Politicians and anti-Muslim activists frequently take to audiences and websites to criticize the term jihad as a form of Islamic supremacism, oppression, and violence. Muslim extremists, on the other hand, argue that jihad refers to a “holy war” against non-Muslims. Viewing the term jihad through these frameworks alone, however, would be playing into the hands of extremists who forego the other elements encompassed by the term jihad.

In the Islamic tradition, jihad has several different components, including personal struggles, such as the fight against an addiction; social struggles, such as the struggle to become tolerant of others; and occasionally a military struggle, if and when necessary, but only in self-defense. When asked, “What is the major jihad?” Muhammad replied: “The jihad of the self (or the struggle against the personal self).” Contrary to the rhetoric and misinformation about jihad in anti-Islam networks, Muhammad did not say that the violent struggle was the most important form of jihad.

The hysteria in the United States and abroad over jihad has brought me to consider the term through a Christian perspective. In this article, I hope to explore how forms of jihad are presented in Islam and Christianity. This exercise can help to find common characteristics of jihad so that Muslims and Christians can build bridges of mutual understanding and tolerance.

Although the term jihad is not literally used in Christian scripture, the idea of struggling is at the very heart of Christianity. There are a number of instances in the New Testament which provide guidance for Christians who are struggling with different problems or dilemmas in their lives.

One major aspect of the Christian jihad is the practice of non-violence. When the Roman soldiers arrested Jesus and brought him to Pontius Pilate, the man who contributed to Jesus’s crucifixion, Christ said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my [disciples] would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18: 35-36). Violence is antithetical to Jesus’s teachings. He did not require his followers to take up arms to show commitment to his teachings. Indeed, it was quite the opposite. In Matthew (26:53), Jesus told his followers that “… for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Jesus, as you can see, encouraged his disciples to struggle against the desire to use force when frustrated or antagonized. 

Similarly, Islamic scripture also encourages Muslims to struggle against the use of violence. The Qur’an (5:32), for example, notes that “…. If anyone slew a person unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land it would be as if he slew the whole humanity: and if anyone saved a life it would be as if he saved the life of the whole humanity.” In another Qur’anic passage (2:190), Muslims are told to “Fight in the case of God those who start fighting you, but do not transgress limits (or start the attack); for God loveth not transgressors.” It is clear that these two passages echo the Christian jihad of struggling in the name of non-violence.

Another element of the Christian jihad is to show love to those around you. Jesus wants Christians to “love your neighbor” and even beyond that, “love your enemies,” a point which arises in Luke (6:27). In Matthew (5:9), it is written that peacemakers are blessed, “for they will be called sons of God.” The New Testament demands that Christians struggle in the fight for peace, even if it means embracing your sworn enemies and those who wish to harm you.

The Qur’an also requires that Muslims search for ways of making peace instead of war. Muslims, for example, are required to speak well of others even if they are not believers of Islam. In the Qur’an (17:53-54), it is written that Muslims must “speak in a most kindly manner (unto those who do not share [your] beliefs).” There is also no way a Muslim can force others to believe in Islam, as the Qur’an (2:256) mentions that “there is no compulsion in religion.” The jihad in these contexts is one in which Muslims have to work on treating non-Muslims with respect and dignity.

The Christian jihad also requires that Christians do not retaliate “evil for evil.” Romans (12:17) demands that Christians “live at peace with everyone.” People who call themselves Christians, yet call for the demise of Islam and anything related to Muslims, should heed the demand of this verse and search for ways to build bridges for peace instead of fanning the flames of hatred and bigotry. In a similar way, Muslims who call for violent jihad should remember that the Qur’an (4:9) asks Muslims to leave others alone if they leave Muslims alone: “refrain from fighting… and offer [them] peace, then God gives you no way to go against them.”

The Christian jihad can be explored further in the wisdom left by Jesus’ disciples. Peter, for example, is considered “the rock” of Jesus’ church because he spoke about the struggle to maintain the Christian faith at all costs. In 2 Peter (3:14), he stated “… make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with [Jesus].” In this verse, Peter is highlighting one of the ultimate aims of Christianity — avoid wrongdoing and sin. A true Christian, such as Peter, cared more for fixing his own transgressions rather than attacking others for their sins. He encouraged Christians to struggle with overcoming their personal dilemmas first before bickering and complaining over the errors of others. In essence, he believed progress is rooted in individuals’s ability to change their attitude and behavior in struggling to adhere to the teachings of Jesus.

In addition to Peter, Paul of Tarsus also embraced the Christian jihad. Paul made “every effort to do what leads to peace” (Romans 14:19). In Timothy (6:12), he encouraged Christians to “fight the good fight of the faith,” which can be interpreted as spreading peace and love in the spirit of Jesus. In addition, in 2 Timothy (4:7), Paul stated, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” There is an underlying non-violent tone in these statements. Never did Paul ask Christians to take up the sword or use violence as a means of showing faith in Jesus.

Moreover, in 2 Peter (1:5-7), Peter stated that a Christian must “make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance; godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.” Peter’s emphasis on doing good and searching for knowledge mirrors the Qur’an’s frequent emphasis on ilm, which means “knowledge” in Arabic. Indeed, few religions in the world place so much emphasis on knowledge as Islam. “Knowledge” is mentioned more than 700 times in the Qur’an.

In the Qur’an (58:11), God raises in rank “… those who have been given knowledge.” Muhammad also emphasized knowledge in a Hadith in which he said that “seeking knowledge is a must for every Muslim, male or female, from cradle to grave in any part of the world.” Muhammad also stated in another Hadith that “the ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” Christians and Muslims, therefore, share a similar jihad in terms of their obligation to seek out knowledge and apply that knowledge in good faith for the betterment of humanity. 

Jesus, like Muhammad, taught his disciples and future believers that struggling is a fundamental element of the Christian faith. He told his disciples to “strive to enter in at the narrow gate…,” which mirrors the popular Muslim notion of staying on the “straight path” or practicing Islam to the best of one’s ability. Ultimately, Christians and Muslims are guided by their scripture to persevere in the face of their struggles. They are encouraged to struggle in this life, to maintain belief in God, in exchange for a higher reward when this life inevitably ends.

In essence, Christians and Muslims share a similar jihad. This jihad is one of non-violence, the love of humanity, the perfection of the soul, and the search for knowledge.

