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Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

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Articles

How Swift Our Minutes Pass!

29 February 2008 | The Fountain | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Great God, how frail a thing is man! How swift his minutes pass! His age contracts within a span; He blooms and dies like grass. Time is ticking “swiftly” away, consuming the “minutes” that have been appointed for this life, as Mather Byles (d. 1788) exclaims in the second line of this poem. O…

The Souls Besieged by a Life of Transience

29 February 2008 | M. Fethullah Gulen | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Those who perceive the world solely in terms of its transitory face and physical constraints can be seen, in spite of the breadth of the human conscience, to have darkened their lives by having chosen to spend it in a dungeon. Whenever they sense this constriction that they have imposed on themselv…

Water: The Molecule of Life

29 February 2008 | Bill Sayoran | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

The sustenance of all known life-forms relies heavily on water, and almost all living things are mostly composed of water. The chemistry of biological reactions is based on water, which renders conditions suitable for living things also on the global scale. Because water is indispensable for mainta…

Understanding Today's Schools with Chaos Theory

29 February 2008 | Aydin Kara | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Today’s schools are more complex systems than the one-room schools of the past. However, most of the beliefs and expectations about schools today still remain the same as they were in the olden days. In the one-room schools of old times, the teacher was responsible for all the instruction of all th…

A Reform Rabbi Learns from Muhammad

29 February 2008 | Allen S. Maller | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

All Muslims know that the Qur’an often refers to the “people of the book” and their prophets. In addition, there are dozens of hadiths, sayings of the Prophet of Islam, that speak about Jews and Christians. The hadiths that refer to the Jews of Muhammad’s time are about Orthodox Jews. Of the 13 mil…

Heroes of Compassion

29 February 2008 | Mehmet Ozalp | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Once there were model men Roaming in our shining civilization. They breathed life into lost souls, We called them heroes of compassion. How we have missed you, waiting, O heroes of compassion, alight. Our darkened souls been longing. In your return we will delight. Heroes of compassion spea…

Economic Development via Human Development

29 February 2008 | A. Kadir Yildirim | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Think about two South African children born on the same day in 2000: Nthabiseng and Pieter. Nthabiseng is born to a black family with no formal education about 400 miles away from Cape Town in a rural area. She has 7.2 percent chance of dying during the first year of her life; she can expect to liv…

A Personal Pilgrimage

29 February 2008 | Ashley Hatchett | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

“If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.” These words, spoken by George Bernard Shaw, didn’t phase me as I walked into my World History class my sophomore year at Dulles High School in Sugar Land, Texas. My cocky teacher…

From the Spider's Web

29 February 2008 | Irfan Yilmaz | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Hello dear humankind, Many of you are frightened of us. You have even invented a disease called “Arachnophobia” (fear of spider). On the contrary, I do not inflict any harm on you, but rather help tidy up nature by catching harmful insects in my web. Particularly, when I remember the honorable tas…

Curative Cherries

29 February 2008 | M. Ali Kaslioglu | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Fruits of various kinds in abundance, such as dates in sheathed clusters, bananas piled one above another, grapes, olives, figs, pomegranates, and cherries with their abundant blossom and fruit, are mentioned in the Qur’an. Among many references to the people of happiness and prosperity in the gard…

Hal and Maqam (State and Station)

29 February 2008 | M. Fethullah Gulen | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Hal (state) denotes experiencing in one’s inner world the “breaths” blowing from the realms beyond the world, and feeling the difference between the “night” and “day,” as well as the “evening” and “morning,” that occur to the heart. Those who understand these as alternate waves of rejoicing and gri…

Belief in God: A Matter of Life and Death

29 February 2008 | Sophia Gallant | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Odd as such a question might sound, do you think God is still alive in the twenty-first century? Do we need Him? Is He still our “ultimate concern” as Tillich argued, or have we, as the human species, lost God in the woods during a cannibalistic ritual? Was belief in God only a solace for tribal pe…

Tissue Engineering; Towards Spare Human Parts

29 February 2008 | Mustafa Guler | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Everyday, thousands of people from all age groups are treated for organ malfunction. Many of these patients require organ transplants; however, there is a long waiting list for people looking for organ donors. Recently, tissue engineering has become a hope for the provision of organs and tissues wi…

In Search of Freedom

29 February 2008 | Ozgur Cagla | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Throughout the ages, people have given different meanings to freedom. Every scholar has defined it in their own way according to their own thinking. At times, the concept of freedom has served as a tool to justify particular causes, and indeed has been a pretext for many shameful actions. On witnes…

Miraculous Carrier in Blood: Hemoglobin

29 February 2008 | Ibrahim Yildiz | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

By means of rapid and astonishing advances in science and technology, every day we witness amazing discoveries related to the mechanisms in the human body. Have you ever thought that your heart beats about 100,000 times a day to pump thousands of liters of blood? And what about the fact that during…

The Place of Tolerance in Islam

29 February 2008 | Ugur Kuru | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

In the aftermath of September 11, Islam’s relation to violence and tolerance have been widely discussed. The critics have generally tried to produce a monolithic image of Islam, which is isolated from diverse and dynamic human experience. For them, Islam is responsible for terrorism conducted in it…

Sheikh Galib and His Definition of Divine Love

29 February 2008 | Ahmet D. Bahadir | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Galib’s master work Hüsn ü Ask ("Beauty and Love") is viewed as one of the most distinguished works of Turkish Literature. It is known for its perfect presentations of symbols and characters with which he tells the story of a dervish who strives to attain a state of perfection after passing diffi…

A Brief Introduction to the Noble Qur'an

29 February 2008 | Joseph Clay | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Islam is a fast growing religion in the West. For the last few decades, there has been growing curiosity about the Qur’an, the holy book of Muslims, among non-Muslims. Yet, there is significant confusion and misinterpretation surrounding it. Specifically, some radical groups and critics of Islam in…

Human Rights and Islam

29 February 2008 | Hikmet Isik | Issue 62 (March - April 2008)

Question: What is the Islamic stance on human rights? How does Islam regard the killing of a person? Islam is a universal religion, and the significance it gives to rights is inclusive of all creation. The comprehensive Islamic perspective on the safeguarding of rights benefits not only people, bu…

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