lives. Understanding how millions of neurons self-organize through non-linear feedback interactions requires that we have a full grasp of the mathematics of neural networks and of how this mathematics helps us to understand the link between brain and behaviour point to mention concerning man’s intellectual activities relates to the issue of learning and education.

Materialistic approaches attribute all of man’s intellectual activities to his brain. According to the theory of evolution, if taken literally, more developed animals must also be more developed in using their senses and faculties or their brains. But this is not the case. As Dr Yilmaz points out (‘Perfection and Primitiveness, The Fountain, Vol. 2, No. 19, p. 34), compared with a shark which can smell a drop of blood in the sea from a distance of about 25,000 feet, man is very much less developed. If we judge the degree of development according to the sense of smell, in place of men or monkeys, sharks will be at the top of the chain. Whereas, with respect to the sense of seeing, eagles are much more developed than sharks, as well as more than men and monkeys: an eagle can spot a rabbit on the ground from a height of about 6,000 feet. Would it not be true for a honey-bee to say of us: Those clumsy ones can draw with tools and only after calculations the hexagons that I can make so easily and exactly identical to one another. They cannot make so sweet and healing a substance as honey that 1 produce. Again, according to the literal logic of the theory of evolution, must a more developed animal not inherit the abilities of one less developed than itself? In this case, must man not have the abilities of all animals and must apes not have the abilities of all other animals ‘lower’ on the evolutionary ladder than themselves? Also, if man was evolved from apes, should the first man evolved not have inherited all the abilities and knowledge of all apes? However, we see that while all other animals are born as if educated and instructed already in all the information they will need to survive, man is born knowing next to nothing of what he needs to know to survive. And while all other animals come to the world with the same information or knowledge their predecessors had and there is negligible (if indeed any) difference between the amount of knowledge and abilities that the members of a species have, a man’s knowledge cannot be inherited by his progeny. Consequently, human beings vary hugely in their intellectual and artistic capacities and the amount or level of their knowledge.

Materialistic and evolutionist psychology consider learning either as a matter of behavioural patterning by reinforcement or the storage and use of knowledge. The first view is called behaviourism, while the latter cognitivisim. However, both are agreed that it is the brain or neural systems which learn. That is, the intellectual dimension of man’s being consists in his brain. They confuse how a man learns with what it is that does the learning. What they want us to believe with respect to man’s intellectual faculties is not different from defining how a factory works. According to their logic, it is the factory itself which built itself and works according to the laws pre-determined by either itself or the collective being of factories. Although they use personal pronouns such as ‘I’ or ‘You’ or We’ in referring to those who learn, speak, think, reason, decide and so on, forgetting that the brain does not know itself or what it is doing and also forgetting that it is we – humans – who study, speak about, comment on and even operate on the brain, they regard it as scientific to attribute all man’s intellectual activities and faculties, and therefore his conscious existence, to the brain, If that is so, why do we not concentrate our efforts merely on the brain and adjust it as a way of adjusting or educating individuals rather than go to the trouble and expense we currently go through to educate and bring our fellow members of society? Again, does attributing man’s intellectual activities to the brain mean that whatever man will need in life and also his desires, expectations, feelings, pains of the past and anxieties of the future, etc. were pre-encoded in his brain and that according to the situations or the stimuli coming from the outer world, the brain brings them forth as responses?

According to what we are asked to believe, the brain continually self-organizes, learns and adapts throughout our lives. Understanding how millions of neurons self-organize through non-linear feedback interactions requires that we have a full grasp of the mathematics of neural networks and of how this mathematics helps us to understand the link between brain and behaviour. Is it not compounding our ignorance to attribute to a heap of blind, deaf, ignorant flesh, blood and neurons unconscious of themselves, of their existence and what they are doing or why, all of man’s intellectual faculties and activities with all their complexity, all of our consciousness and culture, religious life? Does this make sense? And does not doing so entail a denial of man’s free will? Although some psychologists such as Tolman and Kohler are of the opinion that at least in some cases learning appears to be purposeful and animals and people have an awareness of what is being acquired and they actively interpret the stimuli they sense from the environment, since they too attribute this to the brain by asserting that there must be more than one system in the brain involved in learning, the point on which all materialistic approaches are agreed (consciously or unconsciously) is that man is an animal whose acts consist in the automatic responses of his brain, an animal that has no free will to direct and control his life.