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

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights … The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

The 50th anniversary of President John Kennedy’s assassination this year is poignant for those of us who were well along in high school or had begun college when we heard the news that awful Friday afternoon. We still remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the word came. I was in the locker room in the seminary dormitory with some classmates when a friend ran in to tell us. First came shock; then, hopeful denial. The television, however, confirmed the unbelievable reality. The next three days we rarely budged from in front of the television – not until the state funeral had ended.

Kennedy was, for many of us, the promise of our generation. His eloquence, humor, and charm captured our idealism, as certainly as his call-to-action inaugural address – “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” – inspired us to build our communities and bring our country further along the path of democracy. He urged us to reach out to the world. The Peace Corps, which Kennedy proposed at the University of Michigan during his campaign, captured our imagination.

Tragic history has a way of deadening dreams, and casting youthful idealism upon its ash heap. We strove to resist that trajectory and continued to push our energy forward in the civil rights movement, and those movements that followed … for women, the environment, and peace.

Many of my generation answered the call, and, with the help of Lyndon Johnson’s masterful implementation, and expansion, of Kennedy’s ideals, joined the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or the War on Poverty. Others of us dedicated ourselves to other visions of civil society. Some of us were brutally tortured to death. Many were beaten bloody at lunch counters and on buses, or had snarling dogs set upon them. Terroristic violence even killed four little girls at Sunday school in Birmingham, Alabama.

We endured the pain of the unimaginable assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and strove with grit to keep the dream alive and steady the course, despite the odds set against us.

Of course, we were not alone. We were building on the shoulders of the other generations in our time, and marching with them. All of us were honoring the legacy, lives, and struggles of those who had gone before us and now rested in peace. But it was Kennedy’s clarion voice that called us younger folks forth.

I myself ended up in the farm workers movement, following the leadership of César Chávez, and eventually moved into broader human rights efforts.

As I look back fifty years, I have learned that the struggle is so much more difficult than what we had seen through our idealistic-tinted glasses. I still cannot bear to watch the anniversary replays of President Kennedy’s assassination, and this year is even worse.

But there is never a moment that I don’t feel a stirring deep within my heart when I watch his inaugural address or listen to his speeches calling upon our “better angels,” as another assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln, did a hundred years earlier.

It is with the same stirring of heart that I watch the next generations so passionately pick up the struggle to make the dream real.

When I look back, I also see other formative people and events that helped move me in this direction. I have learned from this that everything we do well in life has a good impact on others and that we can always learn from the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Probably the person who influenced my life the most was my grandmother. She was an intensely devout Christian, who practiced every day what she believed. She gave her money to the poor, visited people in the hospital, doted on her grandchildren, helped my parents support our family of six kids and send us to Catholic school, and prayed and went to Mass every day. My grandmother lived a life of compassion, tolerance, and justice. In her late eighties, she was on a picket line, supporting the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott.

Another important epoch in my life was the eight years in seminary, high school and college, studying to be a priest, even though I eventually chose a different vocation to which I felt called because it offered a more activist role in human rights work; after a stint in graduate school studying philosophy, I went on to become a lawyer.

But my time in the seminary gave me a good liberal arts education and taught me discipline, spirituality, philosophy, and grounded me in Catholic social justice teachings. It was the era of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II. Pope John was much like John Kennedy: he “opened the windows” of the Church and challenged us to bear witness to the Gospel in community life in new ways; to help build civil society, in effect.

And, in my later years, coming to know and work with people in the Hizmet movement inspired by Fethullah Gülen gave me yet a broader, more ecumenical vision of the world, and offered the opportunity of collaborating with people of the Islamic faith to help build civil society. This experience further deepened my own spirituality.

Few of us involved in human rights, I venture to say, are without a spiritual basis for our work. Like all generalizations, mine is surely excessive; but it does capture the point that very many human rights advocates remain in their work because of their spirituality, which comes in all shapes and sizes. As the Christian monk and mystic Thomas Merton warned, without spirituality, we find ourselves caught up in the frenzy of activism and overwork, which overwhelms us.

While in law school, I worked summers with migrant farm workers in Michigan, the vast majority of whom came from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, along the border with Mexico. It was the era of César Chávez, who galvanized the country around issues of justice, decent pay and working conditions for field laborers.

So it was that I ended up in the Valley and worked there for ten years, helping to support farm worker organizing efforts and undertaking other human rights endeavors. It was an amazing way to witness that people living in poverty had great personal wisdom and an amazing sense of family and community.

Eventually, my work brought me to Austin, Texas, and the Texas Civil Liberties Union.

In 1990, two of us located free office space in a benefactor’s community building and began the Texas Civil Rights Project. Over the years, through the help of many generous people and organizations, TCRP has grown to a staff of 38 people in five offices: El Paso, South Texas, West Texas, Houston, and Austin.

TCRP handles the full panoply of civil rights issues, including: voting, free speech and assembly, economic justice, jail and prison matters, police misconduct, discrimination, and disability. For 23 years, the Texas Civil Rights Project has been a tireless advocate for racial, social and economic equality for low-income people, through its education and litigation programs.

Some of the achievements of the TCRP staff include:

• Handling more than 3000 legal cases for poor and low-income people
• Developing a vigorous VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) legal program for abused immigrant women in rural Texas that includes our unique “Circuit Rider” component and counseling and support services provided by a MSW supervisor and social work interns
• Publishing twelve Human Rights reports on issues such as hate crimes, Title IX rights of girls in high school, and the death penalty, and seven “self-help” legal manuals, on matters like veterans rights, disability laws, and prisoner rights
• Conducting community and lawyer trainings for more than 50,000 persons
• Publishing more than 400 opinion editorials in Texas newspapers
• Giving more than 500 speeches and talks on civil rights to diverse groups (such as school conferences, law enforcement trainings, and senior citizen organizations)

Due to the tireless advocacy of many TCRP employees, jails in Texas counties now do much more in preventing inmate suicide, providing interpreters for deaf prisoners, protecting vulnerable inmates from sexual assault, and administering HIV medications.

TCRP set the national model in ballot accessibility for blind voters and has led more than 30 regional compliance campaigns in Texas under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Thanks to our intrepid staff, businesses, churches, and courthouses in Texas are much more accessible to elderly and people with disabilities, as are government programs.

TCRP’s Title IX programs on sexual harassment and equal sports opportunities have helped make rural middle and high schools more hospitable for young women, and respectful of them, and opened up the prospect of athletic scholarships to college for them. Our Safe Schools project works with community groups on anti-bullying programs for students and our “Equality under the Law” campaign addressed “benign” discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans in banks, restaurants, motels, and other public accommodation.

