Self-concealment means that the perfected servants of God who attribute to God whatever good or virtues that they may have, try to be known as ordinary people by constantly keeping secret the special blessings and extraordinary attainments with which the Eternally All-Generous favors them, as well as the blessed times when they come. But such an attitude is by no means false pretense or deception. It is usually felt during the tides between seeing everything annihilated in God and distinguishing the Existence of the Truly Existent One and the relative existence of others. Those who are seeking self-concealment are in constant pursuit of sincerity and frequently question themselves to ensure that they are really preserving their devotion and loyalty to God. They do their best to keep God’s special favors to them that come in different forms as sacred secrets between themselves and their Bestower, out of respect for Him, and they consider whatever comes from Him as a secret gift. Whatever good or blessing has been attributed to them, they always draw attention back to the Almighty and, if there is not anything to make them absolutely obliged to display their blessings, they will always try to find ways to conceal them, as in the allusions of Prophet Abraham, who said, I am sick (37:89) when he was invited to the religious festival of his people, and, Rather, (some doer) must have done it—that is their biggest (21:63), when he was asked whether he had smashed the idols [1]. They shy away from becoming a person who is sought after in the same way as others shy away from snakes and other vermin.

Perfected persons of self-concealment are extremely careful not to display any inward riches and spiritual profundity. Even if they should sometimes feel they are really profound in spirituality, they try to persuade themselves of their essential insignificance. However, in trying to impress on others that they do not have any extraordinary virtues, they avoid causing Islam to be criticized for being a religion that brings dishonor and ignominy to its followers. Without saying or doing anything to suggest that they have been specially favored by God, they are always deeply devoted and loyal to Him. They regard attributing to themselves whatever good or spiritual attainment that others may discern in them as usurpation. Even if at times they are in the center of the Divine favors, they always act with good manners and modesty, saying to themselves: “You are neither the source nor the owner of these favors. These gifts which sometimes appear to you and then disappear can in no wise belong to you. As you can clearly see that it is not you who has brought them about, nor is it you who takes them away, you must see that you cannot own them. Your position with respect to them is that you are essentially a dark mirror; therefore you must attribute these gifts to the Eternally All-Generous and draw attention to Him.” When Divine gifts and favors do not come in abundance, they think: “You must conceal the Divine secrets and His treatment of you. You must be able to do so in order that His transactions with you may continue, and so that these gifts, which are beyond your capacity, may not lead you to gradually perish because you think that you own them.” Such people are quite ordinary among people; they are extremely careful to keep their inner world pure and they are very sincere in their exclusive devotion to God and attributing to Him whatever virtue they have.

Heroes of self-concealment follow a secure way to verification and always pursue God’s approval and good pleasure. They never think of others’ approval or appreciation and they expect nothing from others. They try to make their feelings and devotion deeper and to rise higher and higher without stopping; they are in a state of continuous self-supervision. They always control themselves so that they can be with God even while mixing with other people. They try to direct others to the way of the light, which is the way of knowledge and love of God and a source of spiritual pleasures, although those pleasures should not be sought. They show the way to Paradise to those who linger at the crossroads between Paradise and Hell, and they try to inculcate lofty ideals in the hearts of those who are living aimlessly. They can establish good relations with all, be they from any segment of society, without any difficulty or ceremony.

Heroes of self-concealment are always in self-negation and self-denial and try to attract the attention to the Almighty in everything they do. But some scholars, like Harawi [2] and Ibn Qayyim [3], went to extremes in evaluating this virtue; the former asserted that it is the Almighty, not the servant, Who conceals His servant from others, while the latter denied this state altogether. For this reason, I would like to remind the reader once more that self-concealment denotes that travelers to the Ultimate Truth, who have attained spiritual purity by carefully performing their obligatory religious duties, have become deeper in their attachment to supererogatory acts of worship in order to be favored with God’s company and have become polished mirrors reflecting His manifestations of Majesty and Grace. The All- Generous becomes the eyes and ears of His servants who have reached this point; they see and hear with Him, and He never leaves them to suffer loneliness and helplessness without anyone to claim them. By means of the criteria which He inspires in them so that they view life, things and events appropriately, He causes them to reach the best results in both this world and the Hereafter. He causes them to see things that others cannot see and to hear things that others cannot hear, and he employs them to carry out His will in the human realm and to convey to people the things which He is pleased with and the things He wills others to do.

The Qur’anic statements, When you threw, it was not you who threw, but God threw (8:17), and Those who swear allegiance to you (O Muhammad), swear allegiance only to God. God’s Hand (of aid) is over their hands (48:10), refer to this point, in that those who have reached this rank are absolutely convinced of Divine Unity, but sometimes they see everything annihilated in God and sometimes they are able to distinguish the absolute (Divine) Existence and the relative existence (of other beings) from each other. Although the rank indicated by the verses belongs primarily to the Prophets, who are the purest of all and incomparably superior in self-concealment, as in all other virtues, other heroes of self-concealment have a share in it. However, the self-concealment experienced by travelers on the way to God is concerned with the Divine Attributes, not the Divine Being, and the unchangeable rules of the Shari‘a determine its limits and nature. The throwing and hitting, seeing and speaking, and exalting by participating in allegiance, which are mentioned in the verses just cited, signify that the Ultimate Truth manifests His Attributes of Majesty and Perfection, not His Divine Being, on the chosen, matchless being, upon him be peace and blessings.

This consideration is expressed in the following words of Jalalu’d-Din Rumi, although they also suggest to some extent annihilation in God and subsistence by Him:

Noah said: O people leading rebellion to God, I am not myself;
I am dead with respect to my soul, but alive to the Beloved.
I died and was annihilated with respect to some senses of Adam, the father of humanity,
And the Ultimate Truth has become (a means of) hearing, seeing and perceiving for me.

From the very beginning, the people of truth have stressed that existence arises from self-annihilation and that the assertion of self-existence ends in annihilation. The best and most appropriate approach in this respect is that travelers to the Ultimate Truth annihilate themselves with respect to their carnal souls and ego and that they find a new life in spirit and heart.

Our Lord, do not let our hearts swerve after You have guided us, and bestow upon us mercy from Your Presence. Surely You, only You, are the (Munificent) Bestower. And bestow blessings and peace on our master Muhammad and on his Family and Companions to the fullness of the earth and heavens.

Notes

1. “Rather, (some doer) must have done it—that is their biggest,” in a manner to cause the people to understand that the biggest one had done it, although he did not say so. (Tr.)
2. Abu Ismail ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Harawi (1005–1089) was born in Herat in Afghanistan. He was a Hanbali devoted to the Qur’an and Sunna. He was also well-versed in Sufism. Kitabu Manazili’s-Sairin is his most well-known work on Sufism. (Tr.)
3. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya Shamsu’d-Din ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr (1292–1350) is the most famous pupil of Ibn Taymiya (1292–1350), one of Islam’s strictest religious scholars. He lived in Damascus. He followed the Hanbali School in Islam. Kitabu Fawaidi’l-Musawwiqa ila ‘Ulumi’l-Qur’an wa ‘Ilmi’l-Bayan is among his well-known books. (Tr.)

This is not the first time that the world is witnessing a pandemic; previous incidents were regional in scope and did not affect the affluent segment of society. However, COVID-19 is first of its kind in modern times whose impact was felt wide across many nations precisely because of the fact that its carrier happens to be the modern upwardly mobile segment of the globalized world. Apart from this class dimension, COVID-19 has also ignited the old debate of religion vs science as its faster spread has been traced to congregation of religious faith groups across many communities amidst a worldwide call for social distancing in order to contain the spread of the virus.

Thus, the congregation of South Korea’s Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Wuhan has been widely held responsible for half of South Korea’s COVID-19 contractions and in other parts of other South East countries. A major source of COVID-19 in India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and further in parts of West Asia was traced to the congregation of an Indian transnational Islamist movement known as Tablighi Jamaat. The Shia religious congregation in Qom, the major center of Shia Islamic knowledge production, was identified as the major source for the spread of COVID-19 in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Bahrain. A good number of Hindu devotees defied Indian lockdown and gathered in various temples on the occasion of the Hindu festival RamNavemi. A few Sikh devotees were arrested for illegal gathering at Gurudawara, a place of worship for the Sikh community. There are several reports from the USA that many denominational Churches and orthodox Jewish religious groups continue to hold congregation for religious practices and have been found to be instrumental in the spread of COVID-19 within the country. Worst of all, in view of the conservative nature of American society, many states in USA have officially exempted places of worship from ban on gathering and stay-at-home order [1].

Given the global demonization of Islam, Islamic movements, and the widespread prevalence of Islamophobia, Islamic congregations received wide attention from the public for its blind faith and conservative, messianic, and eschatological approach towards life and religion. However, a careful observation reveals that similar approach to religion, life, and normal congregational practices during the COVID-19 pandemic has been found among segments of many religions and their communities including Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, and many others as mentioned above. While religious gatherings have been blamed for the spread of this virus, “secular gatherings” have also been potential carriers. For instance, one can trace the roots of this virus’ spread across Europe to an Austrian Ski resort, a famous tourist destination in the village of Ischgl in Tyrol, despite warnings beforehand from public health officials as early as March 5.

