Imagine you are walking through a city park and spot a bag that appears to contain valuable items, with no one else around. You realize the bag belongs to someone who will likely return soon to retrieve it. Should you take it yourself? After all, you could use some extra financial help given your recent economic hardships! No one is there to see you. If no one will ever know, what is the problem with taking it? It might be a small loss to the owner, but it would be a significant gain for you! Why not?

Imagine you have a friend who is a bit shy and struggles to express himself in social situations. And say that he is known to be picked on by his peers, or being bullied. You have every opportunity to tease him and get a laugh at his expense. But he isn’t responding well to your jokes. Who cares? You just want to have fun, and he’ll be fine—won’t he?

Imagine you’ve just finished a refreshing drink and are left holding the empty plastic bottle. You’re out in nature, and no one is around to see if you toss the bottle into the woods. You know it’s bad for the environment, and you can already see other people’s litter scattered nearby—but who cares? What’s one more bottle on top of the rest? It’s not going to make a big difference, right?

Who knows? Who cares? Maybe no one will ever find out. Maybe no one will ever care. But more than anyone else, besides the All-Knowing One, you know the truth

When you steal something or do something wrong, even if no one is there to call you a thief, you are the one who labels yourself as such. You know it. You know that you have become a petty thief. In the end, you declare who you are to yourself.

When you insult or attack someone, even if you can get away with it, you define your identity as a person who transgresses against others. You declare that you are a transgressor. Even if others do not know or care, you know the truth. With every challenging decision we make, we declare who we are. We say “This is who I am.” And all these decisions ultimately shape our identity [1].

How we identify ourselves shapes our mindset and influences every aspect of our lives.

If you see yourself as a petty, opportunistic thief, you’ll assume that everyone else is a thief in one way or another. If you are involved in fraudulent activities, you’ll suspect others are fraudsters just like you—or, if they aren’t, you might consider them naïve or weak. If you see life as a constant struggle to survive, you’ll believe that every human, animal, and plant is locked in battle. The whole universe becomes a war zone, and people live in fear. On the contrary, if you are a peaceful person who respects others, you’ll notice beauty in people and in the world around you. You’ll think about the harmony and peace in others. As the saying goes, “A person who sees the good in things has good thoughts. And he who has good thoughts receives pleasure from life” [2].

The one who truly suffers from a wrongful act is not the person who is harmed, but the person who commits the act. Those who are wronged often recover, move on, or learn and grow from their experiences. But the one who inflicts harm is shaping a destiny that may be hard to change for the rest of their life. As people continue to respond to events in the same way, their reactions become hardwired; a part of their very biology. With every action we take, we determine our identities. Similarly, the true beneficiary of a good act is the person who performs it. Surprisingly, helping others is not that easy as it sounds. The odds of being in the right place at the right time, with the right resources to help, are slim at best. Simply handing out free money may look like kindness, but it can sometimes cause more harm than good in the long run—for instance, studies have shown that lottery winners often end up worse off than before. That’s why, when we find ourselves with a genuine opportunity to help someone, we should see it as a rare chance to make a difference in someone’s life—a gift to be cherished. By doing good, we shape our own identity.

We observe the outer world through the mirrors within us. From this, we can build a recipe for happiness: if we want to enjoy our lives, we must start by reshaping our own identity. If we want real change, it begins by changing who we believe ourselves to be.

Identity change

Changing our identity is one of the most difficult things we can do in life. Human beings have a curious resistance to any kind of change. We get used to certain routines and stick with them—this is true for our personalities, careers, where we live, and more. Once we settle into a habit, not only does it stay with us, but we’re also reluctant to let it go. As Tony Robbins says, “The strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.”

So, what do we do when we want to change? People often want to build good habits and get rid of bad ones. We all know how difficult it is to start doing something regularly. Even when we’re fully aware of the benefits, knowing alone isn’t enough to create change. I know that I should exercise more, eat less, read more, and so on, but turning these actions into habits is the challenging part.

A much easier way to build new habits is through the identity-based behavior change [3]. Instead of focusing on tactics alone, it’s more effective to associate your identity with the kind of person who naturally displays those habits. his method begins by deciding who you want to be. Then, ask yourself what that person would do in a given situation, and start acting accordingly.

Next, give yourself permission to achieve small wins in the direction of your new identity. Trying to change your behavior without first changing how you see yourself is unlikely to succeed. If you want to act honestly, you need to become an honest person. If you want to achieve certain business outcomes, you have to become someone who accomplishes those goals—an entrepreneur. The more clearly you envision yourself as that person, the more likely you are to act in alignment. Prove to yourself who you are by taking the necessary steps.

A similar approach to behavior change can also be found in faith traditions which encourage people to do good deeds by connecting actions to their identities. For example, in the Qur’an 3:76, it is stated: “Absolutely! Those who honor their trusts and shun evil, surely God loves those who are mindful of Him.” In this verse, the person who is loved by God is depicted through their actions. The reader is encouraged to adopt the identity of such a person. If you want to be loved by God, you must become someone who honors trusts, avoids evil, and remains mindful of Him. By embracing this identity, you place yourself among those who are loved by Him. If we want to change our lives, we have to start changing who we are. Our identity and personality are what shape our personal reality [4]. We cannot change until we transform how we think, how we respond, how we act, and how we feel.

Nothing changes in our lives until we change ourselves.

I do not exploit other people’s weaknesses. I care for the environment. I serve tea to my significant other. I do not thrive at the expense of others. I respect differences of opinion. I strive to do my work well. I believe in human dignity and freedom. Why?

Because this is who I am.

References

¹ How to make hard choices, TED Talks, Ruth Chang.

² Seeds of reality, 50th seed. Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

³ Atomic Habits, James Clear.

⁴ Joe Dispenza.

One of the most fundamental laws of nature is known as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Put simply, this law states that entropy, a measure of disorder or randomness, tends to increase over time. In everyday life, we observe this principle in the tendency of things to break down or decay: metal rusts, organisms age, and heat flows from warm objects to cooler ones until a balance is reached. In the language of physics, unless energy is supplied from outside, an isolated system will inevitably move toward greater disorder. This one-way drive toward disorganization reflects a fundamental directionality in the universe. Sir Arthur Eddington even remarked that the Second Law holds “the supreme position among the laws of nature,” so universally valid that if your theory contradicts it, you have no hope but “to collapse in deepest humiliation.” In other words, no process ever observed has violated this march toward higher entropy.

But how might this apparent law of cosmic disorder relate to the idea of a single, unified Creator behind the universe? At first glance, the inevitable decay of all things culminating in the so-called “heat death” of the universe, a cold and lifeless equilibrium state, could evoke a sense of cosmic pessimism. Indeed, it has led some thinkers to bleak conclusions about meaning. Yet from the perspective of faith in an eternal and transcendent God, this very impermanence can serve as a powerful reminder of the Divine’s uniqueness and everlasting nature. Rather than undermining spiritual belief, entropy underscores the finite, contingent nature of the material world, which in turn points toward an absolute, necessary existence beyond it. This article explores the scientific and philosophical dimensions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and highlights its intersections with the concept of divine unity across religious thought.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that energy transformations in nature proceed in a particular direction. This “arrow of time,” encapsulated by the concept of entropy, indicates that the amount of disorder in an isolated system (and in the universe as a whole) is always increasing. In practical terms, usable energy naturally flows from more concentrated forms to more dispersed ones like heat diffusing from a hot cup of coffee into the cooler surrounding air. This results in a steady loss of available energy to do work and a gradual slide toward disorder. Because of this law, many physical processes are irreversible: a hot cup of coffee will inevitably cool down over time, but it will never spontaneously heat itself back up.

As physicist and theologian Sir John Polkinghorne explains, the reason entropy must increase is essentially statistical: “There are just so many more ways to be disordered than ordered.” Over time, chaos overtakes structure simply because disordered arrangements are far more probable than highly ordered ones. Thus, given enough time, all processes in the universe tend toward outcomes such as biological death and material breakdown. This matches our everyday experience: our bodies age, machines wear out, and living things eventually die. From a scientific standpoint, it is only natural that order gradually yields to disorder as time progresses.

Scientists often refer to entropy’s inexorable rise as the “arrow of time,” because it gives time a definite direction. The past can be distinguished from the future by the fact that the overall entropy was lower in the past and will be higher in the future. The renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking identified this relentless increase in entropy as the key element that gives time its forward direction. This idea carries a profound existential weight, confronting us with the reality of mortality and decay. The philosopher Bertrand Russell, writing in the early 20th century, captured this sentiment of inevitable cosmic ruin in a famous passage:

“All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system… Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”

Russell, emphasizing the certainty of the universe’s eventual heat death, paints a worldview devoid of any cosmic consolation. In purely physical terms, the Second Law’s long-range prediction is indeed stark: given enough time, stars will exhaust their fuel, matter will decay, and the cosmos will drift into a dark, cold, and lifeless expanse. This “heat death” scenario remains a serious scientific hypothesis for the ultimate fate of the universe.

The universe with a beginning

At this juncture, a profound question naturally arises: if the universe had existed eternally into the past, wouldn’t it already have reached this state of thermodynamic exhaustion by now? In other words, if entropy has been increasing forever, all usable energy should long ago have been depleted. The fact that we still see stars shining and life thriving today suggests that the universe has not existed indefinitely into the past; otherwise, it would have already run down. This line of reasoning leads us to consider the question of the universe’s beginning.

By the late 19th century, physicists recognized that the Second Law of Thermodynamics pointed toward a bleak future for the cosmos: eventual heat death. They also realized that if the universe were infinitely old, it should already be in that lifeless equilibrium state. Yet the universe clearly has not reached such a state, implying that it cannot have existed forever. In modern times, this insight has become part of a cosmological argument for a beginning of the universe. The philosopher William Lane Craig, for example, has invoked the Second Law as evidence in support of the kalam cosmological argument, which asserts that the universe must have a starting point. Craig writes that “the universe began in a state of low entropy (extraordinarily high order) and has followed the trajectory outlined by the Second Law ever since,” underlining that the cosmos has a temporally finite past.

This view accords with contemporary cosmology. Discoveries in astronomy during the 20th century, such as the expansion of the universe and the validation of the Big Bang theory, confirm that the cosmos had a definite beginning in time. Significantly, the Second Law’s arrow of time implies that the universe’s beginning was a moment of exceptionally low entropy. In fact, physicist Roger Penrose has calculated that the level of order at the Big Bang had to be unimaginably high; the universe started in an extraordinarily special state of arrangement. Such a low-entropy outset is so statistically unlikely that it cries out for an explanation beyond mere chance. It is as if the dice were loaded in favor of an orderly cosmos. The question naturally arises: Who or what “loaded the dice” at the inception of the universe?