Efforts to help South Asian, Muslim, and Arab citizens, permanent residents, and students who fell victim to post September 11th discrimination included filing a suit against a major airline and enlisting Texas attorneys to represent, on a pro bono basis, individuals who were questioned by the FBI.

TCRP worked with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) to help create single-member school board districts and assisted in redistricting the Texas Legislature and congressional districts so as to protect the voting and representational rights of minority citizens.

We assisted the NAACP is persuading the U.S. Department of Justice to audit the Austin Police Department and make more than 200 changes, including its use of force practices in the city’s minority communities.

TCRP joined with the American Jewish Congress in one of the first court cases in the country to challenge the constitutionality of government funding of a religiously-orientated job training program that used the Bible as an employment text and proselytized its trainees.

And we are a leading voice in raising questions about the fairness of Texas’ death penalty scheme, and the possibility of executing innocent people. So, too, are we an intrepid advocate of traditional civil liberties, such as free speech and assembly, due process, and equal protection under the United States and Texas Constitutions.

Our work that I’m proudest of dealt with:

• Ending secret collection of and research on blood of all babies born after 2002 
• Directing 480 suits under the Americans with Disabilities Act and related enforcement campaigns
• Challenging grand jury discrimination against Mexican Americans, women, and poor people
• Eliminating the statutory exclusion of farm and ranch laborers from the Texas workers’ compensation and unemployment compensation laws
• Extending the Texas Equal Rights Amendment to minority voting and redistricting
• Establishing a habeas corpus mechanism to review claims of innocence for persons sentenced to death
• Winning the right of blind voters to cast secret, adapted election ballots 
• Banning mandatory polygraph testing of state employees (and establishing privacy as fundamental right under the Texas Constitution)
• Protecting United Farm Workers Union members from retaliatory employment termination
• Securing the right of blind people to use dog guides in public accommodations 
• Seven McAllen police brutality class actions suits that reorganized the department

The most recent and profound personal development, as mentioned earlier, was coming to work with hizmet. It started with one of the movement’s interfaith dialog trips to Turkey and eventually led to writing a book on the eight-year-long political trial of Fethullah Gülen, which ended successfully and actually helped the process of more deeply democratizing Turkey.

International human rights law had always been a passion, and it was an honor to write on a subject that no one else in the world had written on. In subsequent trips, I met so many people in hizmet and was always singularly inspired by their good deeds, hard work, amiability, and commitment. It reminded me that people from all walks of life and faiths are struggling for democracy and human rights.

There remains much to do, of course. Human rights is a life-long struggle; it is painstaking to build civil society. As Eugene Debs, the renowned American labor organizer, said, every struggle for human rights is lost, and lost, and lost, before it succeeds. Indeed, many people have given their lives over the years, and suffered enormously to help make the world a better place for its people.

Civil society has yet to define and accept broader human rights, such as the right to employment, the right to a social and economic safety net, the right to medical care, the right to participate in community’s cultural life, the right to adequate standard of living, and the right to an education. The struggle goes on, building on those who went before us, for the benefit of those who come after us.

Eleanor Roosevelt put it well in her remarks at the United Nations in 1958:

Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.

Such has been the journey of those of us inspired by John F. Kennedy all those years ago. It has been an incredible blessing to “labor in the vineyard” with so many good and decent people; they have contributed to my own growth as a person. I hope and pray that I have given back to them a portion of what they have given me. That, after all, is what living in the human community is all about:

We make a living from what we get.
We make a life from what we give.
What we have done for ourselves dies with us.
What we have done for others and for the world is immortal.
MaryAnn Evans

Harrington is founder and director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, a nonprofit foundation, promotes civil rights and economic and racial justice throughout Texas, for low-income people. He is author of Wrestling with Free Speech, Religious Freedom, and Democracy in Turkey: The Political Trials and Times of Fethullah Gülen.

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called ‘The Pledge.’ The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called ‘The Turn.’ The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet. Because making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back. That’s why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call ‘The Prestige.’”

The above quote is taken from the script of the movie “The Prestige.” This article is not about that movie; nor is it a critique of any film. It is an attempt to use the theme of the movie “The Prestige” to provide a different perspective on the brutal power struggle that has taken place in the international political arena over the last century. For those readers who have not seen the movie, the story is about two famous rival magicians who sabotage one another’s performances. When one performs a successful trick, the other becomes obsessed with disclosing the secret of his competitor. The rivalry is so intense that in the end they become murderers.

Drawing an analogy, I see that the battle for “The Prestige” among today’s power centers is not that different from the deadly rivalry of nineteenth century magicians-only today’s magicians have more advanced methods and more engineering power. Moreover, the tricks they use in competition for supremacy are costing more lives than ever. Throughout human history there has always been a battle of supremacy among nations. Mostly, this has been carried out with political or diplomatic sanctions, but when necessary, this volatile rivalry has been transformed into disastrous wars with intelligent tricks.

Now, read the remainder of the article and decide for yourself whether the above analogy facilitates an understanding of the bigger picture of some global conflicts. In the end, we will focus on an alternative way that could attain much better results with more humane means.

The Pledge

The basic nature of the power struggle is that the involved parties always try to dominate one another in any domain of power-economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, or cultural. They strive to establish systems and sanctions over others in order to divide up, or rather not to divide up, global resources.

In this ordinary struggle there will come a day when one or several of the parties involved in the struggle begin to feel that other means are necessary to establish a new world order, and they start to perform their magic. They start with the death of a preeminent person, or an unfortunate event; this may be a local disaster or a much unexpected incident. But whatever happens, they make a great noise about it, manufacturing a crisis, and thus attaining global attention. Sometimes the crisis is so disruptive that people are able to think of nothing else.

One recent example of this type of crisis is the tragic events of September 11, 2001. On a busy and beautiful New York morning everything stopped and events occurred that would shock the world. Some twenty crazy people-and whoever was behind them-killed more than three thousand people, bringing down the WTC towers and shaking not only New York City, but the entire world, in a matter of hours.

On another September morning, sixty years earlier, a similar disaster occurred when a madman decided to march with the German army to seize the entire continent of Europe. That march ended six years later, after millions of lives had been lost, including the lives of those who had started it.

Around twenty-five years before that, yet another disaster started with the assassination of an archduke in June 1914. Again, a sudden death and a shock wave of deaths followed the onset of World War I.