It is in the above context, particularly the raging issue of religion vs science or religious vs secular, that I am trying to figure out a “Hizmet” approach towards dealing with this global pandemic. How does Hizmet, a civic-social Islamic movement with a good presence in many parts of the world, approach the problem of COVID-19, a highly contagious virus that has brought the world to standstill and is threatening millions of lives? One way of approaching this subject matter is to find out the official statement of Fethullah Gülen, whose pacific exposition of Islam’s universal values (based upon the examples of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, and his Companions) through speeches, writings, and concerted actions has inspired this movement and continue to provide spiritual, moral, and ethical leadership to the movement while it is facing the existential dilemma in the backdrop of the brutal crackdown of the Erdogan regime in Turkey, its birthplace. However, listening to the sermon of Gülen is one thing; developing a Hizmet approach to COVID-19 is another. The latter needs to be excavated from the life trajectory of Gülen, and everyday Hizmet praxis as they have been unfolding while dealing with different contingencies of life situations from time to time.

It seems to me that Hizmet’s approaches towards the phenomenon of COVID-19 is shaped through two broad principles: (A) relationship between religion and science in general and (B) revival of ethical dimension of Islam as exemplified by Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Hizmet sees the relationship between the religion and science as one of complementarity or one of organic whole, as opposed to modern discourse which presumes a perennial inherent conflict between the two, mostly shaped through Church-State struggle and development of positivism in the European Continent which eventually led to the secular’s high distrust towards religion and regulation, control, marginalization and finally banishment of religion to the other world. The more religion, science, and secular became modern, ideological, and identity discourse, the more they became bereft of their inner ethical dimension, lost their internal connectivity to each other, and finally found themselves in an antagonistic relationship, often resulting into violent responses. For Hizmet, religion and science are two mega methods and approaches to address the various aspects of the ever-changing complexities of life processes with a view to create a harmony between their physical-material, metaphysical, and spiritual aspects.

It is this ethic driven human discourse upon which Gülen constructed a philosophy of life based upon the unity of religion and science, heart and mind, universal and particular, and reason and faith which on the one hand prevents the “process of othering” – whether emanating from an exclusive understanding of religion or secular – and on the other helps in dispelling the fear of relatively conservative religio-socio segments of humanity towards scientific-technological solution to human problem such as COVID-19. We learn from history how religious bigotry and fear of treatment of medical science resulted in many deaths during the period of epidemics in the past. The resistance of Ulama (clergy) to state’s prescribed medical measures including quarantine during plague epidemic (1835) and Cholera epidemic (1848) in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in Egypt, has been well documented [2]. Today, a similar situation has come to exist in India wherein a vast segment of the Indian Muslim population is currently exhibiting a strong resistance and non-cooperative attitude towards undergoing any kind of medical testing. It must be recalled here that the quarantine system, or what is referred as “social distancing,” was first invented by the sixth Umayyad caliph Al-Walid in early eighth-century AD, in Damascus, to combat the spread of the virus.

A second aspect of Hizmet’s approach towards COVID-19 comes from its ethical understanding of Islam and its universal principles and values which arise from a human-centered Islamic theology and take form in Gülen’s vast sermons and published works as well as everyday praxis of Hizmet movement. Thus, like any Islamic movement, or for that matter like any believer, absolute belief in hereafter (life after death) is the cardinal principle of the Hizmet movement. However, unlike many other religious groups the Hizmet movement does not disassociate the “earthly life” from the Hereafter. In other words, whereas many religious movements, whether with a political or social focus, tended to pay a very less premium on building human resources with an idea that real life begins in Hereafter, the Hizmet movement, under the spiritual leadership of Gülen, invested heavily in human resources and in developing human capabilities through the combination of Islamic universal ethics, morality, and scientific knowledge. This system has an understanding that the most important call of Islam, as exemplified in the model of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, is the preservation and balanced growth of lives on Earth which demands ceaseless positive actions that will be accounted for in the Hereafter. All other principles and rituals of Islamic practices must be subjected to this fundamental principle of Islamic universalism.

It is this cardinal principle which led the Hizmet movement to develop a “praxis of service, trust, and cooperation” with an eventual goal of shaping human potential towards becoming an insan-i kamil (the perfected human). Guided by the Islamic principle of preservation of life in view of challenges posed by COVID-19, Gülen promptly issued a formal statement on March 13, 2020 offering his profound condolences to all those who lost their loved ones, asked people (and he was surely not alone in doing so) to trust public health officials and to take precautions based upon medical and scientific data, to show empathy with victims, and offer help to the needy in dealing with COVID-19. When I inquired from one senior volunteer of Hizmet in India about Hizmet’s position on COVID-19 he immediately responded without any pause that “protection of life is the most important duty of Muslims in accordance with Islamic faith” and then further stated, “whom to preach to if there will be no human beings?” Unfortunately, many Islamic movement leaders and government officials in Muslim communities fumbled and did not prevent Muslim gatherings either on Friday or on other social occasions partly due to ideological understanding of iman (faith) and Hereafter with a consequence that they became the major source of COVID-19 in their respective countries.

In view of mandatory daily prayers in Islam including Friday congregation a question has emerged whether a mosque, as well as Islamic congregation on Friday, is an essential part of Islamic faith, and whether or not it is permissible to abandon or forbid these prayers. I do not have training in Islamic theology and hence I lack requisite competence to reflect on such questions. However, what is minimally clear to me in light of my understanding of Islamic history in general, and discourse of the Hizmet movement in particular, is that Islam enjoins the preservation of creation and a healthy life on this Earth which is evident from the expression of mankind as “inheritors of the Earth” in the words of Gülen. All other principles, rituals, practices and value systems connected with interpretive field of Islam must be subjected to the central maxim of Islamic faith: the duty to preserve life on Earth as God’s vicegerent/trustee.

The life trajectory of Gülen and Hizmet movement, which spans over more than 50 years, demonstrates this divine mandate: building all round human capital to manage the affairs and challenges of earthly life through rigorous ethical, moral, and spiritual training, creation of quality educational institutions and construction of cultural-dialogue centers all over the world with a view to develop a mutual understanding of each other to address the common challenges of humanity. For this reason, the Gülen (Hizmet) movement avoided giving an Islamic nomenclature to their education and dialogue institutions so as to meet the principle of Islamic universalism. Education and dialogue initiatives are for all and bring them together in the common goal of serving humanity. One is therefore not surprised when one does not find a mosque-like structure where Gülen lives in Pennsylvania.

On the other hand, the government in Muslim countries and various Islamic movements have prided in constructing mosques and Islamic madrassas in modern times and have transformed them as the most important institutions of Islamic identity at the cost of moral, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of Islamic faith. The Erdoğan regime in Turkey is spearheading the construction of mosques and madrassas within and outside Turkey with a view to wear the mantle of Caliph in coming years. As Islam has been transformed into a matter of “market identity,” one is not shocked to see how many Muslims in many countries in violation of appeal of their governments, World Health Organization guidelines, and in violation of Islamic ethics of life preservation gathered together to perform the Friday prayer! The Pakistani government had to obtain a fatwa from Al Azhar, the famous Sunni Islamic seminary, to enforce its ban on Friday congregations!

COVID-19 is a grim reminder to the globalized humanity of the spiritual call of Gülen and principles of Hizmet movement: (a) that the world is truly inter-connected and inter-dependent; (b) that the transparency in dealings, dialogue, mutual trust and cooperation and collaborative research is needed to overcome the common challenges of humanity such as COVID-19; (C) that humanity is in dire need of philosophy that restores the dialogue between mankind and nature (ecology and environment) and develops a harmonious relationship between the two and connects different cultures, traditions and economies based on the universal value of dialogue, tolerance, trust and respect; (d) that modernity must realize its limitations of establishing supremacy over nature; and (E) that mankind must undergo ethical, moral and spiritual training to overcome his/her greed and ego, to develop self-restraint and build the moral capacity to live together and cooperate.

Last, if not least, Hizmet has developed a “culture of self-disciplining” and “solution providing perspective,” which has proved to be its biggest asset in successfully confronting many challenges thrown before it from time to time, of which the most recent one is brutal crackdown of the Erdoğan regime since 2013. These two aspects of Hizmet movement is badly needed to fight the challenges of COVID-19 till the time a medical breakthrough in terms of vaccination/medicine develops.

Notes

1. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2020/03/27/482359/religious-exemptions-coronavirus-pandemic-will-worsen-crisis/
2. Birsen Bulmus, Plague, Quarantines and Geopolitics in the Ottoman Empire, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, especially Chapter 2, pp 15-38. See also Khaled Fahmy, ‘Law, medicine and society in nineteenth-century Egypt’, Égypte/Monde arabe, vol. 34, 1998, PP, 14-15 available at: https://journals.openedition.org/ema/1488, accessed on April 18, 2029.

Question: What are the lessons today’s believers should draw from the following Divine message: “Believers should not go forth to war all together. But why should not a party from every community of them mobilize to acquire profound, correct knowledge and understanding of the Religion, and warn their people when they return to them so that they may beware (of wrongful attitudes)” (at-Tawbah 9:122). 

Answer: In this verse, God Almighty first reveals that it is not correct for all believers to simultaneously go on a military campaign and take part in war. Then He states that a party should stay behind to gain insight into the spirit of religion and that when their people come back from different fronts, these learned ones should guide them with fair exhortation, feed them with religious knowledge, and teach them what they should know; this is because those people who engaged with the enemy during warfare may have failed to receive the religious education they need.

Why did they have to fight?

In the early period of Islam, since believers told people the truth, and represented and expressed justice, they faced attacks by the antagonists of religion. In such a situation, believers could not say to the enemies coming to exterminate them, “Come on, let us sit in the mosque and discuss first.” Even if they did, those enemies, who were fixed on grudge and destruction, would have tried to demolish that mosque and bury the believers therein. In order to stand against such demolition, they fought to protect their chastity, honor, religion, home, and flag.