The activity of learning is remarkably easy as both behaviourists or cognitivists assert. Yet it is nevertheless extremely complex. Besides senses, many human faculties such as imagination, conceptualization, reasoning, comparing, retaining, remembering, confirming and conviction, have a share in it. Each of these faculties give its colour to what is learnt. For example, only imagination gives rise to falsehoods, while conceptualization is ambiguous as to what passes through it. Reasoning does not have an established view of what comes to it, while capable of confirming partiality or prejudices pleasing to the one doing the reasoning. Surely the materialistic approach has no right to that degree of conviction achieved by impartial reasoning and study of real evidence and which is worthy to be called scientific knowledge. Rather, what materialist and evolutionist psychologists suggest may only be the product of imagination or partial (i.e. biased) reasoning.

Bibliography 

• KOHLER, W. (1925) The Mentality of Apes. Translated by E. Winter, New York.
• CRICK, Francis (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, Charles Scribners Sons. PENROSE, Roger (1994) Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford University Press.
• PENROSE,Roger(1994)Shadows of the Mind:A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness,Oxford University Press.
• AKSOY, M.S. (1993) ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Different Approach, The Fountain, Oct.-Nov, 1993, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp.9-11

The norms and assumptions that have characterised belief and action in Islam have their initial inspiration in two fundamental sources. One is scriptural, embodying the message revealed by God to the Prophet Muhammad (d.632), upon him be peace, and recorded in the Quran. The second is the exemplification of this message in the pattern or norm derived from the Prophet’s actions and precepts, collectively called the Sunna. Muslims regard the Qur’an as the ultimate closure in a series of revelations to humankind from God, and the Sunna as the historical projection of a divinely inspired and guided human life.

In one of the chapters of Qur’an, entitled al-Furqan (the Criterion: Chapter 25), revelation – addressed to all humankind — becomes the point of reference for distinguishing right from wrong:

Blessed be He Who sent down the criterion (of right and wrong, i.e. this Qur’an) to His servant (Muhammad) that he may be a warner to mankind. He to Whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and Who has begotten no son and for Whom there is no partner in the dominion. He has created everything, and has measured it exactly according to its due measurement (25.1-2).

The same chapter goes on to give examples of past Prophets and Messengers (many referred to in the Bible also) and their role as mediators of God’s word to their respective societies.

The Sunna is a necessary source of knowledge for Muslims as Muhammad is described in the Qur’an as ‘a fine example’ and one who possesses ‘high moral excellence’:

In the Messenger of God (Muhammad) you have a good example to follow for him who hopes for (the Meeting with) God and the Last Day and remembers God much. (al-Ahzab, 33.21)

… you (0 Muhammad) are on an exalted standard of character. (al-Qalain, 68.4)

As the secondary source of knowledge, the Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad, the written record or text of the Sunna) are to be relied upon on the authority of God’s saying in the Quran:

By the star when it goes down. Your companion (Muhammad) is neither astray nor being misled. Nor does he speak from out of (his own) desire. It is no less than Inspiration sent down to him. (al-Najni, 53.1-4).

The necessary elements of the creed of Islam are defined in the Quran (al-Baqara, 2.177) as belief in God, the Angels, the Books (Scriptures), the Prophets, the Last Day, the qadar (destiny) or the faith that, good and bad, everything is originally from God-that is, God is the Creator of all men and their actions whether good or bad, and the genuine source of all good.

For the derivation of legal principles and rulings, Quran and Hadith are supported by ijma, the consensus of scholars on behalf of community, and by qiyas, reasoning by analogy, when no explicit and specific ruling can be found in the texts.

The human quality that encompasses the concept of ideal ethical value in the Qur’an is summed up in the term taqwa, which in its various forms occurs over two hundred times in the text. It represents, on the one hand, the moral grounding that underlies human action, while on the other, it signifies the ethical conscience which makes human beings aware of their responsibilities to God and society. Applied to the wider social context taqwa becomes the distinguishing mark of a truly moral community:

O humankind! We have created you out of male and female and constituted you into different groups and societies, so that you may come to know each other-the noblest of you, in the sight of God, are the ones possessing taqwa. God is the All-Knowing, the All-Aware. (al-Hujurat, 49.13)

The Quran affirms the different dimensions of human individual and social life-the material as well as the spiritual-but these aspects are not seen in conflictual terms, nor is it assumed that spiritual goals should predominate in a way that devalues material aspects of life. The Qur’an, affirming the complementarity of the two, asserts that human conduct and aspirations have relevance as acts of faith within the wider human, social and cultural contexts. It is in this sense that the idea that Islam embodies a total way of life can best be understood.

