The slight drizzle hitting the dry ground and dead grass was the highlight of my day. It’s been over three months since the last glimpse of rainfall, the drizzle dropped and filled the cracks and crevices of the tarnished ground. I could see the amazement and feel the excitement of the grass, as it was enveloped in water. But all good things have to come to an end, and the slight drizzle stopped as quickly as it started.

(Camera Clicks) “We’re recording in, 3…2…1… Hello, my name is Joseph and I am a 15-year-old in the year 2060. To many, this year has no significance, but to me, I see it as the 40-year anniversary of the last normal year on Earth. I woke up this morning and looked outside through my glass window to see the barren wasteland that I live in, the sun’s destructive rays continue to deplete the ground of any moisture left. But like a miracle, a cloud covered the sun and it began to rain. The sight was astonishing. I ran out of my motion detecting doors as they quickly swung open to grab my camera and record. But when I came back it was all over. I put the camera down, and here I am talking to you about the rather unpleasant world that I live in.”

“Joseph! I’ve made your breakfast. Come on, or you’ll be late for school.”

“Ugh, Grandpa! I was in the middle of something very important.”

Joseph forgets to turn off the camera and takes it with him to the kitchen, where he sees his food resting on the automatic stove top. The camera catches a glimpse of his Grandpa with his robotic replacement arm. Joseph places the camera on a book, facing towards him, and takes a seat at the table.

“Thanks for the food, but I am not that hungry.”

“What’s wrong, Joe, are you okay? I made your favorite, bacon and eggs. I know it is severely outdated but I tried my best.”

“Gramps… did you know it rained this morning?” Joseph looks up from his plate, and his eyes meet with his Grandpa’s. The old man’s eyes widen.

“Really? That’s the first time this year.” He walks towards the one way, sun protective glass window and looks outside at the slightly damp ground. “You know… back in my day, during this time of year it always rained, and not just a slight drizzle. Some days there were the normal routine rainfalls, and other times there were worries of too much rain and homes would flood…”

Joseph cannot help but interrupt his grandfather out of astonishment. “Floods? Grandpa, that sounds way better than what we are living through right now. What caused everything to change?”  he blurts out.

“… however,” Grandpa continues, “as I grew older and older, nature as I once knew it began to change into what it is today.” Joseph gets up abruptly, and quickly turnes the camera so that it directly faces his Grandpa, and continues recording the conversation. He walks towards his Grandpa.

“Can you tell me more about how life was when you were a kid?”

“Well, as you know, we live in New Jersey. Back then, it was known as the Garden State, which is ironic since there aren’t any plants or grass in a 10-mile radius of the state as of now. But I remember going to parks and playing football in the grass with my friends. Smelling the fresh air in the spring mornings and feeling the cold splashes of rain in the afternoon were some of the best moments of nature during those spring months. But as time progressed and America continued to modernize, changes began to occur in nature, Joseph.”

Joseph’s gaze is so fixated on his Grandpa that he doesn’t notice the notification from his school on his phone stating that school is going to start in 30 minutes. “Keep going Grandpa.”

“Technology began to advance, the government and even some people in the public began to stop caring for the environment. Gasoline and oil began to run out quickly, and thankfully, scientists were able to find more forms of energy, but that didn’t solve the problems that had already begun. The hole in the ozone layer began to increase, which is the reason for these reinforced windows, and the temperature began to gradually increase. It’s almost as if as the need for improved technology and futuristic things got greater, the environment of our world got destroyed more and more.”

Grandpa looks down at his right robotic replacement arm and strokes it. His voice is strained. “I wonder if people would’ve still disregarded the health of nature if they knew that it would lead to the environment that we have today…” Joseph’s Grandpa clears his throat. “Joe, it is getting late. Go get your jacket so that you won’t be late for school. We will talk later kiddo.” His Grandpa walks into the room and the sliding doors close.

Joseph runs to his room and comes back with his jacket, which is visible in the camera frame. The logo stated “UV Ray Protective Suit.” He gazes at the image for a moment, then clicks the red button once more.

“Hello guys, I didn’t realize that I had left the camera on… I learned a lot this morning, the world has changed a lot, and it looks like it’s too late for a change. I can’t believe that there was a time where nature was beautiful.” Joseph takes time to stare out the window, and his slightly happy expression fades into dread. He looks back into the camera.

