Methodology and the Inadequacy of Western Methods
Methodology ( in scientific study) is the fields of scientific inquiry concerned with the examination of the methods used in the study of natural and human phenomena. A scientific method consists of a number of rules a researcher must follow in the study of the subject matter of his research. Those researchers who apply scientific methods may claim that the knowledge produced by their research is scientific.
The researcher must use methods currently acknowledged by the scientific inquiry. however a new method could be applied provided he demonstrates its soundness. The determination of the soundness of scientific methods is the task of methodology.
Methodology is thus the fields of scientific inquiry into justification, description, and explanation of the rules and procedures which constitute scientific methods. As such, methodology is not confined to description of scientific procedures, but involves the analysis of the grounds which justify their use.
The Inadequacy of Western Methods
1. Modern Western methods have had an empiricist bias which culminated in contemporary times in the logical positivistic approach embodied in western behaviorism. they have abandoned behaviorism under pressure from its critics.
2. Throughout the last three centuries, Western scholarship was able to completely eliminate revelation as a source of knowledge, thereby reducing it into the level of mere fiction and myth.
source : The foundation of knowledge ( Louay Safi)
For the sake of Allah
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Religious Views on Eating Pork
Why is the eating of pork forbidden in Islam?
By : Dr Zakir Naik
The fact that consumption of pork is prohibited in Islam is well known. The following points explain various aspects of this prohibition:
1. Pork prohibited in Qur’an
The Qur’an prohibits the consumption of pork in no less than 4 different places. It is prohibited in 2:173, 5:3, 6:145 and 16:115.
"Forbidden to you (for food) are: dead meat, blood, the flesh of swine, and that on which hath been invoked the name of other than Allah." [Al-Qur’an 5:3]
The above verses of the Holy Qur’an are sufficient to satisfy a Muslim as to why pork is forbidden.
2. Pork prohibited in the Bible
The Christian is likely to be convinced by his religious scriptures. The Bible prohibits the consumption of pork, in the book of Leviticus
"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be cloven footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you".
"Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch, they are unclean to you."[Leviticus 11:7-8]
Pork is also prohibited in the Bible in the book of Deuteronomy
"And the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, it is unclean unto you. Ye shall not eat of their flesh, nor touch their dead carcass."
[Deuteronomy 14:8]
A similar prohibition is repeated in the Bible in the book of Isaiah chapter 65 verse 2-5.
3. Consumption of pork causes several diseases
The other non-Muslims and atheists will agree only if convinced through reason, logic and science. Eating of pork can cause no less than seventy different types of diseases. A person can have various helminthes like roundworm, pinworm, hookworm, etc. One of the most dangerous is Taenia Solium, which is in lay man’s terminology called tapeworm. It harbours in the intestine and is very long. Its ova i.e. eggs, enter the blood stream and can reach almost all the organs of the body. If it enters the brain it can cause memory loss. If it enters the heart it can cause heart attack, if it enters the eye it can cause blindness, if it enters the liver it can cause liver damage. It can damage almost all the organs of the body.
Another dangerous helminthes is Trichura Tichurasis. A common misconception about pork is that if it is cooked well, these ova die. In a research project undertaken in America, it was found that out of twenty-four people suffering from Trichura Tichurasis, twenty two had cooked the pork very well. This indicates that the ova present in the pork do not die under normal cooking temperature.
4. Pork has fat building material
Pork has very little muscle building material and contains excess of fat. This fat gets deposited in the vessels and can cause hypertension and heart attack. It is not surprising that over 50% of Americans suffer from hypertension.
5. Pig is one of the filthiest animals on earth
The pig is one of the filthiest animals on earth. It lives and thrives on muck, faeces and dirt. It is the best scavenger that I know that God has produced. In the villages they don’t have modern toilets and the villagers excrete in the open air. Very often excreta is cleared by pigs.
Some may argue that in advanced countries like Australia, pigs are bred in very clean and hygienic conditions. Even in these hygienic conditions the pigs are kept together in sties. No matter how hard you try to keep them clean they are filthy by nature. They eat and enjoy their own as well as their neighbour’s excreta.
6. Pig is the most shameless animal
The pig is the most shameless animal on the face of the earth. It is the only animal that invites its friends to have sex with its mate. In America, most people consume pork. Many times after dance parties, they have swapping of wives; i.e. many say "you sleep with my wife and I will sleep with your wife." If you eat pigs then you behave like pigs. We Indians look upon America to be very advanced and sophisticated. Whatever they do, we follow after a few years. According to an article in Island magazine, this practice of swapping wives has become common in the affluent circles of Bombay.
Copyright © For Everyone, :: Ummah Network ::
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Islam in the West : Its Future
ISLAM AND ITS FUTURE
" When Allah's succour and the triumph cometh, and you see mankind entering the religion of God in troops, then hymn the praises of your Lord and seek forgiveness. Lo! He is ever ready to show mercy" Quran 110:1-2-3
The movement of immigrants, refugees, migrant labor and exiles from all over the Muslim world to Western nations in the post-World War II era, coupled with the conversion of Europeans and Americans to Islam, has created a new dynamic, transforming the old relationship between "Islam" and "the West." Islam and Muslims are not exclusively "over there" or "the other." They have become part and parcel of the West. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Islam is not only the second largest religion in the world, it has become the second- or third-largest religion in Europe and North America.
The Muslims in the West deserve the sympathetic support of the Muslim community (ummah) as a whole. And the ones who do feel concern for Muslims in the West must understand that they will only do harm if their motive is to force Western Muslims into any particular mold. We have the example of the village Imams imported from Pakistan and Bangladesh in the British communities, who do not help to integrate. The "Islam" which they offer to anyone who shows interest is not the Islamic Faith that Muslims in the West recognize or share. Another example is also those of our Saudi brothers who would like us all to adopt a Wahabi, or should I say Muwahid, understanding of Islam. No one should involve himself in this matter unless he is able to adopt a very broad and tolerant view of the Faith and unless he is prepared to make allowances for the difficulty in following the Shari‘ah fully in such an alien environment. What we most need is unity between the different communities of Muslim immigrants and also their offspring. We do not need the creation of further divisions and further conflict.
The essential, so far as Muslims in the West are concerned, is an agreement to differ. It is pointless to expect the majority of Muslims in Europe and America to practice Islam exactly as they did or should have done in their country of origin, and to insist that they do so is a sure way to drive the young out into the wilderness.
(source:The Muslims in the West by Charles Gai Eaton (Hassan Abdul Hakeem))
As for the future of Islam, many scholars and Muslims differ on its trend in the West. Many think that Islam will rise, anew, from the West and that the West will convert to Islam. Other scholars disagree. They think that the West lived and will still live as a secular world and that Islam cannot overcome the obstacles it has set forth.
Al-Faruqi, a Professor of Islamic studies in an American university, said: “The best of Islamic victories will be conquering America through its conversion to Islam. But is this feasible? Will America, so engrossed in materialism, become a Muslim country? We can hope that many more Westerners will one day convert to Islam.
He thinks that America will certainly be Muslim one day. The failure of Christianity and Capitalism may lead to that end. According to him, the West will soon seek another alternative to its way of life. Also, it can be seeen that many Western scholars are converting to Islam and trying to introduce Islam to the West. Dr. Murad Hoffman, former Germany’s ambassador to Morocco, wrote a book he called, “Islam is the Alternate Solution.” He wrote: “I think that the movement to revive Islam will come from Europe in the 21st century.” Also, when Roger Garaudy (a French philosopher) became a Muslim, Europe was shocked because a materialist and a communist thinker became a Muslim!
Dr. Kamal Abdul-Hamid Nimr, another professor with the Saudi Academy in Washington, disagrees. He said: “Those who dream of the rise of the Islamic state from America are misguided. The religious freedom, that they experience in America and were prevented from in their own homelands, is misleading. The rise of Islam from America is but a sweet dream!”. He thinks that it is impossible that Islam can be established in such a society so deeply egocentric and materialistic. He thinks that the west will stay as it is, an enemy of Islam, and is driven to this conclusion by what the West has become. He sees the collapse of morality, disbelief and rejection of faith that the West is experiencing. They think that the effect of Western Civilization and the huge number of misconceptions about Islam will prevent them from answering the call to Islam.
However the case, we shall be optimistic, given the number of people converting to Islam everyday in the Western countries, and we shall put our trust in God, who will not leave His people without help provided they make some humble effort to deserve this help. Insha Allah!
Original source, please visit : http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/april02_index.php?l=7
" When Allah's succour and the triumph cometh, and you see mankind entering the religion of God in troops, then hymn the praises of your Lord and seek forgiveness. Lo! He is ever ready to show mercy" Quran 110:1-2-3
The movement of immigrants, refugees, migrant labor and exiles from all over the Muslim world to Western nations in the post-World War II era, coupled with the conversion of Europeans and Americans to Islam, has created a new dynamic, transforming the old relationship between "Islam" and "the West." Islam and Muslims are not exclusively "over there" or "the other." They have become part and parcel of the West. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, Islam is not only the second largest religion in the world, it has become the second- or third-largest religion in Europe and North America.
The Muslims in the West deserve the sympathetic support of the Muslim community (ummah) as a whole. And the ones who do feel concern for Muslims in the West must understand that they will only do harm if their motive is to force Western Muslims into any particular mold. We have the example of the village Imams imported from Pakistan and Bangladesh in the British communities, who do not help to integrate. The "Islam" which they offer to anyone who shows interest is not the Islamic Faith that Muslims in the West recognize or share. Another example is also those of our Saudi brothers who would like us all to adopt a Wahabi, or should I say Muwahid, understanding of Islam. No one should involve himself in this matter unless he is able to adopt a very broad and tolerant view of the Faith and unless he is prepared to make allowances for the difficulty in following the Shari‘ah fully in such an alien environment. What we most need is unity between the different communities of Muslim immigrants and also their offspring. We do not need the creation of further divisions and further conflict.
The essential, so far as Muslims in the West are concerned, is an agreement to differ. It is pointless to expect the majority of Muslims in Europe and America to practice Islam exactly as they did or should have done in their country of origin, and to insist that they do so is a sure way to drive the young out into the wilderness.
(source:The Muslims in the West by Charles Gai Eaton (Hassan Abdul Hakeem))
As for the future of Islam, many scholars and Muslims differ on its trend in the West. Many think that Islam will rise, anew, from the West and that the West will convert to Islam. Other scholars disagree. They think that the West lived and will still live as a secular world and that Islam cannot overcome the obstacles it has set forth.
Al-Faruqi, a Professor of Islamic studies in an American university, said: “The best of Islamic victories will be conquering America through its conversion to Islam. But is this feasible? Will America, so engrossed in materialism, become a Muslim country? We can hope that many more Westerners will one day convert to Islam.
He thinks that America will certainly be Muslim one day. The failure of Christianity and Capitalism may lead to that end. According to him, the West will soon seek another alternative to its way of life. Also, it can be seeen that many Western scholars are converting to Islam and trying to introduce Islam to the West. Dr. Murad Hoffman, former Germany’s ambassador to Morocco, wrote a book he called, “Islam is the Alternate Solution.” He wrote: “I think that the movement to revive Islam will come from Europe in the 21st century.” Also, when Roger Garaudy (a French philosopher) became a Muslim, Europe was shocked because a materialist and a communist thinker became a Muslim!
Dr. Kamal Abdul-Hamid Nimr, another professor with the Saudi Academy in Washington, disagrees. He said: “Those who dream of the rise of the Islamic state from America are misguided. The religious freedom, that they experience in America and were prevented from in their own homelands, is misleading. The rise of Islam from America is but a sweet dream!”. He thinks that it is impossible that Islam can be established in such a society so deeply egocentric and materialistic. He thinks that the west will stay as it is, an enemy of Islam, and is driven to this conclusion by what the West has become. He sees the collapse of morality, disbelief and rejection of faith that the West is experiencing. They think that the effect of Western Civilization and the huge number of misconceptions about Islam will prevent them from answering the call to Islam.
However the case, we shall be optimistic, given the number of people converting to Islam everyday in the Western countries, and we shall put our trust in God, who will not leave His people without help provided they make some humble effort to deserve this help. Insha Allah!
Original source, please visit : http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/april02_index.php?l=7
Friday, July 24, 2009
What type of justice would Western prefer... for the sake of human rights ?
Killing Veiled Muslims in Europe, a Forthcoming Trend?
By Euro-Muslims Editorial Desk
Marwa Al-Shirbini, the victim
A veiled Muslim mother was savagely murdered in Dresden courtroom, Germany. The murderer is the same attacker who was in court appealing the €780 fine for his insult to the victim's Islamic headscarf.
Marwa Al-Sherbini, a 32-year-old Egyptian based in Germany, was stabbed several deadly times under the court ceiling and with the presence of the German police. She has been living in Germany for years with her husband, the Egyptian academic Elwi Ali-Okaz, who is studying for his post graduate studies in Germany.
The three-month pregnant mother was not the only victim but Okaz, her husband, was also hurt in his attempts to protect her from the criminal's knife and he is currently in a critical condition at Dresden College hospital.
The stabbing happened on July 1, just before Al-Sherbini was to give her evidence on a recent discriminatory attitude took by the criminal towards her hijab. During the struggle, other bystanders were also injured and police fired a shot. The killer, identified only as Alex W., is now subject to the German police forces' investigations.
While some officials insist on not to relate this criminal act to the fact that Mrs. Al-Sherbini is a veiled Muslim woman in the German secular society assuming that it has nothing to do with persecution against Muslims in Germany, others say that this incident shows a sample of open hostility towards foreigners and Muslims in Germany.
It is worth mentioning that this incident came days after the German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble sought understanding for Germany’s integration policies in a speech he gave at Egypt’s Cairo University, stating that anti-democratic ideas in Muslim communities must be combated.
After reviewing the story and the different opinions on it, how do you feel towards such a criminal act? Do you expect angry reactions from Muslims in Germany, and/or Europe? As a human being ─ regardless of your race, color, or belief, what will be your own reaction towards such a savage act?
________________________________________
Euro-Muslims Editorial Desk
By Euro-Muslims Editorial Desk
Marwa Al-Shirbini, the victim
A veiled Muslim mother was savagely murdered in Dresden courtroom, Germany. The murderer is the same attacker who was in court appealing the €780 fine for his insult to the victim's Islamic headscarf.
Marwa Al-Sherbini, a 32-year-old Egyptian based in Germany, was stabbed several deadly times under the court ceiling and with the presence of the German police. She has been living in Germany for years with her husband, the Egyptian academic Elwi Ali-Okaz, who is studying for his post graduate studies in Germany.
The three-month pregnant mother was not the only victim but Okaz, her husband, was also hurt in his attempts to protect her from the criminal's knife and he is currently in a critical condition at Dresden College hospital.
The stabbing happened on July 1, just before Al-Sherbini was to give her evidence on a recent discriminatory attitude took by the criminal towards her hijab. During the struggle, other bystanders were also injured and police fired a shot. The killer, identified only as Alex W., is now subject to the German police forces' investigations.
While some officials insist on not to relate this criminal act to the fact that Mrs. Al-Sherbini is a veiled Muslim woman in the German secular society assuming that it has nothing to do with persecution against Muslims in Germany, others say that this incident shows a sample of open hostility towards foreigners and Muslims in Germany.
It is worth mentioning that this incident came days after the German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble sought understanding for Germany’s integration policies in a speech he gave at Egypt’s Cairo University, stating that anti-democratic ideas in Muslim communities must be combated.