Some scientists writing on thermodynamics have even openly reflected on this question. In their textbook Introduction to Thermodynamics: Classical and Statistical, Gordon J. Van Wylen and Richard Sonntag note that while science cannot definitively address the absolute origin of the universe, the Second Law “indicates in the direction of before (and continuing work of) a Creator.” In their view, the very fact that nature follows orderly laws (like entropy) is suggestive of an initial and ongoing act of creation. In other words, the cosmos has not been left to itself: an extraordinary order was present at the beginning, and the continued reliability of natural law can be seen as a sign of a sustaining power behind it.

The remarkable order at the universe’s birth is closely connected to what scientists today call the fine-tuning of the cosmos. Notable physicists such as Paul Davies have pointed out that the laws of nature appear to be finely adjusted to permit the existence of complex structures, life, and consciousness, an alignment that is difficult to attribute to pure chance. In his 1984 book Superforce, Davies remarks: “The laws that enable the universe to exist seem to be the product of exceedingly clever design. If physics is the product of design, the universe must have a purpose; and modern physics strongly suggests to me that this purpose includes us.” Many scientists and philosophers have echoed this amazement at how precisely the fundamental constants of physics and the initial conditions of the universe are set. This phenomenon of fine-tuning is often taken as evidence that the universe is not a random accident, but the result of purposeful intent.

A meaningful creation

From a spiritual perspective, the notion of a finely ordered cosmos aligns closely with the timeless belief that creation is intentional and meaningful, rather than a random occurrence. Many faith traditions echo a shared intuition that the harmony and balance we observe in the universe indicate the presence of a singular intelligent source. This divine wisdom within creation suggests that what science identifies as “order” and “laws” reflect an underlying purposeful design.

The belief in one God, an ultimate, singular power governing all existence is a central tenet across many monotheistic faiths. This belief suggests that the unity and coherence observed in nature’s laws reflect the will of a single, unifying Creator. The logic here is straightforward: if multiple independent divine forces governed the universe, disorder and conflict would likely prevail rather than the consistent harmony observed in physical laws. This consistency in the laws of physics from Earth to distant galaxies implies a single, unified source behind them. In philosophical terms, the universe behaves more like a kingdom governed by one sovereign than an empire divided among competing rulers.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, universal and unfailing, can itself be viewed as part of this overarching cosmic order. It reminds us that all things in creation are subject to change, decay, and eventual dissolution. Everything in the material world is perishable; nothing shares the permanence of the ultimate divine reality. This aligns closely with the spiritual understanding in many religious traditions that all compound or material things eventually break down and fade away. Rather than being merely a grim observation, this scientific fact holds profound moral and spiritual lessons. It encourages humility in acknowledging life’s fragility and inspires us to seek what endures beyond physical existence.

Many spiritual traditions emphasize that observing the natural world can lead to profound wisdom and insight. Contemplating phenomena such as the stars, the cycle of life and death, or even everyday experiences like the cooling of a cup of coffee can provide perspective about our place in the universe and inspire reflection on realities beyond the physical. Through thoughtful observation, the universe reveals itself not just as a realm of matter and energy, but as a profound source of spiritual guidance and enlightenment.

Most religious worldviews also foresee an end to the cosmos as we know it; not as a meaningless collapse, but as a transition to a new order. In Islamic eschatology, for instance, it is said that at the end of time the heavens and earth will be rolled up, symbolically demonstrating absolute kingship over creation, before ushering in a new world. Similarly, Christian theology speaks of “a new heaven and a new earth” established by God beyond the end of our current universe. John Polkinghorne, reflecting on entropy from his dual perspective as a physicist and a priest, noted that while decay and death are intrinsic to this present world (and even serve a role in life’s development), the promise of a divinely renewed creation is that it will be free from decay. In a world to come, in Polkinghorne’s words, “a different material order not subject to decay may emerge.” In religious terms, this is the idea of resurrection or paradise: an existence in which the effects of entropy are abolished by divine decree. In the Islamic description of paradise, for example, it is a realm where people “will not taste death” anymore and will abide in an everlasting life. The notion of an existence not subject to entropy may lie outside the scope of physical science, but it is entirely within the scope of an omnipotent God.

A temporary universe

Seen through this broader lens, the Second Law of Thermodynamics the principle that our universe is winding down takes on a deeper meaning. Rather than implying that everything is pointless, it reminds us that this universe is temporary. It serves as a signpost directing the attentive mind beyond the physical realm toward the eternal. The interplay of order and disorder in nature, then, is not a sign of an absurd cosmos but part of a grander story. On the one hand, the Second Law teaches us to be humble and to recognize the impermanence of worldly things. On the other hand, the astonishing fine-tuning and lawful structure of the universe encourage us to consider the reality of a single, sustaining Creator.

Bridging scientific insight with spiritual understanding is a venerable endeavor. Centuries ago, scholars in various religious traditions asserted that studying nature is a way of learning about God, since the laws of the universe can be seen as manifestations of a divine order. The medieval Muslim thinker Al-Ghazali, for example, described the patterns in nature as part of God’s customary way of acting, and he encouraged believers to contemplate the natural world as a means to deepen their faith. In the modern age, many scientists and philosophers whether Muslim, Christian, or otherwise have similarly found that the discoveries of science resonate with the idea of a Creator. Figures like William Lane Craig, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, and Gordon Van Wylen come from different backgrounds, yet all have argued that the empirical evidence of a cosmic beginning, finely tuned laws, and life-friendly conditions makes sense in light of an intentional, intelligent origin. From a monotheistic viewpoint, all of these pointers ultimately direct us to the same conclusion: there is one underlying source behind reality. The conviction that all order (and even what we experience as “disorder”) is governed by a single cosmic will is a unifying idea found across many faiths. Through this lens, one can embrace scientific truth while also recognizing a transcendent meaning beyond it.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics and the spiritual principle of divine unity are not opposing explanations of reality, but complementary ones. Entropy’s increase teaches us about the physical fate of our universe, yet it can also be understood as a signpost to deeper truths. It exposes the mortality and finiteness inherent in the world, even as it invites us to reflect on what might be eternal. In the seemingly cold fact of cosmic decay, one can discern a gentle reminder: “Everything besides the One is perishing.” Seeing traces of a higher order amidst cosmic disorder is part of a holistic quest for truth, merging the scientific and the spiritual. By synthesizing insights from physics with insights from faith, we gain a richer understanding of our place in the cosmos. Ultimately, beyond the visible flux of the material universe lies a transcendent order that gives the cosmos meaning a reality which, according to the world’s great spiritual traditions, has been there all along and will endure when the stars themselves have faded.

References

• Polkinghorne, J. (2011). Believing in God in an Age of Science [Interview: “Holes in the Net”]. Vision Magazine.
• Craig, W. L. (2016). “Excursus on Natural Theology (Part 13): 2nd Scientific Confirmation of the Beginning of the Universe.” ReasonableFaith.org.
• Van Wylen, G. J., & Sonntag, R. E. (1971). Introduction to Thermodynamics: Classical and Statistical. John Wiley & Sons.
• Davies, P. (1984). Superforce: The Search for a Grand Unified Theory of Nature. Simon & Schuster.
• Russell, B. (1903). “A Free Man’s Worship.” (Reprinted in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays).

Indeed, attaching a purpose to everything non-systematically is subjective and seems not to be compatible with the current scientific methodology. For this reason, some people tend to deny religious sources of knowledge, whereas other people tend to accept a dualist viewpoint where they separate the domains of religion and science. Such dualism pushes religion out of people’s lives and restrains it only to particular instances and environments, reframing religion with surrealist subjects.

The path to reviving religious spirituality in daily life, on the same objective domain with science, requires many approaches. One of them is to answer the following question: is it possible to find a systematic way of understanding the purpose of the phenomena that has been observed and discovered by scientific methodology?

Although scientific methodology has evolved throughout history, the common motive that fits all stages is exploring the causal relationship among phenomena and expressing causality with some set of laws and principles. If we traced back to the origins of the scientific approach, we would encounter Aristotle’s definitions. He stated in his book “Metaphysics” that there are four types of causes (Fine, G., 1987):

1. Material cause – i.e. the materials that something is composed of. For example, water, sunshine, soil etc. are necessary to plant a tree. Therefore, these are material causes for the tree that was planted.
2. Formal cause – in his original words, “the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it.” For instance, a drug can only be useful if its constituent chemicals are mixed in a certain ratio. Hence the specific ratio is the formal cause of the drug.
3. Efficient (or motive) cause – the prior conditions that lead to the resulting situation. This is what is usually considered as “the cause” in science, especially in physics. An example is the source of new cells, which was unknown until the 19^th century. It was François Raspail (1794–1878) who first stated Omnis cellula e cellula, meaning that every cell is derived from another cell which tells the efficient cause of cell (re)production. (http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/rz/raspail.htm)
4. Final cause – i.e. the purpose or the goal of something. This is also known as telos. In our daily language, we often mean the final cause or telos, when we talk about “whys.” For example, the telos for a seed to germinate is to become a tree.

Considering these different types of causes, which all together become a complete explanation, we can see that the current understanding of science is diverged from this point. These four categories of cause survived in science until the 17^th century. But then, by constraining science on the matter and its motion, as Francis Bacon stated in his Advancement of Learning (1605), only the material and efficient causes are taken into account as the major two subjects of science (Bacon 1605). During those days, Spinoza and Descartes deliberately rejected the final (teleological) cause and claimed that the efficient causes are necessary and sufficient to explain the universe. Thence, Newtonian physics was developed on the basis of the efficient cause. For example, the cause of acceleration is thought of as the force, in a sense that when a force F is applied to a mass m, the acceleration becomes a = F/m.