After the demise of the noble Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and during the time of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, may God be pleased with them, similar problems emerged and Muslims had to engage with enemies in different places. During the time of Caliph Abu Bakr they had to fight on eight different fronts in order to repress the cases of apostasy in different tribes. Besides, the Sassanid and Roman empires, which were the super powers of the time, also had their eyes on Muslims. Since they accosted Muslims at every opportunity, Muslims had to fight defensive wars against them in different parts of the world.

In such a situation, had everyone attended war without any exception, there would have been a serious gap in terms of religious education. In the verse mentioned above, God Almighty commands that a group of people should stay behind for scholarly purposes in order to compensate for the lack of knowledge in those who return from war. Thus He pointed out that Muslims must definitely retain their learned state and attain the horizons necessitated by the conditions of their era. If believers fail to attain such a state and horizons, it is not possible to stand against attacks on different fronts anyway.

Cultural envoys

As for the conditions of our era, when knowledge and power of discourse came to the fore, continuing to exist as ourselves will be possible by means of the power of knowledge, pen, and discourse. With the approach of Bediuzzaman, victory over the civilized can be through persuasion. Therefore, the devoted souls who are the cultural envoys in our time should take their values to different parts of the world—not with weapons and brutal force, but with knowledge, wisdom, love, tolerance, and goodness. The way of peace and love opens the way that leads to hearts, whereas brutal force causes grudge and hatred to rise from the dead. For this reason, unless you remain under invasion and have no any other way but to fight, no solution should be sought through force. As for the issue of using force, it should be evaluated within a perspective of defense or eliminating an inescapable danger.

It is for this reason that the most important duty to be fulfilled with respect to Islam and humanity is going to the four corners of the world, to exchange cultural values there. It is also important in the meantime to benefit from different patterns and colors wherever we are, as far as they do not contradict one’s essential teachings. By coming into contact with different people in the places they go, the devoted souls will both serve as honorary representatives of their cultural values, and they will receive the beautiful sides of those cultures and present them to their own people. However, as they will be predominantly busy with their pursuits of peaceful action, they may not be sufficiently nourished in terms of knowledge and spirituality. Then, it is necessary to edify individuals well-versed in the values of spiritual heritage, who know essential sources better, and thus who will help those in the field of peaceful action be nourished as is necessary. Those who undertake the responsibility to deepen in correct and profound knowledge and comprehension of Islam should constantly flow like a pure freshwater spring, nourishing the altruistic souls running in the field, who should in return take what they will from that source and complete their scholarly equipment.

Scholarly Ones Open to Both Physical and Spiritual Disciplines

By referring to acquiring “profound, correct knowledge and understanding of the Religion,” the verse points to the fact that those who stay behind need to be equipped with knowledge pertaining to faith, Islam, and to ihsan, or perfect goodness. Together with that, the sound functioning of these values, their easily being welcome by a society (perhaps of a very different cultural background), and their being liked and valued, depends on correct discernment of non-religious realities and rules as well. Therefore, besides religion, it bears much importance to master the natural sciences, which constitute the basis for most modern sciences. It is important to carry out research in this respect, and behold appreciatively the creation displayed in nature.

As Bediüzzaman put it, while learning religious disciplines on the one hand, modern sciences should not be neglected either. He pointed out that a student’s endeavor would soar only when these two are found together. Excluding one of these two will mean leaving the other devoid of wings. One should neither make concessions from learning religious disciplines, which are the light of the heart, nor ignore modern sciences, which are the light of the mind, reason, and judgment.

In addition, this verse emphasizes the importance of love of knowledge and research. Therefore, one must make very serious efforts in order to master both the religious and modern sciences, and remain like a “student” until the end of their life. The Arabic word for student (talib) means “seeker” of knowledge. No matter whether a person studies religious disciplines or modern sciences, if that person is utilizing the essences distilled from those studies for the sake of knowing God and maintaining a sound balance, then that person will be treated as a true student or seeker of knowledge. So what does such a treatment mean? As the Messenger of God stated, God Almighty makes the way to Paradise easier to one who sets forth demanding to acquire knowledge. [1]

Seeking knowledge is very important and the benefits a scholar can bring to society are great. Thus, one’s society is responsible for supporting seekers of knowledge and doing what they can for them. It is very difficult for someone dedicated to knowledge to devote time for anything else. Accordingly, some Islamic scholars stated that even if they wear expensive clothes and the threshold of their door is made of gold, it is still possible to give alms to seekers of knowledge, because the vitality of a nation depends on such mastering of knowledge. If this cannot be done, the nation will collapse and disintegrate. Due to this stagnancy, some cracks emerged in the Islamic world in the fifth century after the holy migration (11th century CE). With the recession in the 13th and 14th centuries, a complete breakdown and disintegration happened. Muslim societies have not been able to straighten up since.

Dignified Contentment and Remaining Under Obligation

In response to people’s support and care, seekers of knowledge must do their best in terms of being worthy of such kindness and must not waste a second of their time. Through very serious planning, division of labor, and a discipline of mutual helping, these seekers must be completely focused on this task. They must devote all of their energy to the task so as to be deserving of the people’s regard for them—even if that means sleeping only four hours if necessary and devoting twenty hours of the day to studying. Who knows? When they study with such seriousness, maybe God Almighty will grant them in two years what another person can attain in ten years.

Incidentally, let me share how I feel about one issue: I feel heartbroken for those who pursue PhD degrees, but cannot finish that in even ten years. Time is the greatest capital for a human. If a person has taken such a path once, they should persevere, exert their brains, make use of all arguments they can make use of, benefit from all sources they can, and if possible, they should even finish their PhD before the time determined for them.

I wish to underline one more point concerning scholarly ones: Dignified contentment is a very important principle for those dedicated to scholarly pursuits, with respect to the honor of both knowledge and learned ones. Actually, the path of the Prophets is also based on this essential. In many verses of the Qur’an, it is stated that they said, “I ask of you no wage for that (for conveying God’s Message); my wage is only due from the Lord of the worlds” (ash-Shuara 26:127). In this respect, scholarly ones should not be obliged to anyone if possible, in any phase of their lives—neither while they are students, nor when they become teachers, or teacher of teachers…

May God forbid, if one does not have this feeling of dignified contentment, and if that person carries out certain tasks for the sake of some returns, such as becoming a manager, director general, MP, minister, or prime minister, then such a person cannot be saved from being obliged to other people. Unfortunately, the concessions they make on account of being obliged will not only cost them dearly, but cost their nation as well. In this respect, those who engage in scholarly pursuits must arrange their lives in accordance with the principle of dignified contentment. They must use the means of their fathers if they can, or they must make a modest living with their own means, if they can. They should live frugally, never becoming obliged to anyone and never having to make concessions.

Note

1. Sahih, Muslim, Dhikr, 38.

Respect for life is more than a religious value; it is a constituent dimension of faith found in every major religion of the world. One cannot have faith in a creator God (or an all-embracing transcendent reality) and cavalierly exclude any part of creation—the whole natural and cosmic world are worthy of respect. To affirm the inviolability of the person is to affirm the sacredness, the mystery of the cosmos. Creation is inseparable from the dignity of the cause of its being. While the story of Creation in the Hebrew Scripture has been interpreted in many Christian circles as permission for humans to exploit creation, Genesis’ first chapter express a relationship of respect and responsibility for all that God has brought about. And Muslims affirm: “Indeed, God is the cleaver of grain and date seeds. He brings the living out of the dead and brings the dead out of the living” (Qur’an 6:95).

Respect for life, especially among certain radical Christian groups, is viewed by a broader public as an almost exclusive preoccupation with abortion and medically assisted death. The Christian maxim, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5: 44), is often ignored by both the advocates of capital punishment in North America and the perfunctory trials and death sentences currently being meted out in Iraq. It is not difficult to understand how the obscene presence of evil in the world alienates religious people from the demands of “true goodness, true responsibility, true justice, a true sense of things—all [of which] grow from roots that go much deeper than the world of our transitory earthly schemes. This is the message that speaks to the very heart of human religiosity” (Vaclav Havel).

Human religiosity must have its concrete embodiment in the everyday lives of people. Religious truths ring hollow and defy belief, when they remain concepts outside the day to day hopes and fears, joys and anxieties of experience. The true believer is not one who assents to a series of propositions, no more than one can be labelled an infidel, because a religious teaching seems irrational. In fact, the divine—Yahweh, Allah, or the Father—is imminently beyond comprehension and the communication of the divine reality is always conditioned by the lives of those who embrace one or the other religious traditions.

The United States, Israel, Islamic nations, and lately even Russia are laying claim to their religious roots. But their vision of religion and faith seems more polytheist and politicized. They all acknowledge “one” God, yet fail to recognize that God in the putative enemies. What does a message of peace—Shalom, Islam, and the beatitudes—sound like when so much violence and disrespect for life are evident in daily confrontations? Rationalizations relying on national interest or national security appeal to general bias and reduce rich religious realities to icons of more primitive human insecurity and mistrust. The will to violence, in fact, reveals the religious bankruptcy of many of these powers.

As a practicing Christian I am conscious of the disconnect between the clarity of the Gospel teachings and the political and cultural agendas of many of my co-believers who often take their religious “truths” out of context, then use these truths as ideologies, without exploring the impact of their choices on the core message of Jesus. Often what it means to be Christian is reduced to the vehement insistence on single issues as the touchstones of orthodoxy. Abortion, the fate of the city of Jerusalem, or support for our troops (whoever we are, whatever their mission) have become in many quarters stand-alone issues, without regard for the context and consequences. Legitimate concern for the safety of their family members too often confuses faith with patriotism and blinds Christians to the destruction war brings to the lives of the “enemy” and the millions of civilians whose lives are daily being taken by death or by hopelessness.