After reviewing the story and the different opinions on it, how do you feel towards such a criminal act? Do you expect angry reactions from Muslims in Germany, and/or Europe? As a human being ─ regardless of your race, color, or belief, what will be your own reaction towards such a savage act?
________________________________________
Euro-Muslims Editorial Desk
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Organ Donation.... how Islam deals With it?
Organ Donation Problems
by Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph. D.
President
Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc.
7102 W. Shefford Lane
Louisville, KY 40242-6462, U.S.A.
E-mail: IRFI@INAME.COM
Website: http://WWW.IRFI.ORG
Organ donation is the charitable act or gift of an organ to help someone who needs a transplant. Americans are not donating their organs to be used after they die, and hence there are over 78,000 men, women, and children waiting for organ transplants in America, and 14 of these people die every day while waiting to receive an organ transplant. There are more than five people waiting for every organ made available by donation. An estimated two in three Americans have not indicated their wishes about donation. The United Network for Organ Sharing found slow growth in the number of organs from deceased donors. Kidneys from living donors are more likely to survive than those from deceased donors. In 1999, there were a total of 21,715 transplants performed in the United States, up 44 percent from 1990.
Some people have religious or cultural objections to donate organs. Living donors--those who volunteer a kidney or parts of their liver or lungs--are understandably reluctant: they must undergo potentially life-threatening surgery and put their own future health at risk.
More and more people with HIV and/or hepatitis B and/or hepatitis C are going to need organ transplants, particularly liver transplants. Europe and Singapore have what is called a Presumed Consent organ collection system. That means that when an accident occurs to a person who has not opted out, and brain death is declared, his or her organs can be taken immediately without the time.
First transplants
Thousands of people have their sight restored by donated corneas. A cornea was first transplanted in 1905. In 1918 Blood transfusion became established and the first successful kidney transplant took place in 1954. Christian Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa performed the first heart transplant in 1967.
Deaths on Waiting List
The number of deaths on the waiting list has also more than tripled—from 1,958 in 1990 to 6,125 in 1999. In 2001 more than 6,000 people in the U.S. died while waiting for an organ transplant. The dire shortfall of organs compared with patient demand is growing as the population ages and more people experience organ failure. New
Immunosuppressive drugs have helped bridge the gap by allowing surgeons to transplant an organ that is a less than perfect match; even then, there just aren't enough organs available.
There were 5,849 cadaveric, or dead, donors in 1999 an increase of 30 percent from 1990. Each donor can give 3 to 4 organs. Among cadaveric donors, 85 percent died due to head trauma or stroke. There were 4,712 living donors in 1999, more than twice the number in 1990. Of living donors, 35 percent were siblings, 18 percent were parents and 20 percent came from people who were not related.
Survival Rates
89 percent of kidneys taken from a cadaver and 95 percent of the patients who received them survived at least one year after transplant. Among those who got kidneys from living donors, 95 percent of kidneys and 98 percent of patients were alive a year later. 81 percent of livers and 88 percent of liver transplant patients survived at least a year. 85 percent of hearts and 86 percent of heart transplant patients survived at least a year.
What organs are transplanted?
Kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, small bowel, corneas, heart valves and bone can all be transplanted. Skin can be used to treat patients with severe burns. Techniques are improving all the time and it may soon be practical to transplant other parts of the body. An individual can donate heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver and small bowel.
Tissue that can be donated includes corneas, skin, bone and heart valves. Corneas can be transplanted to restore the sight of a person who has a severe eye disease or injury. Bone and tendons are used for reconstruction after an injury or during joint replacement surgery. A bone transplant can prevent limb amputation in patients suffering from bone cancer.
Heart valves are used to help children born with heart defects and adults with diseased or damaged valves. Skin grafts are used as protective dressings to help save the lives of people with severe burns.
Most people can donate tissue. Unlike organs, tissue can be donated up to 24 hours after a person has died and can be stored for longer periods.
Reproductive organs and tissue are not taken from dead donors.
Who can be a donor?
A person under sixteen can donate an organ provided the parents or guardian agree to donation. Older people can donate in the case of cornea and some other tissue, age does not matter. For other organs it is the person's physical condition, not age, which is the deciding factor. Doctors decide in each case which organs/tissue are suitable. Organs from people in their seventies and eighties are transplanted successfully.
Color of the Skin
Color of the skin of the donor does not matter. However, organs are matched by blood group and tissue type and the better the match, the greater the chance of a successful result. Patients from the same ethnic group are more likely to be a close match. It is important that people from all ethnic backgrounds to donate organs. Successful transplants are carried out between people from different ethnic groups wherever the matching criteria are met.
The organ shortage has led various policymakers to propose radical steps. U.S. policy makers are proposing to provide financial incentives to living donors or to the families of deceased donors. One approach, which has been instituted in Pennsylvania and is supported by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, offers families who donate a loved one's organs $300 in food and lodging expenses. Medical journals are advocating the program assert that the amount of money is intentionally small to "express appreciation" for the donation but not to serve as a payment. It is similar to the token coffee mug or umbrella one receives after donating to public radio or television. More important, some are agonized that these programs would mark the first step in encouraging an inhumane and delicately coercive market for spare body parts. In Islam, buying and selling of human organs for transplantation is prohibited. It should be done only as Sadaqah.
Although the outright purchase of organs is illegal in nearly every country in the world, a number have black markets for living-donor organs, and the results have been frightening. A study of 305 living kidney donors in Madras (Chennai), India, found that 96 percent sold a kidney to pay off debts, receiving Rs.50, 000 or US $1,070 a piece. But 75 percent of the respondents soon faced debt and destitution once again, and 79 percent would not recommend organ selling to others. Permitting trade in organs has already led to the exploitation of the poor.
A multitude of bills now in Congress would create a "medal of honor" for donors, offer medical leave for living donors. Living donors will have life and disability insurance in case they experienced unconstructive side effects. There is a need for an expanded public education campaign that would explain the need for organ donation and throw light on the process. Physicians and hospital personnel also require more training in encouraging organ donation
It was shown that more than 95 percent of families would consent to organ donation if they knew it was the wish of their loved one. The unusual tactic of appealing to people's better natures may not be the only way to raise the number of organs available for transplantation, but it is the best method to start.
by Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph. D.
President
Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc.
7102 W. Shefford Lane
Louisville, KY 40242-6462, U.S.A.
E-mail: IRFI@INAME.COM
Website: http://WWW.IRFI.ORG
Organ donation is the charitable act or gift of an organ to help someone who needs a transplant. Americans are not donating their organs to be used after they die, and hence there are over 78,000 men, women, and children waiting for organ transplants in America, and 14 of these people die every day while waiting to receive an organ transplant. There are more than five people waiting for every organ made available by donation. An estimated two in three Americans have not indicated their wishes about donation. The United Network for Organ Sharing found slow growth in the number of organs from deceased donors. Kidneys from living donors are more likely to survive than those from deceased donors. In 1999, there were a total of 21,715 transplants performed in the United States, up 44 percent from 1990.
Some people have religious or cultural objections to donate organs. Living donors--those who volunteer a kidney or parts of their liver or lungs--are understandably reluctant: they must undergo potentially life-threatening surgery and put their own future health at risk.
More and more people with HIV and/or hepatitis B and/or hepatitis C are going to need organ transplants, particularly liver transplants. Europe and Singapore have what is called a Presumed Consent organ collection system. That means that when an accident occurs to a person who has not opted out, and brain death is declared, his or her organs can be taken immediately without the time.
First transplants
Thousands of people have their sight restored by donated corneas. A cornea was first transplanted in 1905. In 1918 Blood transfusion became established and the first successful kidney transplant took place in 1954. Christian Barnard in Cape Town, South Africa performed the first heart transplant in 1967.
Deaths on Waiting List
The number of deaths on the waiting list has also more than tripled—from 1,958 in 1990 to 6,125 in 1999. In 2001 more than 6,000 people in the U.S. died while waiting for an organ transplant. The dire shortfall of organs compared with patient demand is growing as the population ages and more people experience organ failure. New
Immunosuppressive drugs have helped bridge the gap by allowing surgeons to transplant an organ that is a less than perfect match; even then, there just aren't enough organs available.
There were 5,849 cadaveric, or dead, donors in 1999 an increase of 30 percent from 1990. Each donor can give 3 to 4 organs. Among cadaveric donors, 85 percent died due to head trauma or stroke. There were 4,712 living donors in 1999, more than twice the number in 1990. Of living donors, 35 percent were siblings, 18 percent were parents and 20 percent came from people who were not related.
Survival Rates
89 percent of kidneys taken from a cadaver and 95 percent of the patients who received them survived at least one year after transplant. Among those who got kidneys from living donors, 95 percent of kidneys and 98 percent of patients were alive a year later. 81 percent of livers and 88 percent of liver transplant patients survived at least a year. 85 percent of hearts and 86 percent of heart transplant patients survived at least a year.
What organs are transplanted?
Kidneys, heart, liver, lungs, pancreas, small bowel, corneas, heart valves and bone can all be transplanted. Skin can be used to treat patients with severe burns. Techniques are improving all the time and it may soon be practical to transplant other parts of the body. An individual can donate heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, liver and small bowel.
Tissue that can be donated includes corneas, skin, bone and heart valves. Corneas can be transplanted to restore the sight of a person who has a severe eye disease or injury. Bone and tendons are used for reconstruction after an injury or during joint replacement surgery. A bone transplant can prevent limb amputation in patients suffering from bone cancer.
Heart valves are used to help children born with heart defects and adults with diseased or damaged valves. Skin grafts are used as protective dressings to help save the lives of people with severe burns.
Most people can donate tissue. Unlike organs, tissue can be donated up to 24 hours after a person has died and can be stored for longer periods.
Reproductive organs and tissue are not taken from dead donors.
Who can be a donor?
A person under sixteen can donate an organ provided the parents or guardian agree to donation. Older people can donate in the case of cornea and some other tissue, age does not matter. For other organs it is the person's physical condition, not age, which is the deciding factor. Doctors decide in each case which organs/tissue are suitable. Organs from people in their seventies and eighties are transplanted successfully.
Color of the Skin
Color of the skin of the donor does not matter. However, organs are matched by blood group and tissue type and the better the match, the greater the chance of a successful result. Patients from the same ethnic group are more likely to be a close match. It is important that people from all ethnic backgrounds to donate organs. Successful transplants are carried out between people from different ethnic groups wherever the matching criteria are met.
The organ shortage has led various policymakers to propose radical steps. U.S. policy makers are proposing to provide financial incentives to living donors or to the families of deceased donors. One approach, which has been instituted in Pennsylvania and is supported by the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, offers families who donate a loved one's organs $300 in food and lodging expenses. Medical journals are advocating the program assert that the amount of money is intentionally small to "express appreciation" for the donation but not to serve as a payment. It is similar to the token coffee mug or umbrella one receives after donating to public radio or television. More important, some are agonized that these programs would mark the first step in encouraging an inhumane and delicately coercive market for spare body parts. In Islam, buying and selling of human organs for transplantation is prohibited. It should be done only as Sadaqah.
Although the outright purchase of organs is illegal in nearly every country in the world, a number have black markets for living-donor organs, and the results have been frightening. A study of 305 living kidney donors in Madras (Chennai), India, found that 96 percent sold a kidney to pay off debts, receiving Rs.50, 000 or US $1,070 a piece. But 75 percent of the respondents soon faced debt and destitution once again, and 79 percent would not recommend organ selling to others. Permitting trade in organs has already led to the exploitation of the poor.
A multitude of bills now in Congress would create a "medal of honor" for donors, offer medical leave for living donors. Living donors will have life and disability insurance in case they experienced unconstructive side effects. There is a need for an expanded public education campaign that would explain the need for organ donation and throw light on the process. Physicians and hospital personnel also require more training in encouraging organ donation
It was shown that more than 95 percent of families would consent to organ donation if they knew it was the wish of their loved one. The unusual tactic of appealing to people's better natures may not be the only way to raise the number of organs available for transplantation, but it is the best method to start.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
The Fact of Quranic embryology & Anatomy..... True or Not ?
Scientists' Comments On The Qur'anic Theory of Embryology & Anatomy (Science and Revelation)
Extracts from the video This is the Truth by Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. al-Zindani
Keith L. Moore
Professor Emeritus, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Toronto. Distinguished embryologist and the author of several medical textbooks, including Clinically Oriented Anatomy (3rd Edition) and The Developing Human (5th Edition, with T.V.N. Persaud).
Investigations in to the 'alaqa or leech-like stage.
Dr. Moore was a former President of the Canadian Association of Anatomists, and of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. He was honoured by the Canadian Association of Anatomists with the prestigious J.C.B. Grant Award and in 1994 he received the Honoured Member Award of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists "for outstanding contributions to the field of clinical anatomy."
"For the past three years, I have worked with the Embryology Committee of King cAbdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, helping them to interpret the many statements in the Qur'an and Sunnah referring to human reproduction and prenatal development. At first I was astonished by the accuracy of the statements that were recorded in the 7th century AD, before the science of embryology was established. Although I was aware of the glorious history of Muslim scientists in the 10th century AD, and some of their contributions to Medicine, I knew nothing about the religious facts and beliefs contained in the Qur'an and Sunnah."[2]
At a conference in Cairo he presented a research paper and stated:
"It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Qur'an about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, or Allah, because most of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later. This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a messenger of God, or Allah." [1]
Professor Moore also stated that:
"...Because the staging of human embryos is complex, owing to the continuous process of change during development, it is proposed that a new system of classification could be developed using the terms mentioned in the Qur'an and Sunnah. The proposed system is simple, comprehensive, and conforms with present embryological knowledge.
"The intensive studies of the Qur'an and Hadith in the last four years have revealed a system of classifying human embryos that is amazing since it was recorded in the seventh century A.D... the descriptions in the Qur'an cannot be based on scientific knowledge in the seventh century..."[1]
________________________________________
E. Marshall Johnson
Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, and Director of the Daniel Baugh Institute, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Author of over 200 publications. Former President of the Teratology Society among other accomplishments. Professor Johnson began to take an interest in the scientific signs in the Qur'an at the 7th Saudi Medical Conference (1982), when a special committee was formed to investigate scientific signs in the Qur'an and Hadith. At first, Professor Johnson refused to accept the existence of such verses in the Qur'an and Hadith. But after a dicussuion with Sheikh Zindani he took an interest and concentrated his research on the internal as well as external development of the fetus.
"...in summary, the Qur'an describes not only the development of external form, but emphasises also the internal stages, the stages inside the embryo, of its creation and development, emphasising major events recognised by contemporary science."
"As a scientist, I can only deal with things which I can specifically see. I can understand embryology and developmental biology. I can understand the words that are translated to me from the Qur'an. As I gave the example before, if I were to transpose myself into that era, knowing what I do today and describing things, I could not describe the things that were described...
I see no evidence to refute the concept that this individual Muhammad had to be developing this information from some place... so I see nothing here in conflict with the concept that divine intervention was involved in what he was able to write..." [1]
________________________________________
T.V.N. Persaud
Professor of Anatomy, and Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Author and editor of over 20 books, and has published over 181 scientific papers. Co-author of The Developing Human (5th Edition, with Keith L. Moore). He received the J.C.B. Grant Award in 1991. Professor Peraud presented several research papers.
"It seems to me that Muhammad was a very ordinary man, he couldn't read, didn't know how to write, in fact he was an illiterate...
We're talking about 1400 years ago, you have some illiterate person making profound statements that are amazingly accurate, of a scientific nature...
