The following words were reported to have been said by God’s most illustrious Messenger, Prophet Muhammad, the greatest hero in ascension to God and descent amongst the people in order to guide them to God after the completion of his ascension: “The most lovable to God Almighty among His servants are those who are separate.” When asked who such people were, he replied: “Those who are able to keep themselves separate from people for the sake of their religion and live a true, religious life. They will be resurrected together with Jesus, the son of Mary” (Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziya, Madaricu’s-Salikin, 3: 195). The idea of taking the first step toward the eternal life of the Hereafter alongside our master Jesus is a meaningful way of expressing and understanding the depth of his feeling of separation.

There are Prophetic reports that a person who dies away from home dies a martyr (Abu Ya‘la, al-Musnad, 4:269; Ibn Maja, “Jana’iz,” 61). The separation mentioned in these reports also includes: the separation of God’s saintly servants among those unaware of spirituality and spiritual states, the separation that the righteous suffer among wicked transgressors, the separation that people of belief and conviction suffer among the unbelievers and heretics, the separation that people of knowledge and discernment suffer among the rude and ignorant, and the separation that people of spirituality and truth suffer among the bigots, who restrict themselves only to the outward wording of the religious rules.

In other reports concerning homelessness, separation and being an outsider in one’s own land, the Messenger points to the holy ones of every age who strive to make God’s Word the most elevated in the world. For example: “Islam began helpless and with the helpless and those treated as outlandish and outsiders, and will return to the same condition of helplessness and being represented and revived by those who will be treated as outlandish and outsiders. Glad tidings to the outsiders who try to improve in a time when all else are engaged in destruction and corruption” (or, according to another narration, who increase in faith and righteousness when all else weaken in them) (Muslim, “Iman,” 232; at-Tirmidhi, “Iman,” 13).

The people of truth see separation as living in the realm of bodily existence despite the fact that they breathe the breezes of being in God’s company, and a requirement of being on the way to God, they not only endure separation, no matter how difficult it becomes, but also they are always ready and desirous to fly to the realm where the souls fly. They—those who have a true knowledge of God—always suffer separation from the higher realm of spiritual beings, which they see as their home or native land, and long for reunion in the dungeon of the worldly life. The following verses in his Mathnawi by Jalalu’d-Din Rumi express this separation:

Listen to the flute, how it recounts;
It complains of separation.

When the horizon of the Realm of Permanence manifested itself to him, Bilal al-Habashi expressed the same feeling of separation and longing for reunion: “I am returning to my native land from the land of separation.”

Everyone comes alone into this world, which is a caravanserai where the caravans come and leave after staying a short while, and everyone is seen off alone, without finding the opportunity to be freed from the feeling of separation. For this reason, those who suffer longing for the realms beyond feel separation peculiar to themselves, while the others who have set their hearts upon the world whose properties, dominion, and happiness are all transitory, suffer pangs of another kind of separation. In this world, every person is a Khusraw Dahlawi, who said: “My heart has become tired with separation and desires the native land,” and everyone is weary of the narrow framework of this world, they are in pursuit of new horizons, and they crave their native land.

In the light of what we have so far explained, we can deal with separation in the following three categories—useful, harmful and neutral:

The separation that is useful and praised by the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, is that felt by God’s saintly servants. When we mention separation, what comes to mind is this form of separation. This separation is that which is crowned with friendship with God, which has the depth of knowing Him, and the dimensions of loving and yearning for Him. Those who feel this separation rise to friendship with God, without ever feeling themselves completely alone. They consider the transitory moments of loneliness as signs that they are ascending toward Him and see themselves as being supported by God’s protection, His illustrious Messenger’s leadership, and the company of the believers. They continue their relationship with the world in proportion to its essential value. They are ascetics whose every moment is spent in devotion to Him, ascetics who are always at war with feelings of pride and fame. As stated in a Prophetic Tradition, they are the royalty in the Gardens of Paradise, but they live so simple and humble a life that the worldly ones attach no importance to it. With all their manners and in their appearance and their actuality, in their manner of dressing and acting, they are normal mortal beings among other mortals, without seeing them superior to anybody. They regard all worldly and other worldly favors as a means of mentioning their true Owner, of being in constant thankfulness to Him and they are zealous to strive in His cause. Whatever gift God bestows on them, they see it as a garment to be worn temporarily, a garment that must not be spoiled by them and one about which they must feel no loss when it is gone.