The number of examples can be increased, but the important thing here is that on a normal morning, people are shocked by unexpected news and their daily routines are disrupted. For most people, their world views change and the important paradigms shift, initiating a great change in their lives.

The Turn

Experiencing the shock that has been caused by the unfortunate events of “the pledge,” even before people have a chance to mourn, hundreds of questions start to fly… But how? Who? Why? While trying to extricate themselves from this trauma people cannot help but keep asking themselves: Who could do this? Why would they do this? And consequently, they start searching for answers.

Any victim of a disaster, indeed, anybody who experiences such an incident, is naturally filled with intense emotions. Even long after the trauma most people are still upset, anxious, sad, or angry, while others even become depressed. Therefore, they can neither think straight nor find any meaningful explanations for events. Even if they were to ask questions, it would not be possible to find any immediate answers. As a reaction, they try to find someone to blame for the situation, so that there is a target for their emotions.

It is at this point that the technical or social engineers of “the modern magicians” come on stage and make the real picture disappear by transforming it into another image. People who were looking at the screaming children or listening to the cries for help a day ago no longer see or hear such things. People who were searching for the responsible parties and who were trying to discover the truth behind all the noise, stop and search no more. The social engineers smoothly direct the attention and emotions of the general public to something else, convincing them that the source of the problem has been located; there are no more investigations. Whether that which has been selected is really responsible for whatever has happened is not really important. Rather, now what is to be done is to take appropriate action.

This is what happened to our grandfathers at the beginning of the twentieth century, or during “the turn” of World War I. By no means was the assassination of Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand the sole trigger for the conflict; for some reason (!), the war plans (German Schlieffen Plan, French Plan XVII, Austria-Hungary’s Plan B and Russia’s Plan 19) had already been engineered long before 1914.

Similarly, in “the turn” of World War II, the invasion of Poland and the Sino-Japanese war led to a global conflict that split a majority of the world’s nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Whatever the war plans that had been engineered on the two sides before the 1940s were, it was not long before more than twenty countries started fighting one another; after six years, World War II, which had spanned much of the globe, resulted in the deaths of over fifty million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history. God knows whether justice was delivered in the end or not.

The “magicians” of that time, maneuvering the war as they wished, used every trick including, but not limited to, thousands of armored vehicles, hundreds of bombers, submarines, and finally the atom bomb, to change the direction of the war. Like in the movie “The Prestige,” some say they used the methods of Nikola Tesla, and tried to make huge objects literally disappear (the alleged Philadelphia Experiment ), and sometimes they managed to do so, but in rather more costly and deadly ways (the Manhattan Project ).

In “the turn” of 9/11 attacks, Iraq was invaded due to the allegation of weapons of mass destruction being hidden by Saddam Hussein and his connections to Al Qaeda leaders. Since this invasion, there have been some claims that the terrorist attacks and allegations were a “turn” to pave the way for a new era in human history. Let us first take a look at the third act of the aforementioned wars.

And The Prestige

The prestige, the third act, of World War I could be characterized as “New Imperialism” or “ethnic nationalism.” New imperialism was distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed “empire for empire’s sake.” This consisted of aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the emergence of jingoistic doctrines in colonizing countries that denigrated the ability of the subjugated people to carry out self-government. In reaction to this, ethnic nationalism became popular in such colonies, sometimes in the form of nation-states, sometimes in extreme forms like ethnic cleansing. In the end, it would not be unfair to say that “the prestige” of World War I was very different from what had been intended.

The prestige of World War II can be depicted as post-colonialism or liberal institutionalism, both found in the discourse of Cold War. The former dealt with matters of the cultural identity of the colonized societies, whereas the latter suggested that with the right factors, the international system could provide opportunities for cooperation and interaction. Many nations in the Middle East or the Far East experienced identity problems, and in some cases these issues evolved into new crises or even civil wars. Opposing camps were maintained throughout the Cold War, with some different allies or enemies, and more deadly weapons were built. The idealism of liberal international institutions did not help much, because alternative blocks were formed in the opposing camps and this only accelerated the race to dominate one another in different power domains. Again, “the prestige” of World War II was very different than the intentions that had formed in people’s minds.

What is more interesting is that, within the causality of international relations, “the prestige” of one war became “the pledge” of the following. The nation-states or ethnic cleansing that appeared in the aftermath of WWI evolved into WWII, and the liberal institutionalism of post-WWII era has now evolved into a global war on terror. As part of the ramifications of liberal institutionalism, if states are unable to cooperate then they are curbed, with either economic or military actions. The future remains uncertain in many aspects with regards to the power struggle in the world.

In The End

All in all, the main question still remains: Are the magicians of our time achieving “the prestige” they have been creating for so long? Have we yet observed a third act which deserves our applause? I seriously doubt it. All the magic tricks they have used neither justify the means nor have they brought any prestige. For the most part they have even lost what is left of the global prestige they had. But the social engineers still keep fueling the fire with their self-fulfilling prophecies of a “clash of civilizations” and an inevitable Armageddon.

Obviously, this never-ending rivalry among modern magicians cannot bring any good to any state or nation, including those who are in control of it. The intelligence and the engineers of these magicians could very well use more productive ways to promote liberal democracy and build alliances among different nations.

There have indeed been ongoing efforts for the “alliance” or “dialogue of civilizations,” which has actually been discussed many times in this magazine, The Fountain. In two such articles, the necessity for dialogue is emphasized with evidence from religious texts given, as well as quotes from modern philosophers, and the conclusion drawn is that dialogue among people from different walks of life is inevitable. Sooner rather than later we have to learn to live together on this unique planet and share its resources with respect and compassion for all. “Even though compassion and hatred are both present as realities in this world, it is indeed compassion that is the essence of all existence. Were it not for compassion as the essence of creation, human beings or any other thing would not have come into existence nor would they remain in existence.”

In order to achieve this compassion, everyone, not only modern magicians, has to make a paradigm shift in our minds and hearts, because, as Einstein eloquently put it, “The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.” He is probably right that such a task is harder than splitting an atom, but surely, it is worth pursuing.

Veli Keskin is a freelance writer living in Maryland, USA.

Notes

1. This quote is taken from the script of the film The Prestige, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, adapted from Christopher Priest’s novel. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/quotes
2. Plot Summary for “The Prestige”, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482571/plotsummary
3. The Planning of the War, http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/plans.htm
4. The Philadelphia Experiment, http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm
5. The Manhattan Project, http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/manhattan/index.htm
6. Salih Yucel. “The Necessity of Dialogue,” The Fountain, 2007, No. 57.
7. M. Fethullah Gulen. “The Necessity of Interfaith Dialogue,” The Fountain, 2000, No. 31.
8. M. Fethullah Gulen. “Compassion,” The Fountain, 2008, No. 63.