In the Qur’an Jews and Christians are referred to as ‘People of the Book. While recognizing the particularity of the Muslim community and its preeminent status, the Qur’an encourages a wider respect for difference and otherness in human society, while favouring common moral goals over mutually divisive and antagonistic attitudes:

We sent Jesus, son of Mary confirming the Torah that had come before him, and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirmation of the Torah that had come before it, a guidance and an admonition for the pious. Let the people of the Gospel judge by what God has revealed therein. And whosoever does not judge by what God has revealed (then) such (people) are the rebellious to God. And We sent down to you (0 Muhammad) the Book (this Quran) in truth, confirming the Scripture that came before it and muhayminan (trustworthy in excellence and in witness) over it (old Scriptures). So judge between them by what God has revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging away from the truth that has come to you, We have prescribed law and a clear way. If God willed, He would have made you one nation, but that (He) may test you; so strive as in a race in good deeds. The return of you (all) is to God; then He will inform you about that in which you used to differ. (al-Ma ‘ida, 5.46-8)

For Muslims, the message of the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet’s life remain inseparably related through all of history as paradigms for moral and ethical behaviour. They formed the basis for Muslim thinkers subsequently to develop legal tools for embodying moral imperatives. The elaboration of legal sciences led to a codification of norms and statutes that gave form to the concept of law in Islam, generally referred to as the Shari’a. Muslim conquest and expansion resulted in contact with cultures whose intellectual heritage was in time selectively appropriated by Muslims, then refined and further developed. The integration of the intellectual and philosophical legacies of ancient Greece, India and Persia among others, created conditions and a tradition of intellectual activity that would lead to the cosmopolitan and pluralist character of an emerging Islamic civilisation. Christian and Jewish scholars, who had already encountered the above legacies in varying degrees, played a crucial mediating role as ‘translators, particularly since they were also aware that the moral disposition of Muslims, like their own, was shaped by common monotheistic conceptions based on Divine command and revelation. The term adab has come to be used to denote the wide-ranging moral, ethical, intellectual and literary discourse that emerged.

The integration of the philosophical legacy of antiquity in the Islamic world was a major enabling factor in the use of philosophical tradition among Muslim intellectuals. It gave rise to figures such as al-Farabi, Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Ibn Rushd (Averroes), al-Ghazali and others, who became well-known to medieval Europe as philosophers, commentators and exponents of the classical tradition going back to Plato and Aristotle. The Muslim philosophical tradition of ethics is therefore doubly significant: for its value in continuing and enhancing classical Greek philosophy and for its commitment to synthesising Islam and philosophical thinking.

Al-Farabi (d. 950) argued for harmony between the ideals of religious virtue and the goals of a true polity The greater the wisdom and virtue of the rulers and the citizens, the greater the possibility of attaining the true goal of philosophy and religion-contentment in this and the next world.

Ibn Sina (d. 1037) developed the argument that the Prophet embodies the totality of virtuous action and thought, the best of which is reflected in the attainment of moral virtue. The establishment of justice, in Ibn Sina’s view, is the basis for all human good. The combination of philosophy arid religion enables harmonious living in both this world and in the hereafter.

Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) stressed the importance of conformity to the religious law, but even more the inner spiritual dimension. In his ‘The Incoherence of The Philosophers’, he tried to show that the philosophers were self contradictory and anti-scriptural, and that, in some cases, they ended up affirming heretical beliefs. He stressed the importance of sabr (perseverance in hardship, patient endurance and resignation to God’s decrees), tawakkul (absolute trust in God) and dhikr (constant remembrance of God).

The various Muslim philosophers in their extension and occasional revision of earlier classical notions linked ethics to theoretical knowledge, which was to be acquired by rational means. Since human beings were rational, the virtues and qualities that they embraced and practised were seen as furthering the ultimate goal of individuals and community. This goal was the attainment of happiness.