I personally can't see how this could be mere chance, there are too many accuracies and like Dr. Moore, I have no difficulty in my mind reconciling that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which lead him to these statements." [1]
________________________________________
Joe Leigh Simpson
Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
He is the President of the American Fertility Society. He has received many awards, including the Association of Professors of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Public Recognition Award in 1992. Like many others, Professor Simpson was taken by surprise when he discovered that the Qur'an and Hadith contain verses related to his specialised field of study. When he met with Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A.Zindani, he insisted on verifying the text presented to him from the Qur'an and Hadith.
"... these Hadiths (sayings of Muhammad) could not have been obtained on the basis of the scientific knowledge that was available at the time of the 'writer'... It follows that not only is there no conflict between genetics and religion (Islam) but in fact religion (Islam) may guide science by adding revelation to some of the traditional scientific approaches... There exist statements in the Qur'an shown centuries later to be valid which support knowledge in the Qur'an having been derived from God." [1]
________________________________________
Gerald C. Goeringer
Professor and Co-ordinator of Medical Embryology in the Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.
Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A.Zindani met with Professor Goeringer and asked him whether in the history of embryology was there any mention of the different stages of embryonic development, or whether there existed any embryological texts at the time of the Prophet. Sheikh Zindani also asked his opinion regarding the terms the Qur'an uses to describe the different phases of fetal development. After several long discussions, he presented a study at the 8th Saudi Medical Conference:
"...In a relatively few ayahs (Qur'anic verses) is contained a rather comprehensive description of human development from the time of commingling of the gametes through organogenesis. No such distinct and complete record of human development such as classification, terminology, and description existed previously. In most, if not all instances, this description antedates by many centuries the recording of the various stages of human embryonic and fetal development recorded in the traditional scientific literature." [1]
________________________________________
Alfred Kroner
Professor of the Department of Geosciences, University of Mainz, Germany.
Professor Kroner is one of the world's most famous geologists, becoming well known among his colleague scientists for his criticisms against the theories of some of the major scientists in his field. Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A. Zindani met with him and presented several Qur'anic verses and Hadith which he studied and commented upon.
"Thinking where Muhammad came from... I think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the common origin of the universe, because scientists have only found out within the last few years with very complicated and advanced technological methods that this is the case."
"Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics 1400 years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own mind for instance that the earth and the heavens had the same origin, or many others of the questions that we have discussed here...
If you combine all these and you combine all these statements that are being made in the Qur'an in terms that relate to the earth and the formation of the earth and science in general, you can basically say that statements made there in many ways are true, they can now be confirmed by scientific methods, and in a way, you can say that the Qur'an is a simple science text book for the simple man. And that many of the statements made in there at that time could not be proven, but that modern scientific methods are now in a position to prove what Muhammad said 1400 years ago." [1]
________________________________________
Yushidi Kusan
Director of the Tokyo Observatory, Tokyo, Japan.
Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. Zindani presented a number of Qur'anic verses describing the beginnings of the universe and of the heavens, and the relationship of the earth to the heavens. He expressed his astonishment, saying that the Qur'an describes the universe as seen from the highest observation point, everything is distinct and clear.
"I say, I am very much impressed by finding true astronomical facts in Qur'an, and for us modern astronomers have been studying very small piece of the universe. We have concentrated our efforts for understanding of very small part. Because by using telescopes, we can see only very few parts of the sky without thinking about the whole universe. So by reading Qur'an and by answering to the questions, I think I can find my future way for investigation of the universe." [1]
________________________________________
Professor Armstrong
Professor Armstrong works for NASA and is also Professor of Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Prof. Armstrong was asked a number of questions about Qur'anic verses dealing with his field of specialisation. He was eventually asked, "You have seen and discovered for yourself the true nature of modern Astronomy by means of modern equipment, rockets, and satellites developed by man. You have also seen how the same facts were mentioned by the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. So what is your opinion?"
"That is a difficult question which I have been thinking about since our discussion here. I am impressed at how remarkably some of the ancient writings seem to correspond to modern and recent Astronomy. I am not a sufficient scholar of human history to project myself completely and reliably into the circumstances that 1400 years ago would have prevailed.
Certainly, I would like to leave it at that, that what we have seen is remarkable, it may or may not admit of scientific explanation, there may well have to be something beyond what we understand as ordinary human experience to account for the writings that we have seen." [1]
William Hay
Professor of Oceanogprahy, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Professor Hay is one of the best known marine scientist in the USA. Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A. Zindani met with him and asked him many questions about the marine surface, the divider between upper and lower sea, and about the ocean floor and marine geology.
"I find it very interesting that this sort of information is in the ancient scriptures of the Holy Qur'an, and I have no way of knowing where they would have come from. But I think it is extremely interesting that they are there and this work is going on to discover it, the meaning of some of the passages."
And when he was asked about the source of the Qur'an, he replied, "Well, I would think it must be the divine being." [1]
________________________________________
Durja Rao
Professor of Marine Geology teaching at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh Zindani presented to Prof. Rao many verses dealing with his area of specialisation, and asked: "What do you think of the existence of the scientific information in the Qur'an? How could Prophet Muhammad have known about these facts fourteen centuries ago?"
"It is difficult to imagine that this type of knowledge was existing at that time, around 1400 years back. May be some of the things they have simple idea about, but to describe those things in great detail is very difficult. So this is definitely not simple human knowledge. A normal human being cannot explain this phenomenon in that much detail. So, I thought the information must have come from a supernatural source." [1]
________________________________________
Professor Siaveda
Professor of Marine Geology, Japan.
Sheikh Zindani asked him a number of questions in his area of specialisation, and then informed him of the Qur'anic verses and Hadith which mention the same phenomena he spoke of. One of the questions was concerning mountains. Sheikh Zindani asked him about the shape of mountains; and whether they were firmly rooted in the earth. "What is your opinion of what you have seen in the Qur'an and the Sunnah with regard to the secrets of the Universe, which scientists only discovered now?"
"I think it seems to me very, very mysterious, almost unbelievable. I really think if what you have said is true, the book is really a very remarkable book, I agree." [1]
________________________________________
Tejatat Tejasen
Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and is the former Dean of the faculty of Medicine, University of Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Professor Tejasen studied various articles concerning the Qur'an and modern embryology. He spent four days with several scholars, Muslims and non-Muslims, discussing this phenomenon in the Qur'an and Hadith. During the 8th Saudi Medical Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia he stood up and said:
"In the last three years, I became interested in the Qur'an... From my studies and what I have learned throughout this conference, I believe that everything that has been recorded in the Qur'an fourteen hundred years ago must be the truth, that can be proved by the scientific means.
Since the Prophet Muhammad could neither read nor write, Muhammad must be a messenger who relayed this truth which was revealed to him as an enlightenment by the one who is eligible creator. This creator must be God, or Allah.
I think this is the time to say La ilaha illa Allah, there is no god to worship except Allah (God), Muhammad rasoolu Allah, Muhammad is Messenger of Allah...
The most precious thing I have gained from coming to this conference is La ilaha illa Allah, and to have become Muslim." [1]
________________________________________
Dr. Maurice Bucaille
Born in 1920, former chief of the Surgical Clinic, University of Paris, has for a long time deeply interested in the correspondences between the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and modern secular knowledge.
He is the author of a best-seller, "The Bible, The Qur'an and Science" (1976). His classical studies of the scriptural languages, including Arabic, in association with his knowledge of hieroglyphics, have allowed him to hold a multidisciplinary inquiry, in which his personal contribution as a medical doctor has produced conclusive arguments. His work, "Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations" (St. Martins Press, 1990), won a History Prize from the Académie Française and another prize from the French National Academy of Medicine.
His other works include: "What is the Origin of Man" (Seghers, 1988), "Moses and Pharaoh, the Hebrews in Egypt", (NTT Mediascope Inc, 1994); and "Réflexions sur le Coran" (Mohamed Talbi & Maurice Bucaille, Seghers, 1989)
After a study which lasted ten years, Dr. Maurice Bucaille addressed the French Academy of Medicine in 1976 concerning the existence in the Qur'an of certain statements concerning physiology and reproduction. His reason for doing that was that :
"...our knowledge of these disciplines is such, that it is impossible to explain how a text produced at the time of the Qur'an could have contained ideas that have only been discovered in modern times."
"The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur'an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature?
How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human-being could possibly have developed at that time, and all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject?"
________________________________________
Bibliography
[1] al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A, This is the Truth (video tape). Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah containing interviews with various scientists. Available in Arabic, English, French, Urdu and Turkish. A full English transcript of this video with illustrations is also available: Al-Rehaili, Abdullah M., This is the Truth, Muslim World League, Makkah al-Mukarrammah, 1995. Also available on the web at: This Is The Truth!
[2] Moore, Keith L. and al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A., The Developing Human with Islamic Additions, Third Edition, W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1982, with Dar Al-Qiblah for Islamic Literature, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1983, page viiic. Limited Edition.
[3] Moore, Keith L., al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A., Ahmed Mustafa A, The Qur'an and Modern Science - Correlation Studies, Islamic Academy for Scientific Research, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Reprinted by World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), USA., 1990, ISBN 0-9627236-0-6. Collection of papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, University of Illinois, May 1990.
[4] Moore, Keith L.; Johnson, E. Marshall; Persaud, T.V.N.; Goeringer, Gerald C.; Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A.; and Ahmed Mustafa A, Human Development as Described in the Qur'an and Sunnah, Commission on Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah, Muslim World League, Makkah Al-Mukarramah, Saudi Arabia, 1992, ISBN 0-9627236-1-4. Collection of papers that were originally presented in the First International Conference on Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah, held in Islamabad, Pakistan, 1987, and after some modifications and development, presented in their present form in Dakar, Sengal in July 1991.
Extracts from the video This is the Truth by Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. al-Zindani, Director, Project of Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an and Hadith, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Elias Karim
Source : http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/scientists.html
Extracts from the video This is the Truth by Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. al-Zindani
Keith L. Moore
Professor Emeritus, Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Toronto. Distinguished embryologist and the author of several medical textbooks, including Clinically Oriented Anatomy (3rd Edition) and The Developing Human (5th Edition, with T.V.N. Persaud).
Investigations in to the 'alaqa or leech-like stage.
Dr. Moore was a former President of the Canadian Association of Anatomists, and of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists. He was honoured by the Canadian Association of Anatomists with the prestigious J.C.B. Grant Award and in 1994 he received the Honoured Member Award of the American Association of Clinical Anatomists "for outstanding contributions to the field of clinical anatomy."
"For the past three years, I have worked with the Embryology Committee of King cAbdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, helping them to interpret the many statements in the Qur'an and Sunnah referring to human reproduction and prenatal development. At first I was astonished by the accuracy of the statements that were recorded in the 7th century AD, before the science of embryology was established. Although I was aware of the glorious history of Muslim scientists in the 10th century AD, and some of their contributions to Medicine, I knew nothing about the religious facts and beliefs contained in the Qur'an and Sunnah."[2]
At a conference in Cairo he presented a research paper and stated:
"It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Qur'an about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, or Allah, because most of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later. This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a messenger of God, or Allah." [1]
Professor Moore also stated that:
"...Because the staging of human embryos is complex, owing to the continuous process of change during development, it is proposed that a new system of classification could be developed using the terms mentioned in the Qur'an and Sunnah. The proposed system is simple, comprehensive, and conforms with present embryological knowledge.
"The intensive studies of the Qur'an and Hadith in the last four years have revealed a system of classifying human embryos that is amazing since it was recorded in the seventh century A.D... the descriptions in the Qur'an cannot be based on scientific knowledge in the seventh century..."[1]
________________________________________
E. Marshall Johnson
Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, and Director of the Daniel Baugh Institute, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Author of over 200 publications. Former President of the Teratology Society among other accomplishments. Professor Johnson began to take an interest in the scientific signs in the Qur'an at the 7th Saudi Medical Conference (1982), when a special committee was formed to investigate scientific signs in the Qur'an and Hadith. At first, Professor Johnson refused to accept the existence of such verses in the Qur'an and Hadith. But after a dicussuion with Sheikh Zindani he took an interest and concentrated his research on the internal as well as external development of the fetus.
"...in summary, the Qur'an describes not only the development of external form, but emphasises also the internal stages, the stages inside the embryo, of its creation and development, emphasising major events recognised by contemporary science."
"As a scientist, I can only deal with things which I can specifically see. I can understand embryology and developmental biology. I can understand the words that are translated to me from the Qur'an. As I gave the example before, if I were to transpose myself into that era, knowing what I do today and describing things, I could not describe the things that were described...
I see no evidence to refute the concept that this individual Muhammad had to be developing this information from some place... so I see nothing here in conflict with the concept that divine intervention was involved in what he was able to write..." [1]
________________________________________
T.V.N. Persaud
Professor of Anatomy, and Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Author and editor of over 20 books, and has published over 181 scientific papers. Co-author of The Developing Human (5th Edition, with Keith L. Moore). He received the J.C.B. Grant Award in 1991. Professor Peraud presented several research papers.
"It seems to me that Muhammad was a very ordinary man, he couldn't read, didn't know how to write, in fact he was an illiterate...
We're talking about 1400 years ago, you have some illiterate person making profound statements that are amazingly accurate, of a scientific nature...
I personally can't see how this could be mere chance, there are too many accuracies and like Dr. Moore, I have no difficulty in my mind reconciling that this is a divine inspiration or revelation which lead him to these statements." [1]
________________________________________
Joe Leigh Simpson
Professor and Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, USA.
He is the President of the American Fertility Society. He has received many awards, including the Association of Professors of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Public Recognition Award in 1992. Like many others, Professor Simpson was taken by surprise when he discovered that the Qur'an and Hadith contain verses related to his specialised field of study. When he met with Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A.Zindani, he insisted on verifying the text presented to him from the Qur'an and Hadith.
"... these Hadiths (sayings of Muhammad) could not have been obtained on the basis of the scientific knowledge that was available at the time of the 'writer'... It follows that not only is there no conflict between genetics and religion (Islam) but in fact religion (Islam) may guide science by adding revelation to some of the traditional scientific approaches... There exist statements in the Qur'an shown centuries later to be valid which support knowledge in the Qur'an having been derived from God." [1]
________________________________________
Gerald C. Goeringer
Professor and Co-ordinator of Medical Embryology in the Department of Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.
Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A.Zindani met with Professor Goeringer and asked him whether in the history of embryology was there any mention of the different stages of embryonic development, or whether there existed any embryological texts at the time of the Prophet. Sheikh Zindani also asked his opinion regarding the terms the Qur'an uses to describe the different phases of fetal development. After several long discussions, he presented a study at the 8th Saudi Medical Conference:
"...In a relatively few ayahs (Qur'anic verses) is contained a rather comprehensive description of human development from the time of commingling of the gametes through organogenesis. No such distinct and complete record of human development such as classification, terminology, and description existed previously. In most, if not all instances, this description antedates by many centuries the recording of the various stages of human embryonic and fetal development recorded in the traditional scientific literature." [1]
________________________________________
Alfred Kroner
Professor of the Department of Geosciences, University of Mainz, Germany.
Professor Kroner is one of the world's most famous geologists, becoming well known among his colleague scientists for his criticisms against the theories of some of the major scientists in his field. Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A. Zindani met with him and presented several Qur'anic verses and Hadith which he studied and commented upon.
"Thinking where Muhammad came from... I think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the common origin of the universe, because scientists have only found out within the last few years with very complicated and advanced technological methods that this is the case."
"Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics 1400 years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own mind for instance that the earth and the heavens had the same origin, or many others of the questions that we have discussed here...