People of heart are monuments of humility and modesty who are devoted to a spiritual life, determined to stay away from all the material and spiritual dirt, always vigilant to corporeal desires of the body, and ready to struggle with such evils as hatred, resentment, greed, jealousy, selfishness and lust. They always endeavor to give what is right the highest esteem, to convey to others what they feel about this world, as well as the next, and they are always patient and cautious. People of faith and action who, rather than talking and making noise, live as they believe, present an exemplary personality for others. Such people move on, never pausing, teaching those who are walking toward God how to do so. Inside, they have a pyre that can never be extinguished. Yet, in order not to disclose this painful burning inside, such people never complain to others. As such, they are constantly emitting heat to the spirits of those who seek shelter in them.

A longing for the transcendent realms is evident in the eyes of people of heart. Dedicated to the consent of God, they are such people of progress and of struggle with distances that they run like a purebred Arabian steed until they reach their Beloved One, without expecting, in the meantime, anything in return.

People of heart are such sincere adherents of the truth that all they think of is to stabilize the justice on earth and they are willing, when it comes to His consent, to give up their own desires and wishes. They open their hearts to everyone, welcoming them affectionately, and appearing as an angel of preservation in society. Regarding their deeds and attitudes, they try to be compatible with everybody, they try to avoid vicious competition with others, and they avoid resentment. Even though such people make choices from time to time in favor of their convictions, beliefs, methods and ways, they do not compete with others. On the contrary, they love all who serve in the name of their religion; they love their country and their ideals. Furthermore, they give generously to other people in pursuit of positive activities and they try to show as much respect as possible to the philosophy and ideas that other people adopt.

Along with such endeavors and activities, people of heart who are seeking ways to incur His help also give utmost importance to God’s aid and assistance. They pay particular attention to union and solidarity, which are considered a means of God’s aid. They are ready, wholeheartedly, to cooperate with anybody who is on the straight path. Moreover, for such an understanding of union, they, in spite of themselves, follow a path. Believing that union incurs mercy, and dissension and disunion lead nowhere, such people do their best to gain the help and good will of all, ever receptive to showers of Divine aid.

People of heart are lovers of God, and devoted seekers of God’s consent. They connect their deeds to His pleasure, regardless of the circumstances. They display great ambition to please Him, and are willing for the sake of this purpose to use or abandon all that they possess-of this world or not. There is never any room in the realm of their thoughts for unpleasant expressions like “I did it,” “I succeeded,” or “I managed it.” Such people take pleasure in the fulfillment of the tasks of others, as if they had carried such actions out themselves, they take the same amount of pleasure in such achievements as if it were their own and they follow humbly after these people, leaving also the honor and the title of leading to them. What is more, as they consider others to be more eligible and successful in serving religion and humanity, they provide other people with more comfortable facilities, and, taking a step back, continue in their service as an “ordinary person.”

People of heart are too busy fighting their selves and their misdemeanors to be interested in the misdeeds of others. In contrast, they set an example to others of what a good person should be, leading others to attain higher horizons. They turn a blind eye to what other people may do wrong. Responding with a smile to those who have displayed negative attitudes, such people nullify bad behavior with kindness, not thinking to hurt anybody, even when they have been hurt over and over again.

For the man of heart, a soldier of the reality that has been devoted to gaining God’s good pleasure with feelings, ideas and deeds, the first priority is to lead a life based on perfect faith and equipped with sincerity. Thus, it is unlikely that such a person will be dissuaded from reaching their goal, even if they were offered the heavens in addition to the world.

People of heart never compete with those who bear the same ideals and who walk on the same path, nor do they envy them. In contrast, they complete what has been left incomplete by others, and, when interacting with other people, they treat them as if they were as closely connected as organs of the same body. With a complete understanding of renunciation, pushing their counterparts into the limelight, in every earthly as well as unearthly matter, they withdraw to the background. They act as spokespersons for the accomplishments of others, applauding them and welcoming their achievements with the same joy that they feel on a festival.

Relying to a great extent on method and manner, people of heart conduct all of their acts in accordance with their nature. They try, however, to remain respectful to the acts and thoughts of others. They are able to live harmoniously and to share, developing common projects. They struggle to replace the word “I” with the word “we.” Above all, they sacrifice their happiness for that of others. In so doing, they never expect any appreciation or respect from anyone. They even think that such expectations are a form of moral corruption and, thus, they avoid appearing in the limelight, they avoid fame and fortune, much as they would a snake or a scorpion, hoping only to be soon forgotten.

People of heart do not violate the rights of any other people, nor do they seek revenge. Even in the most critical circumstances, they tend to behave calmly, and do whatever a person of heart should do to the utmost. They always reply to evil acts with kindness, and, considering badness to be a characteristic of evil, treating those who have harmed them as monuments of virtue.

People of heart lead a life illuminated by the light of the Qur’an and the Sunna, and also within the framework of the consciousness of taqwa (piety), blessing, and sainthood. They are on constant guard against feelings of egoism, pride, fame, etc., feelings which kill the heart. The glories performed by such people are attributed to the Real Owner, saying, “All is from Him.” With those things that depend on will power, they avoid uttering “I,” instead taking refuge in “We.”

People of heart are afraid of no one. No single event can send them into a panic. “Relying on God, he works hard, expecting the rest from His aid,” sums up their character, and they never break their promise.

People of heart never lose their temper with anybody, nor are they offended by those whose hearts are attached to God. When they see any of their brothers or sisters-in-religion doing wrong, they do not abandon them. In order to avoid embarrassment they do not make any wrong-doing publicly or personally known, either. On the contrary, they blame and question themselves for witnessing any immoral act.

People of heart avoid commenting on the attitudes of believers that are apt to be interpreted differently. They think positively of what they see and hear and never perceive such actions as being negative.

In every act and deed, people of heart keep in mind that here, this world, is not a place of reward, but rather one of service. Accordingly, they perform the duties that they are responsible for in strict discipline, regarding it as being discourteous to God to be concerned about the consequences. They consider it a priority to perform actions in the name of God and with God’s consent in order to serve the religion, belief, and humankind, and however great their achievements may be, they attribute all to God, without thinking about taking a personal share for themselves.