The practice and influence of the diverse ethical heritage in Islam has continued in varying degrees among Muslims in the contemporary world. There is growing self-consciousness about identification with that past heritage and a recognition of the need to adapt to changing circumstances and a globalization of human society. They must take into account the diversity and pluralism that has marked the Muslims of the past as well as the present.

As Nanji has pointed out, because the modern conception of religion familiar to people in the West assumes a formal separation between specifically religious and perceived secular activity, certain aspects of contemporary Muslim discourse, which does not accept such a separation, appear strange and often retrogressive. Nanji went on to argue that, in the pursuit of a vision that will guide Muslims in decisions and choices about present and future ethical matters, the most important challenge may be not simply to formulate a continuity and dialogue with their own past ethical underpinning but, like the Muslims of the past, to remain open to the possibilities and challenges of new ethical and moral discoveries.

References and Further Reading 

• Dar, BA. (1960) Qur’anic Ethics, Institute of IslamicCulture, Lahore.
• Johnstone, P. ‘Islamic Ethics’ in MacQuarry, J. & Childress, J. (eds) New Dictionary of Christian Ethics, Westminster Press, London. pp.314-6.
• Nanji, A. (1993) ‘Islamic Ethics’, in Singer, P. (ed.) A Companion to Ethics, Blackwell, Oxford, pp.106-20. 

1. Although sciences are not yet ready to accept it, there are, besides the subdivisions in a world – like the worlds of planets, animals and human beings (vegetable kingdom, animal kingdom and human kingdom) and the world of jinn, many worlds in the universe one within the other or above or enveloping the other. Of these worlds, the visible, material world is that in which we live, addressing itself to our senses. From tiniest particles to galaxies, this world is the realm where God Almighty gives life, fashions, renews, changes and makes to die. Sciences concern themselves with the phenomena of this world.

Above this visible, material world is the immaterial world of Divine Laws or Commands. In order to have some knowledge of this world, we can consider, for example, how a book or a tree or a human being comes into existence. The main part of a book’s existence is it’s meaning. Without meaning, it is impossible for a book to come into existence, no matter how excellent a printing machine or how many sheets we have. As a second example, what stimulates a seed to germinate under earth and grow into a tree is the essence of life and the law of germination and growth with which it is endowed. We can observe even with the naked eye the germination of the seed and the development of a tree from it. But for the essence of life and the laws of germination and growth which, although invisible or unobservable, govern the birth and growth of a new living thing, there would have been no plants in the world.

Similarly, through menstruation, the womb of a female is prepared every month for insemination. This is a process dictated by a (biological) law. Out of millions of mate sperms heading for the womb, one reaches the ovum to fertilize it. After this, menstruation stops until birth. This is another process governed by another (biological) law. The development of the embryo into a new individual through many stages is a third process governed by other (biological or embryological) laws. We conclude the existence of all those laws from almost never-changing repetition of all those processes. Likewise, by observing the (natural) phenomena around us, we also conclude the existence of many other laws like gravitation and repulsion and the freezing or vaporization of water.

Thus, like the laws we have just mentioned and many others like them the spirit too is a law issuing from the world of Divine Laws or Commands. Nevertheless, unlike the others, the human spirit is also a living, conscious law. If the spirit were to be stripped of life and consciousness, it would become a law: if on the other hand, the laws were to be given life and consciousness, they would become each a spirit.

2. While matter or anything in the material world is composed of atoms and atoms are made up of more minute particles, the spirit is a simple entity. Since it is simple, it does not disintegrate. We cannot see it as we see a material thing; we know it through its manifestations in the material world. Although we accept its existence and observe its manifestations, we cannot know its nature. Our ignorance of something’s nature must not mean that it does not exist.

We see with our eyes. In other words, our eyes are simply instruments with which to see. The main centre of sight is in the brain. However, it is not the brain itself which sees. You do not say ‘my brain sees’, but you say ‘I see’. It is we who see or hear or sense. But who is it that we call ‘I’? Is it something that is composed of a brain, a heart and other organs and limbs? Why can we not move when we die although all our organs and limbs are there? How does a factory work? Does it work by itself or does some other thing such as what we call electrical energy move it to work? Any defect or something wrong with the factory which causes a disconnection between the factory and the electrical energy is enough to reduce a whole, once highly productive, valuable factory into a heap of junk. Should this relation between the factory and the electrical energy be, in one way, comparable to that between the spirit and the body?

