The nature of human beings bears both material and divine aspects. Some other expressions, like angelic-satanic, material-moral, corporeal-spiritual, and sensual-conscientious, are also used to refer, with nuance, to the same dichotomy. To us, it is much more suitable to handle and assess the moral and material aspects of human beings, one by one, as distinct mechanisms apart from each other. I would rather call the moral one as “the mechanism of the conscience” and the other as “the mechanism of the soul.” Innermost faculties such as the heart, the spirit, the secret (sir), the private (khafiy), the most private (akhfa), willpower, the conscious, feelings and senses form the mechanism we call the conscience. All kinds of lust, caprice, spite, hatred, anger, and obstinacy – the features endowed to human beings for particular reasons and purpose – compose the mechanism of the soul (nafs). These two mechanisms almost always function against each other. However, if the mechanism of the conscience overcomes the other, the mechanism of the soul, too, is transformed to positive, and becomes a mechanism serving human beings to rise and be exalted.

As classified by sufis, the mechanism of the soul may become useful for human beings if “it” breaks away from the state of evil that commands it (ammara) and moves on to higher levels of self-condemnation (lawwama), inspiration (mulhama), serenity and peace; these represent the soul at rest (mutmainna), the soul well-pleased (with God) (radiyya), the soul pleasing to God (mardiyya), and the purified or innocent self or soul (safiyya). Due to this fact, it is deficient to only deal with the mechanism of conscience of the human beings.

Let’s take lust as an example. If this feeling is merely employed for its own sake, it shall become a complete source of evil. However, it can become a means of sainthood when used within permissible conditions, say between married couples whose love and marital relations will be rewarded. When the companions of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, were surprised to learn this, he explained that “if a person does not fulfill that desire within permissible conditions, he or she would do it through forbidden means. By keeping himself within lawful terms, he avoided the forbidden.” Avoiding a sin is as rewarding as if one has fulfilled a required duty. This is a very logical explanation, as much as it is very much in compliance with human nature. So, even through this feeling belonging to the mechanism of soul, one may gain Paradise.

As a matter of fact, we may use all senses under the mechanism of the soul as inducements for the beauties of Paradise. I mean, just as one may live some dimensions belonging to Paradise through the feelings and senses belonging to the conscience, he or she may, in the same way, feel and comprehend the incidents belonging to Paradise through some senses belonging to the soul, assuming those senses have been followed with a particular discipline. Indeed, this may be one of the mysteries and causes of the fact that Paradise shall address both the soul and the corporeal body. (As a side note, it would be rather reasonable to interpret Adam’s creation from soil such as loam, dried clay, etc., as to inform us of the nature of human beings. Otherwise, interpreting them as the clay and loam of the world known by us shall be a deficient interpretation.)

Another example could be feelings of rage or anger. The feeling of rage has the potential to make people turn rotten; they can so far as to become murderers, like Pharaohs who have blood in their hearts and minds, hands and eyes. However, if one can activate the feeling of rage when he or she needs to fight for honor and homeland, they will be ennobled with praise and reward. You see, such anger is welcomed by God, just as favorably as mildness is. Now, take into consideration that merely using our earthly aspects correctly can make people rise so high, and then imagine what may happen if we use our conscience well!

Yes, one can reach the levels of angels, even through his or her earthly side. And if the conscience, in addition, becomes part of this ascension, he or she shall be superior to the angels. Indeed, there is no compulsion for angels; their will power is manifested in the form of choosing from alternatives, all of which are good anyway. Human beings are charged with using their will power to make a choice between good and bad. As the award shall be proportional to the difficulty, a human choosing goodness, despite the temptations of their carnal soul, shall be superior to the angels.