“Well, I have to head to school. I’ll talk to you guys later. This is Joseph signing out.” 

A heavenly spectacle happening every 6585.32 days, lasting up to 7.5 seconds, can be seen along a track 300 kms wide but cannot be observed with the naked eye

A solar eclipse is a celestial event that takes place when the moon gets in between the earth and the sun. This event has always caught the attention of mankind since the beginning of time and has always been a matter to ponder upon. For example, why can a lunar eclipse be observed everywhere on earth under the night sky yet seeing a solar eclipse is only limited to a corridor 300 km in diameter? A solar eclipse is dependent upon two conditions: First there needs to be an intersection of a lunar orbit with the earth’s orbital plane; second the phase of the moon at the time needs to be a new moon. Because there are 12 months in a year, one would expect 12 solar eclipses, but a 5 degree difference between orbital planes makes this intersection a less frequent event. The diameter of a lunar shadow on earth during a solar eclipse is only 300 km while the shadow of the earth falls on the moon as wide as 12,000 km in diameter.

The sun and the moon, the brightest objects that are most visible to our eyes, are not hanging up there without any purpose. In addition to their many significant effects on our biological, psychological and social conditions, the sun and the moon offer us incredible reasons to be amazed not least during the eclipse when we observe from the earth their complete overlap: a star as big as almost 1.5 million km and a satellite as small as 3,500 km in diameter. The sun and the moon need to be positioned in their orbits with such a precise calculation that this enormous size difference does not get noticed during a solar eclipse by an observer on the ground. This is only possible when both the sun’s and the moon’s distances to the earth are reversely proportioned to their sizes. This fine balance is called “angular diameter” or “visual angle” by scientists. Therefore, in order for a complete solar eclipse to take place, the sun’s and the moon’s angular diameter need to be equal to each other.

If we have to explain this with mathematical expressions:

Lunar diameter / Moon-Earth distance = Solar diameter / Sun-Earth Distance

If we take numbers as below:

Lunar diameter 3,474 km, Moon-Earth distance 376,000 km, solar diameter 1,400,000 km, Sun-Earth Distance 149,000,000 km

Then we get two similar ratios:

3,474 / 376,000 = 0.009239361

1,400,000 / 149,000,000 = 0.009395973

As seen above, the ratio of the two independent and unrelated numbers turns out to be very similar to each other indicating the management of the universe through fine care, calculated fashion and wisdom. The significance of the angular diameter in this solar phenomenon is oftentimes ignored or covered not sufficiently enough in documentaries, books, and journals, whereas it offers a lot for us to ponder deeply over how the entire universe relates to our lives through many apparently irrelevant events. The sun and the moon and their eclipses are substantial reasons for awareness, appreciation and prayer, as highlighted in a Qur’anic verse:

“And the night and the day, and the sun and the moon (all the phenomena and objects you see in the universe) are among His signs (guiding to His absolute Oneness). Do not prostrate in adoration of the sun or the moon, but prostrate in adoration of God, Who has created them, if indeed it is Him that you worship.” (Fussilat 41:37)

A solar eclipse, as do all other things in our material universe, takes place in a world of causations. Yet, it takes place in such mysterious finely tuned measurements that may become a reason for divine testing, and it has been more so in the past for that matter. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, gave a warning on this issue for us not to fail this test: “The sun and the moon are two signs of God; they are not eclipsed on account of anyone’s death or on account of anyone’s birth. So when you see them, glorify and supplicate God, observe prayer, give alms.” Thus, it is important to observe the universe and use our intelligence to discover the laws operative in nature and the divine wisdom behind those seemingly supernatural events.

How generous of us. How condescending, actually! It implies that I can bear up under the difference which is exemplified in the other: I won’t criticize you openly or make comments, but deep down, I know you to be “different” and myself to be virtuous and probably superior. I may catch myself, when speaking of someone I actually do not like, saying politely: “Well, she’s different.” With that comment, I am off the hook. I refrain from telling you I reject this person. But “different” here may support a polite tolerance, yet it harbors an inner rejection.