Westerners can “reclaim” their Christian heritage and Jews demonstrate moral integrity by figuring out what Yahweh meant when he reminded them: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20). Muslims, Jews, and Christians can share a stronger hope for achieving peace and affirming human dignity, through reviewing their own religious commitments from the perspective of God the Creator, of Allah, the beneficent and merciful.

As a Catholic I find hope in the attitude and actions of Pope Francis. In a most public fashion the Pope has welcomed asylum seekers and reminded Europe of its obligation to receive them. He has promoted an environmental morality that ties the fate of human life and wellness with the fate of our natural environment. He continually stresses that there is no such thing as less worthy and more worthy human beings. But this willingness to hear the cry of desperation in the voices of asylum seekers and to seek social and ecological justice is not limited to religious groups—an indication of the universality of humankind that religious particularism too easily ignores.

At the same time, there are growing movements in Europe that refuse to welcome these quasi-stateless persons, who have lost their homeland. Often they express fear that the predominantly Muslim refugees threaten Europe’s Christian culture, without realizing that integral to that culture are the works of mercy, the care for the marginalized, the victims of decisions of the powerful and mighty of this world. Nations and businesses continue to disrupt the ecology. They are unable to resist the allure of the wealth, which they believe regulation will prevent them from achieving. Morality and faith are two sides of the same coin. Faith brings one into the dynamic movement of divine compassion and creativity. Morality is allowing God’s being to become compassion and creativity in our own lives. We do not hold God to a “higher standard,” as if there are situations in which humans have the right to unleash the violence and blood-shed of war, to irreparably violate the environment, or to destroy the soul of another. “Do not forget your share of the world. And do good as God has done for you. And desire not corruption in the land” (Qur’an 28:77). The Golden Rule may seem on the surface to be a formula for self-protection (if you don’t want to get hurt, avoid hurting others). Yet, in fact, it captures the interconnectivity of all creation. The gift of life underscores responsibility for life, for all life is interconnected. “…whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind” (Qur’an 5:32).

Religion in public life can, at its worst, lead to oppressive theocracy, social hypocrisy, and disregard for the dignity of persons and groups of people. It easily obscures the loving compassion of the God, whose will it claims to honor. Yet, religion—humbly lived and with a consciousness of its own failures—has a right and a duty to speak openly about the values that make human life together a pursuit of the common good, rather than the survival of the fittest. But if religion is to play a constructive role in the public sphere, it will be necessary to find areas where the adherents of different religions share common goals, values, and beliefs. Polarization within and between religions readily cedes its rightful place in the public sphere to divisive ideology and needlessly blocks working together for the common good. In fact, it becomes false religion by fostering a self-referential morality that narrows the universalism of the original creation and selectively ignore some of the most challenging, yet ennobling, teaching of the most sacred scriptures available to humankind. Religion is not about a vague “more than life,” as if life were something less than what humanity and nature really yearn for. Religion is about life itself and the duty of every believer is to protect and nurture life. That is true worship, for all life is the presence of God in our midst.

Hizmet Movement (aka Gülen Movement) has always been given different names, which rely on and point to divergent underlying ontologies and understandings. Cemaat (Community), Hizmet (Service), Gonulluler Hareketi, (A movement of volunteers), and Gülenciler (Gülenists) are just a selection of terms often used to refer to the movement. Nowadays, people have come to view the movement in diametrically opposing ways, due to the recent political history of Turkey. On one hand, some praise it for its virtues, claiming that it is a movement promoting and prioritizing democratic values and standards and standing against a corrupt government, at a very high cost. On the other hand, those who criticize it accuse the movement of interfering in politics and even plotting coups against democratically elected governments, and they try to label it as a cult – especially when they cannot prove their accusations. Therefore, a great discrepancy is very likely to emerge between how a sympathizer of the movement sees and defines it and how an outsider sees and defines it, as current developments in Turkey have pushed the public to the edges and have led to increased polarization. Thus, in order to see whether the Hizmet Movement is a cult or not, one has to remove himself or herself from political polemics and try to be critical and strike a balance between how the movement perceives itself and how it is perceived by the outside world. In order to do so, let us first consider how “cult” is defined in the literature and then see whether these definitions match with the Hizmet Movement.

Even though the meaning of cult has changed, the term acquiring differing meanings over time, it is generally and publicly used in a derogatory way to refer to movements that are regarded as socially deviant due to their unorthodox beliefs and practices. During the 1930s, anti-cult movements usually viewed cults as a disparate form of heresy. Similarly, Christian scholar Walter Martin defined a cult as a movement that applies, and relies solely on, personal interpretations of the Bible, in denial of mainstream beliefs such as the Trinity, the Second Coming of Christ, the ministry and personality of Jesus, and the like. Accordingly, new religious movements that were not a part of, or splintered from, pre-existing sects—these include movements such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists—have been considered cults. From a sociological point of view, Max Weber ascribed the emergence of a cult to the routinization of the charisma of a self-proclaimed religious leader. A great variety of cults exist today—doomsday cults, political cults, destructive cults, racist cults, polygamist cults, and terrorist cults. Cults have also long been accused of applying unorthodox measures, such as mind control and abusive sex, to govern their members and of having secretive organizational structures to accomplish their objectives.

Any attempt to draw a distinction between a cult and a mainstream religious movement is an utterly value-laden endeavor, as it requires one to assume a position of authority and judge what is an orthodox or unorthodox practice or interpretation of a religion. Also, it is analytically impossible to determine how much deviation or what sorts of differences render a movement deviant and get it labeled as a cult, because even sects of the very same religion sometimes are predicated upon utterly distinct theological positions. For example, consider the God conceptualizations of two Christian traditions, Unitarians and Catholics. Whereas the former believe in the physical and spiritual unity of God and reject the idea of the incarnation of God in human form, the latter hold to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which states that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are divine manifestations of God. Or, in a similar vein, consider the example of the Alawites and Sunni Muslims; some groups of the former consider Ali, the cousin of Muhammad, to be the incarnation of God, while the latter view him only as the third rightly guided Caliph and as totally human in nature.

Despite this opaque and slippery conceptual ground, we can still systematically consider whether the Hizmet Movement is a cult and possesses any of the general characteristics and features attributed to cults. Let me rise above the dichotomies by considering the criteria for a cult, embodied in the definitions given below, in relation to the Hizmet Movement—namely, deviancy (unorthodox religious rituals), unorthodox means of control (mind control, abusive sex), and the presence of a charismatic leader—to determine whether it is a cult or not.

We’ll begin with deviancy. Even though the movement has often laid great emphasis on the spiritual resurrection of Muslims and humanity, it has not attempted to reject or change the pillars of Islamic faith and the essentials of the religion. It has not proposed theologically novel conceptions of divinity or prophecy. Quite the opposite—the movement intellectually and theologically associates itself with the earlier mainstream of Muslim scholars, thinkers, and movements and derives its legitimacy from its embeddedness in classical Islam. The criticisms leveled at the movement have mostly involved matters relating to the interpretation of religious texts. Accordingly, the movement has been criticized for its strong promotion of intimate relations with the members of other Abrahamic religions, for its willingness to engage in open dialogue, and for its support of democratization, which is often labeled as pro-Westernism by other religious movements in Turkey. Hence, the movement’s existing practices and theological dispositions do not suffice to qualify it as a cult, as they do not exhibit patterns of divergence and differentiation from mainstream Islamic rituals and practices.

Second, with respect to the employment of unorthodox means to achieve desired political objectives—even though the movement has been accused of interfering in politics and having a secret agenda, no proof has been presented thus far indicating the use of unorthodox means to control its members or accomplish its secret agenda. Even the recent purge in Turkey, which resulted in the removal of hundreds of thousands of people from their positions and the imprisonment of a large percentage of them, has not led to the disclosure of evidence verifying the use of unorthodox methods by the movement.

Finally, in regard to charismatic leadership, it is an actuality that Gülen’s charismatic and strong leadership has been very appealing to the masses. However, his leadership has not been grounded in any divine status claims, such as those of a prophetic or messianic character. His charisma has rather been derived from his expertise and erudition in respect to the religious sciences and his intuitive leadership skills. His leadership and charisma cannot be said to be premised upon any sort of divine claim, as has been the case with most cults. Ahmadiyya and Bahaism can be seen as cult-like Islamic movements; their leaders have made actual divine claims. For example, the leader of the former openly claimed messiahship and introduced unorthodox beliefs and organizational structures in the nineteenth century, and the leader of the latter identified himself as the last Prophet, which openly contradicted the mainstream belief of Muslims that the Prophet Muhammad was the last Prophet and Messenger of God. Gülen is neither seen as a supernatural human being by his followers nor does he claim prophecy or messiahship. His charisma is derived more from his spiritual personality deriving from the fact that he has acquired an immense amount of knowledge in the religious sciences and has combined that knowledge with successful practice.

By offering insight in relation to three aspects of cults, this article offers a framework within which the Hizmet Movement cannot be treated as a cult or cult-like organization. Unless there is concrete evidence and universal acceptance of deviant behavior, unorthodox means of control, and leader’s use of charisma to assert any supernatural or divine powers, no social movement can be categorized as a cult movement.

It’s no secret – or at least it shouldn’t be – that climate change is one of the most important issues of our time. Very recently, a report came out saying that the planet could be facing serious consequences of climate change by 2040 – a mere 22 years from now (“Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040,” New York Times, Oct. 7, 2018). At a time when many political leaders seem unable to offer meaningful solutions, hamstrung by partisanship or economics, many people have turned to faith leaders for solutions. In 2015, for instance, Pope Francis issued Laudato Si’, a Catholic encyclical devoted entirely to ecological ethics and theology.