The destruction of order cannot leave people of heart in despair, nor does the opposition of other people disturb them. “This world is not a place for conflicts or rows, but one for endurance,” they say, and patiently clench their teeth. They seek ways out of any situation that they may find themselves in, not losing hope even at the most critical of times, and they are constantly producing with adamant perseverance multifarious strategies. Today, when we find that human values are despised, when there are cracks appearing in religious thinking, when every place resounds with the disturbance caused by the carefree ones, we need people of heart as much as we need air to breathe and water to drink.

Humans are the ones who have been granted the privilege to rule and make use of creation; and humans are the ones who reveal all the aspects of the truth behind natural phenomena, offering these to the Creator. Humans sense and discern the relationship between humanity, the universe, and the Creator-a relationship which leads them to knowledge. They discover their potential and depths, surpassing the angels as they are granted the ability to reflect the grandeur of the ocean in a single drop and to reflect all the suns within a single atom. Having honored the Earth, humanity’s heels have become the crowns of those who were previously created, and their being created on the Earth has been the pride of this physical world related to the spiritual beings in heavens. If we think of the whole of existence as an immense ocean, then the human being is its most precious pearl. If the universe is an exhibition hall, with all its glories on display, then the human being is its appreciating visitor. If things and events are a captivating harmony of balances, then the human being is the sensitive spectator. In the light of faith-oriented thought and the healthy consciousness of humanity, existence, which used to seem quiet and surrounded by darkness, has been illuminated, and it has gained beauty-making our hearts feel as if we were in Paradise. Until the time when humanity ascended to their throne on Earth, the angels and other spiritual beings bore the flag that proclaimed the truth on the horizons of the spiritual realm. The flag, honored by the advent of humanity, started to wave in the heights of the mortal realm, and this globe-so small when compared to the skies-has become equal with the heavens by becoming the horizon of the realms beyond. Humanity has always been the crown of creation; this has been true for as long as faith has been the source of joy, for as long as Islam has been the code of life,1 for as long as the knowledge of God and love have been the inner dynamics. The Earth is dependent on the light that is diffused by humanity . . . this light has been granted by the Almighty, out of His special favor. This special favor has honored humanity, making it the rarest of roses in this garden of beauty. Imam al-Ghazali2 described this elegance in the following way; “the present creation cannot be more aesthetic, beautiful, or fascinating.” Humanity can be seen as the sole nightingale of this world, a world which is but a shadow of Paradise.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that these galleries-nestled one within the other-have been arranged and designed solely for humanity. It would not be an overstatement to say that this world has been created as the garden for this rarest of roses, or that the sea of existence has been created as the womb of this pearl; rather it would be a modest expression of the true state of things. As a matter of fact, the whole of existence, in a way, has been interpreted and voiced in unison via humanity, for humanity, and at humanity’s service; it is virtually dependent upon humanity; and in terms of humanity’s dependence upon the Creator Who has yielded everything to the command of humanity, such an intense relationship is felt between humanity and God that the purpose of all of creation can be nothing other than humankind and their servanthood to God.

In fact, the needs of humanity are so extensive that they cover all of creation, and are so deep that they extend to eternity. Above all, human beings have been created for eternity, and they long for it. The wishes and demands of human beings are boundless and their expectations are infinite. Even if the whole world were to be given to humanity, its appetite would not be satisfied nor would its ambitions cease. Explicitly or not, human souls expect another eternal abode, not to mention the fact that they hanker for the continuation of this transient world. Anybody who owns a heart that is open to the truth wishes to see Paradise-which is no more than an insignificant shadow of His Grandeur, and they wish to see the Exalted Creator in all His magnificence and beauty.

People who can feel and sense the truth in the facet of things and occurrences, and who are aware of their position in the universe are on this journey. At the same time, these people are appreciative of themselves and are open to showing respect for their Lord. As for those in opposition, they cannot be said to feel respect for either themselves or for their Lord. Moreover, they cannot even recognize their Lord as they should. Even if they should do so by chance, they are not able to glorify Him as His Greatness requires. Attaining true humanity depends on the recognition of the relationship between the Lord and His servants. Paradoxically, human beings, who are considered to be more blessed than the angels in terms of their potential, are likely to sink lower than the most contemptible of beings if they do not sense or appreciate this relation; this is stated in the verse: . . . those are like cattle, or rather are even more misguided. (Al-Araf 7:179)

The recognition of this association, which is generally phrased as belief, is a position through which a human being can attain virtual humanity, and from which they can ascend above all other creatures. As for disbelief, another term that indicates the lack of such an association, it turns human beings into beasts. Societies formed by such individuals suffer from severe resentment, fury, lust, greed, mendacity, hypocrisy, envy, deception, and intrigue; that is, disbelief creates societies in which everyone must be on alert. In any case, the people who have yielded to these evil habits can never be recognized as being a nation or a society, rather they can merely be described as being non-conscious masses. When Diogenes was searching for a human being in the street during the daytime with the aid of a lantern, he was probably trying to counsel or show his reaction against such people. Mark Orel, the author of Thoughts, another person who reflects the same idea from a different perspective, says “Every morning, when I join other people, I think to myself: ‘Today, I will meet some beasts in human form again. If I reach the evening without startling them or without being bitten by any of them, I will consider myself happy.” Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiya took a more serious and reactionary approach to the matter: “I hardly ever see a human on the street. What I see are some foxes in front of shops, some wolves and other creatures snarling at each other. . . . For a moment, I saw a half-human and I arranged my veil regarding him,” Obviously, these people do not intend to condemn all members of humanity. Rather, they are trying to depict the inner worlds of those who have turned their inherent human values into selfishness. If people do not control their behavior according to the purpose of their creation or control their inner worlds with respect to their outward appearance in an effort to eliminate inconsistencies, then they are quite likely to appear as those described by Mark Orel and Rabi‘a al-‘Adawiya.

Among these people you can sometimes come across people whose visage appears to be cheerful even though they are miserable inside. They, too, are another type. One philosopher has compared them to a building with two different sides. Its facade is clean, splendid, and impressive, whereas the side facing the rear is dirty, shabby, and derelict. When we see such a building on the street, we say “very nice,” making a pre-judgment. When we examine the other side, however, we condemn the building that we so eagerly praised a few minutes before. The same is true for people. We will always be misled if we evaluate them from a single aspect. What matters is to see them as they really are and to make some efforts to improve their rear walls, as well as considering them in accordance with their good sides.