So can we count tolerance a virtue? Perhaps developing tolerance is a stepping stone to something deeper? It might be the beginning of wisdom and exemplify a necessary patience with what feels painful, uncomfortable, unfamiliar, possibly frightening, in fact “foreign” to us. “Unfamiliar,” literally means: Not of my family. I am ill at ease with this because I do not know it. It is not part of my family, my tribe, my beliefs, my language, my religion, my race. In the spirit of tolerance, I might begin to open myself to tasting, hearing, learning something about that which is not “ours.” It is a beginning, but it still holds fast to the comfort of what it knows and only tolerates what it cannot fully accept.

Still, we have all had the expansive experience of traveling outside our zones of comfort and making a new relationship. We have launched a friendship with someone who seems unlike us.

An obviously poor man has taken charge of the garden plot next to mine in our neighborhood community garden. Perhaps he is homeless? He rattles up to the garden on a dilapidated bicycle. His clothes are worn and he has a scruffy look. His nails are dirty and that might be because he has been working his plot. I sense a certain unease in myself as we scratch the soil in our plots. Part of me fears him. That might be because I feel guilty about the growing number of homeless who make camps under the overpasses in my neighborhood. I can let my mind race with objections: They might bring disease. They certainly clutter the surroundings with litter. What if, in their need, they take what they want from yards and sheds? And the police told us recently they found a cache of machetes, sticks and knives in the park behind us. Oh, I can build dungeons in the sky as fast as anyone.

But to be honest, deep down, I would dread being homeless myself and in this economy… my mind races. How much of this is all our responsibility? Other members of the community garden, I notice, walk well out of his way. Sometimes they whisper to one another making comments about their discomfort.

But this is, after all, a Community garden! What does that really mean. If you sign up and pay the nominal fee to tend a plot and use the garden tools, this man has a right to be here. So the gardeners put up a front of tolerance. “We shall see. We’ll give him a chance.”

Tolerance invites us to stand before the unfamiliar and allow-but it still has no relationship to the ability to be empathic. Empathy is a vulnerable frame of being. It is to feel with what is “other” or different. Tolerance does not yet stand in the shoes of the other, knowing exactly what it feels like to be that person, living into a sense of that person’s culture, situation, history, biology, with those talents, bearing those wounds or offering those gifts.

Empathy would be the greater quality to embrace and cultivate in ourselves if we want to conduct real dialogue. Empathy is a quality that comes with maturity, practice, humility, a vulnerable openness and, of course, prayer. There is nothing guarded, “tolerant” or superior about it.

“Hey!” Two of us greet the man one morning as we hoe our plants. What’s your name? What have you just planted there? I make a point of walking over there and taking responsibility for my own feelings, I try to make contact with the fellow devoid of my prejudices. I am not an extroverted, chatty person to begin with, so it takes a concerted effort on my part to walk over there, discuss our gardens, and share our experiences.

Dempsey is his name. He does indeed live at the homeless shelter downtown and bikes up hill here to work his plot. He has lost the place he once lived. There is a story hiding in him. Turns out he knows quite a bit about the soil and gardening. He introduces me to his beloved collards. I show him my chard and spinach. Eventually we share some of our produce and though I do not take a shine to his collards, no matter how I try, I feel somehow honored by his generosity.

He has a plan. Even a vision. If he can grow enough produce, he will bring it to the kitchens at his shelter. As a kid, he had gardens which he and his mom tended. When everything in a row turns ripe and ready at once, it is quite an armful and he would like to make a contribution to his shelter. He has more plans. There is some land at the back of the shelter that, if he can convince them, he would like to turn into gardens that the homeless can help cultivate. Right now it is just a dumping ground for old bottles and litter.

“Of course, we’d need to contain the kitchen waste for compost first to get some soil. Gardening is more about making good soil than about growing plants!”

Before long, I am hearing amazing things from Dempsey. What if I had avoided him in my fear, guilt, and prejudice?

I think about my feelings against his reality. When we were young and growing up, we all made choices: We chose this over that, we chose right over wrong. We chose right over left and light over dark. We learned not to talk to strangers or to walk in certain neighborhoods. All the world is split in halves and with our choices we made judgments to match. We learned to define ourselves in a certain way, convinced that we have chosen the better part and have left “the other,” the misguided, the sinful, the messy, and unenlightened behind. This is how we formed our identity. With this we were approved of by our families and accepted by our tribe. It was, perhaps, a necessary developmental process.

