Aromatherapy involved inhaling pleasant smells and is a non-medicinal form of treatment for various psychological disorders. A nice smell triggers hormones of happiness (serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphin) and helps overcome depression by stimulating the brain. A smell disorder is a malfunction that might even indicate neurological and psychological illnesses. One of the most crucial parts of the brain that is impacted by Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s is the region that specializes in sense of smell. We mostly fail to notice what a blessing it is to be able to smell until we lose it. Otherwise, we are exposed to thousands of different smells every day.

Even minor issues with the nose can cause major inconveniences. Nasal congestion lessens the quality of everyday life: it is hard to sleep with a congested nose; even if you manage to fall sleep, the quality of sleep drops significantly.

The magnificent functions of the nose are as follows:

1. Sense of smell enables us to identify beneficial and harmful things and keep away from harmful ones. The nose helps spread the feeling of peace and happiness produced by nice smells that influence the spirit through the brain (olfaction).
2. The nose helps protect the respiratory passage from diseases by moistening and heating the inhaled air as it is carried to the lungs and cleaning foreign objects from the lungs with the mucus it secretes (inspiration and regulation).
3. It regulates the resonance of sound vibrations formed in the vocal cords, thereby virtually acting as loudspeakers (phonation).

These functions are miraculous, and yet we never contemplate them or their perfect engineering.

The nose: our body’s air-conditioning device

Before inhaled air reaches our lungs, it passes a turbulent current through the nose, which is by all means a perfect air-conditioning device and air filter.

Air that enters the nasal cavities through the nostrils flows through inner nasal canals to the nasopharynx (upper-frontal pharynx). It then flows down the pharynx to the larynx and finally to the lungs. Inside the nostrils are hairs that trap and filter dust, sand, pollen, and little bugs. Cleaned of these particles, air then passes through canals (meatus), which are anatomical engineering wonders in each nostril, and over turbinal structures (conchae) (Figure 1).

The exterior of these scroll-shaped canals in the nasal cavity are lined with a moist layer that secretes the fluid called mucus. Thanks to the magnificent architecture of the air conditioning chimney made up of these canals and folds, particles of dust are retained by this mucosa membrane. On this membrane there are also thin hairs (cilia) which constantly wave to and fro. This movement carries particles of dust not toward the lungs but toward the nostrils, which are then expelled when the person sneezes or blows the nose. If it were not for this precisely built structure, the inhaled air would directly go to the lungs without undergoing cleaning.

The inner working of the nose also heat or cool air, as necessary. The mucosa that lines the inside of the nose is rich in capillaries and mucus secretion. As inhaled air travels through the nose, it both warms up by absorbing heat from the blood in the mucosa veins and gains moisture by absorbing it from the mucosa. For example, when a person inhales through air from a room where the temperature is 20-22°C (68-71°F), the air heats up to 32-35°C (89-95°F) and becomes 95-98% moist by the time it reaches the larynx. If the same person breathes in through the mouth in the same room, the inhaled air can warm only up to 28–30°C (82-86°F) and reach a moisture point of 80-85%.

Without the nose, air would not be heated, moistened, and purified. The dusty, dirty, or cold air we inhale would directly go to the lungs, which would cause frequent illnesses in them and the upper respiratory tract.

How do we smell?

The nose is created with the ability to distinguish about ten thousand different smells. Its magnificent architecture is a perfect means of transport that facilitates the sense of smell in our brain, which is the real center of smell in our body. As this sense of smell function in our body, we take pleasure out of it in our soul.

The “smell molecules” communicated through the air first reach the receptors in the “olfactory epithelium” in the upper region of the nose that is equipped with a multitude of nerve cells. The stimulus that is converted into an electrical signal in this epithelium is conveyed to the smell center in the brain through olfactory nerves (Figure 2). All this process the smell molecules go through in the nose and the brain interact and impact with our soul in such a subtle way that we take delight and even be healed.

The sense of smell in certain animals (especially in dogs, moths, and some fish species) is hundreds of times more sensitive than in humans. For these animals, it is crucial for finding food and their survival.

The inability to perceive smells, or “smell blindness” (also called “anomia” in medicine), can be temporary or permanent depending on the underlying factor. Anomia is usually temporary in cases of the flu, cold, bad sinus congestion, or allergies. A decrease in olfactory sensitivity (hyposmia) can also be caused by nasal congestion, enlarged adenoids, nasal polyps, nasal deviations, or concha bullosa, which prevent air currents from reaching the olfactory region. The sense of smell usually recovers when these anatomical abnormalities are corrected; only in cases when duration of sinusitis is prolonged, namely when it becomes chronic, does loss of smell become permanent.