Two scholars explore Francis’ encyclical in Nature and Environment in Contemporary Religious Contexts edited by Muhammad Shafiq and Thomas Donlin-Smith. And though Francis might be the most quoted religious figure in the collection, Shafiq and Donlin-Smith have gathered 17 peer-reviewed essays submitted to a conference on nature and the environment in religions, hosted by the Hickey Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue at Nazareth College. Taken together, they offer an inspiring and hopeful look at how religions and faith leaders are approaching humanity’s biggest challenge.

Although Francis has been one of the loudest and most prominent religious voices urging a new ecological theology, I want to look at some of the lesser known voices who are advocating for interdisciplinary and interfaith solutions to climate change. For example, Hussam S. Timani writes compellingly about how secularism and modernity – and the so-called advances of contemporary science – have actually led to the on-going ecological disaster. As he lays out in his paper “Modernity, Secularism, and the Exclusion of Nature: Why Religion Matters,” he believes that answers might be found in the ecological consciousness commanded by religion, and looks specifically at Christianity and Islam.

Timani is not just concerned with the environment, though. He believes that Western modernity has estranged man from nature – and from meaning. It is this lack that has led humanity to so voraciously consume the planet’s resources, searching for a higher purpose that has been lost as more and more people have moved away from faith.

He sees potential solutions in both Islam and Christianity. Of Islam he writes, “Being a servant of God, man must preserve and protect what God has entrusted him with and restrain from exercising dominion and power over nature” (p. 41). And, like many scholars of a more compassionate, thoughtful Christianity, Timani finds hope in the words of Richard Niebuhr, who “spoke of ‘loyalty to the community of life’” (p. 49).

Timani also engages with critics of religion – namely, Todd Jared LaVasseur’s critique that all major religions are anthropocentric, or the belief that humans are the most important creature. While true, Timani believes that religions call for a conscientious anthropocentrism, as opposed to the reckless consumption of resources espoused by Western materialism.

In his essay, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer as an Ecological Theologian,” Jamison Stallman also places the blame for our current ecological crisis on Western materialism. He examines climate change and a possible way forward through the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the early 20^th century Lutheran theologian, and the writings of environmental ethicist Larry Rasmussen.

In Sanctorum Communio (literally “a congregation of saints” and also the title of Bonhoeffer’s doctoral dissertation), Bonhoeffer asserts that, in Stallman’s words, “I become an individual when I recognize that there is a self-conscious You” (p. 90). It is only through a person’s relation to other humans that they can have any identity at all. Community is necessary for there to be an individual.

Of course, as we all know, any time two self-conscious “I”s come into contact, there will be an ethical tension. But this, Bonhoeffer asserts, is how person-hood and community are constantly being shaped and re-defined: by managing such ethical barriers.

Larry Rasmussen’s view of humans as “biosocial” is similar to Bonhoeffer’s insistence on community. But he extends the idea further, beyond just a community of Christ, to include the entire ecosystem. Western materialism, Rasmussen believes, has detached humanity from its ecological “niches” – that is, the systems and communities within which humans live (this is referred to as “niche theory”). Western materialism has moved humanity to a place above these systems, not of them. It is only by conceiving of ourselves as of the ecosystem – and in relationship with it – can we begin to repair the damage we’ve done. We cannot exist but in relation to other creatures and systems. 

Though most of the scholars are writing from the perspectives of the three Abrahamic faiths, three authors (one from each section of the book) explore other faiths and their relationships to the environment.

In section one – titled “Our Human Contexts within Nature” – Tatjana Myoko V. Prittwitz writes about “A Vast Net of Interconnected Diamonds: Buddhist Views of Nature.” Prittwitz begins with a fascinating (and humbling) thought experiment, asking the reader to think about everything in their life – their clothes and food, the chair they sit on and the car they drive, the roads and planes that make transit possible – and to consider how these objects and systems were made and how many people played in role in making them. “…our existence is dependent upon billions upon billions of people, actions, and things. What we call a separate self is in fact a vast net of … interconnection” (p. 68). Despite approaching the issue from a Buddhist perspective, Prittwitz concludes something similar, albeit slightly different, to the Muslim perspective of Timani and the Christian perspective of Stallman: “Out of the realization of interdependence comes the imperative of global responsibility …” (p. 70). Prittwitz alludes to this same universality in Native American spirituality, shamanistic rituals, and Tibetan animism, suggesting that most religions, no matter how seemingly disparate, are motivated and inspired by interconnectedness.

Appropriately for section two – “Imperatives from Sacred Texts and Tradition” – Nawaraj Chaulagain provides a close reading of the Sanskrit text Devi Mahatmya (literally “The Glorification of the Goddess”). Chaulagain writes that “The cosmic order is sustained through a continuously dynamic process of creation, preservation, and destruction for re-creating…” (p. 185). Considering the current crisis, this “dynamic process” can only be seen as hopeful!

Similar to Bonhoeffer’s grappling with original sin in Sanctorum Communio, the Devi Mahatmya contends with “the eternal battle … between the good and the evil …” And from an ecological perspective, it is grappling with “the perpetual conflict between those who are part of … the ecosystem and natural order … versus those who are against it…” (p. 186). Lastly, the Hindu festival of Navaratri pays homage to the natural world (rivers and mountains are particularly sacred in Hinduism). Chaulagain calls this “ecological worship”: “The Navaratri calls for the preservation of the earth” and involves the planting of barley seeds and the use of water from sacred rivers (194-95).

Throughout the essays, two dominant approaches to humanity and the environment tend to take shape (albeit with exceptions). Whereas Islam, Judaism, and Christianity tend to situate man as “stewards” of the world, Hinduism and Buddhism often view humanity as being “interconnected” with the world.

Leocadie Lushombo explores one of the exceptions: Central African Christianity, which tends towards interconnectedness. In her piece “Mitigating Deforestation in the Congo Basin and Climate Change: The Ethic of Environmental Responsibility Based on African Spirituality,” Lushombo ties micro environmental damage to macro climate catastrophe. She cites studies showing that deforestation in the Congo Basin “causes a decrease of precipitation of about 5%-15% in the Great Lakes region [in the US]…” (p. 275). Deforestation of the Amazon and Central Africa are causing droughts in the breadbasket of America. Meanwhile, it is leading to deluges in the Arabian peninsula. Such deforestation can be directly tied to the ills of colonialism and globalization. It’s also exacerbated by an influx of refugees – and as climate change worsens, it will lead to even more refugees.

Resistance to the dominant ideologies of Western exploitation and capitalism can be found in African spirituality, including African Christianity. Lushombo quotes Magesa, who wrote “What the African religious world view emphasizes, therefore, are relationships …” (p. 281). In traditional African practices, she finds hints of the “humanity as caretaker” worldview mostly associated with the Abrahamic faiths. She writes, “In order to maintain harmony with nature, it is a moral obligation to function as God’s stewards … and not as rulers” (p. 286). Lushombo sees solutions to over-logging and resource exploitation in the ideologies of both interconnectedness and stewardship.

The other essays in the book support this conclusion. Whether a faith views humanity as a steward of nature or interconnected with nature, is immaterial. All faiths believe that taking care with the natural world is critical to humanity’s future – in this world and the next. As our species grapples with climate change triggered by capitalism run amok, all people of faith – regardless of ideology – must come together to begin healing our planet through a new theology of ecology. This essay collection, with its focus on peacebuilding and interreligious dialogue, would be a good starting point.

The Fountain: Do you think religion and belief are still relevant in twenty-first century Western society?

Paul Weller: Certainly in terms of Europe in relation to matters of law and public policy, religion and belief are often focused on. In this context, by “belief” is meant nonreligious beliefs that are founded on ethical systems or presuppositions and are included alongside what is more traditionally understood as “religion.” So certainly, at the level of society, state, and law there is a presence and relevance of religion and belief.

In terms of the reality of religion and belief as lived, clearly in many societies the numbers of people who say that they belong to a particular religion has reduced in the Western world compared to what it was ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. But that of course doesn’t always tell you about the nature of their connection to religious tradition. They may have only had a very broad cultural connection rather than one with which they were personally engaged. I think one has to understand what is meant by these terms and how they function in individual lives.

Some tend to call themselves spiritual rather than religious, or faithful in higher values but not in God. Why is religion less appealing to many people, especially the young?

Yes, I think this is connected a little bit with what I was saying in relation to the first question because I think there are indeed many people who do affirm themselves to be “spiritual” but don’t want to use the word “religion.” We did some research four, five years ago for the Equalities Challenge Unit that looks at equality issues in higher education. We looked at religion and belief in higher education and very interestingly the descriptor that quite a significant proportion of students wanted to use was not one of the religions, nor that of “no religion,” but was “spiritual.”

In the national census in the UK, where I live, that option is not given: the options are no religion, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, etc. But when we gave the option “spiritual,” a significant percentage of students chose that.

Why is this? I think it’s because of a suspicion towards organized forms of religion, partly because organized forms of religion are themselves always ambiguous in terms of the good they do and sometimes unfortunately the not good or the bad that they also do. And this embodies some people’s experience of organized religion… So they distinguish or they start to distinguish between the historical organizational form of a religion that they’ve encountered and had a bad experience of, and what they think the religion may be pointing towards. Thus they might say “well, I’m a spiritual person” … but they don’t want to buy into the package of a historical religion or religious organization because they see mixed things in that.

But there’s always this spiritual side continuing…

I think so, yes… But I mean clearly there are people who also would speak against that. So there are also strong atheists – you know that’s a position in itself, but I think many people, as I say, when given the option of a choice between “are you religious – Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh; or are you no religion” would say something in between, [like] “I am spiritual, but not religious.”