In time, we may become so comfortable in this identity that it takes wisdom and maturity to discover that the world isn’t so black and white as we would like to define it. Our “black and white mentality” is often acted out literally. Here in America, we have suffered and visited great suffering on people of color deeming white to be more worthy than black. Getting stuck at this stage of development has literally given advantage, education and wealth to whites and this on the backs of those we first imported as slaves to our country and then continued to enslave in our intolerance, injustice and rejection.

Everywhere in the world, we have seen these simplistic conflicts bloom and fester causing injustice, war, and dreadful human misery. Tolerance, then, might be the first step to healing an unjust society but then, it has to develop further, into a true virtue.

Empathy-that true virtue-allows us to viscerally feel with the other and learn a third way which stands over and above the simplicity of a merely “black and white” mentality. Perhaps fundamental rights and wrongs may well be necessary to growing up and learning to become someone.

But fundamentalism is essentially an unripe process in becoming whole, holy, and healthy. It is a spiritual and psychological immaturity. Becoming whole, empathic with “the other” and more than merely “tolerant” of the other requires that we make friends with the deepest part of our own inner selves first. The dark aspects of our own unconscious, which lie under our conscious choices and awareness, are alive and well and sometimes pop out in actions, prejudices, paranoia, and selfish behaviors that actually shock us, surprising ourselves! Where did THAT come from? The impromptu snub? That slip-of-the-tongue? Getting to know what you’d rather repress in yourself takes that washing, even symbolic washing, which takes off the accretions of only “looking good.” To reach into our depth we ask for the graces of God and the courage to know ourselves.

Dempsey proves to be a gifted gardener. Unlike many of us city-slickers who find the idea of gardening a nice, romantic concept, Dempsey knows how to lean into his work and stick with it. He puts a hand to our compost pile and gives me information on the chemistry of compost. He LOVES the compost. And I begin to be enamored with the beauty of this transforming pile of brush and leaves as they become mulch and then good, black earth. It takes time. It takes patience. The vegetable scraps and brush, the kitchen scraps that we reject and find, in fact, revolting as they mold and decompose, become, in time, something so rich and beautiful that I hold a palm full in my hand and run it through my fingers. Dempsey laughs at me. He knows that I have come around. I encourage him to share his knowledge at our garden meetings. Dempsey becomes a valuable member of the garden. And he becomes a friend.

Like the compost, I dig deep into my own unconscious and all that I have deemed objectionable, I take into my awareness. I get to know myself a little more. I get to appreciate what I otherwise throw out and bury out of sight-out of my consciousness-and I find it necessary as the very “ground of my being.” It is a spiritual, a holy exercise. Also the parts of society that I might only tolerate, I take into my awareness and with prayer and God’s grace, I watch the rejected become a valuable source and a piece of God’s holy plan and puzzle.

Richard Rohr, OFM put it this way:

With prayer we change sides from the inside-from a power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything. Because now we are allowing ourselves to change and grow!
Once we are freed from our paranoia, from the narcissism that thinks we are the center of the world, or from our belief that thinks our rights and dignity have to be defended before other people’s rights and dignity, only then can we finally live and act with any justice or truth. Once these blockages are taken away from us-and that is what prayer does-then we just have to be offered a few guiding statements on social justice or other thorny issues-and we tend to get it for ourselves. We start being drawn by love…

For it is common practice in the human condition to take everything we fear, hate, deny about ourselves and “throw it in the waste bin.” We have, unwittingly, put “the other” in that same place of rejection and waste.

On the other hand, we also project everything we admire onto “the hero” as well. The adolescent makes heroes of the athlete, the rock star, the film star, the super model and decorates her bedroom with their posters. Meanwhile, the adults lean on their gurus, their preachers, their wise men, their favorite politicians and hope to vote in their hero as president and savior-of-the-nation. Our heroes, just like our shadow figures about whom we are passionate, are really aspects of ourselves which we are invited to come to know. These are abilities, virtues, talents, beauties, braveries, and wisdoms that we have not yet met in our own deepest selves but have “found” by projecting them on our heroes. What national leader can be the savior that delivers us from debt, from our enemies, from hunger? Over and over and at every election, we project on “the man who would be king,” and within months, because he is merely human, the populace has become disenchanted if not duped!