From another perspective, those outsiders who are admired even by the saintly persons of higher ranks such as the pure, godly ones and those near-stationed to God, hold tight to the way of the Prophet as if they were clinging to it by their teeth, as stated in a Prophetic Tradition (Abu Dawud, “Sunna,” 5; at-Tirmidhi, “’Ilm,” 5). When other people turn away from it, they wage war on the innovations in religion, fix their thoughts and feelings on God’s absolute Oneness, spend their lives in the pleasure and enthusiasm that come from adherence to God, regard following the master of the creatures, upon him be peace and blessings, as submission to the captain of a ship that is taking its passengers to the Almighty, and view following a guide in their time as following him in essence.

This kind of separation, which is regarded as the most important and blessed source of sainthood belonging to those who lived in the Age of Happiness—the time of the Messenger—and those who will come toward the end of time and follow them in adherence to God’s religion and serving it, is a way to perfection. It is extremely difficult to advance on this way, and does not seem greatly attractive to people, but it is very valuable and immune to claims of self-assertion and words of pride that are incompatible with the rules of faith and irreconcilable with self-possession. In every age, a handful of pure souls have gathered together around this source, breasted the adversities surrounding their community, fought against the dangers that lie waiting in ambush for the spirits, embraced human beings with love, helped them realize their worldly and other worldly expectations, and then said farewell to this world without tasting its pleasures to go to the other. This they had to do, as an easy life and bodily pleasures are deadly poison for them and to imbibe these would mean that they had contradicted themselves. Instead of living contradictions and controversies, which is the bitterest of separation, something that is worse than death for those who order their lives, not for their own but for others’ happiness, they prefer to receive their documents of discharge from worldly responsibilities and emigrate to the realm where the friends are.

The second kind of separation is that which is of no use and impresses the one who suffers it as a calamity. It arises from denial of God, from heresies, and misguidance. It continues in the intermediate world of the grave and even in the other world, bringing no reward to those who suffer it. This kind of separation is the most pitiable.

The third separation is neither useful nor useless, it is a separation that begins in the womb of the mother and continues until the grave. This is a separation which every mortal human being is destined to suffer. Although it sometimes brings reward to those who suffer it because of the purity of intention in their acts, it usually causes pangs for souls that have fallen away from the Almighty and that have not been able to maintain righteousness in their inner worlds. The meaning of the following couplets of a poet are truly helpful when trying to understand the states of those who suffer such separation:

If a person stays in separation from his home even for a moment,
he is not as powerful as even a piece of straw,
be he as firm as a mountain.
That helpless, poor one may seem still to be where he is,
but he always sighs when he recollects his home.
I have many complaints of separation from friends;
nevertheless, this is neither the time nor the place to tell of it.

There is blood and sweat on the brow of the past
Iron fetters on its feet,      
A bitter smile on its lips.
What a red spirit it clashed with…


There is still occasional darkness on the horizon;
However, day follows the night…
Autumn fell in and all the orchards decayed.
Leaves turned yellow and flowers faded.

The hero died, and his steed was tired;
He had fought with a huge malicious demon.

Now even if it seems impossible for him to return, 

We’re waiting for him at rosy dawns…
The crowns that once shone,
The slopes that opened their bosoms to the crowned.

Emerald trees on golden slopes,
Reached the caravan of separation and left.


There’s a spark from that frightful extinction

There are messages in the spark from the return.

“I am an aerodynamicist. I ask myself, by subscribing to aerodynamicism and providing mechanical explanations devoid of conscience, am I committing a murder against air? What if the air’s motion is the embodiment of conscious acts with feelings?”

Have you ever thought of the mechanics of a murder? Yes, the mechanics of a murder! Given an object with 50 grams of mass at point A, with a velocity of 400 m/s, the time it takes to reach point B, which is 4 meters away, is approximately 10 milliseconds. When this mass reaches point B, it contacts a surface that can sustain a maximum of 90 m/s2 acceleration. Because the momentum of the 50 gram object is high enough to overcome this limit, it penetrates this surface. As it cuts through the target object, its kinetic energy is converted to heat. Eventually, the 50 gram object comes to a stop, but the path it has opened now becomes filled with a red-colored, non-Newtonian fluid whose density is 1060 kg/m3 and whose viscosity is 3.5 x 10-3 Pa.s. When this fluid flow stops due to a process called agglutination, or commonly known as clotting, the whole system achieves a steady-state behavior, i.e. all motions come to a halt.

“All motions come to a halt”: that is death. This explanation could be the murder of your parent who was assassinated while working for the good of your country, or your family members who were martyred during a war. And this scientific picture made of dead words cannot portray the love and sorrow gushing out of your eyes. But I can tell you where your love and sorrow can be found.