How were you drawn into religion and religious scholarship?

There are two questions there: one about being drawn into religion and one [about being drawn into] religious scholarship. In one sense, I could say I was born into a religious context because my parents were Christian believers. Indeed, my father was an ordained Christian minister in the Baptist tradition. So I could say I inherited it, but for me that’s not enough. That is not a full description because I had to affirm that for myself. Nobody, in my understanding, can be religious for another person. Therefore, while I need to acknowledge what my parents gave me in terms of my religious tradition until I affirmed it for myself, it wasn’t active in my life. It was maybe dormant in my life though.

At a certain point… I was baptized – not as a baby but when I chose to be baptized, to make my own commitment to my Christian tradition. That was at the age of 14. So it was a self-conscious decision, commitment, and choice. …[A]lthough I, too, have a sometimes conflicted relationship with organized religion. Just as some people who stand outside of religious traditions do, it is partly because I can see that many things done in the name of religion seem to be contrary to the spirit of Jesus and so I don’t adopt the word religion unproblematically, even for myself. Rather, I would say that the earliest name given to Christians, that is recorded in the book of the Acts of the Apostles, was of followers in “the Way.” I like to describe myself simply as that – so as one who tries to be a disciple of Jesus, a follower in “the Way.”

In terms of scholarship, where we are conducting this interview now is at a College in Oxford that has a Baptist foundation. I came to Oxford to study theology as an academic subject but also with my personal religious commitment and conviction [in mind]. That was at age 18, and I am now nearly 61. So since then I’ve been engaged in various ways in academic scholarship around the study of religion – partly from within my own tradition in terms of Theology and how the Christian tradition relates to other traditions; some of the other work I’ve done has been more sociological or social scientific, looking at how religion functions in the world – not necessarily evaluating it but trying to understand it and describe it… In relation to that, sometimes having a relationship myself with religion as a living tradition is seen by some people in the study of religion, or in the policy world, as being problematic. But for me it’s actually a positive benefit because I think that in my more social science research, I can connect with what religion as a lived reality is for the people who live by it and not just [view it] as a set of external descriptions about it.

You have been an active member of the interfaith community for many years. Do you think these efforts have yielded anything? Or is it a fantasy among religious leaders or elites, which does not reflect much in the grassroots? Do you think it has been worth it, whatever the consequences?

Yes, it’s a difficult question to answer because clearly there are some initiatives that are more fruitful than other initiatives… I think the effort to engage inter-religiously must be worth it. First of all, it is important because otherwise there are dangers [arising] from the distance between people of different faiths and beliefs. These can lead to conflict. Not always, but it can, and therefore to hear and understand the other as they see and understand themselves is an important thing to do, even if one doesn’t get further than that. That is actually a long way to have traveled. So that a Muslim no longer sees a Christian as perhaps more general Muslim populations do, or only as Muslim tradition has sometimes described a Christian, but actually listens to how a Christian explains themselves and vice versa. I think it is very important that people give witness to their own faith and that then the other person has to come to terms with that, which is sometimes challenging…

Sometimes in things like Christian-Jewish relations a number of Christian-Jewish organizations are criticized for being apparently superficial in their inter-religious dialogue and for being just a kind of tea [party]… But if you understand the history – certainly of Christian-Jewish relations in Europe – to actually be doing that is far better and far more important, given the history that resulted in the Holocaust. So, small things that don’t appear significant can actually be very significant. There is of course a danger that some inter-religious initiatives can be just talking shops where you go over the same territory again and again, without making progress. And sometimes some of the most profound inter-religious encounters are in normal life, not “constructed” encounters: for example, the neighbor who invites the other person into their home when a relative is ill and says prayers from one tradition to the other, or that celebrates a wedding… I think sometimes those of us who work in academic life focus on conferences and events and such things. But there is also what the American scholar of religion, Diana Eck, a number of years ago called “the dialogue of life,” and I think that’s equally important.

With respect to religious communities, is their faith rather traditional instead of conscious? Do the faithful practice as a part of their culture or do they consciously believe and know what they believe and practice?

Yes, this is very important and a very complicated question… This is because on the one hand there is clearly a difference between faith as personally appropriated and culture, but on the other hand you cannot [express] individual faith without it having some kind of cultural clothing because we all live in historical and geographical circumstances…

We don’t live in a vacuum; we don’t live in a bubble so inevitably there is a relationship between the two. I think what is important is that faith does not become reduced to culture or culture take over faith. So, there’s a dynamic tension between the two. Otherwise what happens is that culture tends to want to defend itself and sometimes to attack others when the lines of faith and culture become confused. This tends towards religions becoming – in a kind of Indian terminology – “communalistic” and setting up barriers against each other. This understanding of religion and culture does reflect my own roots in the Baptist tradition which has always made a distinction between belonging to a civil community and the culture and belonging to a religious community. So this goes back to my biography when I was saying that I acknowledge that I inherit something from my parents. But until I appropriate it, it’s not fully mine, and that part of appropriating it is as an individual who can stay critical of the cultural forms that it takes.

A scholar of religion who was both a scholar studying Islam, but also later of inter-religious things, was Wilfred Cantwell Smith. He used to talk about religion was made up of “personal faith” and “cumulative tradition,” and how one handles that balance is very important for the future of religious traditions in the globalized world. This is because with the globalization of the world, cultures are no longer geographically separated from each other, therefore inevitably the question of sorting out faith and culture becomes stronger than when one lived in an environment where everybody at least seemed to be of the same religion and the same culture. Though of course they never really were because even apparently the same religion or the same culture is never actually singular; it always has lots of sources underneath it, as well as differences.

What is the outcome of interfaith dialogue for you on a personal level? What has changed for you after you started engaging with the “other”? New knowledge? Surprise? Disappointment?

I think a number of things. I can illustrate it by two or three little stories. One was when I was a teenager, I got to know my best friend at school. He was Orthodox Jewish and his family had been in slave labor camps in Poland during the Nazi period. And I remember his mother asking me two questions as a young evangelical Christian. It was already quite strange that as a young Christian, the son of a Baptist minister, I had become friends with an Orthodox Jewish boy – for both sides it was a little strange. Yet we were good friends at school. His mother asked me two questions which have stayed with me in different ways through my inter-religious encounters. One was why did “the Christians” bully my friend? As a Christian who wanted to argue that not everything that’s done in the name of Christian history is really Christian, this question helped me to understand that whether or not I wanted to make that distinction, for others it is a problem. It is just like people who are not Muslim say today, you know, that all Muslims are terrorists and Muslims have to live with that distinction… It’s very difficult but at the same time one can’t completely cut oneself off from this. So it helped me to understand something about what I would now call the “socio-political” dimensions of inter-faith dialogue in which I can try to do what “I” as an “individual” might want to do, but others around me will see things differently.

The second question she asked me was why do Christians call our Bible “old”? Because often Christian popular understanding talks about the New Testament relative to the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. And at that time, I’d never really thought about that question. And of course for her, that seemed to imply that the “old” was no longer of value and that the “new” had replaced the “old.” So that made me start thinking at a theological level about the relationship between truth claims and revelation in one tradition and in another. And how one has to be careful about the ways in which we express what we believe we have received from God – whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim – and how other people understand what they have received by way of revelation. So, those two stories from my teenage years in many ways have determined my engagements in both the theological aspects of inter-religious engagement and also its socio-political aspects.

On another more personal level, it’s profoundly moving when people of other traditions relate to you as a human being. Several years ago, my wife to whom I was married at that time died. But while she was ill in the hospital Muslim friends came and recited the Qur’an and prayed with us and came and spoke at her funeral. These things are often more powerful than many of the international colloquia on inter-religious relations. I’m not saying those are unimportant but I am saying in terms of my own experience, these kind of things make me reflect. I know, for example, that many of my Muslim friends are far more dedicated in prayers than I ever am and that makes me ask questions of myself. So I think where one is open to it, getting to know the other helps you to be more self-critical and also to ask the question of what is it, if anything, that I have in my religious tradition that’s distinctive that I have to offer? This is because there are many things that are shared – but perhaps there are some things that are distinctive, and that actually engaging in inter-religious dialogue with the other helps to sort those things out.

We know your research on Fethullah Gülen, and you call it a “biographical theology.” What do you mean by that?

This is what I’m literally now just beginning on, so I haven’t fully worked out my description of what I mean by it. But fundamentally, I think that a body of theology – by which I mean the work of people who write in a disciplined way in their tradition – is not something that only comes out of the tradition as an abstract. I think that while it partly comes out of the inheritance of the wider tradition, it also reflects the way in which an individual appropriates that tradition and also the circumstances in and through which they live. So, to me, in trying to understand something about Fethullah Gülen’s theology, it’s something about how that fits within the broader inheritance of classical Muslim tradition, but it’s also something about how a person who has so deeply drunk at the well of that tradition, has done so in a [specific] environment. And he did so initially in a particular national environment in Turkey where, among other things, the relationship between religion and the secular took a particular form; and where the flavors of Islam are affected by culture; and his personal biography – having been imprisoned, and [surviving] the context of military coups. To me all of these things are not irrelevant to a person’s theology and thus in trying to understand the theology, one should not seek to understand it just as an historical inheritance or as an abstract set of logical conclusions… but also in engagement with the individual. This doesn’t mean that it’s individualistic, necessarily. But it does mean that I think that for a rounded understanding of a person’s writing and teaching, one has to understand where they come from, how they’ve lived, and what has affected their life. Because it’s in dialogue with that context that they articulate and develop.

After two worlds wars and the cold war, we have lived through a relatively peaceful few decades… Yet, authoritarian leaders seem to be on the rise, and there is a tendency of polarization which is being openly displayed and expressed. Where do you think we are heading? What will be the role of religion in these circumstances?