When the connection of the body with the spirit is cut-the event which we call death-the body is reduced to something which we do not like to keep even a few hours more because it will rot and decompose.

Of course, the spirit is not an electrical power. It is a conscious, powerful thing, which is apt to learn and which thinks, senses and reasons, and continually develops, usually in parallel with the physical development of the body, mentally and spiritually, through learning, meditation, belief and worship. It is also the spirit which determines the character or nature or identity of an individual which makes one different or distinguishable from others. Although all human beings, from the first to the last, are substantially made up of the same elements, they are all different from one another in character, nature and features, down to fingerprints. Thus, what determines this difference is the spirit.

3. The spirit is a simple entity which issues from the World of Divine Commands. In order to be manifested and function in the material, visible world, it needs material means. As the body is unable to get in touch with the world of symbols or immaterial forms, the spirit can not establish any contact with this world without the mediation of the heart, the brain and other organs and limbs of the body.

The spirit functions, as we have just said, through all the nerves, cells and other elements of the body. Therefore, if something wrong happens to a system or organ of the body the relation of the spirit with that system or organ is disconnected and the spirit can no longer command it. If the failure or ‘illness’ causing the disconnection is big enough to cut the relation of the spirit with the whole of the body, the event which we call death happens.

Although some coarse, meaningless movements are observed in hands or fingers as the result of stimulating certain areas of the brain, those movements are like some confused, meaningless sounds produced by pressing the keys of a piano at random. Or rather, those movements are some automatic responses of the body to any stimulation, coming about as the result of the automatic working of the body. Therefore, in order that the body can produce meaningful movements, it needs the spirit, which is conscious and has free will.

Although pyscho-analysists like Freud have tried to make different explanations, dreams cannot be said to consist only in jumbled activities of the subconscious self. Almost everyone has had several dreams which have brought news of the future and have come true. Also, many scientific or technological discoveries have taken place as the result of ‘true’ dreams. So as will be discussed later, dreams point to the existence of a part of man which can see in a different way while man himself is sleeping. This part is the spirit.

Although the spirit sees with eyes, smells with noses, hears with ears and so on, there is a considerable number of examples of people who have demonstrated an ability to see with their fingers or the tips of their noses and smell with their heels.

4. The spirit manifests itself mostly on the face. Truly, one’s face is a window opened on ones inner world. Through all its features, one’s face discloses one’s character.

Psychologists assert that almost all one’s movements down to coughing reveal one’s character. However, one’s face is so clear a sign to discover one’s character, abilities and personality that it caused the birth of an art called physiognomy, which is the art of judging one’s character from the features of one’s face. It is one’s spirit which determines the features of one’s face.

As is known, the cells of the body are continuously renewed. Everyday millions of cells die and are replaced by new ones. Biologists say that the whole of the cells forming the body are renewed every six months. Despite this continuous renewal the face remains unchanging with it’s main features. We recognize individuals through those unchanging features of their faces. Likewise, one’s fingerprints also remain unchanging. Neither the renewal of the cells of the fingers nor the injuries or bruises the singers suffer can cause the fingerprints to change. It is again one’s spirit, different from all other spirits, which secures the stability of ones basic distinguishing features.

5. The body undergoes an uninterrupted change during its whole lifetime. This change is toward physical growth and development until a certain period, becoming stronger and more perfect. However, this growth stops at a certain point and decay begins. Unlike these changes, first toward growth and development and then toward decay and death, a man can continuously grow in learning and he can also continuously develop or may decay spiritually and intellectually or while developing or decaying he may stop at any point and then change his direction.That means his moral, spiritual and intellectual education does not depend at all on his bodily changes. Also, the moral, spiritual and intellectual differences among human beings have nothing to do with their physical structure. Although every human being is composed of the same substantial physical or material elements, what is it that causes the moral and intellectual differences among them? What part of man receives moral and intellectual education and what part of him is trained physically? Does physical training bear any relation to learning and moral and intellectual education? Can we say that the more a man is trained physically, the more he becomes developed in learning and morality? If we cannot say so, and if physical training has nothing to do with one’s scientific, moral and intellectual level, why should we not accept the existence of the spirit and how could we attribute learning and moral and intellectual education to some bio-chemical processes in the brain?