Causality in science is therefore reduced to the “efficient cause” and effect relationship. However, as we discussed, religions emphasize the purpose of events and accept God as the cause of causes. Therefore, religions use a different language, especially by underlining the telos, in terms of explaining phenomena. For instance, one of the amazing properties of water is that its least absorbing spectrum corresponds to the optical regime (Gedik, N. 2005). To explain this phenomenon, science asserts the efficient cause and searches for the relationship between the absorption spectrum and the natural oscillation frequency of the water molecule. However, disregarding the temporal order, this purpose-based approach says that because it is crucial and vital for living beings to receive sufficient light, and since the atmosphere largely consists of H₂O molecules, then water had to be transparent to the optical frequencies of light to allow creatures that have eyes and photosynthesis systems to get enough light.[1]

We should admit that the latter explanation does not sound strong enough to be generalized and be formulated. Therefore, we usually avoid using the adjective “scientific” for such explanations. But when our subjects or phenomena are chosen in the bio-world, we observe that the “standard” efficient causality does not give a satisfactory explanation, and the teleological causality is necessary. For example, the adaptation concept is teleological, which makes the usage of “final cause” indispensable in biology. Furthermore, in the early 19^th century, in his book The Origin of the Species, Charles Darwin deliberately employed the term “final cause,” as it was noticed by James Lennox (Lennox 1993). Although some people claim the opposite, by carefully investigating Darwin’s works, Asa Gray and James Lennox appreciate Darwin by stating that he is the first scientist who reconciled morphology and teleology. Simply put, every species are equipped with specialized organs so that they can maximally benefit from, or maximally defend against, their environment. The same idea is also valid from the religious point of view and does not necessarily deny natural selection.

We can find more examples of teleological causality in systems biology, which studies biological concepts in a holistic way and therefore utilizes a teleological language. For instance, during mitotic cell division, chromosomes are replicated only once and then separated into two new cells. But note that something, indeed a checkpoint, prevents the cell from replicating its DNA more than once. This situation appeals for attention and can be explained in two ways. First is the teleological, or what biologists sometimes call the “biological explanation.” DNA is replicated once because otherwise it is severely defective or even lethal for the cells. Such a teleological explanation is perfectly compatible with the mechanistic explanation (efficient cause) based on the chemical interactions of some related proteins, which can be modeled by thermodynamic equations. As the system is complex, it is often hard to fully fit into a model using thermodynamic formulations. However, system biology offers another way that mixes the language of teleological and efficient causes by considering the system as a signaling network, on which the signal (or information, as in the information theory) is carried out via specific protein phosphorylations or reactions. If we were to analyze the spectrum of the words used in systems biology, such as commitment, robustness, checkpoint, decision etc., we would see that its language is more similar to our purpose-based daily language. For such irreducibly complex systems, the employment of teleological concepts does not arise as metaphorical; rather, it is indispensable as the whole cannot be purely explained by its parts.

Other sciences also provide teleological examples. Beginning in the early 20^th century, quantum physics emerged, bringing along some very unintuitive experiments. For example, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen offered a paradox called EPR. This states that measurements on two spatially separate but entangled particles can demonstrate correlations that cannot be simply explained by efficient causes. Later on, this phenomenon, called quantum entanglement, was empirically validated and can be explained by the final causes, introducing a retrocausal relationship.

Theoretical physicist Ken Wharton argues that the process known as frustrated spontaneous emission is naturally explained by such teleological causality. A light-emitting atom stops emitting light when the surrounding atoms are no longer able to absorb light. The decision of the atom whether to decay or not depends on the other atoms’ absorption, which has not happened yet. The idea that “the atom is probing the future” is not only counter intuitive, but also difficult to accept on the basis of the efficient causality, as Wharton states. (G. Musser, 2014).

Although teleological explanations are not always indispensable and can always be accompanied by efficient causality, the urge for the simplest explanation usually brings teleological language to science. Because science has been facing complex systems in various fields, teleological (purpose based) causality has become necessary since the beginning of the 20^th century. As a purpose-orientated understanding of existence is fundamental for almost all religions, it would not be strange to observe the engagement of science and religion in the near future.

Returning back to the initial question, of whether the purpose-oriented view can be reconciled with scientific research, we see that this is already widely evident in the scientific community. But there are still some people who think religions oppose science, owing to their purpose-oriented view. The judgment is left to the reader.

Yusuf Malik holds a PhD in physics. He is a freelance writer based in Boston, USA.

Reference

1. Fine, G.. 1987. “Forms as Causes: Plato and Aristotle,” in A. Graeser (ed.), Mathematics and Metaphysics in Aristotle, Bern: Haupt, pp. 69–112.
2. http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/rz/raspail.htm
3. Bacon, Francis. 1605. “Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human.” en.wikisource.org.
4. Gedik, N. 2005. “The Miracles of Water,” The Fountain, Issue 49.
5. Lennox, James G. 1993. “Darwin Was a Teleologist.” Biology and Philosophy 8 (4).
6. George Musser. 2015. “The Quantum Mechanics of Fate,” Nautilus, February.

[1] The difference between this explanation and the anthropic principle may seem subtle here, but there is an enormous conceptual gap which extends beyond the scope of this article.  

While Fethullah Gulen is revered by many for his authority as a scholar and for his achievements in education and intercultural dialogue, his views on language should earn him equal renown as a philosopher of language. Linguistics offers an analysis of a language’s system – its structure, sounds, grammar, and semantics – but the philosophy of language describes the way language creates meaning. Gulen is anchored in the optimistic tradition of the philosophy of language that establishes the relationship between language, belief, truth, and the meaning of life.

Gulen draws insights on the nature of language from the Qur’an. For Gulen, God has created with a purpose; such is also true of language. He echoes the Qur’an in this sense, in which glad tidings of paradise are given to believers who, “will hear therein neither vain talk nor falsehood” (78:35). In Gulen’s writings there is always a conscious effort to awaken in his audience an awareness of our relationship to God and of our duties towards humanity and the world.

He writes that his concept of “speech” is an effort to expound on the following verse in the Qur’an: “The All-Merciful. He has taught the Qur’an. He has created the human. He has taught him speech” (Rahman 55:1–4). In his book Speech and Power of Expression, Gulen writes, “In creating humankind, the Most Merciful gave us the ability to speak of the human essence, our inner depths, the entire cosmos, and the truth beyond material existence before sending us to the dimension of external existence” (p. 1)

The “Referential paradigm of language” that was an offshoot of Positivism’s exclusive reliance upon rationalism and science looks at language as an empirical object of investigation only and limits meaning to the word-object relation only, reducing reality to mere physical phenomenon that can be quantitatively measured and explained (Medina, 2005:40). However, Gulen writes that language is not only a tool for describing facts and performing vocative functions – it also defines and constitutes our humanity. It “gives voice to our thoughts, it is the rhythm of our feelings, and the excitement of our hearts; it is the interpreter in our communication with God Almighty. Language is a reflection of the Divine Archetype and is the repository of divine knowledge. By virtue of the faculty of language, humankind has been elevated to the rank of vicegerent on this earth” (p. 8).

In this sense, Gulen argues that language not only reveals and expresses the Divine and the Transcendental; it can also establish a relation between the Creator and the created. Gulen writes, “It is through speech that human beings have become the addressee of God and it is thanks to this faculty that they can address Him” (p. 1).

This constructive and creative view of language is a counter to the extreme form of postmodern philosophy of language that presents a pessimistic view of language, denies the divine origin of language, and reduces language to empty signs and elusive images – turns it into chimeras unanchored in any reality or purpose or meaning. This reductive view of language that looks at texts as auto-referential only turns language into a closed system of self-referring signs that endlessly defer meaning. The result is nihilism, solipsism, and the coarsening of the values that define our humanity. Virtues like duty, love, sacrifice, and the idea of the sacred are dismissed as mere linguistic projections.

Gulen, on the other hand, presents an optimistic view of language and writes, “By means of the faculty of speech bestowed in our nature, the facility has been afforded for humans to express and interpret everything at their discretion… Speech is an instrument by way of which truth is acknowledged as the highest reality and all beings become a musical instrument as if in a symphony, thereby removing the veil over things, enabling them to express themselves” (p. 2).

The “Luciferan thrust” of Postmodernism dismisses the ideals of beauty, sacredness, duty, sacrifice, the truth of the heart, and virtue as mere flattering words that mask and hide selfish motives. Freud dismissed the idea of the sacred as “infantile fantasy,” the hangover of the primitive mind, and Karl Marx described religion as the opiate for the masses. The result is a shuddering collapse of all the values that define our humanity, reducing the universe to a “Wasteland,” a “Flatland” inhabited by alienated, depressed “hollow men” who can “connect nothing with nothing.”

But Gulen does not look at beautiful language as mere simulacrum, as empty of meaning. In his account, language is “one of the most precious of gifts” from God, and words are underpinned by ideas and values. Language can inculcate moral values. There is a relationship between language, belief, meaning, and understanding. Language nourishes our aspirations, which arise from “our distinctive foundational essence”; language lends a wing “to our ideals” and takes “their feet off the ground to the heavens”; lifting us to “the upper reaches of a spiritual ascension and preparing for us thrones in realms beyond the material world.” Gulen repeatedly highlights the higher spiritual function of language. He says, “Responding to our desire for eternity, speech enriches our feelings in an indescribable manner and gives our souls a depth that cannot be bound by the dimensions of corporeality” (p. 7-8).

The reductive and degrading views of human nature put forth by the pseudo prophets of modernity, who define the essence of humanity in terms of libido, monetary profit, or class struggle, cannot explain how good literature stirs the soul and uplifts the heart. According to Gulen, literature that wells from, and voices what is in, our hearts will always remind us of the Divinity that was breathed into human beings and forms the quintessence of humanity. The constructive use of language is like “a strong gust” of wind that lifts people up “in the sky where kites wander,” “and they enjoy the freedom and ease of a bird taking wing in the spacious sky…they experience constant transformations and perceive the magnificence of transcendent life through the colorful dimensions of speech…” (p. 6).

Gulen cites the Holy Qur’an as an excellent example of the zenith of language that has an immense depth of meaning, and whose “voice is heard beyond ramparts and echoes in even the most obstinate and bigoted of hearts. There is such dazzling magic in the presentation of its themes that it is impossible not to be impressed upon hearing it.”

According to Gulen, language that embeds lofty ideals and noble goals “is as expansive as the skies, as full of vigor as the earth, as lustrous as silk, and as comforting as a mother’s embrace. It articulates to us the glory of our faith, the riches of our society, the purity and integrity of our fellow companions, the struggle of our ancestors, and our values that make us unique. Good speech that originates directly from, and voices what is in, our hearts will always remind us of our Divine origin. To the extent of the sacredness of its color, wealth, and goals, good speech will echo in our hearts like celestial voices providing us with proofs of its origin” (p. 8).

Western literary theory and Positivist epistemology support each other in looking at literature as auto-referential; they view literature as self-reflexive and not referring to any meaning outside it. It is parasitic and, in the words of the French poet Valery, it is like a dance that leads nowhere.