Samuel, in Hebrew Scripture, warns of turning away from God in favor of a king (1 Samuel 8). Israel wanted a leader like the other nations. But Samuel issues a final warning (1 Samuel 12:14) “If God’s people will remain faithful to God’s Commandments” and keep God as their ruler.

When our loves and our hates are visceral and passionate, we must take these deep emotions as invitations to examine our SELVES first. By truly “knowing ourselves” deeply, we are able to develop empathy-knowing “the other.” Then we learn to accept the dark and light aspect of our deepest self. We learn to embrace everyone. Our tolerance becomes empathy, even love! Rumi’s teaching often showed that love and empathy is the very path to spiritual growth and insight. Broadly tolerant of every person and all faiths he says:

Whoever you may be, come
Even though you may be
An infidel, a pagan, or a fire-worshipper, come
Our brotherhood is not one of despair
Even though you have broken
Your vows of repentance a hundred times, come.

Life is certain to dish up for us, family members, neighbors, people, situations, religions, countries-myriad experiences that are really invitations to rattle us out of our cozy dualistic and judgmental lives. May we grow surely and bravely from being merely tolerant into fully human beings who are steeped in empathy. Every dualist split that rends us apart personally and tears us one from the other would be healed. The same God reigns over and above us all. The same God guides us. The same God loves us all. The same God is the very ground of our being. Tolerance is only a start on the path to love and empathy.

Gertrud Mueller Nelson is an author, artist and retired teacher. She has illustrated and written nine books. She lives in California.

It is springtime, and soon I will expand and open up to see the bright face of the sun. Sunlight is a source of my food and the service I do. The more sunrays that hit my surface, the faster I grow, and will generate a great need of life on Earth: oxygen. To the unappreciative eye, I am just a leaf, but the complexity of my reactions are still a great puzzle to scientists who work in large institutions trying to understand the processes going on inside me. It takes them many years to fully comprehend a single step in the process of oxygen generation that takes place within me.

Although I am very simple, thin, and fragile, I have been charged with a great service. During the entire summer, I endure the heat of the sun without drying up or wilting. This is because I am constantly fed with a flow of water and minerals from my branch, which was soaked up from the tree’s roots embedded deep in the Earth. This constant flow of water enables me to keep upright, sturdy, and open. Most of the water is evaporated through my thin surface, but a small part of it is broken up to provide you with the oxygen that you need to survive. Although this sounds very simple, it requires a great deal of energy. This energy is provided to me through the sun and the sugars that are made in me during this process.

When no water falls from the clouds, I suffer. I cannot keep upright to provide you with the oxygen that you need. When it is too hot and there is no rain, I suffer again. Were it not for the babies, the old, and the weak among you, I would dry out completely. When human beings oppress each other, I suffer, because under these conditions water does not fall to Earth despite the clouds in the sky. These clouds also block the sunshine that I need to serve you with oxygen.

Right now it is autumn in many places and although I did not dry up in the hot months of the summer, I am now ordered to wither and fall. My color changes from green to yellow, orange, red, and finally brown. As I drop to the ground, people step on me. I get crushed and grinded to pieces as I return back to Earth. The matter used to create me mixes with the soil, until next spring, when I will be high up on the branch looking at you one more time, reminding you of a new beginning after death.