Also, we have mentioned that man undergoes a continuous physical change, first toward growth and then toward decay, and the cells of his body are renewed every six month. But he does change, in parallel to those changes, in character and morality and thinking. Again how can we explain, other than by admitting the existence of the spirit as the centre of thinking, feeling, making choices and decisions, and learning, the differences of opinion and preference among human beings and the differences in their characters.

Furthermore, man is a being who has innumerable complex feelings. He loves or hates, rejoices or becomes grieved, feels happy or sad, hopes or becomes desperate, cherishes ambitions and imagines, and feels relieved or bored, and so on. Also, he likes or dislikes, appreciates or disregards, and he fears and becomes or he becomes timid or he becomes encouraged and feels enthusiastic, and he repents, becomes excited and longs. If we look through a dictionary, we can come across hundreds of words used to express man’s feelings. Besides, he may reflect on events happening around him or on beauties in creation and develops in learning. He also makes comparisons and reasons, and then comes to believe in the Creator of all things. Then through worship and by following His Commandments, he develops morally and spiritually and becomes a perfect man. So how can we explain all these phenomena other than by admitting the conscious part of man, which is his spirit. Can we attribute them to chemical processes in the brain?

6. If we regard man as a physical entity only, made up of blood, bones, flesh and tissues, and attribute all his movements to biochemical processes in the brain, we should not recognize any set of laws to obey. For as we have said earlier, a man’s body is renewed every six months. Suppose a man is being tried in a court for a murder he committed a year before. The following exchange ensues between him and the judge:

– When did you commit that crime?

– A year ago.

The judge announces the verdict:

‘Since the murder was committed a year ago and the cells of this man who is accused of committing it, including those of his fingers which pulled the trigger, were completely replaced with new ones, and therefore since it is impossible to punish the one who committed the murder, the jury has decided on his acquittal.

So, man is not solely a physical entity and his movements, feelings, thoughts, beliefs and decisions are not the result of biochemical processes in his brain. The main part of man’s being is his spirit, which is alive and conscious, and which feels, thinks, believes, wills, decides and which commands the body. The body is the instrument of the spirit, which the spirit uses to put its decisions into action.

7. As was pointed out earlier, God acts in the material, visible world behind the veil of causes. However, besides this one, there are many other worlds or realms like the world of ideas, the world of symbols or immaterial forms, the world of the inner dimensions of things and the world of spirits, where God acts directly and which have nothing to do with matter and causes. The spirit is breathed into the embryo directly without the mediation of causes. It is a direct manifestation of the Divine Name, the All-living, and therefore the basis of human life. Like ‘natural’ laws, which issue from the same realm from which the spirit is sent, the spirit is invisible and known through its manifestations.

In this world, matter is refined in favour of life. A lifeless body, no matter how big it is, like a mountain, is lonely, passive and static. But, life enables a body the size of a bee, for example, to enter into transactions or business with almost the whole world and causes it to go as far as saying: ‘This world is my garden and flowers are my business partners? The smaller a living body is the more active, astonishing and powerful life is. You can compare a bee, a fly or even micro-organisms with an elephant. Also the more refined matter is the more active and powerful a body is. For example, when wood burns, it produces flames and carbon. When heated, water vaporizes. We come across electrical energy in the atomic or subatomic world. We cannot see electrical energy but we can come to know how powerful it is though its manifestations. That means existence does not consist in the visible, material world. Rather, this world is only the apparent, mutable and unstable dimension of existence. Behind it lies the pure invisible dimension, which uses matter to be seen and known. Thus, the spirit belongs to that dimension and is therefore pure and invisible.