Human beings are the children of their own attributes and attitudes. We can judge which characteristic or attribute is dominant according to the behavior that a person demonstrates, good or evil. Sometimes people can turn into monsters, ready to bite those closest to them. Sometimes people turn into “Josephs,” their faces shining like the moon, illuminating the dungeon, and rendering it a corridor to Heaven. Sometimes they become so pure that even the angels envy them. And sometimes they are so wicked that even the devils feel ashamed.

Human beings can sometimes become so heavenly that they reach the height of the skies; yet sometimes they are so mean that they become worse than snakes or venomous insects. Human beings are creatures who can demonstrate such a wide range of behavior that they can possess corrupt qualities alongside their merits; and they can be readily tempted to evil, in spite of possessing lofty virtues. Faith, wisdom, love, and spiritual pleasures are as much a part of them as their own hearts are; loving others, embracing everyone, living with feelings of kindness and making others live with the same is the ultimate goal of their lives. Eliminating evil through goodness, loving “love,” and being in a constant struggle against feelings of enmity are as sweet to them as the whisper of their own soul. Evil feelings, such as greed, resentment, hatred, lust, slander, mendacity, hypocrisy, corruption, opportunism, egoism, cowardliness, and ambition stalk them stealthily, waiting for a weak moment. They might be seized by evil feelings and passions, becoming enslaved by them, making them evil to the utmost degree, in spite of the fact that the same people have the potential to be the masters of the universes through their virtues and good behavior. Even if such a person may seem to be free, in reality they are the most enslaved; freedom can only be achieved by success in the inner struggle-a struggle termed “the greater jihad” in Islam. Improvement of the inherent potential and the attainment of a second nature that is open to a relationship with the Almighty depend on success in this struggle, a struggle that takes place deep in the soul, on whether or not those undergoing the struggle appreciate this victory, and on whether or not they bend their heads to the level of their feet, forming a circle in their modesty and humility.

The weak-willed, who are unable to pass beyond superficiality to look into their inner depths, to see the gaps and defects within their nature as well as the merits of their souls, and who are unable to restore themselves every new day, can never progress in their inner worlds. Even if they continue to talk about making progress, whenever they try to step forwards they slide ever backwards. Such people cannot manage to rid their eyes, ears, tongues, lips, hands, or feet of their captivity to their own egos; they live as slaves throughout their lives without even being aware of this tragic fact. To tell the truth, these people, mere slaves of their corporeal desires, are in a pitiable condition.

To love and care for those who preserve and improve their humanity is to give them what they deserve. As for the rest, they should be shown love and sympathy so that they can be saved from the grasp of their evil feelings and passions. Such an attitude is an expression of caring for human beings, whom God created as worthy of respect . . . and the human being is an entity created to be loved. 

Notes

1. The faith revealed to humankind starting with Adam has always been the same; the faith has been perfected with Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an, and it was given the name Islam by God.
2. Imam al-Ghazali (1058-1111): An important Muslim jurist, who came to be known as Hujjat al-Islam (Proof of Islam). He is considered to be the Reviver of the fifth Islamic century. Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din [Reviving the Religious Sciences] is his most celebrated work.

Darwin himself agreed on better adaptation, and increasing complexification, but wholly rejected the idea that the evolutionary progress of organisms had any kind of moral implication. He understood the ‘improvement’ implied in ‘progress through evolution’ in a functional rather than an ethical, moral, or social sense.

Darwinism – Spencerism

By some analogy to its biological counterpart, Social Darwinism argues that the struggle for existence among humans may be expected to yield social progress, just as struggle among human communities does produce evolutionary adaptive results. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), English sociologist and philosopher, was the pioneer of this approach, so much so that Social Darwinism might, in many respects, be better called ‘Social Spencerism’. Spencer was raised in the competitive atmosphere of the Industrial Revolution and remained one of the great champions of laissez-faire economics. It was he who coined the term ‘survival of the fittest’ to describe natural selection, although he was never a convinced Darwinist. He had already accepted a progressive view of human society, and the idea of biological evolution, during the 1850s, before Darwin’s theory became public. For Spencer, Malthus’s ‘law’ of demographic change was the dynamic agent of social development, constantly forcing societies to progress economically in order to escape the pressure of limited resources. At the same time, he was convinced by Lamarck’s arguments for evolution and began to see the possibility of constructing a synthesis that would unite all aspects of natural and human evolution under the same laws.

Social Darwinism and the American Way

Social Darwinism received some of its widest support in the U.S where the laissez-faire economics developed in England and France in the late 18th century was vigorously espoused, and where, after the successful War of Independence, rights of the individual (especially in the form of freedom from government interference) were enthusiastically promoted. The leading Social Darwinist in American academic circles was William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), Professor of political economy and social science at Yale which, under his influence, became a kind of pulpit for Social Darwinism. His ideas were derived chiefly from Spencer. He viewed the capitalist system with great favour because it allowed the free play of the ‘competition of life’. Unlike Spencer, he was very pessimistic and didn’t look forward to a future state of equilibrium. The well-known industrialist and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie (1 835-191 4), held the view that individualism, private property, the law of accumulation of wealth and the law of competition promoted the highest and best in human achievements. Other businessman liked to see (and present) themselves as successful survivors in the struggle for existence. For example Rockefeller said: ‘The growth of a large business is merely survival of the fittest…’. Interestingly, many rich American industrialists and businessmen found no difficulty in accommodating Christianity to the Darwinian idea of a competitive struggle which ‘necessarily’ eliminated the weaker parties in the struggle.

War of nations and races

It is not surprising that Social Darwinist arguments were readily extended to the conclusion that evolutionary progress of mankind is furthered by inter-racial or inter-national struggles. The theory of evolution could be and was used in justifications of wars for national or racial supremacy. The best known writer in this vein was the German historian Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896). In his ‘Politics’, he argued that the weak must perish, and that they perish ‘justly’: ‘The grandeur of history lies in the perpetual conflict of nations, and it is simply foolish to desire the suppression of their rivalry.’

Though Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) never stated explicitly that he was drawing on Darwin’s theory of evolution, we can easily see the Hitlerian doctrine of racial superiority a kind of Darwinism carried to logical extreme of madness. (Darwin himself might have had some racist tendencies. For example, he wrote: ‘The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.’)