If you combine all these and you combine all these statements that are being made in the Qur'an in terms that relate to the earth and the formation of the earth and science in general, you can basically say that statements made there in many ways are true, they can now be confirmed by scientific methods, and in a way, you can say that the Qur'an is a simple science text book for the simple man. And that many of the statements made in there at that time could not be proven, but that modern scientific methods are now in a position to prove what Muhammad said 1400 years ago." [1]
________________________________________
Yushidi Kusan
Director of the Tokyo Observatory, Tokyo, Japan.
Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. Zindani presented a number of Qur'anic verses describing the beginnings of the universe and of the heavens, and the relationship of the earth to the heavens. He expressed his astonishment, saying that the Qur'an describes the universe as seen from the highest observation point, everything is distinct and clear.
"I say, I am very much impressed by finding true astronomical facts in Qur'an, and for us modern astronomers have been studying very small piece of the universe. We have concentrated our efforts for understanding of very small part. Because by using telescopes, we can see only very few parts of the sky without thinking about the whole universe. So by reading Qur'an and by answering to the questions, I think I can find my future way for investigation of the universe." [1]
________________________________________
Professor Armstrong
Professor Armstrong works for NASA and is also Professor of Astronomy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA.
Prof. Armstrong was asked a number of questions about Qur'anic verses dealing with his field of specialisation. He was eventually asked, "You have seen and discovered for yourself the true nature of modern Astronomy by means of modern equipment, rockets, and satellites developed by man. You have also seen how the same facts were mentioned by the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. So what is your opinion?"
"That is a difficult question which I have been thinking about since our discussion here. I am impressed at how remarkably some of the ancient writings seem to correspond to modern and recent Astronomy. I am not a sufficient scholar of human history to project myself completely and reliably into the circumstances that 1400 years ago would have prevailed.
Certainly, I would like to leave it at that, that what we have seen is remarkable, it may or may not admit of scientific explanation, there may well have to be something beyond what we understand as ordinary human experience to account for the writings that we have seen." [1]
William Hay
Professor of Oceanogprahy, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Professor Hay is one of the best known marine scientist in the USA. Sheikh cAbdul-Majeed A. Zindani met with him and asked him many questions about the marine surface, the divider between upper and lower sea, and about the ocean floor and marine geology.
"I find it very interesting that this sort of information is in the ancient scriptures of the Holy Qur'an, and I have no way of knowing where they would have come from. But I think it is extremely interesting that they are there and this work is going on to discover it, the meaning of some of the passages."
And when he was asked about the source of the Qur'an, he replied, "Well, I would think it must be the divine being." [1]
________________________________________
Durja Rao
Professor of Marine Geology teaching at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Sheikh Zindani presented to Prof. Rao many verses dealing with his area of specialisation, and asked: "What do you think of the existence of the scientific information in the Qur'an? How could Prophet Muhammad have known about these facts fourteen centuries ago?"
"It is difficult to imagine that this type of knowledge was existing at that time, around 1400 years back. May be some of the things they have simple idea about, but to describe those things in great detail is very difficult. So this is definitely not simple human knowledge. A normal human being cannot explain this phenomenon in that much detail. So, I thought the information must have come from a supernatural source." [1]
________________________________________
Professor Siaveda
Professor of Marine Geology, Japan.
Sheikh Zindani asked him a number of questions in his area of specialisation, and then informed him of the Qur'anic verses and Hadith which mention the same phenomena he spoke of. One of the questions was concerning mountains. Sheikh Zindani asked him about the shape of mountains; and whether they were firmly rooted in the earth. "What is your opinion of what you have seen in the Qur'an and the Sunnah with regard to the secrets of the Universe, which scientists only discovered now?"
"I think it seems to me very, very mysterious, almost unbelievable. I really think if what you have said is true, the book is really a very remarkable book, I agree." [1]
________________________________________
Tejatat Tejasen
Chairman of the Department of Anatomy and is the former Dean of the faculty of Medicine, University of Chiang Mai, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Professor Tejasen studied various articles concerning the Qur'an and modern embryology. He spent four days with several scholars, Muslims and non-Muslims, discussing this phenomenon in the Qur'an and Hadith. During the 8th Saudi Medical Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia he stood up and said:
"In the last three years, I became interested in the Qur'an... From my studies and what I have learned throughout this conference, I believe that everything that has been recorded in the Qur'an fourteen hundred years ago must be the truth, that can be proved by the scientific means.
Since the Prophet Muhammad could neither read nor write, Muhammad must be a messenger who relayed this truth which was revealed to him as an enlightenment by the one who is eligible creator. This creator must be God, or Allah.
I think this is the time to say La ilaha illa Allah, there is no god to worship except Allah (God), Muhammad rasoolu Allah, Muhammad is Messenger of Allah...
The most precious thing I have gained from coming to this conference is La ilaha illa Allah, and to have become Muslim." [1]
________________________________________
Dr. Maurice Bucaille
Born in 1920, former chief of the Surgical Clinic, University of Paris, has for a long time deeply interested in the correspondences between the teachings of the Holy Scriptures and modern secular knowledge.
He is the author of a best-seller, "The Bible, The Qur'an and Science" (1976). His classical studies of the scriptural languages, including Arabic, in association with his knowledge of hieroglyphics, have allowed him to hold a multidisciplinary inquiry, in which his personal contribution as a medical doctor has produced conclusive arguments. His work, "Mummies of the Pharaohs - Modern Medical Investigations" (St. Martins Press, 1990), won a History Prize from the Académie Française and another prize from the French National Academy of Medicine.
His other works include: "What is the Origin of Man" (Seghers, 1988), "Moses and Pharaoh, the Hebrews in Egypt", (NTT Mediascope Inc, 1994); and "Réflexions sur le Coran" (Mohamed Talbi & Maurice Bucaille, Seghers, 1989)
After a study which lasted ten years, Dr. Maurice Bucaille addressed the French Academy of Medicine in 1976 concerning the existence in the Qur'an of certain statements concerning physiology and reproduction. His reason for doing that was that :
"...our knowledge of these disciplines is such, that it is impossible to explain how a text produced at the time of the Qur'an could have contained ideas that have only been discovered in modern times."
"The above observation makes the hypothesis advanced by those who see Muhammad as the author of the Qur'an untenable. How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature?
How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human-being could possibly have developed at that time, and all this without once making the slightest error in his pronouncement on the subject?"
________________________________________
Bibliography
[1] al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A, This is the Truth (video tape). Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah containing interviews with various scientists. Available in Arabic, English, French, Urdu and Turkish. A full English transcript of this video with illustrations is also available: Al-Rehaili, Abdullah M., This is the Truth, Muslim World League, Makkah al-Mukarrammah, 1995. Also available on the web at: This Is The Truth!
[2] Moore, Keith L. and al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A., The Developing Human with Islamic Additions, Third Edition, W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1982, with Dar Al-Qiblah for Islamic Literature, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1983, page viiic. Limited Edition.
[3] Moore, Keith L., al-Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A., Ahmed Mustafa A, The Qur'an and Modern Science - Correlation Studies, Islamic Academy for Scientific Research, Makkah, Saudi Arabia. Reprinted by World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), USA., 1990, ISBN 0-9627236-0-6. Collection of papers presented at a symposium sponsored by the Muslim Students Association, University of Illinois, May 1990.
[4] Moore, Keith L.; Johnson, E. Marshall; Persaud, T.V.N.; Goeringer, Gerald C.; Zindani, Abdul-Majeed A.; and Ahmed Mustafa A, Human Development as Described in the Qur'an and Sunnah, Commission on Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah, Muslim World League, Makkah Al-Mukarramah, Saudi Arabia, 1992, ISBN 0-9627236-1-4. Collection of papers that were originally presented in the First International Conference on Scientific Signs of the Qur'an and Sunnah, held in Islamabad, Pakistan, 1987, and after some modifications and development, presented in their present form in Dakar, Sengal in July 1991.
Extracts from the video This is the Truth by Sheikh Abdul-Majeed A. al-Zindani, Director, Project of Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an and Hadith, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Elias Karim
Source : http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Science/scientists.html
Brief Analysis on Bennabi's Theory of Civilization
A Summary of Malek Bennabi's Thought on Civilization
by Hasbullah Mohamad
As a Muslim thinker, Bennabi believes that the decline of Muslims is due to the problem of inner self of Muslim. He asserts that problem of Muslim world is a problem of its civilization (al-Haddarah). Therefore, he seriously looked for the proper solution of such problems. Thus, this study will attempt to analyze Bennabi’s theory of civilization including meaning, the process of civilization, and his proposal for reform of such project.
He was inspired with the spirit of islÉÍ (reformism) since he was youth. Thus, his experience had equipped him to make a great contribution towards Islamic civilization as he famously called as al-ÍaÌÉrah (al-haddarah).
In dealing with al-ÍaÌÉrah, Bennabi brilliantly attempts to give proper definition of civilization. For that, he defines it on the basis that the concept of civilization can be understood in different times from different angles. For him, it is rather the product of dynamic, integrated and concrete elements which consist of man, soil and time. As a whole, Bennabi looks at the ÍaÌÉrah as a complex phenomenon. First, he defines it as being in essence a culture (thaqÉfah) which is based on a set of cultural values. Second, the ÍaÌÉrah is a product of the world of ideas, which means that it is the living idea in a given society that produces the ÍaÌÉrah, leading this society, then, into history. Third, Civilization is defined as a function which available in twofold: first, the ÍaÌÉrah functions within a particular society. Second it also has a function within human history, for the movement of human civilization as a whole is but the movement of history (al-tÉrÊkh) to a particular point.
Bennabi describes that the civilization can be built and divided into three important elements, namely the man, soil and time. He then, divides man into two identities. First, man as natural identity which is unchangeable and second, man as social agent who is equipped with mental and psychological features which is changeable and enable to response to his surroundings. Therefore man is required to fulfill the effectiveness and its values which permit him to build the ÍaÌÉrah. Thus, Bennabi sees that tawjÊh (orientation) is a key to move towards civilization with a strong foundation and a unity of goal.
He believes that man must be generated into three principles namely tawjÊh al- ThaqÉfah (guidance of culture), tawjÊh al-‘Amal (guidance of Action) and tawjih ra’s al-MÉl (guidance of Capital). For him, al- ThaqÉfah (culture) is the environment that frames the individual’s personality and its characteristics. Giving an analogy, he identifies culture with the blood in the body of the society, for culture nourishes the society’s civilization, carries the ‘elite’ ideas as well as the ‘common’ ones. In this part, Bennabi stresses the role of religion in such culture as a prerequisite to the rise of any civilization.
Meanwhile al-‘Amal, is a guidance of the efforts of the whole social grouping to one direction. For him it is the action itself that traces the fate of things in the social framework. Ra’s al-MÉl (Capital), is judged by its quality and not by its quantity; the main thing is to make sure that every piece of money is moving along while creating a dynamic action. For the task is not to accumulate wealth but to socially activate the fund, balancing the interest of both the individual and the society.
Regarding the soil, Bennabi does not talk about nature and the particularities of the soil but he gives attention on its social value. In terms of time, it does not refer to the age of the individual but it has a social importance by contributing in the build-up of the active thoughts. He comments that the Muslim world lacks the true understanding of time, namely the valuable use of time in constructing active thoughts, meanings and things.
Since the elements of civilization consist of man, soil, and time, he explicitly points out to the necessity to adopt the same procedure as that of laboratory analysis by taking not the whole matter to the laboratory but simply a sample of it. It is essential to take attention that Bennabi puts religion (Islam) as the foundation of these three elements.
Bennabi contends that historical events are simply a reaction to the interaction of the three realms; (1) realm of ideas, (2) realm of persons, (3) realm of objects or things. The interaction of these three realms is what leads to historical movement. A society is defined as being developed when a healthy relationship is established between these three realms. However, when this relationship is shaken, the ties relating these realms become loose and they all fail to fulfill the collective work in an effective way. As a result, it leads to failure.
Bennabi divides societies into two kinds: the natural society and the historical society. The natural society is a static society like that of ants, bees, the African society before colonialism and the Arab society before the rise of Islam. The historical society (al-MujtamaÑ al-TÉrÊkhÊ), however, is the one that appears in some particular initial situation but later it starts to develop its initial characteristics toward advancement. In its development, this society undergoes three stages that are: (1) a stage before development, (2) a stage of development, (3) a stage after development. Bennabi identifies these three stages to those of the human being. For him, a civilization undergoes three stages similar to those of a child.
In a nutshell, Bennabi has greatly contributed towards the human capital development (al-ÍaÌÉrah). Bennabi’s message, in sum, is that if the Muslim ummah to make history and play its universal role it is entitled to play. It must engage all its intellectual capacity in a fundamental reexamination of its culture in proper manner for the sake of Islam and its civilization.
* this article actually taken from the conclusion of my brief assignment of "Malek Bennabi's thought on civilization".
by Hasbullah Mohamad
As a Muslim thinker, Bennabi believes that the decline of Muslims is due to the problem of inner self of Muslim. He asserts that problem of Muslim world is a problem of its civilization (al-Haddarah). Therefore, he seriously looked for the proper solution of such problems. Thus, this study will attempt to analyze Bennabi’s theory of civilization including meaning, the process of civilization, and his proposal for reform of such project.
He was inspired with the spirit of islÉÍ (reformism) since he was youth. Thus, his experience had equipped him to make a great contribution towards Islamic civilization as he famously called as al-ÍaÌÉrah (al-haddarah).
In dealing with al-ÍaÌÉrah, Bennabi brilliantly attempts to give proper definition of civilization. For that, he defines it on the basis that the concept of civilization can be understood in different times from different angles. For him, it is rather the product of dynamic, integrated and concrete elements which consist of man, soil and time. As a whole, Bennabi looks at the ÍaÌÉrah as a complex phenomenon. First, he defines it as being in essence a culture (thaqÉfah) which is based on a set of cultural values. Second, the ÍaÌÉrah is a product of the world of ideas, which means that it is the living idea in a given society that produces the ÍaÌÉrah, leading this society, then, into history. Third, Civilization is defined as a function which available in twofold: first, the ÍaÌÉrah functions within a particular society. Second it also has a function within human history, for the movement of human civilization as a whole is but the movement of history (al-tÉrÊkh) to a particular point.
Bennabi describes that the civilization can be built and divided into three important elements, namely the man, soil and time. He then, divides man into two identities. First, man as natural identity which is unchangeable and second, man as social agent who is equipped with mental and psychological features which is changeable and enable to response to his surroundings. Therefore man is required to fulfill the effectiveness and its values which permit him to build the ÍaÌÉrah. Thus, Bennabi sees that tawjÊh (orientation) is a key to move towards civilization with a strong foundation and a unity of goal.
He believes that man must be generated into three principles namely tawjÊh al- ThaqÉfah (guidance of culture), tawjÊh al-‘Amal (guidance of Action) and tawjih ra’s al-MÉl (guidance of Capital). For him, al- ThaqÉfah (culture) is the environment that frames the individual’s personality and its characteristics. Giving an analogy, he identifies culture with the blood in the body of the society, for culture nourishes the society’s civilization, carries the ‘elite’ ideas as well as the ‘common’ ones. In this part, Bennabi stresses the role of religion in such culture as a prerequisite to the rise of any civilization.
Meanwhile al-‘Amal, is a guidance of the efforts of the whole social grouping to one direction. For him it is the action itself that traces the fate of things in the social framework. Ra’s al-MÉl (Capital), is judged by its quality and not by its quantity; the main thing is to make sure that every piece of money is moving along while creating a dynamic action. For the task is not to accumulate wealth but to socially activate the fund, balancing the interest of both the individual and the society.