On the other hand, Gulen establishes a relationship between literature and axiology. He says that literature not only describes and creates beauty, it also tells us about our relationship to life and the purpose of life. He rejects the concept of Art for the sake of Art, which is exclusively concerned with creating elegance of form only.

Equally emphatic is his rejection of naturalism in literature that, in the name of realism, puts the emphasis on the sordid, mean, and brutal aspects of life. He advises that literary people should “put their language skills and artistic talents at the service of the right, good, and beautiful, instead of hurting the souls of the masses…by describing what is corrupt, or contaminating people’s pure thoughts with dirty images, and condemning them to the slavery of materialism with descriptions of carnal desires” (p. 15-16).

Gulen exhorts artists to take the prophets and writers of Sufi literature as role models, because all of them have, “acted in cooperation and are united in building prosperous cities from speech, weaving lace from the silken threads of language, and stringing exquisite necklaces with the jewels of words” (p. 5).

Language is an instrument given exclusively to humankind. It has tremendous power and can perform diverse and contradictory functions. In this context, Gulen quotes a hadith that says that a believer must guard his speech because it can be equally used as a remedy and as a weapon. The range of its power can extend in opposite directions: it can revive and kill, establish peace and start war, disclose and hide, liberate and imprison, construct and destroy, exaggerate and downplay. It is therefore necessary to keep watch that one’s language is not misused. When the use of language is yoked to an agenda of self-aggrandisement, or the acquisition of power or monetary profit, it is severed from its divine purpose of pursuing Truth and serving humanity. It degenerates into the rhetoric of hatred and misrepresentation, and generated suspicion, deception, competition and aggression. It becomes an instrument of manipulation and exploitation. Gulen emphasises that we need to use language in a constructive way. He argues for promoting interfaith and intercultural dialogue, because language has tremendous power to make people understand others and to change their perception. It can persuade people to work for peace. It is, in the words of Gulen, “the sword of humankind,” and, “wherever the flag of speech waves, the most powerful armies are defeated and scattered. In the arenas in which speech shouts out, the sounds of cannon balls become like the buzzing of bees. From behind the battlements on which the banner of speech has been raised, the sound of its drums are heard. In the precincts where its march reverberates, kings shake in their boots” (p. 2).

Good speech influences people to make the best of their potential, removes misunderstandings and false consciousness, helps them expand tolerance and promote cooperation, encourages collaboration, and establishes peace. Gulen expresses the educative value of language in these words, “foxes take their leave of deception, and lions are terrified, seeking shelter in their dens.” No “combatant has ever possessed a weapon mightier than speech” (p. 5).

Cognitive linguistics postulates that language is inseparable from thought, and Gulen writes, “Speech is the key that opens the locks on the doors of the treasury of thought” (p. 2). As the famous linguist Wittgenstein said, “My world ends where my language ends.” In Gulen’s view, since language is intertwined with thought, it should be developed and enriched to empower a nation intellectually and morally. He notes and cautions that nations which do not think and speak become dependent on others: “Societies which do not think and speak will find others speak and think on their behalf” (p. 18). Imported views estrange us from our own rich heritage. It is of supreme importance for a nation to be respectful towards the history of its language.

However, language has to go beyond historical value and respond positively to every positive new development. For, as Gulen says, “reaching out to the future at full speed requires catching up with industrialization, global commerce, and technological warehouses.” If language and thought, both living phenomena, do not evolve with the times, they will become stagnant, as solidified as rock, and will lose their soul. Nations that can manage to develop their language and make it accommodating, while at the same time staying faithful to the roots of it, are the most dynamic in thought and influence.

Language can serve both genealogical and teleological functions. As a symbol making activity, language not only embodies, but also preserves, all of our core values and cognitive and intellectual reserves. It also renews our link with our origins and traditional heritage. With its new developments and transformations, language looks to the future – just as our heritage of wisdom, ethics, and ideals can give direction to future, too.

Gulen compares the teleological function of language to a “golden-winged turtledove released by our hopes to the future” (p. 8). The core values of every society are embedded in the symbols of its language. Gulen argues, “Language is not only a means of speech and thought; it is a bridge with the significant function of bringing the wealth of the past to our day and conveying today’s heritage and our new compositions to the future” (p. 17).

Language is an important tool for humankind in our efforts to better understand the cosmos and events both holistically and analytically. The relationship between language and thought comprises cognitive and intellectual reflections on existence and events, transforming these reflections into sources of information, and becoming productive while forming links between the cosmos and our knowledge. The future prospects of a nation are very much dependent on evaluating these relationships. Language is one of the fundamental dynamics in the composition of a culture. We should not cast everything that is old into oblivion, nor turn our face to the past and close our doors to what is new. Let us embrace the past with the utmost sincerity and at the same time salute the coming days with their open, new developments and transformations.

I will conclude with summing up Gulen’s message – Let us use language as a bridge between different cultures and religions to establish peace. Let us use language as a beacon house to illuminate minds and souls, and as a bond to bring people together on the basis of shared human values: compassion, tolerance, harmony, and peace.

References

• Gulen, M. Fethullah. 2010. Speech and Power of Expression: On Language, Esthetics, and Belief, NJ: Tughra Books.
• Medina, Jose. 2005. Language: Key Concepts in Philosophy, Continuum.

“O you who believe! Prescribed for you is the Fast, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may deserve God’s protection and attain piety.”¹

Fasting is an ancient practice whose purpose and benefit span across the three Abrahamic faiths. It is mentioned in the Bible, Qur’an, and the Hindu scriptures. Buddhism requires the ascetic lifestyle of its monks, which includes fasting. It was practiced by many of the ancient communities, including Native Americans and Africans. Certain milestone events in those communities, such as weddings, reaching puberty, and mourning, are accompanied by fasting. Fasting for health reasons was practiced for thousands of years, and has well-known benefits.

Apart from religious and medical fasting, people also fast for political reasons, to raise awareness regarding a certain issue. This article will focus on fasting as a religious practice in the Abrahamic Faiths —Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and will synthesize the insights from three traditions regarding the benefits and purposes of fasting.

Fasting is broadly defined as partial or total abstinence from food and drink for a certain period of time. The amount of time and the types of food or drink fasted from differs according to tradition. Certain types of fasting exclude specific acts as well, such as wearing certain garments, shaving, or sexual intimacy.

This article, organized into three main sections, explores the concept, textual reference and benefits of fasting as pointed out by the scholars in each of the three Abrahamic religions.

Judaism

In Jewish tradition, fasting is total abstinence from food and drink. There are two major fasting days on the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, but conservative Jews fast up to six days per year. Only Yom Kippur is biblically ordained, while the others are rabbinically ordained. Fasting on a Sabbath is prohibited unless it is Yom Kippur, in which case it is observed. Sexual relations are also prohibited on the two major fasting days.

Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, is the most important of the Jewish Holidays. It is the tenth and final day of the Ten Days of Repentance, starting with Rosh Hashanah. Every man and woman who has of age (above the age of bar/bat mitzvah) and whose health permits fasting, should fast on this day. The fasting lasts 25 hours, from the sunset of one day to the nightfall of the other. In addition to total abstinence from food and drink, prohibited activities on this day include those prohibited on an ordinary Sabbath, such as striking fire and using tools. Additionally, leather shoes are not worn on this day, and women and men wear white garments as a reminder of a burial shroud and the Day of Judgment. The mood is solemn, humble, and repentant, but also happy with the knowledge that repentance brings redemption. The day is spent at Synagogue services, and holds five prayers, compared to three on regular days and four on Sabbath.

Tisha B’Av is the ninth day of the month Av in the Hebrew calendar, and falls on a July or August on the Gregorian calendar. It marks the end of a three-week mourning period and commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Similar to Yom Kippur, the fast lasts 25 hours. Some Jews also observe additional prohibitions on certain daily activities. The Sabbath observance has precedence over this fast, however, and observance is delayed to a Sunday if it falls on Sabbath. The mood is melancholic. In addition to those two major fasting days, there is minor fasting days when fasting is observed from dawn to sunset. The four minor fasting days are the Fast of Gedaliah, the Fast of the 10th of Tevet, the Fast of the 17th of Tammuz, and the Fast of Esther. There are also other days of fasting which are not universally observed. In addition to fasts tied to certain dates, there are also fasts tied to certain occasions, such as fasting of the bride and groom before their wedding ceremony, fasting of a firstborn, fasts of repentance of certain acts, or fasts to avoid an impending calamity. It should be noted that unlike some other traditions, the fasts in Judaism, specifically those that commemorate and mourn important events, are not ended with feasts.

Three purposes of fasting are commonly quoted by Jewish scholars. First is the atonement of previous wrongdoings:

Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. (Joel, 2:12-13)

While fasting itself does not provide redemption, it makes oneself more conducive to feel regret for past errors. The “affliction of souls” in Leviticus, 23:27, 29, 32; Numbers, 29:7 is also interpreted in this context. The term translated as “affliction of souls” also has the meaning “to busy one’s self with” for fasting is an opportunity to busy one’s self with spiritual matters by accompanying the fast with reading the holy text and engaging in prayers. Focusing more on spiritual, rather then corporeal aspects of life, is also pointed out in the Midrash—that fasting can elevate a soul to the exalted level of the Mal’achay HaSharait—ministering angels. Also, as past errors bring about catastrophes, sincere repentance is a way, probably the only way, to avert pending catastrophes:

Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. (Jonah 3:3-5)

The second purpose of fasting is mourning, at individual and collective levels. The following verse is an example of individual mourning:

When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh, where they burned them.3 Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh, and they fasted seven days. (I Samuel 31:11-14)

Fasting and mourning has an implied connection, just like when a loved one dies, we do not feel like eating, food becomes insignificant to us. Also, we repent for the mistakes we did to that person, and seek forgiveness.

Collective mourning for catastrophes that befell earlier communities is also an important dimension of fasting, such as the events mentioned in the following verses:

On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan commander of the imperial guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He set fire to the temple of the LORD, the royal palace and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every important building he burned down. (Jeremiah 52:12-13)

Mourning results in awareness in what is lost, and in rejoice when the loss is regained. It also creates a spiritual unity with earlier generations, and a renewed commitment to common goals.

The third purpose is one of gratitude. By abstinence from basic needs, one realizes his/her dependence on God, and appreciates all the sustenance provided by God to His creation.

Christianity

Fasting has different meanings in different Christian denominations. It is mostly a partial fast, so practice widely differs.