Loving means being vulnerable, and you know why? Because when you love someone, their presence stimulates the release of dopamine in your brain. Dopamine is the hormone that lowers the threshold of feeling pleasure and pain, thus you feel pleased and hurt more easily. Your emotional devastation is nothing but an accumulation of dopamine in your brain. Just wait until it diffuses completely. As the common wisdom says: time heals everything.

Loving also means bonding, and you know why? Because when you love someone, their presence stimulates the release of oxytocin in your body. Oxytocin is the hormone that accompanies the feeling of serenity while with your loved one. It also functions in pair bonding and fidelity. The terror in your mind and the brokenness in your soul in the aftermath of your loss is only a hunger for oxytocin.

What did you say? My explanations would not console you? See a psychiatrist and take some pills to balance your hormone levels. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all right.

That’s Enough!

I cannot take it anymore. I can’t go on with my life when one side of my being is tortured by the other. Did you, too, feel tormented by the explanations I just told you? These words are coming from the cold chamber of science, where all emotions are to be kept dead-frozen. Isn’t it a murder in itself?

I am an aerodynamicist. Calling myself an aerodynamicist recalls an ideology that hasn’t been named, that doesn’t exist in encyclopedias: aerodynamicism. Aerodynamicism has its own dogmas, rules, methods. It tells you that air is just another fluid whose behavior can be studied through mathematics and experiments. So, I ask myself, by subscribing to aerodynamicism and providing mechanical explanations devoid of conscience, am I committing a murder against air? What if the air’s motion is the embodiment of conscious acts with feelings?

Perhaps I should listen to the air itself, instead of what others say about it. Maybe I should at least give air a chance to show me that it is actually alive, that it has emotions. So I stand atop a hill overlooking a bay. I keep silent, and try to remove the scientific knowledge that is clogging my ears. And I start hearing something:

It is the wind. As the air approaches my body, it slows down, forms a stationary layer right around my torso. Around this layer, it paces gradually towards my back. Behind my arms, it forms small vortices that are shed along with the wind. What I am hearing is actually the sound of the friction between my ear and the air. And the whistling sound is the vortex-shedding triggered by the separation of the air’s flow from the body’s surface. Hey, hey, hey… I thought I was listening to the air! This is not air! This is my self, forging mechanical shapes and passing them off as if they belong to air. If air has feelings, it must be very disappointed by my hypocritical pose of listening. I just invited it into my lungs for an intimate conversation, but I aborted that conversation with my scientific thoughts.

I should apologize. With my eyes closed and arms wide open, I allow my whole being to be embraced by air. “I am sorry. I hope I did not hurt your feelings. Are you crying?”

“Crying only ends with the act of shedding tears, but it starts long before when someone hurts the love inherent in creation. I am crying. I want to shed my tears, each like a galaxy, to the expanse of the universe till the end of time. Isn’t there someone out there to hear me?”

“Why do you feel so alone?”

“I feel alone because I am different. Although I visit many people and many places every day, it is a very routine interaction going on between me and everything else: mundane tasks to be performed without intimacy. Like the two parties in a business. Once the mutual interests are delivered, the relationship is over. No loyalty, no love. I imagine myself like a chunk of meat going through a meat grinder. This is a meaningless, merciless flow where your identity or existence means nothing special. So, why would I talk to those people about my private world anyway? Instead, just a few words about the weather…”

“I wish I could do something for you!”

“The Creator didn’t give me eyes so that I would embrace everyone, good or bad; so that every individual in this world is cared for. So, I would like to become friends and feel the warmth of their presence. Often I ask myself when they are going to notice that I am offering my love by hugging them. At least, I wish they saw my tears upon my separation from them…”

At first, I didn’t consider air as a living being! But now, I was learning that air was hugging me! And it was crying, too? Could the mechanical explanations be blinding me towards the reality behind the observations? If that were the case, the flow separation and vortex shedding were actually manifestations of melancholy. How is it possible that I am so distant to someone that is so close to me? My turbulence inside exhibited itself as a silence outside. At least, so, I thought. But I couldn’t be further from reality.

“I am used to this kind of silence. Despite their nonchalance towards me, I still care a lot about people. And using the subtle clues in their words and voices, I can penetrate into their psyche.”

Someone who knows me better than I? And I can’t even see that someone! When and how have I become its focus of attention?

“With their first breaths and cries in life, I start observing them from within.”

From within?

“With every breath, I become part of their souls, and with every utterance, I become part of their connections. Sometimes, I feel their inner pains through the trembling in their voices; the pains that they are ardently hiding even from themselves. As I leave them in that state, I break into a thousand pieces. But, the Creator made me invisible. So, none of what I learn about them is revealed to the eyes of strangers. Thus, I make a reticent confidant.”