In my memory and in my lifetime of course the world was divided into two power blocks, and I was very much engaged in East-West relations in the 80s and before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think [after the fall] there were many people who wanted to argue that okay well, everything will be alright now. But yes, clearly there is a rise of authoritarian leaders at present and new polarizations are forming. I think… new polarizations formed – so that in place of the East-West confrontation in the eyes of many (not only in the “Western world” but sometimes in the so-called wider “Muslim world”) the confrontation between Islam and the West or Islam and Christendom took the place of the previous confrontation between capitalism and communism. So that’s been there for some time.

I think what’s happening now, the so-called “populism,” is very worrying and very dangerous. It’s dangerous for religions because there can be religion as a cultural identity which is often invoked by populist leaders. Superficially this can be attractive to religious people who are concerned that the place of their religion has been marginalized and this strong populist leader will come along and bring religion back into its rightful place at the center of their national life. But this is a dangerous misuse of religion. One can’t separate religion and politics if one means politics with a small ‘p’ – in other words a concern for the public life – because all religions are concerned for more than the individual. That’s part of the nature of religions. But as a writer (Achin Vanaik) on Indian communalism put it some years ago there are politicians who use religion for instrumental purposes and there are religious people who use politics and politicians for instrumental purposes: neither is beneficial and both can be dangerous. There is a proper relationship between religion and politics, if by politics, is understood the ‘life of the polis’ – in other words of the wider community. This is because religions are not only concerned with the individual, but are also properly concerned with how lives are lived in community. But what can be dangerous to religion, civil society and the state alike, is an instrumentalization either of religion in the service of politics, or of politics in the service of religion, and certainly any equation between a religion and a particular political party. Such thinking is, at least in my understanding, not dissimilar to what I personally see as being one of the most important contributions that Fethullah Gülen’s thinking makes about the place of Islam and Muslims in the various states and societies of the world.

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.  

he debate over religion’s role in social change has been raging for centuries.

The interpretation and perception of even just a single social action is multi-layered, multi-faceted, complex, and sophisticated. It almost seems impossible to explain a social action entirely through any of our sciences; in fact, it seems unlikely that any science will be developed that fully encompasses all of humanity’s problems.

As human beings our needs, conscious or unconscious, stretch from a tiny atomic particle to nearly the whole universe. It sometimes seems that the whole universe and all that within it are not good enough to satisfy even the smallest need of our unlimited desire. Some have asserted that one day human beings are going to play the role of God. They do this because of their strong and persistent belief that we are merely the product of material existence and it is therefore the material realm that makes us who we are. As such, they believe we will eventually rule over the things that created us.

Others would undoubtedly take a whole different direction and argue that our nature is a complex, interwoven tapestry of the material and immaterial realms; it is imprecise to contend that it is only economic conditions or conditioning that beget all the other elements of our social and individual lives, which includes things such as literature, the fine arts, religion, and the like. Hence, I intend to examine the notions of two influential intellectuals of the recent past: Karl Marx and Max Weber, particularly their notions as to religion.

To begin with, the history of humanity has seen a lot of wars, but the intellectual war that we have experienced over the past two centuries, which split the entire world into two blocks of countries (until recently they were communist and capitalist), should be of the greatest interest to almost everyone; it has been a one-of-a-kind struggle.

Marx, a reductionist, framed his argument as such:

“…the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a single word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in revolutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”

He wrote this about the sorry state of the working class, especially in the nineteenth century, when workers were treated almost like machines or animals. This was particularly true in Western Europe. Even from just these few lines, one could easily grasp the sympathy of Marx for the working class of his time, what he called the oppressed, and his animosity and utter disgust toward the elite class, what he called the oppressor. It is no surprise then to see him portray a system in which the rights of the oppressed to a happy life could not be realized as needing to be overthrown through a social upheaval or revolution against the oppressors. For Marx, everything was crystal clear: it was the economic system which made the elites oppress their workers (please see “Karl Marx: the Prophet of Materialism” article in this issue).

Marx frequently turned to the then recent revolutions occurring in Western Europe: the English Civil War of the 1600s and the French Revolution. These struggles cost many lives and were for him just a new chapter in the ever-repeating class struggle between the oppressor and the oppressed.

On the surface, the apparent causes of the infamous conflict could be identified as politics and religion, which were quite intertwined then. A thorough analysis of Marx’s society enabled him to discover the subtle connection between the social class divisions and the stages of economic development, and allowed him to postulate his version of human salvation: communism, in which the superstructure, with all its elements including religion, would perish eternally in the name of a utopian, classless society. He prophesied a future in which the communal life of people would be shaped by a new idealized economic system that negated all private ownership of property, monopolized the political structure, and left no room for religion in social and individual life. As a matter of fact, most of his writings reflect his reactive response to the perceived evils or fatal flaws of capitalism. For instance, while some people enjoyed luxurious lives because of the fact that they were born to a rich family, many others endured the severest conditions just to survive. Witnessing this, one cannot help but wonder, “Is the economic system to be blamed for this?” Or even, “Are the ill-perception, misuse, and exploitation of the system the culprit?” I am completely sure that every sensible human being would appreciate the diagnosis of the diseases of class struggle and the oppression of the poor, but I also think it is hasty to reflexively blame the system – capitalism – as being solely to blame for the wretched conditions of the oppressed. According to Marx, religion was the opiate fed by the oppressors to the oppressed to keep them in line. To realize the revolution that Marx felt was necessary, this opiate had to be eliminated.

His approach to religion was always contemptuous and very similar to the functional and reductionist theories of Freud and Durkheim. In his view, religion is nothing more than a pure illusion – in other words, an entity that has no real existence. Therefore, he did not heed what religious beliefs or holy books taught; rather, he emphasized the function that religion and its fundamental elements played in social life. Even though his portrayal of religion was reduced to a social function, he still maintained that we should discover why people insist on this illusion, arguably since the beginning of human life.

As depicted above, Marx left no room for religion in his imagined world after the envisaged revolution against the oppressor. He saw it as an effect, an expression or a symptom of a deeper reality: material facts of the class struggle and alienation. Religion was the culprit to be annihilated in the name of real human bliss.

On the other hand, almost a half century later, a young and bright social scientist would dare to hold a completely different account of religion and argue that though the economic conditions of an individual or a society could determine the tone of some religious beliefs or practices, history would bear witness otherwise. He stated:

“…the side of the problem which is generally most difficult to grasp: the influence of certain religious ideas on the development of an economic spirit, or the ethos of an economic system. In this case we are dealing with the connection of the spirit of the modern economic life with the rational ethics of ascetic Protestantism. Thus we treat here only one side of the causal chain.”

In “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,” Max Weber diligently outlined a delicate connection between an attitudinal and doctrinal change in the framework of a religious group of Protestantism and the economic development that followed. Throughout his scholarly treatise, he gave an exquisitely drawn picture of the early Protestants, particularly the pioneers of Protestantism: Martin Luther and John Calvin. In fact, he claimed that the self-constraining ethic of Protestantism that stemmed from the inner-worldly asceticism fostered with frugality, personal discipline, solemnity, thrift, self-denial, hard work, investment, and making the best use of one’s time and resources was the spirit of capitalism. There was, he explained, a sharp difference between the adherents of the then Catholic Church, which regarded the daily chores and business enterprises as petty issues compared to the religious works of monks, nuns, and priests (other-worldly asceticism), and the followers of early Protestantism, who praised any effort to please God, including daily chores and especially the acquisition of wealth (inner-world asceticism).

He aptly placed this sharp change of attitude in the disciples of Calvin towards the acquisition of wealth at the very center of the eventual rise of the capitalist economy and the birth of a new civilization. Some monumental maxims like, “A penny saved is a penny earned…”, “Time is money; sloth is sin…”; “Even the humblest tasks are solemn duties assigned by God Himself…”; “All work, not just religious work, was a calling from God; it should not be done but done well, as a faithful service carried out under the great Taskmaster’s eye…” reflect this spirit of capitalism in Protestant countries like the United States and England. For Weber, “an idea in the mind of one human agent (or shared by a group of agents) is as much a real cause of human action as the application of heat to water is the real cause of steam.” Therefore, the backbone of the current capitalism originates in the very change in the belief system of a group of religious people. Such a claim is a consistent proof for social scientists like Weber to argue against the extremely reductionist notions of religion like that of Marx.

The two contrasting views of religion are significantly worth studying. While Marx, with his infamous animosity towards religion, divorced it from his utopian communist society and sentenced it to death forever, he adamantly upheld the necessities of human nature and pointed out the fact that negligence of the material aspect of life would result in absurdities in the name of human salvation. Moreover, his emphasis that history had become an arena of social class struggle urged humans to find lasting resolutions in order to establish projections of heavenly bliss on earth. Humanity undoubtedly owes him a round of applause due to his incessant efforts to vocalize the rights of the oppressed to life, dignity, and freedom. However, it is truly heartbreaking to see that he could not apprehend the real core of religion, which is pure devotion, compassion, self-denial, and other humble traits. If only he had chosen a different path that appreciated the diverse nature of humanity, of which religion is a distinguished component. I have never understood why Marx negated the fact that as material conditions shape ideas, ideas also cause material beings to change. Hence, unlike Marx, Weber approved of the fact that the key cause of the capitalist revolution was not some material circumstance, but a new form of economic behavior that followed logically from a new religious idea: “the self-constraining ethic of Protestantism was the animating spirit of capitalism.”