The impact of the nose on our voice quality

We can feel the effect of our nose on our voice quality, such as when the voice changes due to congestion or closing the nostrils with our fingers. Experienced physicians can immediately diagnose nasal congestion from the way a patient talks. Life is indeed an ordeal for people who cannot breathe easily through their noses.

Air cleared of germs

Nasal mucus is a slightly acidic secretion that carries an antibody called “immune globulin A” (IgA). Its slight acidity as well as the antibody in it allows the mucus to eliminate various germs, and the respiratory tracts are thus protected against perilous sources of illness.

The tiny sweeping hairs that line the interior of the nose can break down or stop working altogether because of certain germs, particularly viruses that cause the flu, filthy and dry air, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and cigarette smoke. Because nasal cleaning is disrupted, disease-inducing microorganisms can easily cause upper respiratory tract inflammation and other serious infections.

 The nose’s role in taste

Smell is crucial for a better perception of taste. Indeed, when there is a problem with the function of smell, a person’s sense of taste suffers, too. Nice smells have a favorable impact on the sense of smell. If we could not detect the bad smell of a rotten, harmful food item, we would not be able to stop ourselves from eating it and harming our body.

The importance of smell is highlighted in religious traditions. It is reported that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, mentioned putting on pleasant perfumes among other things that were the traditions of the messengers of God. Clippings from mush, camphor, amber or aloeswood were also burnt in the Prophet’s home for their pleasant scents.

Humans rarely consider their sense of smell. In fact, we tend to take it for granted. But through the nose’s perfect design, we are to smell and taste so much of the world around us, which is surely an everyday miracle.

Figure 1: The magnificent design of the anatomy of the nose

Figure 2: The awe-inspiring structure of the olfactory region

Your essence is even loftier than angels.
Hidden in you are spheres and compacted globes
Mehmed Akif

The human is the main subject of every philosophical and scientific view. Neither any philosophy nor any science can be developed without taking human beings into consideration. With both physical and metaphysical sides, the human being is the ultimate subject of all sciences, and all avenues of investigation can be evaluated in relation to their significance for human dignity.

Sciences explore different human qualities, through the various branches, in books that multiply continuously, overflow, and diffuse light all over.

The body shape and function of the human is so perfectly adjusted that it marks an unbelievably ideal structure. Whichever organ we may study, it is impossible not to feel admiration before its anatomy.

And the depth of the inner world of a person has such rich potential to develop, and the potential to keep developing dimensions within; a complicated brain and a spirit with an elusive essence that evades material measure; and then the perfectly harmonious relation of these two phenomena-the physical and the spiritual together. . . mysterious beings… Within everything are meanings crystallized from the hues in the corona of that magnificent artwork-the human and her dignity.

Here, we will neither touch on this magnificent corporeality, nor delve into the inner dimensions of an individual we can hardly sense in any event. Instead, we are going to mention a few potentials and abilities that dignify the human.

The human is a difficult creature to understand in all qualities. The complexities begin from the day of we come into this world and continue. Except for the human, every creature comes to this world as if already trained about life. As for human beings, in spite of being the most magnificent and esteemed creatures, we are born devoid of all these inherent gifts and functions necessary for life. Everything that goes beyond the mechanical order of physicality develops in a person thanks to reason, mind, will, freedom, sense, and introspection. Thus, a person maintains the unity of inner and outer reality, and only in this way does an individual attain selfhood.

These potentialities, which exist in all human beings as an intention and a herald of being a great figure in the future, can only flourish through training and education. Discovering dignity requires introspection and self-criticism. Leaving a person alone to whatever whims come along means leaving one in a most miserable condition. A seed or group of seeds needs to be cultivated to grow into the most perfect thing it is intended to be. As the lion comes to the world with the paw it needs, and the cattle with horns, a person arrives in the world needing to cultivate all means to preserve one’s self, to flourish, and to work together toward mutual dignity.

A person should use his insight and intellect, will and reason and then invent things to obtain what is beneficial and avoid what is harmful. Thus she establishes both an individual and social world, where she can find serenity. And then persons can pass to future generations the works they formed and the values they established, so that dignity can be preserved in both heart and mind.