I was totally conquered by these words. I found myself whispering “Not just reticent! You are a reticent and affectionate companion that anyone would like to have.”

“People live by breathing, and I breathe by loving; loving even if there is no reciprocity. As life goes on, I think about new people to be relieved of their pain, even if they won’t take me as one among them…”

“I love you air, I love you…”

Literally meaning strong desire, excessive yearning, joy issuing from knowing, delight, and longing, shawq (joyful zeal) is used by Sufis to express the heart’s overwhelming desire to meet with the Beloved, Who cannot be comprehended and “vanishes” after being “observed.” Some have described this as joyful desire, excitement, and a lover’s excessive heartfelt longing to see the Face of the Beloved. Others have regarded it as a fire that reduces to ashes all desires, wishes, yearnings, and inclinations other than the love for and inclination toward the Beloved.

Joyful zeal originates in love. The remedy of a heart burning with such a longing to meet with the Beloved is meeting with Him, and shawq is the wing of light that carries the lover to this meeting. Zeal disappears when a lover finds the Beloved, while the yearning for Him (ishtiyaq) continues to increase. One who yearns for Him never stops yearning and, whenever favored with a special manifestation of His Essence, wishes for more. This is why the prince of the Prophets and the greatest of humanity, upon him be peace and blessings, who, equipped at each moment with a new radiance of knowledge, love of God, and spiritual delight, incessantly traveled between the summits of love, joyful zeal, and yearning, and used to pray: O God! I ask You for zeal to observe Your perfectly beautiful “Face” and to meet with You.

Some interpreters of the Qur’an, when writing about: Those who believe are firmer in love of God (2:265) remark that joyful zeal is felt toward things that are partly perceivable and partly unperceivable, partly comprehensible and partly incomprehensible. One feels no zeal toward that which he or she has never seen or heard of, or about which he or she knows nothing. Nor does he or she feel interest in that which he or she completely comprehends or perceives.

Zeal and yearning can be divided into two categories. The first is the yearning produced by separation from the Beloved after meeting with and gazing upon Him in the past eternity. The sighs uttered by the flute of Rumi, and the creaking, painful sounds heard by Yunus Emre from the revolving water-wheel express such a separation. These sighs will continue until the final union or meeting with Him. The second category is when a lover sees the Beloved from behind a veil, and thus cannot completely comprehend Him. The believer feels His presence, but cannot see Him; he or she dips a finger into the honey of love but is not allowed to take a further step. Consumed with thirst, the believer cries: I am being consumed with thirst! Give me some water! but receives no answer.

The spirit of all men and women observed Him in an assembly of past eternity, where God asked them: Am I not your Lord? and they answered: Yes, assuredly. We testify! After this assembly, either because humanity’s very humanness required it or because humanity had to be tested, to believe in Him without seeing Him, humanity was thrown into the pangs of temporary separation. This is why people always dream of Him in a conscious or unconscious longing for Him, and burn with a yearning to re-unite with Him. What is more significant than this is the yearning which the All-Sacred Being has toward pure, innocent, and unadulterated souls, but only in a way that is appropriate for His essential independence of all being. This Divine eagerness may be the real source of the yearning that enters one’s heart.

Zeal means turning to the Beloved with all inner and outer feelings, and locking out all appetites other than those one feels to meet with Him. In the context of yearning, it means one is overflowing with desires and wishes related to Him. Both zeal and yearning feed the spirit. Both are painful but exhilarating, and distressing but promising.

No individual experiences more anguish, nor is none happier, than the one who burns with love and groans with zeal. Such people become so spiritualized when enraptured with the thought and hope of meeting with God that they would not agree to enter Paradise at that moment, even if allowed to do so. They burn inwardly with the pangs of separation to such a degree that even the waters of Paradise cannot extinguish the fire in their hearts. Only meeting with the Friend can extinguish such a fire. Paradoxically, they never think of escaping that fire, for even if they were offered the sanctuary of the palaces of Paradise to prevent them from burning with the fire of zeal to meet with the Friend, such people would scream out like the inhabitants of Hell who seek to be rescued from Hellfire.

Worldly people cannot know what that zeal means or the state of those who possess it, while people of zeal are amazed at worldly people, so engrossed in their worldly affairs and pleasures.

Their amazement is quite natural, for God Almighty told Prophet David, upon him be peace:

O David! If those who love and show inclination to the world knew how much I care about them, want them to resist against sins, and how I expect to meet with human beings, they would be dying with the zeal to meet with Me.