Lawrence first provides a summary of Prophet Muhammad’s life (peace be upon him) in chapters 1 and 2. In the following chapters, he offers succinct summaries of divergent interpretations of the Qur’an throughout history. Chapters 5 and 6 deal with examples of earlier interpretations of the Qur’an, by the Shi’ite scholar Jafar as-Sadiq and the Sunni Abu Jafar at-Tabari, respectively. The next two chapters cover rather mystic interpretations of the Qur’an. Chapter 8 surveys probably the greatest Islamic mystic Ibn al-Arabi, “a deep sea diver in the ocean of the Qur’an” (p. 109). Chapter 9 is about another mystic, Jalal ad-Din Rumi (or Mawlana), who sought to display the “everyday wonders” of the Qur’an in his Mathnawi. The last four chapters cover four different modern interpreters of the Qur’an. Chapters 11 and 12 deal with two Indian/Pakistani scholars. Ahmad Khan of chapter 11 offers an early rationalist (“militantly rationalist” in Lawrence’s words) critique of traditional interpretations in the face of Western intrusion into the Muslim world. By contrast, Muhammad Iqbal of chapter 12 makes a case for a redefined spiritual Islam in the late-colonial period and calls for revivification of moral Islamic values among Muslims. In chapter 13, the American interpreter W. D. Muhammad offers yet another interpretation that stresses racial equality more than anything else. Lastly, in chapter 14, Lawrence depicts the mind of the notorious Osama bin Laden, in whose interpretations military jihad takes precedence over all other issues. Lawrence argues that bin Laden “selects only those verses that fit his message, and then cites them exclusively for his own purpose” (p. 180).

In one unusual chapter (chapter 7), Lawrence portrays a Christian interpreter of the Qur’an, Robert of Ketton, who was the first person to translate the Qur’an into a Western language (Latin) in the twelfth century. An Englishman, Robert of Ketton moves to Toledo and becomes part of a Christian group that translates scientific texts from Arabic into Latin. He eventually finds himself heading a team project to translate the Qur’an into Latin. In a time of heated and continuous warfare between Christians and Muslims, Robert of Ketton takes a more noble way of engaging with Muslims. Islam was to be approached “not by arms, but by words; not by force, but by reason” (p. 100).

In an era when both adherents and critics of the Qur’an make claims as to what “real Islam” is, Bruce Lawrence’s survey of Qur’anic interpretations reminds us that all interpretations of the Qur’an are but partial representations that favor certain sections and meanings over others. In so doing, The Qur’an: A Biography becomes a friendly reminder that it takes more humility than most of us assume to understand and appreciate the richness of the verses of the Qur’an.

As a final note, for the more academic reader the book has a significant flaw. Although he provides a “further reading” list which includes most of the books he cites, except for the verses from the Qur’an, Professor Lawrence does not provide direct references for other quotes or opinions. I hope he will remedy this gap in a future edition.

The Quran calls the attention of human beings to the Divine manifestations on creatures such as the honeybee, ant, gnat and spider and invites them to reflect on and study phenomena like the movements of air, the alternation of day and night and the seasons, and the movements of heavenly bodies. The importance the Qur’an gives to the study of natural events inspired Muslim scientists to undertake investigations using observation and the experimental method – long before these came into use in Europe.

Science passed to Europe through the two centuries of the Crusades, through the universities in al-Andalus and Sicily and the translations made there from Arabic. This was the main factor behind the Renaissance in Europe. Building on (without ever openly acknowledging) the works of Muslim scientists, Western scientists led the way to the birth of modern science. Until correct conclusions were reached about phenomena through observation and experimental methods, the assertions of the ancient Greek philosophers had been accepted as the basic laws of nature. For example, it had been asserted as true without question from the time of Aristotle that the speed of an object’s falling is proportionate to its weight. However, the experiments done by Galileo and Newton proved this to be false. Those experiments showed that- so long as the resistance of air is negligible in proportion to the weight of the object and its vertical cross sectional area – the unhindered movement of an object on the earth is not dependent on its mass. This means that objects of different weight dropped from the same point reach earth at the same time. Such developments in physics led scientists to app rove observation and experiment as a basic rule in establishing natural facts. It was the job of scientists to try to discover the laws and basic truths prevalent in the universe through observation and experiment – empirical methods – while it was the task of philosophers to reflect on and comment on them, in other words, in order to have true conclusions about the universe and the events taking place in it we had to discard all of our preconceptions about them and study nature through empirical methods and then comment on the natural events and the relations between them.

In order to have a clearer understanding of modern science and what it can give us of truth about the universe, let us consider the law of general gravity, which is an undeniably established scientific fact:

Various observations and experiments have shown that any two objects attract each other or exert force upon each other proportionately to their masses and in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between them.

The force of attraction or gravity is the force which is in effect in events such as the falling of an object and the revolving of the earth around the sun. Science presents gravity as if it were the cause of such events. However, what we call the force of gravitation is only a notion which we use to explain those events. That is, there is an attraction observed between objects. In order to explain this attraction, we give it a name like the law or force of gravitation and then think that we have explained the event of attraction.