Influence on political ideology

Spencerian Social Darwinism reached its peak of influence in 1882, when Spencer visited U.S. for an extensive lecture tour. But that tour also coincided with the beginning of questioning and reaction. Leading the reaction was Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913), a geologist and a professor of sociology. Ward took his stand on the side of nurture in the growing controversy of nature vs. nurture. His thoughts can be described as reformed or liberal Social Darwinism, repudiating the struggle doctrines of the laissez-faire school in favour of emphasis on social improvement through attention to the conditions of the social environment.

Australia, in the period from 1860 to 1885, saw the most frequent advocacy of Spencerian evolutionary ideas. Many Spencerian, Darwinian and Malthusian ideas and slogans were repeated by politicians, businessmen, academics, and journalists, just as in the U.S. But the succeeding period of economic depression dampened the enthusiasm, again as in the U.S., and criticisms began to develop and made themselves felt in the 1880s.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, various political and intellectual ideologies were clearly inspired to some degree by Social Darwinism-militarism, colonialism, racism, Nazism. Even socialism and anarchism were influenced by this doctrine. Marx and Engels were much interested in Darwin’s work, and used his theory to underpin their notion of the historical evolution of class struggle.

Essentialism and relativism

The influence of Darwinism on philosophical ideas was considerable and many-sided, but the precise way this influence worked is by no means easy to state in simple terms. Generally, Darwinian theory promoted or assisted the decline of Essentialism and the concomitant rise of relativism in many branches of philosophy. The doctrine of essences, all allegedly ‘ultimate explanations’, was driven out of philosophy. The American school of philosophy called ‘Pragmatism’, developed in the 1870s, was self-consciously influenced by Darwinism, some of its proponents being firm believers. Notably, Chauncy Wright (1830-1875), who, to Darwin’s considerable pleasure, defended the Darwinian theory against the perceptive attacks of some Catholic scholars. Charles Pierce (1839-1914), after his careful study of Darwin’s work, envisaged a kind natural selection process acting on ideas.

Ethics

Darwin himself was one of the first to consider the relationship between ethical theory and evolutionary doctrines, as when he argued that altruism might have had an evolutionary origin. He tried to show how ethical behaviour would have survival value, and thus might become established in human societies. But Darwin didn’t take the further step and say that one might distinguish between right and wrong by considering what had happened during the course of evolution, or where it was going in future. Evolution in itself did not provide an ethical code. Herbert Spencer, however, went beyond Darwin and hinted that this would be a possibility, as he wrote, ‘The conduct to which we apply the name good, is the relatively more evolved conduct, and … bad is the name we apply to conduct which is relatively less evolved.’

Such opinions were countered by T. H. Huxley in his 1893 essay, ‘Evolution and ethics’, saying that one cannot possibly draw any moral or ethical conclusions from a consideration of the course of evolution, evolution and ethics are quite distinct. Although his arguments were quite persuasive, others went on attempting to derive ethical norms from the evolutionary process.

Exclusion of the supernatural

Darwinian theory was purely naturalistic; it made no appeal to entities such as God, divine spirits, hypothetical intellects, final causes, souls or Platonic ideas. By providing an alternative naturalistic explanation of design, Darwin made it seem less necessary to construct a view of the world that invoked some kind of supernatural being. Darwin’s theories therefore gave considerable support to materialist interpretations of the world. The old mind/body dualism of Descartes and his followers would be replaced by a monistic materialism. This attitude proved particularly attractive in Germany, in the writings of the members of so-called ‘Monist League’, the work of the philosopher/biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) being particularly prominent. Haeckel, once regarded as a progressive liberal opposed to the excesses of arbitrary state power, has (in the light of more recent studies) come to be considered as one of formative influences on German Nazism. The three main strands in his thought were German Romantic Idealism, scientific positivism and materialism, and Darwinism. But Haeckel’s materialism was interestingly different; for him, atoms were endowed with souls.

Also drawing on biological evolution, although less directly, was the philologist and nihilist professor, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), particularly in his poetic-philosophic discourse work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. He believed that by a proper exercise of will, certain men might evolve into a world-elite of ‘Ubermenschen’ or Supermen. Superman would be his own master and might succeed to the rank and authority traditionally associated with God.

Metaphysics

Henri Bergson, a French philosopher, (1859-1941), accorded primacy to spirit and intuition, rather than matter and analysis. Metaphysics was concerned with spirit and intuition, and he sided with the metaphysicians. Bergson’s evolutionism, though all-pervasive in his system, was very different from Darwin’s naturalistic, mechanistic or materialistic doctrine of evolution by natural selection. It is clear that Bergson far transcended the hard ground of Darwinian science and moved on to the lusher fields of speculative metaphysics. In its time, his work Creative Evolution aroused considerable excitement and enthusiasm.

On the subject of metaphysics Darwin himself was somewhat sceptical: ‘To study metaphysics as it has always been studied appears to me to be like puzzling at astronomy without mechanics.’ He felt that one who had explained the (biological) origin of man, who knew what a baboon was, had done more to explain man than Locke.

Religion

Darwinism’s impact on religion can be summarized by saying that it undermined religious beliefs, and was one of the major influences in encouraging agnosticism. Its naturalistic structure opposed the teleological basis of Christianity and other religions. Between 1830 and 1875, we observe an evolution in British society and particularly British scientific society. In 1830s, science as a profession was just beginning, and because of the peculiarities of British higher education there were strong links between science and organized religion. The next forty to fifty years saw those links weaken and break; and evolutionism, particularly Darwinian evolutionism gained the opportunity to be used. Darwin succeeded where Chambers (who proposed a designed evolution) failed, because Darwin had earned respect as a scientist. So for this change in Victorian Britain, the Darwinian Revolution was part cause and part effect.

Conclusion

Evolution, one of the fundamental discoveries and concepts in modern thought, is central to modem biology and to the use of biology in modern society. Without it, genetics, physiology, ecology, and every other aspect of biology would lack coherence. Evolution has also added new perspectives to the discussions on scientific methodology. More dramatic (and famous) has been the theory’s extra-scientific impacts. Evolution has been and probably will remain a doctrine that has consequences for our understanding of the nature of man, and the purpose (or lack of purpose) in his existence. Also, because of its social implications, as in human genetics, evolution is a subject highly charged with emotion, and much of the literature on it suffers from unspoken and often untested assumptions. It is very difficult to discuss the theory with objectivity. Discussion of it tends to spill over to virtually every area of discourse in the humanities and social sciences: Sociology, Economics, Politics, Theology, Philosophy, Psychology, Anthropology, Literature, and Music.