When the zeal to meet with God invades a lover’s being, the result is an overflow of feelings of pain and delight and cries of:

Zeal has bewildered me, zeal has burnt me.
Zeal has intervened between sleep and my eyes.
Zeal has invaded me, zeal has engrossed me.
Zeal has overwhelmed me, zeal has stricken me with awe.

This degree of zeal sometimes incites the lover to stand up and dance or spin. The lover should be excused for such movements, as he or she cannot resist such a spiritual state:

Say to him who wants to prevent a man of ecstasies from going into ecstasies:

You have not tasted the wine of love together with us, so leave us.
When souls overflow with the zeal to meet with the Beloved,
know, O you unaware of spirituality, that bodies begin to dance.
O guide who incites lovers, stand up and move us
with the name of the Beloved, and breathe life into us.

In our own day, some prefer to serve the Qur’an and faith by the way based on acknowledging one’s poverty or destitution and impotence or helplessness before God’s Wealth and Power, and on thankfulness and zeal. In this context, zeal means constant hope and continuing to serve without becoming dispirited or losing one’s energy. It also means seeking an aspect of Divine mercy even in the most distressing conditions, and then relying upon Him alone for His help and victory.

O God! I ask You for zeal and yearning to meet with You, and bestow blessing and peace on our master Muhammad, the master of those full of this zeal and yearning.

Man and the universe was created because of love and it can only be understood through love…

Love is a part of every being and a power which can resist and overcome every force…

Love is what elevates the souls which absorb it and prepares it for the journey to eternity…

of the dramatically fuelled experiences and emotions that Shakespeare had portrayed to his readers, of two youths trying to embrace their love for each other. A love that was never fulfilled, nonetheless, the story has touched so many that it is always made reference to when two individuals hold deep admiration for each other. Similar stories can be seen in many other cultures. It is said that Majnun’s love for Layla had moved mountains. Like Romeo, he too was never able to unite with his beloved. However, Romeo ended his life because he could not bear separation, whereas Majnun was fortunate in realising the “Source” of his love.

I guess it’s not the ending but the journey that one experiences with love that makes it worthwhile. There is an adage which states that “it is better to have loved and lost than to have not loved at all.” But is it really worth enduring all the challenges, despair and turmoil if at the end there is no union but only separation? Even if we don’t experience all the heartache and pain that the romantic pairs above had endured, is it not painful enough knowing that there will, one day, be an end to the union? Separated from the one for whom you have sacrificed so much for to be with, the one whom you have shared so much with. Separated from your hopes, your dreams, and the one that is your “true” love. Can a love that is finite be regarded as true?

I am finite, but I do not desire that which is finite
I am deficient, but I do not desire that which is insufficient
What I desire is an infinite Love…
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Words, 17th Word – Second Station)

For love to be regarded as true, we need to identify, acknowledge and accept the “Source” of love and direct that love back to this “Source.” For that Source is eternal, and just as important—and so is the unification. Love from the Source is planted like a seed into the heart of every human. Waiting to be watered with the drops of belief, it yearns to blossom into a flower manifesting itself through our actions and perceptions. For once the Source is known, we acknowledge that the love bestowed on us is an eternal reflection of His love for all.

I have fallen in love with all of creation, because of my love for the Creator.
(Yunus Emre)

When we have found our True Love, then no more pain or suffering is felt other than a deep desire to unite with the Source. Then the journey we experience and the affection we feel towards our loved ones (be it our partner, child, sibling, friend, etc.) becomes worthwhile and meaningful because we know that every separation is only temporary. We still feel the sorrow of separation; however, it draws us nearer to the True Source of love, which has been given to us as a blessing. The famous quote by Romeo, “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow,” transcends beyond corporal boundaries. We then come to realize and acknowledge the blessing of love as a Divine gift, thus, patiently seek and ask for reunification from the Source, to the Source.

For why would He have given us the need to want, if He did not want to give?
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Letters, 24th Letter – Fifth Point)

All lovers of the Source see the manifestations of His attributes throughout the universe and see the beauty in everything. Every petal on a flower, every drop in the ocean, every sparkle in the night sky and every tone of colour in a rainbow is contemplated and read as a letter from the Beloved. Just as the sunlight penetrates our flesh and gives warmth to our bodies, these eternal messages caress our souls and give us comfort. The unconditional love a mother has for her child; the support and console that one’s partner selflessly offers; the companionship of a dear friend or a sibling that is cherished are all Divinely instilled faculties and attributes which He has provisioned us with—and when viewed in this way, we are able to see His insignia throughout all of creation.