Roman Catholics define fasting as the reduction in food intake for one full meal and two small meals (morning and evening). Solid food intake between meals is not permitted. Abstinence is defined as avoiding meat for a particular day, and partial abstinence is consuming meat only once during a day. The regulations of fasting evolved several times according to the decrees of Vatican. According to today’s regulations, there are two obligatory fasting days for Roman Catholics: Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence. Voluntary fasting is encouraged and practiced. In addition to these, Roman Catholics also observe Eucharistic fasting, i.e. avoiding all food and drink except water for, according to current regulations, the duration of an hour before receiving the Holy Communion during the Mass. Some Catholics still live by the older regulations, which prescribed the start of fasting as the midnight of the previous day.

The Anglican Church follows a similar definition of fasting, but there is no distinction between fasting and abstinence, and regulations are less-specific. The Book of Common Prayer lists four periods as fasting days, which includes forty days of Lent and all the Fridays in the Year, except Christmas Day. There is no universal Anglican rule on fasting, so the provinces are free to choose what fasting days to recommend. Usually, fasting of Lent and Fridays are observed. The measures of abstinence are left to the individuals.

In eastern Orthodox and Greek Catholicism, fasting is an important discipline to protect oneself from gluttony, indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, or intoxicants to the point of waste. Fasting is accompanied by almsgiving and prayers, and fasting without such acts is considered worthless. There are four main seasons of fasting, including Lent, but fasting continues throughout the year, on Wednesdays and Fridays. Fasting individuals cannot consume meat, dairy products, oil and alcoholic beverages, although the precise definition of these categories differs in practice. Eucharistic fasting is observed from midnight of the previous day to Holy Communion. There are also periods during which fasting is prohibited.

While early Protestants frowned upon fasting as an external practice, currently fasting is widely acknowledged and encouraged as an important spiritual experience among Protestant churches. For example, Lutherans encourage fasting during Lent, while United Methodists fast from sundown-to-sundown on Mondays to Tuesdays and Thursdays to Fridays.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints defines fasting as total abstinence from food and drink, including water. The first Sundays of each month is called Fast Sunday, during which members fast for two consecutive meals and donate the money saved as a result of fasting. The purpose of fasting in this tradition is achieving mastery of spirit over body. The members who want to solicit special help, including for earthly benefits, or those who want to become closer to God, are encouraged to fast. Jesus warned his followers against fasting only to make others admire them. He suggested practical steps should be taken to fast in private: When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:16-18) In this context, the overarching goal of fasting is bringing the individual closer to the Divine.

According to the Old Testament, Moses fasted for forty days and forty nights while he was on Mount Sinai with God. (Exodus 34:28) and the New Testament states that Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights while in the desert, prior to the three temptations (Matthew 4:2, Luke 4:2). Hence, spiritual preparation is an important dimension of fasting. David practiced fasting for humbling his soul (Psalm 35:13). Abstaining from food helps one realize his/her inherent helplessness, and to understand one’s place vis-à-vis the Divine. This motivation can clearly be seen, for example, in Isaiah 58:3-13, where Prophet Isaiah admonishes the believers and calls to the real meaning of fasting.

Understanding the situation of the poor and the needy is also an important motivation for fasting. In fact, in most churches, fasting is mentioned had-in-hand with prayer and almsgiving. Fasting is the door to show mercy, and showing mercy to others is a petition to receive mercy from God.

Islam

In Islam, fasting is defined as total abstinence from food and drink, including water. Fasting also precludes sexual intimacy between spouses. Fasting individuals are also expected to abide by the highest moral values, i.e. no lying, no backbiting, no fighting or disputing, and not breaking the hearts of others.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the five pillars (i.e. core practices) of Islam. It continues from dawn to sunset for 29 to 30 consecutive days (a full Lunar month), and is mandatory for every Muslim man and woman above the age of puberty. The sick, elderly, pregnant and suckling women have permission not to fast, and can make up for it later by fasting equal number of days, or giving charity to those in need, especially if fasting poses a health risk. Menstruating women cannot fast, and make up for it in a similar fashion. The ritual of fasting is defined in a precise manner in the Holy Qur’an, so there is virtually no difference as to what it means and how it is practiced among Muslim communities.

In addition to Ramadan fasting, devout Muslims also fast on Monday and Thursdays, as well as 13th, 14th and 15th of each lunar month. Other voluntary fasting days include the day of Ashura (tenth day of Muharram), day of Arafat (ninth day of Dhu al-hijja), and six days of Shawwal.

The Qur’an states that fasting was prescribed by God upon the earlier faith communities, and proclaims the main purpose of fasting as achieving taqwa. While taqwa can be translated as righteousness or God-consciousness, it holds other meanings as well.

The first and foremost purpose of fasting is to follow God’s command of fasting. All benefits to be acquired by fasting, such as improving the health and understanding the helplessness of the poor people, cannot be the intention of the believer while fasting. Those are but ways to understand the Divine wisdom behind the command of fasting.

Many Islamic scholars have written on the subject of fasting. Said Nursi is one of these scholars who outline the many purposes of fasting in the 29th chapter of his book The Letters.

He first states that parallel to Christian and Jewish traditions, a major goal of fasting is to appreciate the bounties given by the Divine, which go unnoticed if not for fasting. Therefore, fasting creates an atmosphere for a sincere thanksgiving:

Many people cannot appreciate most of the bounties they enjoy, for they do not experience hunger. For example, a piece of dry bread means nothing to those who are full, especially if they are rich.

A second purpose, more in line with Christian tradition, is to understand the situation of the poor through hunger and thirst, thus create compassion and facilitate giving of charity:

… God invites the rich to help the poor. Without fasting, many rich and self-indulgent people cannot perceive the pain of hunger and poverty or to what extent the poor need care. Care for one’s fellow beings is a foundation of true thanksgiving. There is always someone poorer, so everyone must show care for such people. If people do not experience hunger, it is nearly impossible for them to do good or to help others. Even if they do, they can do so only imperfectly because they do not feel the hungry one’s condition to the same extent.

A third purpose is taming and humbling of the soul and protection against gluttony:

The carnal self desires—and considers itself—to be free and unrestricted. It even wishes, by its very nature, for an imagined lordship and free, arbitrary action. Not liking to think that it is being trained and tested through God’s countless bounties, it swallows up such bounties like an animal and in the manner of a thief or robber, especially if its wealth and power is accompanied by heedlessness.

Indeed, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, hints that fasting from food helps curb inclinations to sins, such as lust:

Whoever among you is able to marry, should marry, and whoever is not able to marry, is recommended to fast. (Bukhari)

Other purposes pointed out by Islamic scholars include perfecting moral behavior, focusing on spiritual needs and sacred text (rather then corporeal needs), creating bonds in the community through fasting and feasting together, and expiation for certain sins. The latter, related to atonement in Judaism, is directly mentioned in the Qur’an as the expiation of sins such as the accidental killing of a fellow human being and breaking of oaths to God:

God does not take you to task for a slip (or blunder of speech) in your oaths, but He takes you to task for what you have concluded by solemn, deliberate oaths. The expiation (for breaking such oaths) is to feed ten destitute persons (or one person for ten days) with the average of the food you serve to your families, or to clothe them, or to set free a slave. If anyone does not find (the means to do that), let him fast for three days.” (Al-Maedah, 5:89)

Conclusion

The three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, share a common ground in terms of faith and practices. Similar to prayer, fasting is common in three religions as well. After exploring the similarities and differences of fasting across the three faiths, it is evident that gratitude and thanksgiving are common purposes and benefits of fasting. While fasting to mourn is more specific to Judaism, fasting for atonement is more pronounced in Christianity and Judaism. Furthermore, fasting to facilitate charity, to gain mastery of soul, to achieve humility, and protection from gluttony is more of a common goal between Islam and Christianity. Finally, using free time to focus on studying the sacred text and prayer is emphasized more in Judaism and Islam. While the emphasis placed on each purpose in this article is admittedly subjective, the great benefit of fasting spans across the three Abrahamic faiths irrespective of the length and time of the particular fast, and traces of all benefits and purposes can be found in all three religions.

Note

• Qur’an 2:183

References

• Berghuis, Kent D. 2007. Christian Fasting – A Theological Approach, Biblical Studies Press.
• Corn, Kevin (ed.) 2006. Fasting and Feasting in Three Traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Interfaith Conversations Booklet #1, University of Indianapolis
• Online at: http://eip.uindy.edu/crossings/publications/Interfaith%20Conversations-1.pdf
• Encyclopedia.com, Fasting: http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/fasting.aspx
• Lynne Baab. 2007. Fasting Spiritual Freedom Beyond Our Appetites, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL
• Maloney, A George, 1974, Return to Fasting, online at: http://openlibrary.org/b/OL18254420M/return_to_fasting
• Nursi, Said. 2010. Ramadan, Frugality, Thanksgiving, NJ: Tughra Books.
• Ryan, Thomas, 2005, The Sacred Art of Fasting: preparing to practice, SkyLight Paths Publishing, Woodstock, VT.
• The Bible, King James Version. Online at http://www.biblegateway.com/ .
• Translation of Sahih Bukhari (M. Muhsin Khan). Online at: http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/crcc/engagement/resources/texts/muslim/hadith/bukhari/
• Translation of Holy Quran (Translation by Ali Unal)
• http://al-quran.info/default.aspx#&&trans=en-ali_unal
• Wikipedia, Online Encyclopedia : Fasting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting

In a harsh, corrupt and unforgiving land,
came a mercy and salvation.
Warring tribes and fierce factions,
he united into one nation.
And to the women at the bottom of the tribal castes,
he brought liberation.
He was. The best of creation.
A people so lost in ignorance,
they required a complete transformation.
When they prayed to many gods,
he insisted on unification.
With divine unity at its core,
he built a solid foundation.
He was. The best of creation.
When forced from his home land,
he made patient migration.
But his was a mission of mercy,
there would be no retribution.
What less would you expect? From the best of creation.
While Kings lived vain glory,
he was humility and moderation.
He had no need for worldly goods,
his purpose was to save his nation
Whatever he had he would give away,
yet he was richest in God’s estimation
He was. The best of creation
Now 14 centuries later,
he remains an inspiration.
In a world of darkness and delusion,
his way is illumination.
O God! If you grant me just one wish,
let him know of my adoration.
Your beloved one, the best of creation. 

This is the winning poem in a recent competition organized by ISRA, Islamic Sciences and Research Academy in Sydney, Australia, dedicated to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

M&B: Your life story is very interesting. You started your journey as a scientist. How did you become interested in science?