Regarding the soil, Bennabi does not talk about nature and the particularities of the soil but he gives attention on its social value. In terms of time, it does not refer to the age of the individual but it has a social importance by contributing in the build-up of the active thoughts. He comments that the Muslim world lacks the true understanding of time, namely the valuable use of time in constructing active thoughts, meanings and things.
Since the elements of civilization consist of man, soil, and time, he explicitly points out to the necessity to adopt the same procedure as that of laboratory analysis by taking not the whole matter to the laboratory but simply a sample of it. It is essential to take attention that Bennabi puts religion (Islam) as the foundation of these three elements.
Bennabi contends that historical events are simply a reaction to the interaction of the three realms; (1) realm of ideas, (2) realm of persons, (3) realm of objects or things. The interaction of these three realms is what leads to historical movement. A society is defined as being developed when a healthy relationship is established between these three realms. However, when this relationship is shaken, the ties relating these realms become loose and they all fail to fulfill the collective work in an effective way. As a result, it leads to failure.
Bennabi divides societies into two kinds: the natural society and the historical society. The natural society is a static society like that of ants, bees, the African society before colonialism and the Arab society before the rise of Islam. The historical society (al-MujtamaÑ al-TÉrÊkhÊ), however, is the one that appears in some particular initial situation but later it starts to develop its initial characteristics toward advancement. In its development, this society undergoes three stages that are: (1) a stage before development, (2) a stage of development, (3) a stage after development. Bennabi identifies these three stages to those of the human being. For him, a civilization undergoes three stages similar to those of a child.
In a nutshell, Bennabi has greatly contributed towards the human capital development (al-ÍaÌÉrah). Bennabi’s message, in sum, is that if the Muslim ummah to make history and play its universal role it is entitled to play. It must engage all its intellectual capacity in a fundamental reexamination of its culture in proper manner for the sake of Islam and its civilization.
* this article actually taken from the conclusion of my brief assignment of "Malek Bennabi's thought on civilization".
Monday, May 18, 2009
Should we Celebrate the Mother's Day?
History of Mothers Day
The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called Mothering Sunday. Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent. Mothering Sunday honoured the
mothers of England.
During this time many of the England's poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants
would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.*
As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honour the Mother Church - the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration. People began honouring their mothers as well as the church.
In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Mass ever year.* In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia. Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mother's Day. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May. While many
countries of the world celebrate their own Mother's Day at different times throughout the year, there are some countries such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.*
Thus, we could celebrate Mother's Day without imitating the West (Christianity) on such specific days, but rather an appreciation to our beloved mother.....anytime we like... as long does not contradict with the frame work of Islam.
source : my friend's email ....
need further comments or correction if necessary....
Tq
The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called Mothering Sunday. Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent. Mothering Sunday honoured the
mothers of England.
During this time many of the England's poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants
would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.*
As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honour the Mother Church - the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration. People began honouring their mothers as well as the church.
In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Mass ever year.* In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia. Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mother's Day. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May. While many
countries of the world celebrate their own Mother's Day at different times throughout the year, there are some countries such as Denmark, Finland, Italy, Turkey, Australia, and Belgium which also celebrate Mother's Day on the second Sunday of May.*
Thus, we could celebrate Mother's Day without imitating the West (Christianity) on such specific days, but rather an appreciation to our beloved mother.....anytime we like... as long does not contradict with the frame work of Islam.
source : my friend's email ....
need further comments or correction if necessary....
Tq
Friday, May 15, 2009
Some Important points of diet from Islamic view
DIET IN THE ISLAMIC PERSPECTIVE
This was presented by a group of AHS students for UNGS 2030.
NATURAL INSTINCT
Allah gives us the instinct of loving delicious foods and drinks
“O you who believe eat of the good things where with we have provide you, and render thanks to Allah if it is (indeed) He whom you worship.” (Surah Al-Baqarah:172)
PURPOSE
Maintenance of health
Prevention of diseases
Treatment of diseases
Play role as determinants of chronic NCDs, therefore occupy a prominent position in prevention activities
Rasulullah said:
“The stomach is abode of disease.” And he also said, “…if the stomach is diseased, then the blood vessels end up becoming diseased as well.”
(transmitted by Abu Nu’aim)
PRACTICE MODERATION
Rasulullah s.a.w said, ‘The Tribe of Adam fill no container worse than their own stomachs. Let the Tribe of Adam have a few mouthfuls to strengthen their loins. If possible, one third of the stomach is for food, one third for drink, and one third for one’s breath.
(transmitted by An-Nasai & At-Tirmidhi)
“O the sons of Adam, wear your most beautiful clothes whenever (entering mosques), eat and drink, and be not extravagant, verily He likes not the extravagance”
(Al-A’raf: 31)
The reason for moderation has been clearly stated. The Prophet is reported to have said:
“The stomach is the tank of the body and the veins go down to it. When the stomach is healthy the veins come back in a healthy condition, but when it is in a bad condition, they return diseased.”
In short, believers are advised to always take care of their stomachs and refrain from foods and practices that might pollute the stomach with various diseases. In order to do so the Prophet is reported to have advised believers to always stop eating before their stomachs are completely full i.e. stop eating when the urge to eat more is still present.
A Balanced Diet - Prescribed in the Qur’ân
Al-Quran goes to the extent of giving useful tips regarding a balanced diet, a diet which contains most if not all the useful ingredients required for the growth, strengthening and repairing of the human body. These ingredients include animal protein, fat, calcium, iron, salts, etc.
The importance of meat protein in the human diet
And the cattle, He has created them for you, in them there is warmth (clothing) and numerous benefits, and of them you eat.”
(16:5)
Fish has always been considered as a food of very high protein and is very important for human consumption. Allah says:
“And from them both (fresh and salt water) you eat fresh tender meat (fish).”
(35:12)
The usefulness of fresh milk is stressed in these words
“And verily in the cattle there is a lesson for you. We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies, from between excretion and blood, pure milk, palatable to the drinkers.”
(16:66)
The benefits of fruits as good nourishment can be understood from this verse:
“And from the fruits of date palms and grapes, you desire strong drink and a goodly provision.”
(16:67)
The Etiquette's of Eating and Drinking
Wash their hands before and after
Start eating with the praise of Allah to eat
Using the right hand
Not to eat until they really felt hungry
Not to eat and drink excessively.
By praising and thanking Allah for the food and drink, for making it easy to swallow and for producing an exit for it.
THE AMAZING OF WATER
The source of life
70% of human body composed of water
A research by Dr. Masaru Emoto
The arrangement of water molecules can be changed based on what kind of words are said on that water
Certain energy waves will be produced due to these changes, giving positive impacts to the body
Water interacts with the surrounding
The reaction of water with positive environment will produce a beautiful crystal shape to its molecule and otherwise.
Impact on human body
Good spiritual and physical apperance
AL-Quran as the best words
“Allah have made the best words which is Quran…”
(Az-Zumar : 23)
Ponder about it…
Why we not recite Al-Quran constantly everyday?
note : this topic originally was presented by a group my AHS students to fulfil the requirement of UNGSS's coursework as a part of evaluation for such studies.(without amendment).
This was presented by a group of AHS students for UNGS 2030.
NATURAL INSTINCT
Allah gives us the instinct of loving delicious foods and drinks
“O you who believe eat of the good things where with we have provide you, and render thanks to Allah if it is (indeed) He whom you worship.” (Surah Al-Baqarah:172)
PURPOSE
Maintenance of health
Prevention of diseases
Treatment of diseases
Play role as determinants of chronic NCDs, therefore occupy a prominent position in prevention activities
Rasulullah said:
“The stomach is abode of disease.” And he also said, “…if the stomach is diseased, then the blood vessels end up becoming diseased as well.”
(transmitted by Abu Nu’aim)
PRACTICE MODERATION
Rasulullah s.a.w said, ‘The Tribe of Adam fill no container worse than their own stomachs. Let the Tribe of Adam have a few mouthfuls to strengthen their loins. If possible, one third of the stomach is for food, one third for drink, and one third for one’s breath.
(transmitted by An-Nasai & At-Tirmidhi)
“O the sons of Adam, wear your most beautiful clothes whenever (entering mosques), eat and drink, and be not extravagant, verily He likes not the extravagance”
(Al-A’raf: 31)
The reason for moderation has been clearly stated. The Prophet is reported to have said:
“The stomach is the tank of the body and the veins go down to it. When the stomach is healthy the veins come back in a healthy condition, but when it is in a bad condition, they return diseased.”
In short, believers are advised to always take care of their stomachs and refrain from foods and practices that might pollute the stomach with various diseases. In order to do so the Prophet is reported to have advised believers to always stop eating before their stomachs are completely full i.e. stop eating when the urge to eat more is still present.
A Balanced Diet - Prescribed in the Qur’ân
Al-Quran goes to the extent of giving useful tips regarding a balanced diet, a diet which contains most if not all the useful ingredients required for the growth, strengthening and repairing of the human body. These ingredients include animal protein, fat, calcium, iron, salts, etc.
The importance of meat protein in the human diet
And the cattle, He has created them for you, in them there is warmth (clothing) and numerous benefits, and of them you eat.”
(16:5)
Fish has always been considered as a food of very high protein and is very important for human consumption. Allah says:
“And from them both (fresh and salt water) you eat fresh tender meat (fish).”
(35:12)
The usefulness of fresh milk is stressed in these words
“And verily in the cattle there is a lesson for you. We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies, from between excretion and blood, pure milk, palatable to the drinkers.”
(16:66)
The benefits of fruits as good nourishment can be understood from this verse:
“And from the fruits of date palms and grapes, you desire strong drink and a goodly provision.”
(16:67)
The Etiquette's of Eating and Drinking
Wash their hands before and after
Start eating with the praise of Allah to eat
Using the right hand
Not to eat until they really felt hungry
Not to eat and drink excessively.
By praising and thanking Allah for the food and drink, for making it easy to swallow and for producing an exit for it.
THE AMAZING OF WATER
The source of life
70% of human body composed of water
A research by Dr. Masaru Emoto
The arrangement of water molecules can be changed based on what kind of words are said on that water
Certain energy waves will be produced due to these changes, giving positive impacts to the body
Water interacts with the surrounding
The reaction of water with positive environment will produce a beautiful crystal shape to its molecule and otherwise.
Impact on human body
Good spiritual and physical apperance
AL-Quran as the best words
“Allah have made the best words which is Quran…”
(Az-Zumar : 23)
Ponder about it…
Why we not recite Al-Quran constantly everyday?
note : this topic originally was presented by a group my AHS students to fulfil the requirement of UNGSS's coursework as a part of evaluation for such studies.(without amendment).
Monday, May 4, 2009
Q & A about Swine Flu
H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) and You
May 3, 2009 3:29 PM ET
What is H1N1 (swine flu)?
H1N1 (referred to as “swine flu” early on) is a new influenza virus causing illness in people. This new virus was first detected in people in April 2009 in the United States. Other countries, including Mexico and Canada, have reported people sick with this new virus. This virus is spreading from person-to-person, probably in much the same way that regular seasonal influenza viruses spread.
Why is this new H1N1 virus sometimes called “swine flu”?
This virus was originally referred to as “swine flu” because laboratory testing showed that many of the genes in this new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. But further study has shown that this new virus is very different from what normally circulates in North American pigs. It has two genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia and avian genes and human genes. Scientists call this a “quadruple reassortant” virus.
Do pigs carry this virus and can I catch this virus from a pig?
At this time, there is no evidence that swine in the United States are infected with this new virus. However, there are flu viruses that commonly cause outbreaks of illness in pigs. Most of the time, these viruses do not infect people, but influenza viruses can spread back and forth between pigs and people.
Are there human infections with this H1N1 virus in the U.S.?
Yes. Cases of human infection with this H1N1 influenza virus were first confirmed in the U.S. in Southern California and near Guadalupe County, Texas. The outbreak intensified rapidly from that time and more and more states have been reporting cases of illness from this virus. An updated case count of confirmed novel H1N1 flu infections in the United States is kept at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/investigation.htm. CDC and local and state health agencies are working together to investigate this situation.
Is this new H1N1 virus contagious?
CDC has determined that this new H1N1 virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.
What are the signs and symptoms of this virus in people?
The symptoms of this new influenza A H1N1 virus in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. A significant number of people who have been infected with this virus also have reported diarrhea and vomiting. Also, like seasonal flu, severe illnesses and death has occurred as a result of illness associated with this virus.
How severe is illness associated with this new H1N1 virus?
It’s not known at this time how severe this virus will be in the general population. CDC is studying the medical histories of people who have been infected with this virus to determine whether some people may be at greater risk from infection, serious illness or hospitalization from the virus. In seasonal flu, there are certain people that are at higher risk of serious flu-related complications. This includes young children, pregnant women, people with chronic medical conditions and people 65 and older. It’s unknown at this time whether certain groups of people are at greater risk of serious flu-related complications from infection with this new virus. CDC also is conducting laboratory studies to see if certain people might have natural immunity to this virus, depending on their age.
How does this new H1N1 virus spread?
Spread of this H1N1 virus is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing by people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
Can I get infected with this new H1N1 virus from eating or preparing pork?
No. H1N1 viruses are not spread by food. You cannot get this new HIN1 virus from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork products is safe.
Is there a risk from drinking water?
Tap water that has been treated by conventional disinfection processes does not likely pose a risk for transmission of influenza viruses. Current drinking water treatment regulations provide a high degree of protection from viruses. No research has been completed on the susceptibility of the novel H1N1 flu virus to conventional drinking water treatment processes. However, recent studies have demonstrated that free chlorine levels typically used in drinking water treatment are adequate to inactivate highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza. It is likely that other influenza viruses such as novel H1N1 would also be similarly inactivated by chlorination. To date, there have been no documented human cases of influenza caused by exposure to influenza-contaminated drinking water.
Can the novel H1N1 flu virus be spread through water in swimming pools, spas, water parks, interactive fountains, and other treated recreational water venues?
Recreational water that has been treated at CDC recommended disinfectant levels (1–3 parts per million [ppm or mg/L] for pools and 2–5 ppm for spas) does not likely pose a risk for transmission of influenza viruses. Currently, there are no documented human cases of influenza caused by exposure to influenza-contaminated swimming pool water. No research has been completed on the susceptibility of the novel H1N1 flu virus to chlorine and other disinfectants used in swimming pools, spas, water parks, interactive fountains, and other treated recreational venues. However, recent studies have demonstrated that free chlorine levels recommended by CDC are adequate to disinfect highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus. It is likely that other influenza viruses such as the novel H1N1 flu virus would also be disinfected by these chlorine levels.
Can H1N1 influenza virus be spread at recreational water venues outside of the water?
Yes, recreational water venues are no different than any other group setting. The spread of this novel H1N1 flu is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
What should I do to keep from getting the flu?
First and most important: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not to touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Are there medicines to treat infection with this new virus?
Yes. CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these new influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body. If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. During the current outbreak, the priority use for influenza antiviral drugs during is to treat severe influenza illness.
How long can an infected person spread this virus to others?
At the current time, CDC believes that this virus has the same properties in terms of spread as seasonal flu viruses. With seasonal flu, studies have shown that people may be contagious from one day before they develop symptoms to up to 7 days after they get sick. Children, especially younger children, might potentially be contagious for longer periods. CDC is studying the virus and its capabilities to try to learn more and will provide more information as it becomes available.
What surfaces are most likely to be sources of contamination?
Germs can be spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth. Droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person move through the air. Germs can be spread when a person touches respiratory droplets from another person on a surface like a desk, for example, and then touches their own eyes, mouth or nose before washing their hands.