Science does not know the nature of what it calls the force of gravitation but, starting from the assertion that we have already successfully explained many events whose causes were unknown in the past, claims that it will be explained in the future. Nevertheless, science is unable to explain the real cause of all the events in the universe. What science in fact does is, starting from the recurrence of an event under the same conditions, to make a generalization and call it a law. Then it proceeds to assert that the same event will take place again and again under the same conditions. For example, after observing the falling of objects thrown into the air, it makes a generalization that all objects thrown into the air fall, and expresses this event of falling by a mathematical formula.

It can serve as a simple example to see how science works to calculate and state beforehand how long it takes for an object thrown into the air with a certain force and at a certain angle to fall and at what distance it falls. Since events take place in a cause-and- effect series, knowing what effect or event will take place in the next step does not require understanding why it takes place in that way. Therefore, although we suppose that the law of gravity will be understood as, say, dependent on an exchange between certain particles or the obliquity of spatial time, it will nevertheless remain unexplained through scientific methods why such an exchange takes place or why the spatial time becomes oblique and why that exchange or obliquity occurs according to certain mathematical formulations and thereby objects attract each other. In addition to the fact that why objects attract each other remains unknown, it is also a mystery (and a wonder) that this event of attraction takes place according to a mathematical formula. Because of our familiarity with the events taking place in nature, we ignore the important fact that every thing, every event in nature is a miracle. In order to see why the event of gravitation is a dazzling miracle, we should consider it more closely:

As an example to understand the law of gravity, let us consider the falling of a stone dropped (and then allowed to fall unhindered) from a certain high point. Left unhindered, that stone will realize a certain trajectory as the result of gravity affecting it. It will move faster and faster and finally hit the ground. How the stone will accelerate, how long it will take it to reach the ground and how it will move at every second of its trajectory depends on the stones distance from the centre of the earth, the mass of the earth and the constant of gravity. This means that the stone does not move at random, rather each of its movements during its fall is determined through mathematical formulas. This is an extremely regular movement. From this we inevitably conclude that if the stone does this movement of falling by itself, without an agent directing or determining its trajectory, then the stone must know accurately the constant of gravity, the mass of the earth and its distance from the centre of the earth at each moment of its trajectory, and then move in conformity with that knowledge. Whoever has a bit of intelligence will not attribute to the stone itself such a trajectory, simple in appearance but extremely complex in reality. Indeed, the falling of a stone is so complex a movement that during it all the objects in the universe, every thing with a certain mass, exerts on it certain force of attraction and the stone moves under the influence of all those forces. (Here we do not consider other essential forces such as the electro-magnetic and nuclear ones, which have determining effect on the movement of things. Expressed, again, with certain mathematical formulas, these forces make the movements in the universe even more complex.) That is, in order to determine its trajectory, the stone must know the exact distance between itself and each of about 1080 particles in the universe, calculate accurately at each moment of its trajectory the force of the attraction exerted on it by each of those particles according to the mathematical formula of gravity – a force which changes every moment – and focus all those forces to a single point in consideration of the direction of each. Let alone a stone, even the most advanced computer the size of the universe could not accomplish that. For the position of each of the particles with respect to the stone changes at every moment during its fall. Thus, the simplest-seeming movement in the universe like the falling of a stone requires comprehensive knowledge and mastery of an infinite number of interrelated processes.

Since any event taking place in any part of the universe has connection with each of the particles in the universe and the whole of the universe itself, only one who has perfect knowledge of each of those particles and the universe as a whole, one who sees the whole of the universe with each particle in it, can determine and direct all the movements in the universe. Also, since the law of gravity and all the other physical laws are the same and have the same uniformity throughout the whole of the universe, the one who makes these laws operative in the whole of the universe must be an absolutely powerful one, who dominates each and every thing in the universe. Otherwise, each atom in the universe must have an eye seeing the whole of the universe at the same time, know the position, mass, electrical charge, in short, all the physical features, of each particle in the universe, be aware of all the physical laws and obey the laws itself originated.