Has the battle come to an end yet? Honestly, I would assert it is an ongoing process. As we progress in light of the more inspiring notions of contemporary social scientists, we come to realize how wrong it is to reduce a very deeply embedded part of human social and individual life -religion- to something superficial or hypothetical. It is rather to be understood as something “sui generis” and a multi-faceted reality – a reality in and of itself. It is unquestionably inspiring to see several people search for an answer to what religion is and at the same time quite overwhelming to know that a great number of things in religion need an unbiased, pure, and sophisticated mind supported with the sublime emotions or faculties of the (metaphorical) heart. Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary to devise a new, multicolored approach to religious studies that embrace not only the fine-tuned minds but also the purified hearts. It would be wise to heed Kant’s argument against pure reason: “The ultimate truth can never be known through the theoretical mind. Only then can it be perceived partially via the practical mind.” Finally, it wouldn’t be a mere exaggeration to assert that what religion is or what role it plays in social and individual lives is a question of life and death to a certain degree. Hence, is religion a cause, an effect – or both? While many would say it is just an effect, several others would sail to the shore of “a cause”; still others, like me, agree that religion is both, and that every thought or emotion should get the benefit of the doubt.

References

1. Anatomy of the Sacred, an introduction to religion, 5th Ed. by James C. Livingston
2. Introducing Religion, readings from the classic theorist, by Daniel L. Pals
3. Eight Theories of Religion, 2nd Ed., by Daniel L. Pals
4. Gale Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd Ed.
5. Encyclopedia of Quran by Jane Dammen McAuliffe

With this realization, skepticism has the potential to become an inconvenience and, at its most extreme, a debilitating disorder of mammoth proportions. An example of the inconvenience of skepticism might look like this: Imagine you are looking to buy a new car from a car dealer you are unfamiliar with. The cars he sells all look to be in great condition, and the man himself seems honest enough. However, because of your skeptical nature you are not entirely sure about the quality of these cars and you ultimately decide not to buy one. Because of this, you end up missing an opportunity to own a great new car at an affordable price due to unwarranted suspicion, stemming from an overly skeptical worldview.

What does it mean to be “overly” skeptical? There are times when skepticism is warranted and even necessary. If you were to notice some odd or shifty behavior from the car salesman, for example, you would be prudent and wise to take a second to doubt the quality of the vehicles he is selling. However, problems arise when you are skeptical in the absence of any evidence to suggest that what you perceive is not in reality what one thinks it is. Is there a remedy for the soul who is afflicted with constant doubt about the world and the intentions of those in it? Is there a cure for the mind that is never satisfied with its ignorance, and wishes to know the truth and reality behind all events in the universe?

Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, a twentieth-century Islamic scholar, answers in the Risale-i Nur with an affirmative “yes,” and says that having an idea of God in one’s life is sufficient to address the concerns of skepticism.

Born in 1877, in an Anatolian village in the city of Bitlis, Bediuzzaman Said Nursi lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in Turkish history, witnessing the end of the Ottoman Empire and the birth of the secular Turkish republic under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Nursi’s own life was equally tumultuous. Under the young republic’s Kemalist ideology, Nursi was routinely held by police, unjustly tried in court, and forced to live in states of exile. Despite these hardships, Nursi never deviated from his message of faith and peace, and managed to compile his incredibly influential Risale-i Nur collection.

What does Bediuzzaman Said Nursi have to say about skepticism? We should first look at Nursi’s attitude towards modern science. Said Nursi emphasized contemporary scientific achievements, and used religious and scientific terminologies together. This indicates that he supported and accepted the positive and metaphysical sciences. One of his fundamental ideas was how religious and modern scientific knowledge should complement and support each other, rather than come into conflict. In the following quote, we’ll see the importance he places on both sciences, and how skepticism is a result of a lack of the religious sciences:

“The light of the conscience is the religious sciences (ulum-u diniye). The light of the mind is the modern sciences (funun-u medeniye). Combining both manifests the truth. The student’s skills develop further with these two (sciences). When they are separated, the former breeds superstition and the latter breeds corruption and skepticism” (from Munazarat, in ibid., 2:1956).

To further the study, we will examine what Said Nursi says about the relationship between man and God. Nursi writes that belief, knowledge, and worship of God are the ultimate purpose of existence, and that these are our innate and original duties. Therefore, belief in God is the highest aim of creation. According to Nursi, because of these facts, which complement each other, human beings can only find true happiness and serenity through belief. This idea of finding inner peace through belief in God is a very important component of the Risale, and although Said Nursi does not speak to skepticism directly, this idea can address skeptical concerns about knowledge and the world. More specifically, it is when a person puts their full trust in God that he or she can stop worrying about their burdens in this world.

Said Nursi writes about putting one’s trust in God in the part of the Risale-i Nur known as The Words. He explains this concept in the Twenty-third Word, in the Third Point. Nursi writes that belief in God is both light and power, in that those who have true belief can be relieved from the pressure of events. Since they entrust their burdens to God’s Absolute Power, they travel through the world without fear and misery. Nursi writes that belief consists of affirming Divine Unity, which requires submitting to God. Submitting fully to God requires relying on Him, which will yield happiness in this world.

Nursi cautions that relying on God in this manner does not mean that one should ignore the relationship between cause and effect, but rather one should view cause and effect as veils covering Divine Power’s hand. For example, in order to earn a high score on a final exam for school, we shouldn’t only sit back and pray to God, but we should also study for the exam. He writes that observing the laws of cause and effect is actually a type of worship through seeking to comply with Divine Will. However, this kind of desire and seeking of results is not enough for us to get what we want. According to Nursi, we should understand that, with the right belief, the result we want can only be expected from God, because He is the sole producer of effects.

Said Nursi further explains this concept by use of an allegorical argument. The parable goes as follows: once, two people boarded a ship, each carrying heavy loads on their backs. One man immediately put his burden on the deck of the ship after boarding and sat on it to keep it safe. The other man refused to lay down his cargo, even after being told to do so. He feared that it might get lost, and felt that he was strong enough to carry it himself. His friend told him that the ship was stronger and could hold it better, and also that by holding onto his burden, his strength would eventually fail him. Additionally, if the captain of the ship would see him, he might think he was ungrateful or insane to be carrying that burden by himself. And so he was convinced to lay down his burden and he found relief at last. Said Nursi writes that putting trust in God delivers one from being fearful of things in life, similar to how the men in the boat put down their burdens and stopped worrying about them.

What does any of this have to do with skepticism? Let us recall the problems associated with living a life of skepticism. When a person has an unhealthy amount of skepticism, he or she can no longer be sure about things that should otherwise not concern them. This type of skepticism is like a kind of paranoia, a type of phobia. We saw earlier that Said Nursi views this sort of skepticism as a result of a lack of the religious sciences. By extension, this means that a lack of trust in a Benevolent and Wise God can be responsible for this skepticism. Completely trusting in God first requires one to believe that God has Absolute Power over cause and effect. If one believes that God controls cause and effect completely, and if one believes that everything God wills is for the best purpose and wisest reason, then one has no reason to worry about the things one cannot know for certain, because those matters are entrusted to God’s control.

Said Nursi also writes in the Twenty-Fifth Word, Second Station, about evil thoughts and involuntary suggestions that may come to people. He first quotes a verse from the Qur’an:

“O Lord, I take refuge in You from the evil suggestions of the satans, and I take refuge in You, O my Lord, lest they attend me” (23:97-98).

Nursi has this to say about involuntary evil thoughts: the person who is afflicted with these thoughts and fancies is in an unfortunate state. The more one thinks about them, the more they grow. If one ignores them, they will shrink away; but if one exaggerates them, they will loom large in one’s life. If one fears them, they will make one sick; but if one does not fear them, they will become hidden.

This approach is relevant with regards to skeptical worries. One can observe that the only people who tend to worry about whether we can ever have knowledge with 100 certainty are philosophers. Most people are free of this type of worry. Most people, for example, wouldn’t think to question whether they are awake or asleep at this moment in time. If we see a tomato, we shouldn’t worry about the fact that we cannot see every aspect of the tomato at once; this shouldn’t lead us to question whether what we see is in fact a tomato. Nursi’s advice to philosophers is that we should stop worrying about the 0.01 of knowledge we can never obtain, and instead put our full trust in God, Who has Absolute Knowledge, Wisdom, and control over the world. If God wills it, the tomato will turn out to be a tomato, and if not, it is not the end of the world. Nursi would probably also say not to worry about whether the car salesman is trying to rip you off. If it so happens that you bought a lemon, you should remember that God willed it to happen for a reason you may not yet understand.

On a final note, I can share a related story. About a year ago, I was playing paintball with some friends. We were at a park in the woods. The field was very large, and I went into a thick patch of brush and was quickly lost. After stumbling around for a bit, I emerged in a wide open area, and right in front of me I saw a strange sight: I had somehow ended up behind what I thought was the enemy team. I slowly crept forward, waiting until I was in a prime position to attack. I finally stopped, but I hesitated. And in that moment of hesitation I heard the whistle blow to end the match. I was dismayed at such a wasted opportunity. However, as I sulked back to my team, I soon realized that I had come perilously close to making a massive fool of myself. It turns out that I had bumbled onto an entirely different match with different teams. How differently I viewed the situation after just a few moments! In place of despair, I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me.

While it’s true that if I had taken the time to question my surroundings I might not have almost made myself look silly, in this case I would say there was a good reason for skepticism, which was the fact that I had gotten lost. If we have no reason to be skeptical about something we shouldn’t try to create reasons to be skeptical. This was the moment in my life where I clearly saw with my own eyes that sometimes things can happen that we may be upset about and appear to be bad for us, but in the long run they may actually turn out to be good. Because of this we should not worry too much about the outcomes of things out of our control, because they are all ultimately in God’s control.