What can I do to protect myself from getting sick?
There is no vaccine available right now to protect against this new H1N1 virus. There are everyday actions that can help prevent the spread of germs that cause respiratory illnesses like influenza. Take these everyday steps to protect your health:
Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
Stay home if you are sick for 7 days after your symptoms begin or until you have been symptom-free for 24 hours, whichever is longer. This is to keep from infecting others and spreading the virus further.
Other important actions that you can take are:
Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other social distancing measures.
Be prepared in case you get sick and need to stay home for a week or so; a supply of over-the-counter medicines, alcohol-based hand rubs, tissues and other related items might could be useful and help avoid the need to make trips out in public while you are sick and contagious.
What is the best way to keep from spreading the virus through coughing or sneezing?
If you are sick, limit your contact with other people as much as possible. Do not go to work or school if ill for 7 days or until your symptoms go away (whichever is longer). Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Put your used tissue in the waste basket. Cover your cough or sneeze if you do not have a tissue. Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze.
What is the best technique for washing my hands to avoid getting the flu?
Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. Wash with soap and water or clean with alcohol-based hand cleaner. We recommend that when you wash your hands -- with soap and warm water -- that you wash for 15 to 20 seconds. When soap and water are not available, alcohol-based disposable hand wipes or gel sanitizers may be used. You can find them in most supermarkets and drugstores. If using gel, rub your hands until the gel is dry. The gel doesn't need water to work; the alcohol in it kills the germs on your hands.
What should I do if I get sick?
If you live in areas where cases have been identified and become ill with influenza-like symptoms, including fever, body aches, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, or vomiting or diarrhea, you may want to contact their health care provider, particularly if you are worried about your symptoms. Your health care provider will determine whether influenza testing or treatment is needed.
If you are sick, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people as much as possible to keep from spreading your illness to others.
If you become ill and experience any of the following warning signs, seek emergency medical care.
In children emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
Fast breathing or trouble breathing
Bluish or gray skin color
Not drinking enough fluids
Not waking up or not interacting
Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
Fever with a rash
In adults, emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
Sudden dizziness
Confusion
Severe or persistent vomiting
What is CDC doing in response to the outbreak?
CDC has implemented its emergency response. The agency’s goals are to reduce transmission and illness severity, and provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by the new virus. CDC continues to issue new interim guidance for clinicians and public health professionals. In addition, CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) continues to send antiviral drugs, personal protective equipment, and respiratory protection devices to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak.
What epidemiological investigations are taking place in response to the recent outbreak?
CDC works very closely with state and local officials in areas where human cases of H1N1 (swine flu) infections have been identified. In California and Texas, where EpiAid teams have been deployed, many epidemiological activities are taking place or planned including:
Active surveillance in the counties where infections in humans have been identified;
Studies of health care workers who were exposed to patients infected with the virus to see if they became infected;
Studies of households and other contacts of people who were confirmed to have been infected to see if they became infected;
Study of a public high school where three confirmed human cases of influenza A (H1N1) of swine origin occurred to see if anyone became infected and how much contact they had with a confirmed case; and
Study to see how long a person with the virus infection sheds the virus.
Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
How long can influenza virus remain viable on objects (such as books and doorknobs)?
Studies have shown that influenza virus can survive on environmental surfaces and can infect a person for up to 2-8 hours after being deposited on the surface.
What kills influenza virus?
Influenza virus is destroyed by heat (167-212°F [75-100°C]). In addition, several chemical germicides, including chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, detergents (soap), iodophors (iodine-based antiseptics), and alcohols are effective against human influenza viruses if used in proper concentration for a sufficient length of time. For example, wipes or gels with alcohol in them can be used to clean hands. The gels should be rubbed into hands until they are dry.
How should waste disposal be handled to prevent the spread of influenza virus?
To prevent the spread of influenza virus, it is recommended that tissues and other disposable items used by an infected person be thrown in the trash. Additionally, persons should wash their hands with soap and water after touching used tissues and similar waste.
What household cleaning should be done to prevent the spread of influenza virus?
To prevent the spread of influenza virus it is important to keep surfaces (especially bedside tables, surfaces in the bathroom, kitchen counters and toys for children) clean by wiping them down with a household disinfectant according to directions on the product label.
How should linens, eating utensils and dishes of persons infected with influenza virus be handled?
Linens, eating utensils, and dishes belonging to those who are sick do not need to be cleaned separately, but importantly these items should not be shared without washing thoroughly first.
Linens (such as bed sheets and towels) should be washed by using household laundry soap and tumbled dry on a hot setting. Individuals should avoid “hugging” laundry prior to washing it to prevent contaminating themselves. Individuals should wash their hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub immediately after handling dirty laundry.
Eating utensils should be washed either in a dishwasher or by hand with water and soap.
Who is in charge of medicine in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) once it is deployed?
Local health officials have full control of SNS medicine once supplies are deployed to a city, state, or territory. Federal, state, and local community planners are working together to ensure that SNS medicines will be delivered to the affected area as soon as possible. Many cities, states, and territories have already received SNS supplies. After CDC sends medicine to a state or city, control and distribution of the supply is at the discretion of that state or local health department. Most states and cities also have their own medicines that they can access to treat infected persons.
*Note: Much of the information in this document is based on studies and past experience with seasonal (human) influenza. CDC believes the information applies to the new H1N1 (swine) viruses as well, but studies on this virus are ongoing to learn more about its characteristics. This document will be updated as new information becomes available.
Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
spurce : http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/swineflu_you.htm
May 3, 2009 3:29 PM ET
What is H1N1 (swine flu)?
H1N1 (referred to as “swine flu” early on) is a new influenza virus causing illness in people. This new virus was first detected in people in April 2009 in the United States. Other countries, including Mexico and Canada, have reported people sick with this new virus. This virus is spreading from person-to-person, probably in much the same way that regular seasonal influenza viruses spread.
Why is this new H1N1 virus sometimes called “swine flu”?
This virus was originally referred to as “swine flu” because laboratory testing showed that many of the genes in this new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. But further study has shown that this new virus is very different from what normally circulates in North American pigs. It has two genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia and avian genes and human genes. Scientists call this a “quadruple reassortant” virus.
Do pigs carry this virus and can I catch this virus from a pig?
At this time, there is no evidence that swine in the United States are infected with this new virus. However, there are flu viruses that commonly cause outbreaks of illness in pigs. Most of the time, these viruses do not infect people, but influenza viruses can spread back and forth between pigs and people.
Are there human infections with this H1N1 virus in the U.S.?
Yes. Cases of human infection with this H1N1 influenza virus were first confirmed in the U.S. in Southern California and near Guadalupe County, Texas. The outbreak intensified rapidly from that time and more and more states have been reporting cases of illness from this virus. An updated case count of confirmed novel H1N1 flu infections in the United States is kept at http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/investigation.htm. CDC and local and state health agencies are working together to investigate this situation.
Is this new H1N1 virus contagious?
CDC has determined that this new H1N1 virus is contagious and is spreading from human to human. However, at this time, it is not known how easily the virus spreads between people.
What are the signs and symptoms of this virus in people?
The symptoms of this new influenza A H1N1 virus in people are similar to the symptoms of regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. A significant number of people who have been infected with this virus also have reported diarrhea and vomiting. Also, like seasonal flu, severe illnesses and death has occurred as a result of illness associated with this virus.
How severe is illness associated with this new H1N1 virus?
It’s not known at this time how severe this virus will be in the general population. CDC is studying the medical histories of people who have been infected with this virus to determine whether some people may be at greater risk from infection, serious illness or hospitalization from the virus. In seasonal flu, there are certain people that are at higher risk of serious flu-related complications. This includes young children, pregnant women, people with chronic medical conditions and people 65 and older. It’s unknown at this time whether certain groups of people are at greater risk of serious flu-related complications from infection with this new virus. CDC also is conducting laboratory studies to see if certain people might have natural immunity to this virus, depending on their age.
How does this new H1N1 virus spread?
Spread of this H1N1 virus is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing by people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
Can I get infected with this new H1N1 virus from eating or preparing pork?
No. H1N1 viruses are not spread by food. You cannot get this new HIN1 virus from eating pork or pork products. Eating properly handled and cooked pork products is safe.
Is there a risk from drinking water?
Tap water that has been treated by conventional disinfection processes does not likely pose a risk for transmission of influenza viruses. Current drinking water treatment regulations provide a high degree of protection from viruses. No research has been completed on the susceptibility of the novel H1N1 flu virus to conventional drinking water treatment processes. However, recent studies have demonstrated that free chlorine levels typically used in drinking water treatment are adequate to inactivate highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza. It is likely that other influenza viruses such as novel H1N1 would also be similarly inactivated by chlorination. To date, there have been no documented human cases of influenza caused by exposure to influenza-contaminated drinking water.
Can the novel H1N1 flu virus be spread through water in swimming pools, spas, water parks, interactive fountains, and other treated recreational water venues?
Recreational water that has been treated at CDC recommended disinfectant levels (1–3 parts per million [ppm or mg/L] for pools and 2–5 ppm for spas) does not likely pose a risk for transmission of influenza viruses. Currently, there are no documented human cases of influenza caused by exposure to influenza-contaminated swimming pool water. No research has been completed on the susceptibility of the novel H1N1 flu virus to chlorine and other disinfectants used in swimming pools, spas, water parks, interactive fountains, and other treated recreational venues. However, recent studies have demonstrated that free chlorine levels recommended by CDC are adequate to disinfect highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus. It is likely that other influenza viruses such as the novel H1N1 flu virus would also be disinfected by these chlorine levels.
Can H1N1 influenza virus be spread at recreational water venues outside of the water?
Yes, recreational water venues are no different than any other group setting. The spread of this novel H1N1 flu is thought to be happening in the same way that seasonal flu spreads. Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing of people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.
What should I do to keep from getting the flu?
First and most important: wash your hands. Try to stay in good general health. Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. Try not to touch surfaces that may be contaminated with the flu virus. Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Are there medicines to treat infection with this new virus?
Yes. CDC recommends the use of oseltamivir or zanamivir for the treatment and/or prevention of infection with these new influenza A (H1N1) viruses. Antiviral drugs are prescription medicines (pills, liquid or an inhaler) that fight against the flu by keeping flu viruses from reproducing in your body. If you get sick, antiviral drugs can make your illness milder and make you feel better faster. They may also prevent serious flu complications. During the current outbreak, the priority use for influenza antiviral drugs during is to treat severe influenza illness.
How long can an infected person spread this virus to others?
At the current time, CDC believes that this virus has the same properties in terms of spread as seasonal flu viruses. With seasonal flu, studies have shown that people may be contagious from one day before they develop symptoms to up to 7 days after they get sick. Children, especially younger children, might potentially be contagious for longer periods. CDC is studying the virus and its capabilities to try to learn more and will provide more information as it becomes available.
What surfaces are most likely to be sources of contamination?
Germs can be spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her eyes, nose, or mouth. Droplets from a cough or sneeze of an infected person move through the air. Germs can be spread when a person touches respiratory droplets from another person on a surface like a desk, for example, and then touches their own eyes, mouth or nose before washing their hands.
What can I do to protect myself from getting sick?
There is no vaccine available right now to protect against this new H1N1 virus. There are everyday actions that can help prevent the spread of germs that cause respiratory illnesses like influenza. Take these everyday steps to protect your health:
Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread this way.
Try to avoid close contact with sick people.
Stay home if you are sick for 7 days after your symptoms begin or until you have been symptom-free for 24 hours, whichever is longer. This is to keep from infecting others and spreading the virus further.
Other important actions that you can take are:
Follow public health advice regarding school closures, avoiding crowds and other social distancing measures.
Be prepared in case you get sick and need to stay home for a week or so; a supply of over-the-counter medicines, alcohol-based hand rubs, tissues and other related items might could be useful and help avoid the need to make trips out in public while you are sick and contagious.
What is the best way to keep from spreading the virus through coughing or sneezing?
If you are sick, limit your contact with other people as much as possible. Do not go to work or school if ill for 7 days or until your symptoms go away (whichever is longer). Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. It may prevent those around you from getting sick. Put your used tissue in the waste basket. Cover your cough or sneeze if you do not have a tissue. Then, clean your hands, and do so every time you cough or sneeze.
What is the best technique for washing my hands to avoid getting the flu?
Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs. Wash with soap and water or clean with alcohol-based hand cleaner. We recommend that when you wash your hands -- with soap and warm water -- that you wash for 15 to 20 seconds. When soap and water are not available, alcohol-based disposable hand wipes or gel sanitizers may be used. You can find them in most supermarkets and drugstores. If using gel, rub your hands until the gel is dry. The gel doesn't need water to work; the alcohol in it kills the germs on your hands.
What should I do if I get sick?
If you live in areas where cases have been identified and become ill with influenza-like symptoms, including fever, body aches, runny nose, sore throat, nausea, or vomiting or diarrhea, you may want to contact their health care provider, particularly if you are worried about your symptoms. Your health care provider will determine whether influenza testing or treatment is needed.
If you are sick, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people as much as possible to keep from spreading your illness to others.
If you become ill and experience any of the following warning signs, seek emergency medical care.
In children emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
Fast breathing or trouble breathing
Bluish or gray skin color
Not drinking enough fluids
Not waking up or not interacting
Being so irritable that the child does not want to be held
Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
Fever with a rash
In adults, emergency warning signs that need urgent medical attention include:
Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
Pain or pressure in the chest or abdomen
Sudden dizziness
Confusion
Severe or persistent vomiting
What is CDC doing in response to the outbreak?
CDC has implemented its emergency response. The agency’s goals are to reduce transmission and illness severity, and provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by the new virus. CDC continues to issue new interim guidance for clinicians and public health professionals. In addition, CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) continues to send antiviral drugs, personal protective equipment, and respiratory protection devices to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak.
What epidemiological investigations are taking place in response to the recent outbreak?
CDC works very closely with state and local officials in areas where human cases of H1N1 (swine flu) infections have been identified. In California and Texas, where EpiAid teams have been deployed, many epidemiological activities are taking place or planned including:
Active surveillance in the counties where infections in humans have been identified;
Studies of health care workers who were exposed to patients infected with the virus to see if they became infected;
Studies of households and other contacts of people who were confirmed to have been infected to see if they became infected;
Study of a public high school where three confirmed human cases of influenza A (H1N1) of swine origin occurred to see if anyone became infected and how much contact they had with a confirmed case; and
Study to see how long a person with the virus infection sheds the virus.
Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
How long can influenza virus remain viable on objects (such as books and doorknobs)?
Studies have shown that influenza virus can survive on environmental surfaces and can infect a person for up to 2-8 hours after being deposited on the surface.
What kills influenza virus?
Influenza virus is destroyed by heat (167-212°F [75-100°C]). In addition, several chemical germicides, including chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, detergents (soap), iodophors (iodine-based antiseptics), and alcohols are effective against human influenza viruses if used in proper concentration for a sufficient length of time. For example, wipes or gels with alcohol in them can be used to clean hands. The gels should be rubbed into hands until they are dry.
How should waste disposal be handled to prevent the spread of influenza virus?
To prevent the spread of influenza virus, it is recommended that tissues and other disposable items used by an infected person be thrown in the trash. Additionally, persons should wash their hands with soap and water after touching used tissues and similar waste.
What household cleaning should be done to prevent the spread of influenza virus?
To prevent the spread of influenza virus it is important to keep surfaces (especially bedside tables, surfaces in the bathroom, kitchen counters and toys for children) clean by wiping them down with a household disinfectant according to directions on the product label.