Those that see beauty in everything only think of beauty;
Those that only think of beauty taste the true pleasures of life.
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. The Letters, Seeds of Reality)

Despair transforms into hope, anguish into content, deceit into truth and honesty. We are all separated with our loved ones at one stage or another, but this is only temporary. This temporary separation awakens the senses to focus their attention on the Source and appreciate where the love originated from. Only the true Source of Love, God Almighty, Who is eternal and has bestowed the universe with dominical attraction, can answer our call for reunion. Just like the merciful drops of rain meeting with our parched lips or scorching sand, we will one day celebrate the joys of reunion.

All the roads have been barricaded; the travellers only see a mirage
Even if the travellers deny their journey, all paths lead to God.
(Anonymous)

When love is comprehended and experienced in this way, we then come to the realization that we (and everything else in the universe) have an association and connection with all of creation. We begin to recognize that this association or connection is gelled together by means of attraction; the attraction of celestial bodies within space, the attraction of rain drops to drought stricken land, the attraction of the genders—from the microcosm to the macrocosm. This perspective allows us to witness and comprehend the Creator’s Dominical Love over all things.

Now and then like the winds I blow
Now and then like the roads I go
Now and then like the floods I flow
Come, see what love has done to me.
(Yunus Emre)

In his Models of My Life, social scientist Herbert Simon stated that science’s purpose is to find meaningful simplicity in the midst of disorderly complexity. Although the systems in nature and society seem to be very complex, we need simple theories to understand them. The key to finding these simple rules or principles, which Plato called perfect form and thing-in-itself and Kant described as a kind of untouchable essence behind physical things or systems, is mathematics.

Mathematics and social science

One of mathematics’ main challenges is its uses in social sciences. But does mathematics, which is considered rigid and restrictive and the best tool for explaining matter, have laws for human life? The latest studies in sociology, biology, and epidemiology show that such laws and meaningful patterns do exist and can be discovered. One of the great achievements of mathematics and physics in sociology is explaining the six degrees of separation (i.e., the small world) phenomenon.(1)

Almost everyone has met someone far from our home who is a friend of a friend. This is so common that it has become a clich: It’s a small world “ even though there are now more than 6 billion people. Even more surprising is the structure of social networks, the map of who knows whom, which shows that all people are closely connected.(2)

A social network is a collection of people, each of whom is acquainted with some subset of others. This can be represented as a set of points (nodes) denoting people, joined in pairs by lines (edges) denoting acquaintance, in a company, university, or even a global community. Social scientists have studied such networks, both empirically and theoretically, for at least 50 years.

A revealing experiment

One of the first and famous empirical studies was conducted in 1967 by Stanley Milgram, a Harvard psychology professor: the small world phenomenon. He asked: Starting with any two people in the world, what is the probability that they will know one another? In a large social network, although X and Z might not know each other, they might have a mutual acquaintance. Moreover, X might be linked to Z by a series of links. In other words, X knows a, who knows b, who knows c … who knows y, who knows Z. But how many intermediate acquaintance links are needed, on the average, to connect X and Z?

According to Milgram (3), this phenomenon raises the issue of a certain mathematical structure in society, one that often plays a part in discussions about history, sociology, and other disciplines. For example, during western Europe’s Dark Age, cities became isolated because inter-city communications broke down and thus severely limited the network of individual acquaintances. Thus, social disintegration was expressed in the communities’ growing isolation and people’s infrequent contact with non-local people.

Milgram asked his test subjects, chosen at random from Nebraskan and Kansan telephone directories, to get a letter to one of his Boston stockbroker friends. The letters were to be sent passing them from one person to another, but only if both parties were on a first-name basis. Since it was unlikely that the letter’s initial recipient and a Boston stockbroker would be on a first-name basis, their best strategy was to pass the letter to someone whom they felt would be socially or geographically closer to the stockbroker.

A moderate number of the letters eventually reached their destination. Milgram discovered that the average number of steps in this process was about six. This is usually considered evidence of the small world hypothesis: Most pairs of people, even in a very large population, can be connected by a short chain of intermediate acquaintances.

Milgram’s work passed into folklore and was immortalized in John Guare’s 1990 play Six Degrees of Separation, where Ouisa claims: Everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The president of the United States. A gondolier in Venice…. It’s not just the big names. It’s anyone. A native in a rain forest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought…. How every person is a new door, opening to other worlds.(4)

Watts and Strogatz used this model to explain the six degrees of separation in society- and nature-based networks.(5) Their model employs mathematical graph theory, which consists of nodes (people) and links (acquaintance). They modified the regular network, in which every node has short-range fixed number of connections, by adding long-range connections to the regular network to simulate the short path length between nodes. This model is now used in such areas as networks connected with biological metabolism, genomes, proteins, the Internet backbone, power grids, companies, and the stock market.