As a young boy, I was very good at mathematics; for me it was a very exciting subject. So I went to study mathematics at Cambridge University. And during my undergraduate years, I became very interested in the fact that you can use mathematics to understand the physical world. So when it came time to do a PhD, I did it in theoretical physics, working, in fact, with a very distinguished theoretical physicist, AbdusSalam, who later won the Nobel Prize. That led to a 25-year career working in theoretical elementary particle physics; that is, using mathematics to try and understand the behavior of the smallest bits of matter. It was a very enjoyable, interesting life.

M&B: You chose the study of elementary particles in physics; what was it that fascinated you?

Elementary particle physics, obviously, is a very fundamental branch; it is the study of the constituents out of which the physical world is made. When I entered the subject, it was at a very exciting stage. New experimental material was appearing and the theorists were puzzled at what was being discovered at first. During the 25 years I spent on the subject, we moved from thinking of protons and neutrons as being the constituents of matter to recognizing that they themselves were made up of yet smaller constituents, which are called quarks and gluons; the latter are what make them stick together. It was a very exciting and interesting time to be involved in the subject.

M&B: Why did you resign your position at Cambridge and leave physics?

I don’t think you get better as you get older in mathematically-based subjects. It requires a certain flexibility of mind rather than a depth of experience. You probably don’t do your best work before you’re 25, but almost certainly before you’re 45. I recognized that; I’ve seen it happen with senior colleagues, and I had thought for a long time that I wouldn’t stay in theoretical physics all my life. I had done my bit for it and probably the time had now come to do something else.

M&B: Was there one particular event that triggered your transition from being a professor at the university to being an Anglican priest?

In no way did I leave physics because I was disillusioned with it. I enjoyed it and I still took a keen interest in it. My transition from being a professor to a priest was partly conditioned by the fact that I’d reached that stage in my life where I felt I’d done my bit for physics. Also, the subject was changing. The quantum theory had become very established, the dust had settled, so to speak, on what we call the standard model. Physics was changing its character. String theory was appearing and everything was becoming much more speculative, using a different sort of mathematics; I didn’t know this so well, so it was quite a good time for a change.

That’s why I did it. There was no heavenly voice telling me, John, give up physics and do something else. It was just a natural transition to make. At least leaving physics was. Becoming an Anglican priest was a rather special choice for a further career, but that was influenced by the fact that Christianity had always been central to my life, and I wanted to serve the church.

M&B: If one were to compare scientific inquiry and religious thinking, what are the limits of scientific inquiry?

Well, science is very successful, but its success is the result of the modesty of its ambition. It doesn’t try to ask and answer every question. Essentially, it asks how things happen. Science doesn’t concern itself with a question of why things are happening, whether there is a meaning, or purpose to what’s going on. It considers a limited range of experience and essentially treats the world as an object, as an “it,” something to be kicked around, pulled apart to find out what it’s made of, manipulated. And that gives science, of course, its secret weapon, which is the experimental method. If you don’t believe it, try it for yourself, you can do it again and again and again. We all know, of course, that there is a very wide range of human experience which is quite different from that in which you encounter reality; that is not as an “it,” if you like, not as an object, but as a person, or in the richest case, the transpersonal reality of God. And that regime, which is very central to human life and fulfillment, has to give way to trusting. There’s a different way of finding the truth. So while science is great, it doesn’t tell you the whole story. It needs to be supplemented by other forms of insight.

M&B: There is an understanding that science is based on testing and religion is based on trusting. But do you think there is testing in religion too, and that there is trusting in science?

To a degree that’s true. There is trust in science, in the sense that scientists commit themselves to a belief that the world is intelligible. They will be able to understand it. It may be difficult to find that understanding, there may be a lot of labor involved, but they believe that there is a story to be found and to be told. And we wouldn’t do science unless we had committed ourselves to the expectation that we will find an intelligible structure beneath it.

Equally, in religion, we don’t really have experiments. We can’t put the Lord, your God, through a test, but we do have experiences. We have our own realistic experience, and also we have the record and the foundational religious experiences that lie behind the traditions of different faiths. So there is a motivated belief that arises from experience in religion and there is a commitment to a point of view in science. In that sense, the two are not completely different from each other. They have a certain cousinly relationship to each other.

M&B: You obviously have had religious experiences in your life. Could you give us some examples in order to better understand the difference between experience and experiment?

I think religion has an experiential aspect. I wouldn’t say it has an experimental aspect; an experiment is when you figure out what you think ought to happen and you induce the circumstances in which you think it’s going to happen; then you see whether it does or not. You can’t do that with God. But the outcome is going to be more open and much more flexible in its character. Take a very simple example. Suppose somebody is gravely ill, and their community prays for that person. They’re praying for God to heal that person’s life. Now the word healing comes from the root hale which means wholeness. The people who are praying may be hoping that wholeness will find its expression in terms of some form of remarkable physical recovery. It may, but equally it may not. The wholeness may come; it may come in the form of that person being able to accept the imminent destiny of death in a peaceful and trusting way. So there’s a sort of range of possible outcomes. You can’t lay them down beforehand in the same way that you can in science, and that makes religious experience valid, true, supportive. We have experiences of worship, we feel the presence of God in that sort of way; we have experiences of commitment. Looking back on our lives, I think we can often see what we believe to be the guiding hand of God leading us in a particular direction; I can see that myself, for example, in my change from being a physicists to being a priest. But I didn’t hear a heavenly voice telling me to do that at the time; it seemed more like my own exploration. Looking back, I see God’s hand in it as well. So there’s a richness and a sort of ambiguity, in a way, of religious experience. It makes religion a much more complex, and also, in a sense, a much more satisfying and fulfilling form of human activity.

M&B: Now that we have heard your story, let’s examine with the cosmic story. What are the scientific and religious perspectives behind the story of the universe?

When we think about the history of the universe, we know that it started out very, very small. 13.7 billion years ago it was just an expanding ball of energy, about the simplest thing you could imagine. Now it’s become very rich and complicated; the home of saints and scientists. And that extraordinary story in itself might suggest that something has been going on in what’s been happening with the world. It has not just been one thing after another. There’s some sort of unfolding purpose that’s being fulfilled.

M&B: And human beings also play an important role in the cosmic story.

I think one of the most astonishing things which has happened in the history of the universe that we know about is actually the coming to be of human life and human consciousness here on earth. Something really new emerged in the world with that, because we are able to be aware of ourselves, we are able to understand the world. In human nature, the universe, so to speak, became aware of itself. That was a new development. Obviously on the scale of the universe, we are very tiny creatures, and we inhabit a planet that is just a speck of dust in the great universe, but we are greater than all the stars because we know them and ourselves, and they know nothing. So, I do think there’s a particular value and a particular significance in human life. Scientific ability is part of that; our religious ability, I think, to encounter the reality of God reflects another unique aspect of human nature. So, as small as we are, I think we are a very significant part of what’s going on in the world. Science tells us that story, but I think religion interprets the same story and says, yes indeed, there is something going on. There is a purpose behind the universe. It’s the purpose of the Creator, and it’s not an accident that human beings who are aware of God have emerged; indeed, it was God’s purpose to bring that about.

M&B: That brings us to life after death, to questions about our purpose. As a physicist, what does the cosmic story tell you?

Every story that science can tell ends, eventually, in totality, transience and decay. As far as human life is concerned, obviously, we’re all going to die. It’s even true of the universe itself, although on much greater time scales. Not tomorrow, not for billions and billions of years, but eventually the universe itself is going to end in futility, most likely by becoming progressively colder and colder, more and more dilute. Carbon-based life, wherever it is in the universe, will eventually prove to be just a transient episode in history. That’s all that science can say. It’s the third law of thermodynamics; in the end, chaos always wins over order.

M&B: But there are also conservation laws in science. Do you think conservation laws offer some kind of hope scientifically?

Science certainly knows that some things don’t get lost, the conservation of energy for example. Energy is conserved yes, but what thermodynamics tells us is that energy becomes less and less useful. It transforms into heat and things like that which can’t be used to do footwork or create further forms of order. So that says the universe does run down. Of course, there are bits of the universe that swim against the tide, so to speak; but the emergence of humans, conscious beings, is different from that. But we are going to get caught up in that eventual decay in the end. So I think within what science can say, although there is no conservation of real fulfillment, in the end it is condemned to futility.

You might think, what’s the point of it? It’s going to end in that sort of way. But of course, the scientific story is not the only story to tell. There’s a religious story, so to speak; a vertical story to compliment the horizontal story of science. And the religious story is that God is faithful and God will not allow things of value to simply disappear. And I believe that there is for human beings, both individually, and for the universe as a whole, a destiny beyond our deaths. This is not a story that science can tell, because it depends entirely on the faithfulness of God. But I believe God is faithful, and so I believe that human beings will have a destiny beyond their death, and that our destiny will be linked with the destiny of the universe; the whole of creation matters to its Creator. That’s a big, big story, a story of hope and of fulfillment; science poses the question of eventual futility, but only religion, I think, can provide a satisfying answer to it.

The big issue is, is the universe truly a cast off? Does it truly make sense? It makes a lot of sense now. Science explores that and the wonderful order of the world. But does it everlastingly make sense, or in the end does it signify nothing? I think to a religious point of view it is a cosmos and not a chaos. But it is my religious belief that tells me this, not my scientific understanding.

M&B: As limited as we are, we can somehow strangely relate to that concept of everlasting life. What is the role of human conscious in transcending itself?

Human life is very rich and complex. It operates at a great many levels. There are all sorts of human intuitions, some of which we are not really consciously aware of, but which are a very important part of our humanity. Here’s one way of thinking about it. Suppose a child wakes up in the middle of the night frightened by some dream it has had. The parent goes to comfort the child. What the parent says to the child is: it’s all right. Now stop for a minute and think what that might mean. Is that parent really telling a lie to the child? We live in a world of cancer and concentration camps; we live in a world in which we know we’re all going to die. Is it really all right? On the face of it, you might think the answer is no, but nevertheless, there’s a deep intuition that in the end, all will be well. There’s a deep human intuition of hope that although there is death, there is more than death.

Interview conducted by Mustafa Tabanli for Ebru TV for the Emmy Award winning television series Matter and Beyond.

“No one yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure” – Emma Goldman

For centuries there has been much isolation (of various sorts) and years of conflict that have placed a wall between peoples, cultures, countries, and religions; this is because some people have been taught to hate each other. Poverty, religious fanaticism, and war have taught people all over the world to hate one another.