How should linens, eating utensils and dishes of persons infected with influenza virus be handled?
Linens, eating utensils, and dishes belonging to those who are sick do not need to be cleaned separately, but importantly these items should not be shared without washing thoroughly first.
Linens (such as bed sheets and towels) should be washed by using household laundry soap and tumbled dry on a hot setting. Individuals should avoid “hugging” laundry prior to washing it to prevent contaminating themselves. Individuals should wash their hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub immediately after handling dirty laundry.
Eating utensils should be washed either in a dishwasher or by hand with water and soap.
Who is in charge of medicine in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) once it is deployed?
Local health officials have full control of SNS medicine once supplies are deployed to a city, state, or territory. Federal, state, and local community planners are working together to ensure that SNS medicines will be delivered to the affected area as soon as possible. Many cities, states, and territories have already received SNS supplies. After CDC sends medicine to a state or city, control and distribution of the supply is at the discretion of that state or local health department. Most states and cities also have their own medicines that they can access to treat infected persons.
*Note: Much of the information in this document is based on studies and past experience with seasonal (human) influenza. CDC believes the information applies to the new H1N1 (swine) viruses as well, but studies on this virus are ongoing to learn more about its characteristics. This document will be updated as new information becomes available.
Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.
spurce : http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/swineflu_you.htm
Destruction of global wealth tops $20 trillion
The global wealth losses amounting to $20 trillion
By: Fudzail
I have my doubts when reading some not-so-good reports as well as feel-good reports on the current turmoil. Sometimes, too much information is more harmful to our plans. Rumours have been circulating with some basis to believe these rumours do have some truth and during last few months, rumours have been all but rumours.
There is a latest hot rumour about the impending merger of two big real estate developers in the UAE from Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The merger of the two giants will create a, well, big giant if not a monster, positively, I like that idea.
In today’s business paper, it is reported that top international investment banks have confirmed that the world is now experiencing the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. Believe it or not, the global wealth losses amounting to $20 trillion (Dh73.4trn).
Morgan Stanley, HSBC and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNYM) unanimously say that the credit crisis has led to the biggest shock to world wealth since the Second World War.
The Great Depression was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall. And like the current financial crisis, the Great Depression originated in the United States.
Historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by half to two-thirds, as did personal income, tax revenue, prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was halted in many countries.
But the current crisis is more than just a depression, says Richard Hoey, chief economist of BNYM. "We expect a severe global recession rather than a depression."
"The global economy was in freefall in the fourth quarter of 2008 and this should continue in the early months of 2009.We agree with the view this is the greatest global financial crisis since the Great Depression," he added.
According to Morgan Stanley's estimates, the result of the current financial crisis has been a destruction of world wealth, which since mid 2007 has amounted to approximately $20trn (or down 16 per cent from its peak, which has been estimated at $125trn by the United Nations).
"This is the largest absolute and percentage decline in world wealth since the physical destruction of the Second World War," said the New York-based bank holding company.
You can read the rest here.
Just imagine, $20 trillion worth of wealth disappeared into the thin air. If we had had used that amount to build a better world for everybody on the planet, we may not lose that much. Imagine, even some richest Muslims do not pay zakat and one Islamic scholar here mentioned that if even half of these Muslims had paid their zakats, there would be no poor Muslims in the world….
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Source : see http://1426.blogspot.com/2009/02/global-wealth-losses-amounting-to-20.html
By: Fudzail
I have my doubts when reading some not-so-good reports as well as feel-good reports on the current turmoil. Sometimes, too much information is more harmful to our plans. Rumours have been circulating with some basis to believe these rumours do have some truth and during last few months, rumours have been all but rumours.
There is a latest hot rumour about the impending merger of two big real estate developers in the UAE from Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The merger of the two giants will create a, well, big giant if not a monster, positively, I like that idea.
In today’s business paper, it is reported that top international investment banks have confirmed that the world is now experiencing the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression. Believe it or not, the global wealth losses amounting to $20 trillion (Dh73.4trn).
Morgan Stanley, HSBC and The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNYM) unanimously say that the credit crisis has led to the biggest shock to world wealth since the Second World War.
The Great Depression was the largest and most important economic depression in modern history and is used in the 21st century as an example of how far the world's economy can fall. And like the current financial crisis, the Great Depression originated in the United States.
Historians most often use as a starting date the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday. The depression had devastating effects in virtually every country, rich or poor. International trade plunged by half to two-thirds, as did personal income, tax revenue, prices and profits. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was halted in many countries.
But the current crisis is more than just a depression, says Richard Hoey, chief economist of BNYM. "We expect a severe global recession rather than a depression."
"The global economy was in freefall in the fourth quarter of 2008 and this should continue in the early months of 2009.We agree with the view this is the greatest global financial crisis since the Great Depression," he added.
According to Morgan Stanley's estimates, the result of the current financial crisis has been a destruction of world wealth, which since mid 2007 has amounted to approximately $20trn (or down 16 per cent from its peak, which has been estimated at $125trn by the United Nations).
"This is the largest absolute and percentage decline in world wealth since the physical destruction of the Second World War," said the New York-based bank holding company.
You can read the rest here.
Just imagine, $20 trillion worth of wealth disappeared into the thin air. If we had had used that amount to build a better world for everybody on the planet, we may not lose that much. Imagine, even some richest Muslims do not pay zakat and one Islamic scholar here mentioned that if even half of these Muslims had paid their zakats, there would be no poor Muslims in the world….
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Source : see http://1426.blogspot.com/2009/02/global-wealth-losses-amounting-to-20.html
Monday, March 23, 2009
Human Nature in Islam
ISLAMIC CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE
by Mohyuddin Hashimi
Physical and biological nature of man is, although, not the main concern of the Holy Qur’an, it does provide significant insight about man and his nature. A brief description of Islamic thought on the subject is mentioned below:
Islam does not presuppose any inherent wickedness of human nature. Any negative representation of man’s basic nature as a source of evil and wickedness is clearly rejected. According to Islam, the human being is born in the state of fitrah, the original inherent nature of the human being. At birth, the baby is totally innocent and is not responsible for the sin of his parents or any of his ancestors.
Environmental and other external influences keep on modifying his blueprint. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said:
“Every child is created in the state of fitrah, it is the parents, culture, and society that make him a Christian, a Jew, or a fire-worshipper.”
Islam is the first religion to declare man as the most superior of the creatures and the masterpiece of the Creator. According to Islam, man is potentially capable of rising higher than the angels, that is why Allah has commanded angels to bow down before Adam. But, at the same time, he is equally capable of sinking lower than the animals. The Holy Qur’an says:
"We have indeed created man in the best shap, then We reduced him (to be) the lowest of the low, except those who believe and do righteous deeds: for they shall have a reward unfailing." (95:4¬6)
These verses indicate that Allah has given man the purest and best nature while man’s duty is to preserve the pattern on which God has made him. However, when he neglects his duty and goes in the wrong way, he will be reduced to the lowest possible position.
The Holy Qur’an asserts that inclination and attraction towards faith and virtue and repulsion from disobedience and corruption exists in man’s nature.
“But God has endeared to you faith and has beautified it in your hearts and has made disbelief and lewdness and rebellion hateful to you.” (49:7)
To sum up the point, man comes into the world with a pure and wholesome nature. Whereas sin and corruption in human being are merely accidental and violation of his original nature. The role of prophets and the scriptures is just to help human nature to flow in its true channel and to guide human nature to its ultimate goal of eternal felicity. This Qur’anic theory of human nature also implies the fact that if man consciously decides to submit himself to the will of Allah, he experiences no conflict in his personality. (10:62) while, on the other hand, if he misuses his freedom of choice by denying God and not submitting to His will, would be in a state of inner conflict and his personality gets disintegrated.
Man has been given the freedom of choice to do good or evil. This freewill gives him independence of intention, choice and action in various situations of moral conflict. Man is the only creature in this universe who has been given choice and discretion which accompany him through his life span. (The Qur’an, 15:36)
Man has also been granted potentialities to acquire knowledge of how everything else in the universe functions as well as the knowledge required for his felicity. (al-Qur’an, 2:33). This knowledge along with the faculty of reason and intellect, are man’s primary guide that distinguishes him from other animals and help him recognize the path of his ultimate felicity.
Man’s hopes are often related to various comforts and joys of physical and worldly kind while Islam does not deprive him of these. Islam, however, redirects him from false and transitory joys and values to real values and everlasting joys. The Holy Qur’an says:
“This life of the world is just a pastime and a game. And, indeed, the home of the Hereafter is the real life, if they know.” (29:64)
Since the topic of human nature and personality development is the central issue in the sufi thought, it would be unfair to avoid mentioning their views in this regard. According to the Sufi theory, man is the microcosm and a copy made in the image of God. Since man cannot know what is not in him, he could not know God and all the mysteries of the universe unless he founds them in himself. So God-consciousness and self-consciousness are interdependent and a true knowledge of one’s own self necessarily leads to the knowledge of God. According to Ibn Arabi, God’s breathing of His spirit into man, as described by the Holy Qur’an, (15:28-29) is of immense metaphysical significance. He believes that man is the perfect manifestation of divine attributes and names. (Nasr, Sayyed Hossain. (1988). Three Muslim Sages. Lahore: Sohail Academy.) He also refers to the saying of the Prophet (PBUH): “God created Adam in His form.” This conception of human nature reveals that man is inherited with unlimited capacity of development and perfection.
After mentioning the position of human nature in its basic and the pure form, it is necessary to point out how man’s nature gets corrupted.
The Unrefined Human Nature
Although man has been created with a natural tendency towards the righteousness, he (excluding the prophets) cannot be free from all sins and mistakes since his declared enemy, Satan, tries to divert his attention by all possible ways and means. He always encourages man to satisfy his urges and desires in an uncontrolled way, like animals, and to become submissive and a slave to these urges. Therefore, the human instinctive tendencies, unless refined and trained, could easily overwhelm any humanely cultivated qualities conducive to spiritual enhancement. This is because the uncontrolled and unrefined urges within him would weaken and subjugate the forces of reason and conscience.
Describing some aspects of the unrefined human nature, the Holy Qur’an says:
“Surely man was created anxious, fretful when evil visits him, and grudging when (some thing) good visits him, except the worshippers.” (70:19-21)
In another surah it says:
“As for man, whenever his Lord tries him by honouring and blessing him, he says: ‘My Lord has honoured me.’ But whenever he tries him by straitening his provision, he says: ‘My Lord has humiliated me.’ (89:15-16)
The Qur’an explains another weakness in human nature which impedes self development, is the weakness of will. While narrating the story of Adam, Allah informs:
And, indeed, long ago We made Our covenant with Adam; but he forgot and We found no firmness of purpose in him. ( 20:115]
God tells us in the Qur’an that the most honorable trust, that of knowledge of Allah the all Mighty, was offered to the heavens, the earth and the mountains but they refused it, recognizing that they could not take up such a weighty truth (33:72). Mankind, however, took it on, but since weakness and forgetfulness are part of the spectrum of human being, he sees himself at all times and forgets his source. This weakness which Allah has placed within human being is to make him remember Him who is Strong (al-Qawi).
Today it has been established, scientifically as well as philosophically that there does not exist an evil human being; there exist only sick human being. This is extremely a significant discovery in the history of humankind which has already been introduced by Islam. According to this theory, bad manners like injustice, stinginess, cunning, jealousy, greed, ingratitude and so on are considered as spiritual illness and should be treated exactly like any other disease. The Holy Qur’an considers the hypocrites as sick persons saying:
There is a sickness in their hearts. (2:10)
This Qur’anic theory requires people not to consider any one as evil person or show any hostility or resentment towards them. Instead, they should look upon them as sick human beings who deserve their sympathy.
The Components of Human Nature
While speaking about the nature of man, Qur’an uses words like nafs, ruh, Qalb etc. Spirit is transcendent and the center of man’s being. Whereas soul (nafs), in its downward or corporeal tendency, is attached to the body and in its upward or spiritual tendency, is attached to the spirit (al-ruh).
In order to understand the Islamic concept of human psyche and nature, one must understand these terms and their relationship to each other. These basic terms are explained here.
Nafs and its levels :
Nafs (pl. Anfus or Nufus) lexically means soul, the psyche, the ego, self, life, person, heart or mind. Tajul Uroos writes that this word is used normally to denote the total personality of a person. It also means knowledge and intellect. (Taj: Ibn-i-Faris). It is used for a person as well. It is further used to express greatness, superiority, courage, resolution, and punishment. (Taj and Lisanul Arab).
The term Nafs has different uses in the Holy Qur’an as well, and in most cases, it means the human being in reality, his self and his person. (see 3: 61; 12:54) It also means the human soul (see 6:93; 50:16 etc.)
The nafs is a basic element in the cosmology of existence. Al-Ghazali mentions the two dimensions of al-nafs: the upward dimension and the downward dimension. The upward dimension is the uppermost limit of psyche which connects it the spirit, whereas the downward dimension is represented by the sensory faculties which connect it to the body.
According to the Sufi understanding, nafs is the source the negative power of anger and sexual appetite in a human being which blinds his intellect. Sufis take "nafs" as the comprehensive word for all the evil attributes of a person. That is why they emphasize on doing battle with it and to break and inactivate it as it is referred to in the Hadith of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
“Your worst enemy is your nafs which lies between your sides.”
The nafs needs to be nourished and developed in the Divine guidance. The nafs starts its career in an undeveloped form but equipped with immense potentialities of corruption as well as the development and getting closer to the Most Perfect Self, Allah (SWT), Whose attributes serve as an objective standard for the human self.
Although some scholars have classified the Nafs up to 7 stages, the Qur’an has described 3 main types of nafs which are:
Nafs ammarah bi al-su’, (the self urging evil)
This nafs surrenders itself to lusts and allows itself to be seduced by the devil. This is the raw self of an untrained person. Al-Nafs al-Ammarah has Shaytan as its ally who falsely promises him great rewards and gains and always invites him and attracts the soul to do evil. He presents falsehood to him in a form that he accepts and admires it.
By its very nature, Al-Nafs al-Ammarah directs its owner towards every wrong action. Allah says:
“Surely the human self urges evil.” (12:53)
Al-Nafs al-Ammara paralyzes the cognitive process of human being. Describing this fatal effect of Al-Nafs al-Ammarah, the Holy Qur’an says:
“They have hearts wherewith they do not understand; have eyes wherewith they do not see; have ears wherewith they do not hear. These are like cattle – no, but they are worse! These are the neglectful.” (7-179)
Al-Ghazali has mentioned the following negative tendencies of this nafs naming tem with ‘spiritual diseases’:
1- Nifaq (hypocrisy)
2- Pride and arrogance
3- Hawa or desire
4- Self-beholding
5- Greediness
6- Negligence
7- Restlessness
8- Ri’a
These are the most harmful tendencies of al-nafs and greatest barriers to the growth of man. When these dominate the self, man loses his insight and his total energies are diverted towards unnecessary activities. As a result, he starts believing deception as truth, fiction as reality and self-glorification as his highest goal in life.
Nafs al-lawwama, (the blaming self)
The second level of nafs is nafs al-lawwama, the blameworthy self which blames its owner for his own shortcomings. At this level, nafs is in a state of constant awareness, self-observation and self-criticism. It recognises his shortcomings, his wrong actions, his disobedience and the neglect of his duties. It is referred to it in Sura Al¬-Qiyamah when Allah says:
"And I do call to witness the Nafs that blames" (75:2).