Research on social networks has helped health professionals understand how epidemics spread. Epidemiological models help them to predict how fast a disease will spread and to develop small world theory strategies to combat them, for scientists now realize that this social network property is a main cause for the outbreak of epidemics. This network offers a super-connected web of stepping stones for infectious diseases. After analyzing the social network’s structure, public health specialists can devise new vaccination strategies to slow or stop the epidemic. The small world theory also explains the rapid spread of news, rumors, fashions, and gossip.

Other types of systems show similar properties: networks of actors involved in the same movie, scientific collaboration networks of scientists who coauthor an article, and even the Internet, where millions of web pages are connected via mutual links. Recent research shows that in all of these networks, there are only a few steps between one node and any other node. The average shortest path between a network’s nodes, is 3.5 for the actor network and 9.5 for the scientific collaboration network. Despite the Internet’s more than 800 million nodes, there are, on average, only 19 steps between one web page and any other.(6)

Conclusion

The small world theory is a great success of the theory of complexity in nature and social life. It reveals an underlying dynamic of interconnectedness that expresses itself indelibly in who we are and how we think, behave, and communicate. Such close interconnectedness reveals one important fact for constructing a peaceful and beneficial world: There are no strangers, for everyone is one of our friends’ or neighbors’ friend or relative. The key element in understanding people is communication. Mutual love and good relations continue as long as we understand each other. We are loyal and faithful to the extent that we share our friends’ troubles, because ignorance only builds an impenetrable wall between us.(7)

Hasan Guclu is a doctoral student in the field of very large complex systems, such as computer networks, social networks, epidemics, and surface growth.

Footnotes

1. See, respectively, A. L. Barabasi, Linked (Perseus Publishing: 2002); D. J. Watts, Small Worlds (Princeton University Press: 1999); and M. Buchanan, Nexus (W. W. Norton: 2002).
2. D. J. Watts and S. H. Strogatz, Collective Dynamics of Small World Networks, Nature 393 (1998):440-42.
3. S. Milgram, The Individual In A Social World (Addison-Wesley: 1977).
4. J. Guare, Six Degrees of Separation: A Play (Vintage: 1990).
5. Watts and Strogatz, Collective Dynamics.
6. A. L. Barabasi, Linked.
7. F. Gulen, Pearls of Wisdom (The Fountain: 2001).

Among all living beings, it is also man who needs the longest period of care and upbringing. Although most modern legal systems have set the age of discretion at 18 years, it may be said that, with rare exceptions, a person does not reach the age of discretion much before 30 years. Almost everyone, even a genius, needs to consult with others before taking important decisions. Besides, everyone is susceptible to making errors and therefore in need of correction. This is because man is a fallible social being compelled to live together with his fellow-men and co-operate with them. The first school where he receives education and learns social manners is his family.

Especially in infancy, man is in dire need of love and affection. For man to grow into a resolute, well-educated, well-mannered and loving, useful member of society, and a strong, sound, healthy individual, the warmth of a family environment is of the greatest importance. In this environment, the mother has a special place. It is the mother who nourishes the infant with her milk. Probably more than her milk, the love, care and affection of the mother for the baby have great significance for the development of sound human personality and character. 

A baby has the deepest need for its mothers direct care and close attention especially in the symbiotic penod. Even in the most professionally-run nurseries the baby cannot find a substitute for the affection, love and interest its mother can show it. Whereas the baby is embraced by a halo of care and love in the family and attracts the direct attention of its mother, in nurseries it has to share the care of a stranger, however professional or efficient a carer he or she may be, with at least ten or fifteen other infants. Whereas it is embraced, caressed, kissed and played with many times in the family, and is in the lap of love, in a public nursery it is abruptly deprived of almost all of these things in an alien environment.

The first twelve months of the relationship between mother and baby is called the symbiotic period during which the baby feels a deep attachment to its mother. Indeed, in the first six months or so, the baby cannot distinguish its mother as a being separate from itself. It begins to do so only after this period. During this first year of life, the love of the mother forms the foundation of the baby’s spiritual personality and develops in it the feeling of self-confidence. The mother’s love is also an important factor in the development of the baby’s intelligence and in enabling the baby to grow as a social being. Long or short term separation of the mother from the baby gives rise to depressive anxiety.