8. The arguments for the existence of the spirit also point to the existence of the Creator. They are as follows:

a. Just as the body, which God creates from elements, needs the spirit to command and govern it, the universe, with everything in it, needs God to bring it into existence and to command and govern it.

b. There is a single spirit for a single body to make it alive and govern it. So, there must be a single Lord, with no partners to create and govern the universe. Otherwise, disorder and confusion would be inevitable.

c. We cannot say that the spirit is in any place or part of the body. It is not contained in a specific place in the body. It may even leave the body but, as is the case with dreams, continues its relation with the body by means of a cord special to it. Likewise, God Almighty is not contained by time or space; although He is always present everywhere. He is nowhere. However, the spirit is in the body and therefore contained by space.

d. The sun is one and the world is very distant from it. But the sun is present everywhere in the world through its heat and light and its image may even be in every transparent thing in the world. Therefore, it may be said that the sun is nearer to things than things themselves. Similarly, the spirit has the same relation with the whole of the body as well as with all of the cells separately at the same time. This may be an analogy to understand God’s relation with the existence. He controls and directs all things at the same time like a single thing and although we are infinitely distant from Him, He is nearer to us than ourselves.

e. The spirit is invisible and its nature is unknown to us. Likewise, however we think of or imagine God, He is different from it. His Essence cannot be known at all. Like the spirit, God Almighty is known through the manifestations of His Names, Attributes and Essence.

9. The body is not the cover of the spirit. Rather, the spirit has a cover or envelope of itself and when it leaves the body at death, it is not left naked, without a cover. This cover is like the ‘negative’ of the material body and called by various names such as the envelope of light, ethereal figure of man, energetic form, second body of man, astral body, the double (of man) and phantom. The picture of this body can be taken through Kirlian photography. In the pictures taken through this kind of photography, even amputated limbs can be seen.

What is giftedness?

We should begin by realizing that giftedness is a particular degree or concentration of innate qualities such as arc given to every child by his or her Creator, a fact emphasized in several verses of the Qur’an, for example:

It is He who brought you forth from the wombs of your mothers when you knew nothing; and He gave you hearing and sight and intelligence and affections: that you may give thanks (al-Nahl, 16.78).

It is He who has created for you hearing, sight, feeling and understanding: little thanks you give (al Mu’minun, 23.78).

The counterpart to recognizing the special giftedness of a particular child is to recognize our special debt of gratitude for that giftedness, together with an understanding of the challenges and responsibilities which that debt brings with it.

Indicators of giftedness

It is important for parents to be fully aware of the ways in which giftedness can be manifested. There are a number of typical characteristics listed by authorities on the subject. No individual child is likely to be outstanding in all the ways indicated on the list.

1. Shows superior reasoning powers and marked ability to handle ideas, has outstanding problem-solving ability.
2. Shows persistent intellectual curiosity, asks searching questions, shows exceptional interests in the nature of man and the universe.
3. Has a wide range, of interests often of an intellectual kind; develops one or more interests to a considerable depth.
4. Is noticeably superior in quality and quantity of vocabulary, in speech and/or in writing.
5. Reads eagerly and absorbs books well beyond his or her years.
6. Learns quickly and easily and retains what is learned, recalls important details, concepts and principles; comprehends readily.
7. Shows creative ability or imaginative expression in such things as music, art, drama, shows sensitivity and fitness in rhythm, movement, and body control.
8. Shows insight into arithmetical problems that require careful reasoning and grasps mathematical concepts easily
9. Sustains concentration for lengthy periods and shows outstanding responsibility and independence in doing classroom work.
10. Sets realistically high standards for him or herself, is self- critical in evaluating and correcting his or her own efforts.
11. Shows initiative and originality in intellectual work; shows flexibility in thinking and considers problems from a number of viewpoints.
12. Observes keenly and is responsive to new ideas
13. Shows social poise and an ability to communicate with adults in a mature way.
14. Takes pleasure in intellectual challenges; shows an alert and subtle sense of humour.

It should be kept in mind that it is neither admirable nor contemptible to be gifted. It is what one does with one’s abilities that is important. Throughout the parenting years, it is wise to accept that the healthiest long-term goal is not necessarily a child who gains fame, fortune and a Nobel Prize, but one who becomes a contented adult able to use his or her gifts productively.

Throughout childhood and early adolescence, we must provide the environment in which gifted children can flourish. We can do this by trying to:

be responsive to the unusual questions the children ask;

be respectful of the children’s unusual ideas or solutions by listening to them without bias, as the children will see many relationships that their parents and teachers miss;

encourage the children to test their ideas by using them and communicating them to others;

ensure that the children can learn, think and discover without the threat of immediate evaluation or prejudgement.