It is natural for a person to do these things, because we are not concerned with the very moment only. Past and future are always vivid along with the present and are pieces of any existent reality. For this reason, even though those who have contributed to the development of thought and science throughout history could not personally see the fruits of their efforts, they did not feel languor and give up working. They worked and strived for humanity, leaving an immense heritage in the name of knowledge and culture. If it weren’t so, we would neither be able to talk about science nor civilization on earth.

In addition to sciences, accumulation of knowledge, and heritage of civilization, human dignity, human perfection and virtue are the fruit of human efforts again. Developing potentialities, regulating human behavior, channeling people to good and virtuous paths are the results of human effort. All through history, one generation after another inherited the refined manners and quest for dignity of the previous generation and took it as a duty to improve it. In this respect, the greatest gift the former generations presented to the latter was teaching good manners and edification of human dignity! Edification prevents a person from being diverted from human dignity due to base inclinations. By setting the frame of acts and activities, edification prevents any individual from running wild and degenerating. At the same time, edification helps develop the potentialities every human comes equipped. Edification helps the capabilities hidden in human spirit to be unearthed and to flourish.

There are always seeds of the good and beautiful in us; seeds of the bad and ugliness are non-existent. Even feelings like lust, rage, and revenge in a way can be seen as sprouts for indirect beautiful outcomes. However, one thing should not be forgotten: that as the beauty of everything positive or negative is the result of some edification, true human dignity depends on edification again. We need edification to make our reason, will, and introspection to utilize all their functions. Edification dignifies humanity above animal existence. Edification allows us a degree of autonomy before nature, which operates according to rules of causality. Through edification, the human can be dignified by being attached to the Absolute, Free, and Sovereign One. This distinguishing trait is developed through being a rational creature possessing will and introspection.

Reason, as defined in philosophy, is to be able to derive particularities from general conditions by framing laws and principles. So it is this power of reasoning that underlies the basis of the difference between beast and human. Reason is the prime faculty that makes us human; however, it is not given in its perfected form and matured condition, but in a simple and potential state. A person has to elaborate what makes us different from animals and make this potential flourish. When reason becomes a corridor between the inner and outer worlds, it gains a totally different identity. If we call this a combination of finding oneself and being found, then the conscience plays the role of a “reason” which makes our judgments of deeds and shows us which way to act. The ultimate aim and the loftiest ideal of reason-the ultimate source of human dignity-is coming to knowledge of the Divine. The reason or mind which has come to know God attains wisdom and undertakes conscientious responsibilities that promote the dignity of all.

One of the qualities that make a person human is freedom; in other words, we have the capacity to decide our own acts. We possess an active reason. We have “autonomy.” This way, a person supersedes the rest of creation, living or non-living; this brings us not only the ability to control our acts, but accountability for them. It is not possible to explain morality and immorality without taking freedom and human will into consideration. Sheer materialist and positivist accounts of human beings, which see us as machines and deny free will, lead to superficial and banal conclusions.

So it seems that we are obliged to accept that each person has a free and independent side, namely, there is a dimension which is not determined by laws in nature and which constitutes a basis for morality. Ultimately, this freedom results from being the addressee of a divine authority, leads to the need to carry out the responsibilities that correspond to this dignified position, which means discerning right from wrong based on both extrinsic and intrinsic reasoning.

This dignity merges cognitions about the outer world with introspection. A meaningful, dignified life is like a ray of light that provides its own verification. Dignity opens inlets to the beyond of the realm of possibility. It is as if one feels an ascent (“miraj”) from the dimensions of the present space. Such an ascension-depending on the circulation of the mind, stability of the will, and soundness of contemplation-is possible for every individual. Each of us takes a share from this dignity according to the capacity of the bowl in our hands and the heavenly drink it contains.

And further beyond, there is such a point, which the most perfected figures, the most magnificent wills, and those of deepest introspection and spiritual delight reach: it is the contemplation of the matchless beauty of our magnificent Creator who makes us feel His being beyond our own, makes us feel His Will beyond ours and who lets us enjoy this bliss.

For centuries, generations have been alien and indifferent to this lofty journey. Making people conscious of their dignified essence, letting reason flourish and vitalizing the will, purifying human feelings and maintaining our contact with the rest of creation: this is a duty upon our eminent educators.

Here I address once more those who are responsible for training the new generations. Do not delay guiding them to the values that render us truly human. That is our responsibility before history: to promote the dignity that keeps us from destroying each other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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