Dr R. Spitz, a modern psychiatrist, defined two syndromes in children who have grown up without sufficient maternal love. One of these syndromes, called anaclitic depression, arises from short-term separation of the baby from its mother after the first six months. This usually occurs when the baby is placed in a public nursery. The baby thus separated from its mother reacts initially with long, loud cries. If one approaches it when it stops crying, it begins to cry again. After this initial reaction it stops crying and an expression of exhaustion and sulkiness appears on its face. Dr. Spitz called this the period of protest: the baby begins to eat less and lose weight and its physical development ceases. Vomiting and diarrhae may accompany these symptoms.

The period of protest, usually two or three weeks, is followed by a period of depression when the baby is sulky and mournful. After two months, these emotional reactions become less frequent. The baby now becomes uninterested in its environment and in those who approach it. In short, it introverts.

The meaning of these phases of response is easily understood. The baby first of all reacts against separation from its mother with long, loud cries to call her back. After that, it grieves. Then, when it is no longer hopeful of reunion with its mother, it suffers depression and becomes introverted.

If the separation does not exceed three months, the baby can recover and restore to its former state. But if the separation continues beyond three months, the baby does not recover fully and develops a long-term separation depression.

This kind of depression arises in infants separated in very early life and brought up in public nurseries or hospitals for long periods. It is characterized by insufficient bodily, spiritual and intellectual development and growing up as a dissociable being.

A baby has the deepest need for its mother’s direct care and close attention especially in the symbiotic period. Even in the most professionally-run nurseries the baby cannot find a substitute for the affection, love and interest its mother can show it. Whereas the baby is embraced by a halo of care and love in the family and attracts the direct attention of its mother, in nurseries it has to share the care of a stranger, however professional or efficient a carer he or she may be, with at least ten or fifteen other infants. Whereas it is embraced, caressed, kissed and played with many times in the family, and is in the lap of love, in a public nursery it is abruptly deprived of almost all of these things in an alien environment.

Children separated from their families in the early years of their lives and left in public nurseries suffer difficulties in adapting to new environments and circumstances in later life, and give late responses to different stimulants. They develop tics and other involuntary movements such as swinging their legs while sitting, leaning against something, hitting the head against a wall, pulling their hair, playing with their ear- lobes, and shaking the head. Such behaviour in an infant left without its mother is in part an attempt to compensate for the loneliness and deprivation it feels. In addition, some sort of mental retardation may be observed in them. Studies have shown that, even in properly and sufficiently nourished children, rates of susceptibility to illness and death are higher. Compared to their equals in age, they are usually less in height and weight. Although thirsty for love, they respond with indifference or suspicion when they are shown love and nearness.

Some of the children deprived in this way grow up destitute of self-confidence; some become timid, reserved and passive, others become aggressive. They display signs of ill-breeding such as petty theft and truancy. Some of them are disposed to criminal behaviour and violence. They may also commit suicide or attempt it. Studies done on criminals and the mentally ill have shown that most of them spent their childhood separated from their families, deprived of love.

Character weakness and personality defects which arise as a result of long-term separation from the mother are, unfortunately, long-lasting. The younger a baby is when placed in a nursery and the longer it remains there, the more undesirable the effects are.

In sum: the love and care a mother shows her baby is so important for the growth, education and character of the child, that nothing can compensate for the lack of it. The symptoms observed in children growing up separated from their families also appear in adopted children. These children cannot adapt easily to the new family and can never have the same feeling towards their adoptive mothers as they have towards their own mothers. The state of children in divorced families or ‘broken homes’ is more pathetic still.

Grief of separation consumes the lover, and yet

even in gloomiest hours, he never despairs of ‘spring’;

journeying from desert to desert amid bitter tears

in ever-constant hope of the union he desires.

He weeps from deep within a heart like embers,

always alert and on the move as if chasing gazelle,

drunk upon hope of the beloved who eludes him

and whom he finds again in his nightly dreams.

Phantoms of anxiety beset his spirit, on his face

now joy shines like sunrise, now sunset gloom;

at times the door is ajar on a far landscape just

perceptible, it’s colours and tones hinting Paradise.

A moment comes when despair overwhelms and hope

seems unrecoverable, and then another when dawn breaks

in perfumed brightness. At times he withers like leaves,

melts like candles, and his sobbing his heard from afar.

Even then, in never-ending autumn, the root of his desire

flowers in hope, he transforms the grief of separation

into longing music, makes deepest wells of sorrow

brim with joy, celebrating the immortality of Love.

In the deep wells of his eyes a meaning settles

from the eternal life and is present in his looks and smile;

his feelings sound the depths of eternity, then flow out

like soil-enriching river floods or fertile winds.

Whoever truly loves understands love is everything;

that it may be either fatal poison or elixir of life;

but whoever loves the Truth and pursues the ways

to the Eternal Being knows it as inspiration, as life.

***