Conscience originates from a root that means “to find” in Arabic. One uses his conscience to find both himself and his Lord. Hundreds of thinkers – from great figures of Islamic thought like Imam Rabbani, Imam Gazali, Rumi, and Bediuzzaman, to many others in the West – have handled the question of human conscience with their particular inner discoveries and perceptions.. Here, I want to draw special attention to the terms of “inner discovery and perception.” In fact, saints experience the pleasures of the conscience through inner discoveries, as truths are unveiled in their hearts. Thinkers and philosophers, on the other hand, experience this “finding” through perception. Interestingly, both groups agree with the fact that the conscience never lies. Among the main and essential evidences demonstrating the existence of God, Bediuzzaman counts the conscience, too, in his early works. But later, as he did not consider the conscience as an objective everyone could understand, he discounted it.

Yes, indeed, not every one is able to comprehend the cryptic language of the conscience. Thus it cannot be considered as objective evidence. But, for those who can understand that language, the conscience is the greatest and keenest of all the evidences. No other information or wealth of knowledge can make one attain a higher level of awareness than what they can attain through their conscience.

There are two main points about the realm of the conscience: the point of support and the source of help. With these, we comprehend very clearly that we are impotent and destitute. And, with this comprehension, we rely fully on God Almighty and wish from God whatever we wish. In as much as we bear that need to seek help, it becomes clear that there should exist Someone to give that help to us. Otherwise, giving this need to human beings would be absurd. Indeed, there exists no absurdity in the universe. There is definitely a counterpart to any feeling we human beings bear. In the same vein, there shall undoubtedly be counterparts of those points in the conscience. Nevertheless, it is not possible to sense this for someone who has not listened to his or her conscience in his or her life. Though consciousness is a part belonging to the conscience, it does not bear any value, for it is a single entity. At the time, when willpower is controlled by feelings and the heart, it, too, becomes almost another center of conscience. Like all the loquacious, eloquent witnesses of the existence of God, the conscience, too, is a holy and heavenly resonance that calls out the truth. But, this merely happens if a particular conscience is one of the consciences we have described above. Otherwise, to expect those results from a conscience yoked by its carnal soul would be impossible.

Yes, imagine someone who has completely become a slave to lust, animosity, anger, or worldly status. Whatever he or she does, this person is under the impact of these negative feelings that are wrapped around his or her soul. Such a conscience is bound hand and foot, and it lacks any influence. We call such a person “conscienceless,” in the fullest meaning of the term. These kinds of people do not have any kind of knowledge about the mechanism of the conscience; it is not possible for them to feel the meaning it denotes and its objective beyond objectives. Another significant remark on the matter is from Immanuel Kant, in the Critic of Pure Reason. He notes that God shall be known through practical reason, but not a theoretical one. That is, the nice behavior and actions of someone become, through time, the very nature of him or her, and help them reach the point that may not be attained through abstract knowledge. Yes, abstract knowledge and information can never ascend people to those high positions. No matter how many books they read or memorize, those lacking resolution and deprived of theological practice cannot attain the peace felt by believers. The necessary practices are clear to us: the practices that are approved by faith as good, and defined as “righteous actions.” In this way, we properly utilize the conscience, and can implement its lessons to carry out righteous acts in real life.

“For he who has but one tool, the hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.”

Since the time of Copernicus, natural philosophers have commonly assumed there is a real, physical world that exists prior to and independent of the human mind, and they have set themselves the task of penetrating “beyond the veil” of subjective impressions to that external “objective” world. Thus, the real world is viewed as something devoid of subjective experience. On the other hand, though the causes of experiences are thought to be objective and available to everyone, the experiences themselves are only available to the person experiencing them. This makes it almost impossible to draw a clear boundary between what constitutes objective or subjective experience.