Despite the increased opportunities for dialogue today, the community of nations is also faced with serious economic, social, and cultural difficulties; the inequality between nations is growing, and many conflicts and serious tensions threaten peace and security. Just by looking at recent events, we can see that the world has witnessed a number of brutal wars and conflicts in the twentieth century alone. Bosnia is one of the examples of wars where ethnic cleansing and numerous ethnic and ideological conflicts have left a deep traumatic scar on the collective memories of the nations in the region. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is another conflict that is just as painful.

The crises in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Karabag, and many other parts of the world can be added to this painful list. The purpose of this article is to find some possible answers to the following questions: Why do people not solve their problems through dialogue? What prevents them from doing this? Or in other words, who or what is to blame?

My immediate answer to all these questions is just one word: education. But the meaning of that word is not as simple as it seems. It can be defined in different ways, such as the following: Education is an organizational substructure that prepares individuals in order that they will eventually become useful for:

• The ongoing operation of their current social structure;

• The preservation and continuation of such a social structure in following generations. Or;

Education is a substructure that prepares new generations so they can eventually improve on current organizational structures (into which they have been thrown) by:

• Introducing mechanisms to smoothly implement improvements;

• Sustaining those mechanisms with improvements;

• Trying to preserve the stability of the social structure.

Once the question becomes “what is the purpose of education?” it becomes more complex:

“The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past, and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.” – Ayn Rand

“The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned, but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.” – Eric Hoffer

“The central job of schools is to maximize the capacity of each student.” – Carol Ann Tomlinson

“The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions.” – Bishop Creighton

“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think-rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.” – Bill Beattie

As understood from the above quotations, it is not easy to find a single definition of what education is. Therefore, education has a twofold role to play in the questions asked above concerning “Education for dialogue” or “Education for hate.” In fact, the duality of the role of education emanates from the people, the educators, who use it for whatever their purpose is. This purpose can vary, being political, national, religious, antireligious, etc…. Thus, we arrive at the issue of preparing people as “good educators.”

All in all, education is the key to solving the greatest dilemmas of humanity. Investment in human resources represents the best hope for achieving growth in several areas, such as economic, social, and cultural, without forsaking the goals of the alleviation of poverty, social cohesion, and environmental sustainability. Achieving global sustainability will depend upon the contributions of young generations with the knowledge, training, and social commitment needed to create real change.

In the new millennium almost every region of the world will face tremendous challenges. The insistent pressures of globalization imply a new world order in which the only constant will be change. It seems that education will be one of the essential foundations of both a culture of peace and dialogue among civilizations. Education advocates the respect of universal values common to all civilizations (solidarity, tolerance, recognition of human rights, fundamental freedom for all, etc.). Education is also ideally suited to the transmission of national and universal cultural values and should foster the assimilation of scientific and technological knowledge without detriment being made to the capacities and values of the people.

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi reveals the beauty and purposes behind these seemingly ugly events in the “twenty-fifth flash”¹ with twenty-five remedies. Almost every remedy starts with a warning sentence advising “patience and thankfulness”; the reason for this is that a person who tries to understand everything without a strong belief in God and in the Hereafter feels impatient and will often complain. At first sight, the statement “An illness is not a malady; it is a cure” strikes almost everyone as paradoxical. Life is the most important asset that one has in this life, and it has a purpose. Life will pass very quickly in ease and heedlessness without bearing any fruit; illnesses and calamities slow time down, and give room for life to yield its fruit. This helps prevent us from wasting our lives.

To show a given situation in all its clarity Nursi considers all possible aspects of it. When we are ill or struck by a calamity we implicitly assume that a right has been taken from us; yet it is at this difficult time that we are asked to be patient and think of the positive side of what has happened. However, this is not all. When the situation is considered from a more fundamental point of view, it becomes clear that a person has no right to complain if they truly understand that they are not even the owner of their own selves:

“It is your duty not to complain, but to offer thanks and be patient. For your body, organs, and faculties are not your property. You did not make them and you did not buy them from other workshops. That means they are the property of another. Their owner has disposal over His property as He wishes.”

The purpose of the above statement is not to close the matter at this point, leaving no room for further discussion, but to make it clear that, there is no justification for any complaint and the All-Compassionate God will reward those moments of illness and tragedy lived in tranquility and patience, as Nursi states:

“Through the calamity of good health, some of your fellows become neglectful, giving up the five daily prayers, not thinking of the grave, and forgetting God Almighty. For the superficial pleasure of a brief hour of this worldly life, they shake and damage a never-ending, eternal life, even destroying it. Through illness you see the grave, which you will, in any event, enter, and the dwellings of the Hereafter beyond it, and you act in accordance with these. That means that for you, illness is good health, while for some of your peers good health is an illness…”

Ironically, the passing of pain is a pleasure, and the passing of pleasures is a discomfort, a constant sorrow left in the spirit. Even some pleasures that only last a day or a few minutes will sometimes cause a suffering that lasts years. It is not difficult to find an example of this; the use of drugs is an obvious parallel. The purpose in this life is to know our Creator and to prepare ourselves for an Eternal Hereafter, yet there are many distractions on the path. Illness gives us a warning: “Your body is not composed of stone and iron; it is made up of various materials which are always inclined to decay. Stop being proud, understand your impotence, recognize your Owner, know your duties, and learn why you came to this world!” This is what is secretly declared to the heart.

Everything is understood by its opposite. Light would not be known if there was no darkness. “If there was no thirst, there would be no pleasure in drinking water.” And as for illness, Nursi gives the following beautiful comparison: “If there was not this illness in your head, or in your hand, or stomach, would you have perceived the pleasurable and enjoyable Divine bounty of the good health of your head, hand, or stomach, and offered thanks? For sure, not only would you not have offered thanks for it, you would not have even thought of it! You would have unconsciously spent that good health on heedlessness, and perhaps even on dissipation.”

The All-Compassionate God from His mercy forgives the sins of the ill believer; this can be found in a authentic hadith: “As ripe fruit falls from the tree that is shaken, so too do the sins of a believer fall with his shaking in illness.”² What can be better news for a believer than this? With patience and by not complaining, one can transform a passing illness into everlasting health. Said Nursi gives the most fundamental and important cure: “Thus, the first thing you have to do is to search for the cure of belief, which is a healing remedy that is sure for the innumerable illnesses of that infinitely wounded and ill, yet extensive immaterial being of yours; you have to correct your beliefs, and the shortest way of finding such a cure is to recognize the power and mercy of the All-Powerful One of Glory by means of the window of your weakness and impotence; this has been shown you from behind the curtain of heedlessness, rent by your physical illness.”

Death plays the main role in causing pain, fear, and anxiety, as this is where illness may lead. Hear Said Nursi as he warns: “So know firstly and believe firmly that the appointed hour is determined and does not change. Those weeping beside the grievously ill and those in perfect health have died, while the grievously ill have been cured.” Moreover, for a believer, death is not a terrifying end; rather, as clearly shown through magnificent analogies in Nursi’s other masterpiece The Words, death is: “…to be discharged from the burdensome duties of life. And for them it is a rest from worship, which is the instruction and training in the arena of trial of this world. It is also a means rejoining friends and relations, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom have already departed for the next world.”

The fifteenth remedy is of special importance, because it takes the whole issue to a different platform and shifts the perspective from being focused on merely being “patient and thankful” to establishing the social status of those who are ill and in hardship. The following hadith illustrates this: “Those afflicted with the severest trials are the prophets, then the saints and those like them.”³ That is, “Those most afflicted with tribulations and difficulties are the best of men, the most perfect.” In the same remedy, Nursi also mentions that some illnesses that cause death are a type of martyrdom.

The duty of the people around those who are ill is to look after them with compassion, and to visit them without being a burden. These hard times not only produce all the rewards mentioned above for the person who lives through them, but for the believer around them if they know their responsibilities: “To please an ill person’s heart and console him is like giving alms. Fortunate is the person who pleases the easily touched hearts of the father and mother at the time of illness, and who receives their prayer.”

All the remedies that Said Nursi proposes are focused around one issue, which is a strong belief in God, and the Hereafter. This belief shows its effect when one carries out one’s religious obligations as much as possible. This is a belief that will save a person from heedlessness and ignorance, and that will prepare them for the appointed time, which is a door to the eternal life; a belief that will transform the ugly faces of illnesses and calamities to the beautiful faces of eternal life in the gardens of Paradise.

Footnotes

1. The quotes are taken from, The Flashes Collection by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, Sozler Publication, Istanbul 1995, pg 266-285
2. Bukhari, Mardha 1,2,13; Muslim, Birr 45, Darimi Riqaq 57.
3. Bukhari, Mardha 3; Tirmidhi, Zuhd 57

In his great works, the main precept of his philosophy was that God had sent people two kinds of books; one that is written and one that is created. Namely, these two books are the Qur’an and the Universe. Since both of these came from the same God as guidance for humanity, there can be no conflict between them. Indeed, it is impossible to understand one of them without the other, because they reveal and explain one another. While the universe can be compared to a book that is filled with multiple manifestations of God’s exalted names and attributes, which are displayed for all existence, the Qur’an can be compared to a manual that guides us through these manifestations on the path to finding God. Therefore, believers should make no distinction between the Qur’an and the universe. In short, the Qur’an and the universe can be called, if I may coin a term, books of coexistence.

In his writings, Nursi examines the universe in the way indicated by the Holy Qur’an, that is reading it for its meaning, learning The Divine Names and Attributes, and other truths of belief. The purpose of this book is to describe its Author and Maker, and to subscribe all evidence of life in the universe to their Creator. Thus, an important element when studying the writings of Nursi, the Risale-i Nur, is to reflect or contemplate, i.e. to ‘read the Book of the Universe in order to increase one’s knowledge of God and to affirm faith in His existence’. By using this method Bediuzzaman solves many mysteries of religion in the Risale-i Nur, such as bodily resurrection, Divine Destiny, man’s will, the riddle of the constant activity of the universe and the motion of particles.

Once one understands that the books of coexistence concept is the central point in Nursi’s philosophy, it is quite possible to see traces of that idea in all his works. In this essay, I will establish the connections between the books of coexistence and Nursi’s Concept of Prayer. This will serve as an appendage to Nursi’s writings on the Concept of Prayer.