Education of gifted children

Effective nurturing of giftedness in children and adolescents requires a co-operative partnership between home and school, one that is characterized by mutual respect and an ongoing sharing of ideas and observations about the children involved.

Because gifted children may begin school already knowing much of the material covered in early grades and because they learn quickly, some type of acceleration is necessary. For some children and in some situations, grade skipping is the best choice. Placing a child with older children with similar interests may be socially and intellectually beneficial and result in a more appropriate curriculum.

The following strategies, suggested in a Gifted Leadership Conference in Washington. illustrate how bridges in thinking can be built between giftedness and education.

1. Gifted students should spend the majority of their school days with others of similar abilities and interests.
2. Cluster grouping of students within an otherwise mixed class can he considered where schools are unable to support a full time programme for gifted individuals.
3. In the absence of a full time programme for gifted individuals, students might be offered specific group instruction across grade levels, according to their individual knowledge acquisition in school subjects.
4. Gifted students, individually or in groups, should be given experiences involving a variety of appropriate acceleration-based options.
5. All students should be given experiences which involve various terms of enrichment that extend the regular school curriculum, leading to the more complete development in their minds of concepts, principles, and generalizations.
6. Mixed-ability co-operative learning groups should be used sparingly, perhaps only for the development of social skills.
7. All staff should be trained to identify and provide appropriate curricula for gifted students.
8. We should eliminate the ceiling on learning (in other words, if a student is ready to learn algebra in 5th grade, the system should not just permit but support it.).
9. Computers can be used to keep up with the students’ pace. They are patient and will hold on to an idea for a long time. Computers can do more complex tasks when the students are ready to use them in more complex ways, and they can provide information when the student is ready for it.

Career planning for the gifted

Although parents and teachers may be concerned about academic planning for gifted children, they often assume that career planning will take care of itself. The student is simply expected to make a career choice around the last year of college and then follow through on the steps necessary to attain that goal.

Unfortunately, there is growing evidence that youthful brilliance in one or more areas does not always translate into adult satisfaction and accomplishment in working life. Studies have shown that the path from education to career is not always smooth, and it may be complicated by the fact that the social-emotional problems and needs of gifted students differ from those of more typical students.

Young gifted people between the ages of II and 15 frequently report a range of problems as a result of their abundant gifts: perfectionism, competitiveness, unrealistic appraisal of their gifts, rejection from peers, confusion due to mixed messages about their talents, and parental and social pressures to achieve, as well as problems with unchallenging school programmes or increased expectations. Some encounter difficulties in finding and choosing friends and, eventually, a career. The developmental issues that all adolescents encounter exist also for gifted students, yet they are further complicated by the special needs and characteristics of being gifted. Once counselors and parents are aware of these obstacles, they seem better able to understand and support gifted adolescents. Caring adults can assists these young people to ‘own’ and develop their talents by understanding, responding to adjustments and challenges and coping with strategies.

Conclusion

Bringing up a gifted child may be ecstasy, agony and everything in between. Adults must perform almost impossible feats of balance – supporting a child’s gifts without pushing, valuing without over-investing, championing without taking over. It is costly, physically and emotionally draining, and intellectually demanding. In the first flush of pride, few parents realize that their task is in many ways similar to the task faced by parents of a child with severe handicaps. Our world does not accommodate differences easily, and it matters little whether the difference is perceived to be a deficit or an overabundance.

The most important help you can give your gifted child or children can be expressed in a single sentence: give them a safe home, a refuge where they feel loved, and genuine acceptance, particular of their differences. As adults who enjoyed such a safe home background, they should be able to put together lives of productivity and fulfilment.

USEFUL READING

• BERGER, S. (1989) College Planning for Gifted Students, The Council for Exceptional Children Reston, VA.
• COX, J., DANIEL, N. & BOSTON, B. (1985) Educating Able Learners, University of Texas Press, Austin TX.
• FREDERICKSON, R.H. & ROTHNAY, J.W.M. (1992) Recognizing and Assisting Multipotential Youth, Columbus, OH: Merril.
• KERR, B. (1985. September) ‘Raisins, the Career Aspirations of the Gifted’, The Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 32, pp. 37-43.
• KAUFMAN, F. (1988) ‘Mentors Provide Personal Coaching’,Gifted Child Monthly, 9(l), pp.I-3.