Paulson, in his article “The Nearing Death Process and Pastoral Counseling,” proposes the acknowledgement of multiple domains for humans. He argues that reducing everything into one domain, either into the objective or subjective domain, causes problems: “This situation was illustrated by Viktor Frank through the aid of a three-dimensional model. In three-dimensional space, a cylinder is a cylinder, containing both rectangular and spherical components. But, when presented in two-dimensional space, the cylinder provides two conflicting views: it is either a sphere or a rectangle. One must be right and the other wrong (Fig. 1). In life, when a subject is reduced to the objective domain, consciousness, thoughts, feelings, and perceptions are viewed merely as biochemical reactions. That is, under the laws of science (physics, biology, and biochemistry), conscious thoughts, feelings, and perceptions cannot exist, whereas they do. Conversely, many postmodern philosophers reduce both subjective and objective domains into the cultural domain of shared meaning. In this view, the world we live in is completely relative.”

Attaining empirical knowledge through one’s sense-based experiences, one frames an individual view of the colorful face of creation. The constant flow of views and perceptions maps the external world in the human mind on two axes, one subjective and the other objective. This mapping process causes every individual living under the same sky to have a world of their own. For example, a despairing, lamenting, weeping person sees beings as weeping and in despair, while a cheerful, optimistic, merry person sees the universe as joyful and smiling.

This brings subjectivity to our attention. One can use this subjective point of view with the aim of strengthening faith in God’s existence and regarding every creature as part of the great fellowship of this faith, worshipping God. For a reflective person who is engaged in solemn worship and glorification discovers and sees to a degree the certain, truly existent and worship and glorification performed by all beings, while a person who abandons worship through neglect or denial sees beings in a state of idleness, as playthings in the hands of coincidence and mere accidents.

One should sometimes take the side of subjectivity to be able to feel joy and happiness in this worldly life. Although there is seemingly a dark and ugly face of existence, everything, stemming from Divine beauty, will eventually return to the same source. Although not everyone can fully understand this reality, everybody should always look at the brightest side of existence. As the famous scholar, Said Nursi, points out, “Those who attend to the good side of everything contemplate the good. Those who contemplate the good enjoy life.”

There is no doubt that all of us should view the created with an educated look. Eyes are the windows through which the soul sees outer space. One should be selective when it comes to where one opens those windows to. The thinking mechanism generates outputs depending on the inputs it receives. Everything is beautiful in itself or in its outcomes, thus the explorer of the universe should always beam his censors towards this beautiful side of the existence. One should support this subjective perception of the universe by every possible means, tolerating his ignorance and shortcomings in seeing the objective beauty of the universe.

As we all are human beings, we all have our own weaknesses in our personal realms. We can categorize the weaknesses embedded in our natures as follows: worldly ambition (that can result in forgetting about the Creator), greed, fear (which can make us sacrifice even our honor and integrity), racism and negative nationalism (which can mean one only feels satisfied at swallowing the rights of other nations), and selfishness. The main source feeding these weaknesses is thinking that one will live forever in this worldly life. This thought or feeling is completely subjective. None of us applies the concept of “death” to ourselves; everyone thinks it only applies to others. We see the mountains as stable, our surroundings as unchanging, and this observation leads us to think we will also remain unchanged. This deceptive subjectivity paralyzes sincerity and opens ways to the corruption and moral suicide of society. Explorers of the universe should spoil the poisonous sweetness of this subjectivity with the bitter taste of the contemplation of death itself. The reality of death is so vivid that it cannot be denied.

The example of a man in a small room of which four walls are mirrors can demonstrate this fact further. The man thinks that the small room is an infinitely large space, looking at its reflections in the mirrors. When the man stretches out his hand, touches the surface of the mirror and breaks it, he understands the inevitable reality. There is death, an end to unlimited wants and wishes for eternity on the earth. This objective fact exists regardless of what human minds think about it.

Human beings exist in impotence on this earth. It is as foolish to say that nature obeys our will or command as to say that a baby’s parents serve him due to his own power. Whenever delusions cause humans to think that they have a godly existence, they should remember Pharaoh’s fate and never forget that even a tiny microbe can defeat and force them to lie down for weeks. Hospitals, prisons and graveyards tear off this subjective mask of power and show the objective pure face of human beings’ underlying impotence.