The Idea of Prayer within the Books of Coexistence

According to Nursi’s perspective, existence is divided into two parts. The first is that of God, whose source of existence is Himself, while the second is the rest of all existence, created by God Himself. In other words, the first part is the Creator and the second is the creation. Since every single thing in the universe has a purpose, the entire universe must have a purpose too. The purpose of its existence is to display God’s attributes and to worship and praise Him. In that sense, even though the average person does not understand the prayer of creation in a profound way, everything, even every particle in the universe, worships and prays to God in its own language. Like all sentient beings, each particle says “In the name of God” at the start of a motion, and it raises loads infinitely exceeding its strength. For example, a tiny seed carries the weight of a huge pine tree. Upon completion of its duty, a particle says “All praise be to God.” By exhibiting an art that is beautiful and full of purpose and a beauty that is fine and beneficial, astounding to all minds, it displays a work of art like an ode in praise to the Glorious Maker.

In every facet of every motion of every single particle the light of Divine Unity shines like the sun. If a particle is not a representative of God, acting with His permission and under His authority, and if it is not undergoing change within His knowledge and limitless power, then it must have eyes that see everything, a face that looks to all things, and authority over all things. For every particle within each of the four elements acts, or can act, in an orderly fashion, in harmony with all animate beings. The order within things and laws according to which they are formed differ from one thing to the next. If this order was not known to the particles, the particles could not act, or even if they could act, they could not act without error. Nevertheless, we see that everything acts without any error. In which case, the particles which are performing their duties are either acting with the permission and the command, and within the knowledge and at the will of the Owner of an all-encompassing knowledge, or they themselves must have such an all-encompassing knowledge and power.¹

“Those in the heavens and on earth prostrate themselves to God willingly or unwillingly, and so do their shadows, mornings and evenings.” (Qur’an 13:15)”The seven heavens andthe earth, and all beings therein, declare His glory: there is nothing but celebrates His praise; And yet you understand not how they declare His glory! Verily He is All-Clement, Most Forgiving .”(Qur’an 17:44)

After stating Nursi’s point about the purpose of all beings, considering them as worshippers of God, it is then necessary to make clear that this point of view comes from the Qur’an. In other words, Nursi looks at nature, the universe, and the creation from the perspective of the Qur’anic verses. According to him, as the Qur’an is the revealed version of God’s created book, that is, of all of existence, one who desires the most beneficial knowledge concerning existence should read this revealed version. And this is what Nursi continuously does, even though sometimes he does not cite the Qur’an directly. In this sense, the following verses could be considered as the basis of what he takes from the Holy Book, the Qur’an:”Those in the heavens and on earth prostrate themselves to God willingly or unwillingly, and so do their shadows mornings and evenings.” (13/15) “See you not that to God bow down in worship all things that are in the heavens and on earth, -the sun, the moon, the stars; the hills, the trees, the animals; and a great number among mankind? …” (22/18) “And the herbs and the trees both prostrate themselves to God.” (55/6) “There is none in the heavens and the earth but comes unto the Most Gracious God as a worshiper.” (19/93) “The seven heavens and the earth, and all beings therein, declare His glory: there is no a thing but celebrates His praise; And yet you understand not how they declare His glory! Verily He is All-Clement, Most Forgiving.” (17/44) The Concept of Prayer in Nursi’s Works Nursi divides prayer into two main groups: The prayer of all existence, including human beings, and the prayer of human beings, the first of which is subdivided into four.

a. The Prayer of Movement and Cessation

According to Nursi, when we look casually at the universe, we can see that every particle is either moving or at rest. Each particle, be it moving or at rest, is working in an orderly fashion with the other particles in the universe. In other words, even though every particle is, at any given time, either moving or resting in a connected environment with all other particles, there is no chaos that can be observed in the universe. There can be two explanations for this situation; either every particle in the universe knows exactly when every other particle is going to move or cease moving and acts in a manner that takes these factors into account, or every single particle is a representative and worshiper of God, acting with His permission and under His authority, and saying “In the name of God” before every movement and “All praise be to God” before stopping and resting; that is, it is acting with the permission of God and in an orderly manner. Nursi finds the second explanation more reasonable than the first and he regards every movement and cessation of every single particle as a type of prayer; this prayer I have termed the prayer of movement and cessation.²

b. The Prayer of Ability

All creatures pray to God through their language of need. For instance, a sprouting seed prays to God and virtually says: “O my Lord! To be able to display Your Attributes and Names, I need to grow. Please make me grow and give me a chance to reflect your divine names in a detailed fashion. Allow me to become a tree.” Moreover, Nursi sees cause and effect as a prayer of ability. He gives the example of a seed again, and says that when water, the light of the sun, and soil come near a seed, they all pray to God to make the seed grow into a tree. As they do not have the power to make the seed into a tree, the only thing that they can do is to pray to God; they pray to God in their own languages. Therefore, water, sunlight and soil are not the true cause of the tree. As the Qur’an states, even if we do not understand their prayers and their worship, these things are no more than worshipers. The real cause of the tree is God. Otherwise, one would have to admit that water knows how to get help from the sun, and the sun knows the needs of the seed, and the seed knows how to grow into an orange or apple tree.

c. The Prayer of Need

Nursi says that every living being prays to God to get what it needs in the language of need. As living beings do not have the authority or the ability to get what they need, such as water, air, and light, with their own power, that is, they cannot create what they need, they must therefore pray to God in the language of need in order to attain what they require. When we look at nature, we can observe that living things get their needs in an appropriate season in an appropriate amount. They get water from the heavens at the appropriate time in the appropriate amount. They get light from the sun at the appropriate time in the appropriate amount. They get all the oxygen or carbon dioxide they need to breathe from the atmosphere. Does a tree have the power to make clouds bring rain? Does a flower have strength enough to command the sun to shine? Can an animal tell the trees to produce oxygen? Actually, the only power these things have is the power of the prayer of need.³

d. The Prayer of Inability

According to Nursi, when one is in a difficult situation, such as finding oneself in poverty or in distress, helpless, inadequate, or not able to change one’s situation, then this will lead to another kind of prayer, the prayer of inabi-lity. According to his perspective, if a living being is in a difficult situation, such as when a whale is beached and is unable to rescue itself, the inability of that creature becomes a form of prayer to God in its own language, begging to be rescued from the difficult situation.⁴ The best example we can select from the Risale-i Nur concerning the prayer of inability is the story of Jonah. As stated in the Qur’an, Jonah was sent to a town as a prophet. Preaching over many years, he realized that the people of the town were not going to believe him. He then left the town, without first asking the permission of God, and went to sea. While traveling, a hurricane came and he fell into the dark sea. After all these things had happened, he then recognized and accepted that no one could rescue him except God; he had no power to help himself. At that time, his inability, his weakness, his distress became a prayer and then a whale came and swallowed him. Finally, the whale spat him out on the land; it was a miraculous rescue. From Nursi’s point of view, neither Jonah nor the whale had the power to solve the problem. Nevertheless, Jonah’s distress was a prayer to God in its own language and God had the whale help him.⁵

The Prayer of Human Beings

a. The Prayer of the Tongue

The prayer of the tongue is a prayer of human beings in their own languages to attain what they need or what they seek. For instance, a sick person may say “O my Lord! I would love to be healthy,” and beg for such a cure from God. In which case, God will either give this person exactly what he/she was seeking, such as a cure, as he/she had requested, or whatever he/she needs, such as staying unhealthy, if being healthy and full of bodily desires may lead this person to a rebellious life style. Actually, the main purpose of prayer is merely to worship God, to establish a good relationship with Him, and to seek His good pleasure. The earthly effects of prayer are the unintentional effects of the prayer and God’s gifts to the worshiper. Because prayer is the main worship of God, there cannot be any intention in it except to please God. Therefore, the needs of the human being are secondary to the glorification of God. For instance, farmers pray to God for rain at a time of drought, or sailors pray to God when a storm strikes to seek the protection of God. Nevertheless, neither the rain nor the protection of God is the main purpose of such prayers. On the contrary, the drought is the correct time of prayer for farmers and the storm is the correct time of prayer for sailors. In short, every need of a human being is a right cause and time to pray to God and to establish a good relationship with him, but these are not the main purposes of the prayer.⁶

b. The Prayer of Conscious Action

Human beings always have a goal that they are trying to reach. Students attempt to pass their examinations, businessmen attempt to make greater profits, engineers seek to improve product quality, and so on. What these people have in common is that they are trying to attain their goals. Students study to pass the examinations, business men work harder to make greater profits, and engineers put greater effort into their work to produce better quality products. It is at this point that the prayer of conscious action emerges, according to Nursi. In his eyes, every action and the effort of every human being to reach their goal is a kind of prayer in the language of conscious action. The studying of students is a prayer to God in a special language, a prayer to help them pass their examinations, the efforts of businessmen are a prayer to God in a special language, a prayer to gain them greater profits, and the efforts of engineers are a prayer to God in a special language to improve product quality; all these actions are prayers addressed to God to help these people reach their goals.⁷ The roots of this concept are actually hidden in Nursi’s perspective of cause and effect.

Although Nursi’s ideas about cause and effect require a separate article to discuss them in detail, we can shed a little light on them here. Nursi has stated that the causes in nature cannot be the real causes of effects because the causes are not conscious of their effects. Moreover, they do not have the power to create the effects, and they do not always cause their effects. If it were otherwise, there would be as many different powers as there were causes. The result of this would necessarily be chaos in nature. However, the only reality in nature is unity. If there is unity in nature, there must be unity in power too. The only power is the power of God. Therefore, the real cause of the effects is God. Since the causes usually appear before the effects, people think that the cause dictates the effect. Nevertheless, there is no order of cause and effect, but there is just the previous and the next order. As this is the order that God put in nature, a human being must give importance to that order. If people do not respect and follow what God put in nature as an order, they will receive the punishment of nature, which is failure. In short, every action of every human being to reach his/her target is a kind of prayer to God, a prayer that shows respect to the order God has instilled in nature.⁸ In conclusion, Nursi looks at all of existence as a created existence, all of existence that is except God. Since there is just the Creator and the Creation, there can only be one type of relationship between them; this relationship is worship and prayer, and every scene witnessed in nature is a different sort of prayer. As stated in the Qur’an: “The seven heavens and the earth and all that is therein, glorify Him and there is not a thing but glorifies His Praise. But you understand not their glorification. Truly, He is All-Clement, Most Forgiving.” (17/44)

Footnotes

1. Sozler, Nursi, Said, Envar Nesriyat, Istanbul, 1989, pp. 547-548.
2. Ibid, p. 549.
3. Mektubat, Nursi, Said, Istanbul, Envar Nesriyat, 1991, p.299.
4. Ibid., pp.299-300.
5. Ibid., p.300.
6. Lem’alar, Nursi, Said, Istanbul, Envar Nesriyat, 1990, pp.7-10.
7. Sozler, Nursi, Said, p.318.
8. Ibid., p.318.