Every event and every thing in the universe is interrelated to every other and whatever takes place in the universe takes place according to certain laws. Therefore, it is impossible for even the smallest, most insignificant-seeming event to take place without one with an absolute, perfect knowledge of the universe with all its particles and an absolute power governing it. Said Nursi expresses this fact as follows:

If the existence and operation of the universe is not attributed to God Almighty, then it requires admitting that each particle has the attributes of the Necessarily Existent Being, and that each particle should both dominate and be dominated by all other particles. Again, each particle should have an all-encompassing will and knowledge, for the existence of a single thing is dependent on all things and one who does not own the universe cannot rule a single particle.

After explaining how complex a phenomenon gravitation is, we can go a little further to see the real cause of that phenomenon. The relation sensed between the fall of a stone and the rotation of the moon around the world in a fixed orbit led Newton to discover the law of gravity. Ever since this law received a general welcome, the cause of the falling down of an object thrown into the air has unquestionably been accepted as gravity. However, it is not necessary that the real cause of this movement is the force of the attraction of the earth or the existence of another material cause.

Consider this:

Let us imagine some animate beings living on a two- dimensional table. These living beings are aware of only the table on which they live and completely unaware of the three- dimensional world around them. Someone from the three- dimensional world fires at the table in equal frequencies and makes holes at equal distance from each other. Seeing the holes at equal distances, the animate beings living completely unaware of the three-dimensional world will inevitably conclude that each hole causes another one to be made. Whereas it is some other firing from the outside world who made the holes.

This is how the scientists attributing every thing and event in the universe to the law of causality think about the working of the universe. It is questionable whether the attraction of an object toward another near it (for example, the attraction of a falling stone toward the ground) is because of the objects themselves or there is some other source forcing the objects to such a movement. (The event of attraction is the simplest of the events occurring in the universe. You may consider how a honeybee makes honey or a cow gives milk, events which contain a much greater number of physical interactions, chemical reactions and cause and effect.) In short, since the movement of an object according to the law of gravity is one each moment of which is mathematically described and requires as many masses and distances as the articles in the universe and the distances among them to be known in their mutual, complex relations, there must be One Who is the All-Knowing. This One must also have an absolute will to choose and assign for each event a law out of innumerable ones. The uniformity of the law, that is, all the laws being prevalent throughout the universe calls for the unity of that All-Knowing and All-Willing One, and the obedience of all things, small or great, to those laws demonstrate that that One is also the All- Powerful. Again, the unchangeability or stability of the laws and the magnificent, unchanging order and harmony of the universe show that that One is Self- Subsistent and the All-Subsisting. That means it is that All-Knowing, All-Willing, All-Powerful, Self-Subsistent and All-Subsisting, Single One Who causes a stone to fall. For no one and nothing in the universe has the knowledge, will and power absolutely necessary for the falling of a stone. Every thing and event in the universe is too complex and magnificent for any material cause to bring it about. There is then no way for man other than to admit and recognize the Existence and Unity of God.

Then, as the weather grows warm toward the end of winter, you witness an overall resurrection on earth. The seeds of innumerable species of grasses, plants and trees germinate under earth and each individually, without confusion, takes on its own form and puts on its own charming dress. Countless living beings brought back to life change the dead earth into a paradise and enjoy the happiness of awakening to a new life. The number of flies which fill the earth in a single season of summer make up, alone, is a more populous community than the whole of humankind from the time of the Prophet Adam to the end of time. Each living being restored to life again, whether of plants or animals, is given its special provision without any neglect, and supplied with the equipment necessary for its life. All this takes place in so short a time and yet so perfectly and in such a miraculous harmony that, like the rays of the sun being indicative of the sun, it points to the Single One of Unity who rules over all things and creates everything on a particular pattern and with a particular nature and disposition.

Indeed, who other than the One with infinite power, all-encompassing knowledge and an unlimited wisdom, can have a part in those infinitely complicated yet harmonious events of creation and recreation or revival and provision, instruction and training and discharge from life? If anyone other than the Supreme Being, who gives existence to all living and non-living things, had had a part in these events, which are each a miracle, everything would have been in a chaos. Whereas, as all branches of science have concluded after long years of study and research, there is a wonderful, overall order and harmony in existence, with nothing in confusion or disorder.