Another important drawback of subjectivity is “familiarity.” Our lack of information and knowledge about a particular topic is our ignorance on that topic. However, if we do not even know that we lack that knowledge, this is called “compound ignorance.” For example, the rising and setting of the sun every day and spring’s appearing with bouquets of flowers at our doorsteps every year are not understood or appreciated by most people, as these natural events happen continuously without any interruption. People become blinded by a veil of “subjective familiarity.” They do not see the true value of events which appear to be usual and ordinary but in fact are extraordinary.

Another misuse of subjectivity is seen in the ways that people put a distance between each other and build a solid wall of enmity that blocks the way to peace and harmony in society. The reasons for putting up these barriers are far from being objective; they are only the dark shadows of our subjective caprices. Let us say that there is a ship carrying ten people out of whom nine are murderers and one is innocent. No one with right thinking would try to sink that ship in order to get rid of the nine murderers at the expense of the life of the one innocent. A judge looking at the incident through the lens of objectivity would demand the securing of the rights of the innocent.

Similarly, every human being on this earth is a spectacular ship built by the Creator. Everybody has good and bad sides. Nobody has the right to hate another person just because that person has some bad qualities. Hatred means sinking that hated ship of the individual in the eyes of the one committing the deed of hatred. Most of the arguments people use to support turning their backs on one another are as small as a pebble compared to arguments that are as great as mountains and that would bring apparently opposing sides together. All of us were created by the same God. This is a reason –for most- for fellowship stronger by far than the relation between the children of the same father. All of us are sharing the same slice of time out of thousands of years, a very small probability if one thinks of the millions of years since the beginning of creation. We all have a longing for love, tenderness, warmth, openness, honesty, and integrity. We are all afraid of clashes, tears, fears, the unpredictability of darkness, and sorrows. We, as fellow human beings, have so much in common.

The human being’s objective and subjective view of the universe should be a perspective illuminating both the soul and body. That perspective adds a third dimension to the two-dimensional picture in most of our minds. It highlights the wonders of this universe and the depth and richness hidden under the flat, quiet, calm ocean of creation.

Notes

1. Wallace, B.Alan, , “The Intersubjective Worlds of Science and Religion,” from Science, Religion and Human Experience, Oxford University Press, 2005.
2. Frankl, V. E. (1959). The will to meaning, New York: New American Library
3. Paulson, Daryl S, “The Nearing Death Process and Pastoral Counseling,” Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 52, No. 4, March 2004.
4. Nursi, Said, The Letters, NJ: Tughra Books, 2007, p. 450.
5. For more discussion on human weakness see Nursi, 2007, pp. 399–413.
6. See Nursi, 2007, p. 282.

In Heroes and Hero Worship Thomas Carlyle attempts to draw a picture of the development of the human intellect by using historical figures as coordinates. Some scholars take a perspective of history in terms of “the environment” or “the times” and “causes,” while others, like Carlyle, have the view that human advancement was not continuous, discrete and rather being made up of a series of jumps; these jumps were caused for the most part by specific individuals whom Carlyle calls “Heroes.” This is like the wave/particle duality of the “nature of light.” In some phenomena light behaves like a wave, while in others it behaves like a particle. One can write a history based on the ideas, cultures, and mediums in which people lived; or the same history can be written by focusing on certain individuals and following them and their actions.

The writings of Carlyle and those of many other authors of that time, of course, are very perceptive. Carlyle is not really trying to be objective on the matter. He has an idea, and he wants to tell us about this idea; while telling you what this idea is about he uses whatever his hands and mind can take hold of. Being so passionate about what is being said is probably a good thing. But if one is over-passionate, there cannot help but be wild swings in the appreciation of the historical person in question. If we use an analogy of a drawing, the historical person is no longer a point on the painting, but rather a hair of the brush. But that should not prevent us from benefiting from writing of Thomas Carlyle.

Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, has a special place in the book under the chapter title “Hero as a Prophet.” In the book, Carlyle declares his admiration of God’s Messenger, “… The word of such a man (Muhammad) is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else; all else is wind in comparison.” Carlyle’s answers to pointed questions on Islam and the Prophet show interesting similarities to Said Nursi’s line of answers to similar questions. “…For a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Imposter without eyes or heart, practicing for a mess of pottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial documents, continual high-treason against his Maker and Self, we will not and cannot take him” reads very much like Said Nursi’s “The Addendum to the Fifteenth Word,” where he makes a long imaginary discussion with Satan and shows how people are inclined to unbelief, thinking that they are evaluating divine revelation from a neutral perspective “…O Satan! Objective reasoning means impartial judgment or not taking sides, but the objective reasoning which you and your disciples suggest is, in fact, taking the part of those in opposition to the Qur’an; not impartiality but an attitude of temporary unbelief. This is really so because to suppose the Qur’an the work of a human being and to build an argument on this supposition is to side with unbelief or falsehood…”

Considering the fact that at that time the West and the East were at odds with one another, and that the means of communications were quite inferior to our times, Carlyle having such an open mind to the “other” puts him in a category of his own with thinkers like Swedenborg, Emerson and Thoreau. I think when we are trying to build bridges between the peoples of the West and the East we should not overlook these early historical representatives of dialogue; this is something that Nursi has foreseen in his writings.

In this issue, we address the effect of rapid technological development on our society. One of the most recent and unexpected examples is the phenomenal spread of the Internet. We are becoming even more of a global village than we were in the 1960s, when Marshall McLuhan first coined the term. From the comfort of our living room or office, we can click a button and read foreign newspapers and magazines, study languages, and learn about other cultures.

But such access has its disadvantages: sexually explicit Web sites, chat rooms where people are not what they seen, and violent and ultra-violent video games that can be downloaded. Thus, a still hotly debated issue concerning the entertainment industry now includes the Internet.

With all the talk in Washington about censoring or somehow controlling the Internet’s content, one wonders if one day we will have an equivalent of Breen’s Code, one of the few successful attempts to force Hollywood to produce ‘socially acceptable’ entertainment. Demands for such codes are growing, as more people become fed up with rap and gangsta rap music, ultra-violent video games, the use of sex to sell everything, and programs ridiculing traditional social and moral values.

As our world becomes smaller, we must deal with people who are not like us. To do this to everyone’s benefit, we need to understand other people’s worldviews, religions, histories, cultures, role models, and so on. As Islam is the fastest growing religion in America today, we offer an Islamic perspective on several core Christian beliefs.

Such technological progress has given us increased opportunities for arm-chair travelling. No longer do we have to spend years travelling, as did Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo. We can simply turn on the Travel Channel or the Internet and find whatever we want. But many people are actually travelling, whether as migrants or refugees, with the intention of settling somewhere else. As pointed out in our book review, such a phenomenon simultaneously represents a cultural homogenization and a cultural heterogenization.

Technological developments also have proliferated in science. Humanity has landed on the moon, sent unmanned probes to study other planets and asteroids, and continues to add to our knowledge of our own planet and its inhabitants. This has all been accomplished in the name of objective and value-free science.

But, as one of our authors reminds us, science is as not as ‘objective’ as it seems, for scientists are human. For example, when asked to explain why he had not considered the possibility that God could use evolution to create diverse life forms, Darwin replied that he had problems reconciling suffering with a merciful God. And so we learned that the scientists are subject to human weaknesses, just like the rest of us. This article explains what the scientific process is, how it works, and how it can be applied to religious beliefs.

Also included are three articles for the spiritual edification of our readers.

The winner of our writing contest will be announced in the next issue.

We hope that you enjoy this issue and, as always, look forward to your comments.