Nafs al-lawwama is the one which cannot rest in one state. It often changes and alters, remembers and forgets, submits and withdraws, loves and hates, rejoices and becomes sad, accepts and rejects, obeys and rebels. Actually nafs, at this stage, is in the mid of its journey towards its growth and perfection.
Nafs al-mutma’inna, (the Self at Peace)
Nafs al-mutma’inna is the third and the highest stage of nafs. A person when advanced to this stage, he achieves full rest and satisfaction while his personality gets equipped with the qualities of quietness, mildness, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding of all beings. This stage of nafs ultimately leads to resolution of one’s inner conflicts and attainment of harmony with God. His personality is now dyed with His universal Colour while his behavior reflects the Absolute being and the Ultimate Reality. (Haq, Manzurul. (1984). Concept of personality development in the light of Islamic thoughts. The Bangladesh journal of Psychology, 7, 118-128.) (An abridged quotation)
This is the soul to whom it is said at the time of death:
“O soul at peace, return to your Lord, well pleased and well-pleasing. Enter with My servants, enter into My Garden.” (89:27-30)
Al-Qatadah says abut this stage of nafs: "It is the soul of the believer, made calm by what Allah has promised. Its owner is at rest and content with his knowledge of Allah’s Names and Attributes, and with what He has said about Himself and His Messenger (PBUH), and with what He has said about the Hereafter…. So much so that a believer can almost see them with his own eyes. So he submits to the will of Allah and surrenders to Him contentedly, never dissatisfied or complaining, and with his faith never wavering. He does not rejoice at his gains, nor do his sufferings make him despair." (Al-Tabari: Jami’ al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an, vol. 13, Bulaq 1323)
Ruh
Muslim theologians are divided on the issue that whether the terms “nafs” and “ruh” signify one and the same thing or are they two different entities and whether they are interchangeable?” (Ibn Al-Ālusi’s Jala’ al-‘Aynayn, pp. 142-143) Although these terms may be used interchangeably in relation to their essence, each one has clearly separate and restricted applications in certain contexts.
While the ruh spans the entire spectrum of existence - the seen as well as the unseen - the nafs is restricted to only that which may be experienced in the creational world. We may speak of the nafs as being greedy or unjust in some situations only because the light of the ruh highlights these qualities within the nafs. Indeed the nafs only exists because of the ruh which energizes it.
Ruh or spirit is the core of man’s being, yet it remains hidden. During human life on earth, the spirit and the body are united but then there is a temporary separation during death with the final union to take place in the life thereafter.
According to Muslim scholars, Ruh is the reflection of the Divine presence in man. The Holy Qur’an declares that Allah (SWT) has blown His spirit into human body:
“When I have made him and have breathed into him of My spirit, (I ordered the angles to) bow down, prostrating yourself before him. (15:29 also see 38:72 and 32:8)
The status of being the recipient of Divine spirit elevated man from his humble origin, enabled him to overcome the baser part of his nature, and made him worthy of being the vicegerent of God.
Since human body is from the earth while the spirit is from the heaven and Divine, it always longs to be united with Whom it was separated from. It is stated in Qur’an “to God we belong, to Him is our return.”
Rumi says in his book, Masnavi that the reason why a child cries the first moment after it is born on earth is because it realizes its exile from the higher place. It is unhappy because it seems captive in this worldly body. Explaining the idea of the captivity of the spirit, Rumi narrates a Qur’anic story. It says that God made a statue of Adam and asked the Ruh to enter into the body but it refused saying, ‘Lord, I do not want to be imprisoned in this physical body’. Then God told the angels to sing and dance, and on hearing their song and with the rhythm of the dance the soul went into delight, and in that condition it entered the body. Rumi says that the reason why every soul is longing to attain something is that it is in exile and a captive in this physical body.
Due to the captivity of the spirit and limitation of his physical body, man’s vision remains small and narrow. Man’s innermost being can not be satisfied except for a short time by outside factors. There always comes a time when every one finds that nothing pleases him even if he possesses all what he wants. His lack of freedom causes a continual longing for spiritual achievements. And when man reaches the stage of spiritual attainment and gets closer to its origin, he gets inner satisfaction, he develops the outlook of God and his manners become the manners of God.
Qalb
The qalb (heart) is an immaterial and formless spiritual entity or basic subtle element which has got connection with the material heart. The qalb has the capacities to acquire comprehensive intuition, to retain real knowledge, the gnosis (ma’rifa) of God and the Divine mysteries, (‘ilm al-batin) and to gain far greater insight than that of human intellect. The Qur’an considers al-Qalb as the seat of wisdom and intellect. It says:
“Do they not travel trough the land, so that their hearts may learn wisdom and their ears may learn to hear? Truly it is not their eyes, rather it is their hearts which are in their chests are blind.” (22:46)
The qalb is nourished by dhikr (remembrance of God). Its health also depends on its purity and freedom. It is the organ of a perception which is both an experience and a taste (dhawq). Al-qalb is also the master of human body which controls its organic and physical functions. All external behavioral acts of man are actually the reflection of states and conditions of al-qalb.
According to a Hadith of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) the heart is owned mutually by an angel and a shaytan:
"There are two impulses in the soul, one from an angel which calls towards good and confirms truth; whoever finds this let him know it is from God and praise Him. Another impulse comes from the enemy which leads to doubt and denies truth and forbids good; whoever finds this, let him seek refuge in God from the accursed devil." Then he recited the verse: "The devil shows you fear of poverty and enjoins evil upon you" (2:268) (Sahih Tirmidhi)
The mutual resistance of the angels and the devils remains constant in the battle over the qalb, until it is conquered by one of the two.
The same position of al-qalb and its relationship with al-ruh and al-nafs has been interestingly explained by Maulana Thanwi:
“The spirit (al-ruh) and the soul (al-nafs) engage in the battle for the possession of their common son, the heart (al-qalb). This is a symbolical way of expressing the nature of the spirit, which is masculine and the nature of soul, which is feminine.” (Thanvi, Ashraf Ali, al-sihhat hukm al-waswasah, (Deoband 1365 A.H.), 225)
According to another writer, if the spirit wins the battle, the heart will be transformed into spirit and, at the same time, transmutes its soul, engulfing her with spiritual light. Then the heart reveals itself; it becomes the lamp (mishkat) of Divine Mystery (sirr) in man. (T. Burckhardt, An introduction to Sufi Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1983) 27.)
The Healthy Heart
It is a heart purified from any passion that challenges Allah’s commands and safeguarded against the worship of anything other than Him. It seeks the judgement of no one other than him and His Messenger. Its services are exclusively reserved for Allah, willingly and lovingly, with total reliance, relating all matters to Him, in fear, hope and sincere dedication. When it loves, its love is for the sake of Allah. If it hates, its hate is for the sake of Allah. When it gives, it gives for Allah. If it withholds, it withholds for Allah (SWT). The Holy Qur’an uses adjectives such as ‘healthy’, ‘wholesome’ ‘contented’ and so on to describe this kind of heart.
Allah (SWT) has declared that on the Day of Resurrection, only those would be saved who come with a healthy heart:
"The day on which neither wealth nor sons will be of any use, except for whoever brings to Allah a sound heart. (26:88-89)"
According to an authentic saying of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
“Inside the human body there is a piece of flesh which, if it is healthy, the whole body is healthy and if it becomes unhealthy, the whole body gets unhealthy. That is al-qalb.” (Sahih Bukhari)
The heart can not be healthy i.e. successful, righteous, contented, pleased, assured except by the worship of Allah, love of Him and repentance to Him as it has an inherent need for its Lord. According to the Holy Qur’an, the heart will remain restless until it rests in God:
“For sure it is in the remembrance of God that the heart finds rest,” (13:28)
The Dead Heart
The dead or sealed heart is that which is veiled from higher inspiration for example the hearts of the hypocrites. There is little or nothing one can do to heal such hearts. This is the opposite of the healthy heart. It does not know its Lord and does not worship Him. It clings instead to its lusts and desires, even if these are likely to incur Allah’s displeasure and anger. It worships things other than Allah, and its loves and its hatreds, its giving and its withholding, arise from its whims, which are of paramount importance to it.
The Sick Heart
A large number of Qur’anic verses describe the ‘sick’ heart. The sick hearts are those that find whatever they do, attractive to them. These hearts dislike what turns them away from the course they are on. They are wrapped up in fantasies, they are contemptuous, and they follow routines and old patterns, doing ‘what their forefathers practiced’. The sick heart is also proud and hardened. It lacks real understanding because it is engulfed in desire.
This is a heart with life as well as illness in it. It has love for Allah, faith in Him, sincerity towards Him, and reliance upon Him. These are the qualities that give it life. It also has longing for lust and pleasure; it prefers them and strives to experience them. It is full of self-admiration, which can lead to its own destruction. It listens to two callers: one calling it to Allah and His Prophet; and the other calling it to the momentary pleasures. It responds to whichever one of the two happens to have most influence over it at the time.
A Hadith of the Holy Prophet explain the process of heart getting sickness. It is as follows:
“When a believer commits a sin, a dark spot appears on his heart. If he repents and seeks forgiveness (of Allah), his heart becomes spotless again. But if he persists in sin, the dark spot increases. This is the spot that has been mentioned in the Qur’an: “But on their hearts is the stain of (the ill) which they do.” (83:14) (Ibn Majah)
Other Ahadith mention that if the sinner does not repent, and instead keeps on committing sins, the stain on his heart increases and gets more darkened until it overwhelms the whole heart. Ultimately, the heart of sinner is sealed and he becomes spiritually dead.
For the purpose of simplification, nafs can be thought of as the outer man, ruh as the inner man, and qalb, the composite faculties of reasoning and decision-making, and a bridge between the two.
Conclusion
Man, being the vicegerent of God on earth and the theater wherein the Divine qualities are reflected, can reach felicity only by remaining faithful to his nature or by being truly himself. And this in turn implies that he must become integrated. Man is composed of body, mind, nafs and spirit, and each needs to be integrated on its own level. The integration of man, according to Syyed Hossain Nasr, (Sufi Essays, 51) means the realization of the One and the transmutation of the many in the light of the One. Integration and unity of man himself as well as of the whole humanity has always been the highest goal of Islam. It is also an essential part of basic Islamic belief of Tawhid. The same concept has been highlighted by a sufi poet as:
“See but One, say but One, know but One,
In this, the roots and branches of faith are summed up.”
(source : http://www.hssrd.org/journal/fallsu...)
by Mohyuddin Hashimi
Physical and biological nature of man is, although, not the main concern of the Holy Qur’an, it does provide significant insight about man and his nature. A brief description of Islamic thought on the subject is mentioned below:
Islam does not presuppose any inherent wickedness of human nature. Any negative representation of man’s basic nature as a source of evil and wickedness is clearly rejected. According to Islam, the human being is born in the state of fitrah, the original inherent nature of the human being. At birth, the baby is totally innocent and is not responsible for the sin of his parents or any of his ancestors.
Environmental and other external influences keep on modifying his blueprint. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) said:
“Every child is created in the state of fitrah, it is the parents, culture, and society that make him a Christian, a Jew, or a fire-worshipper.”
Islam is the first religion to declare man as the most superior of the creatures and the masterpiece of the Creator. According to Islam, man is potentially capable of rising higher than the angels, that is why Allah has commanded angels to bow down before Adam. But, at the same time, he is equally capable of sinking lower than the animals. The Holy Qur’an says:
"We have indeed created man in the best shap, then We reduced him (to be) the lowest of the low, except those who believe and do righteous deeds: for they shall have a reward unfailing." (95:4¬6)
These verses indicate that Allah has given man the purest and best nature while man’s duty is to preserve the pattern on which God has made him. However, when he neglects his duty and goes in the wrong way, he will be reduced to the lowest possible position.
The Holy Qur’an asserts that inclination and attraction towards faith and virtue and repulsion from disobedience and corruption exists in man’s nature.
“But God has endeared to you faith and has beautified it in your hearts and has made disbelief and lewdness and rebellion hateful to you.” (49:7)
To sum up the point, man comes into the world with a pure and wholesome nature. Whereas sin and corruption in human being are merely accidental and violation of his original nature. The role of prophets and the scriptures is just to help human nature to flow in its true channel and to guide human nature to its ultimate goal of eternal felicity. This Qur’anic theory of human nature also implies the fact that if man consciously decides to submit himself to the will of Allah, he experiences no conflict in his personality. (10:62) while, on the other hand, if he misuses his freedom of choice by denying God and not submitting to His will, would be in a state of inner conflict and his personality gets disintegrated.
Man has been given the freedom of choice to do good or evil. This freewill gives him independence of intention, choice and action in various situations of moral conflict. Man is the only creature in this universe who has been given choice and discretion which accompany him through his life span. (The Qur’an, 15:36)
Man has also been granted potentialities to acquire knowledge of how everything else in the universe functions as well as the knowledge required for his felicity. (al-Qur’an, 2:33). This knowledge along with the faculty of reason and intellect, are man’s primary guide that distinguishes him from other animals and help him recognize the path of his ultimate felicity.
Man’s hopes are often related to various comforts and joys of physical and worldly kind while Islam does not deprive him of these. Islam, however, redirects him from false and transitory joys and values to real values and everlasting joys. The Holy Qur’an says:
“This life of the world is just a pastime and a game. And, indeed, the home of the Hereafter is the real life, if they know.” (29:64)
Since the topic of human nature and personality development is the central issue in the sufi thought, it would be unfair to avoid mentioning their views in this regard. According to the Sufi theory, man is the microcosm and a copy made in the image of God. Since man cannot know what is not in him, he could not know God and all the mysteries of the universe unless he founds them in himself. So God-consciousness and self-consciousness are interdependent and a true knowledge of one’s own self necessarily leads to the knowledge of God. According to Ibn Arabi, God’s breathing of His spirit into man, as described by the Holy Qur’an, (15:28-29) is of immense metaphysical significance. He believes that man is the perfect manifestation of divine attributes and names. (Nasr, Sayyed Hossain. (1988). Three Muslim Sages. Lahore: Sohail Academy.) He also refers to the saying of the Prophet (PBUH): “God created Adam in His form.” This conception of human nature reveals that man is inherited with unlimited capacity of development and perfection.
After mentioning the position of human nature in its basic and the pure form, it is necessary to point out how man’s nature gets corrupted.
The Unrefined Human Nature
Although man has been created with a natural tendency towards the righteousness, he (excluding the prophets) cannot be free from all sins and mistakes since his declared enemy, Satan, tries to divert his attention by all possible ways and means. He always encourages man to satisfy his urges and desires in an uncontrolled way, like animals, and to become submissive and a slave to these urges. Therefore, the human instinctive tendencies, unless refined and trained, could easily overwhelm any humanely cultivated qualities conducive to spiritual enhancement. This is because the uncontrolled and unrefined urges within him would weaken and subjugate the forces of reason and conscience.
Describing some aspects of the unrefined human nature, the Holy Qur’an says:
“Surely man was created anxious, fretful when evil visits him, and grudging when (some thing) good visits him, except the worshippers.” (70:19-21)
In another surah it says:
“As for man, whenever his Lord tries him by honouring and blessing him, he says: ‘My Lord has honoured me.’ But whenever he tries him by straitening his provision, he says: ‘My Lord has humiliated me.’ (89:15-16)
The Qur’an explains another weakness in human nature which impedes self development, is the weakness of will. While narrating the story of Adam, Allah informs:
And, indeed, long ago We made Our covenant with Adam; but he forgot and We found no firmness of purpose in him. ( 20:115]
God tells us in the Qur’an that the most honorable trust, that of knowledge of Allah the all Mighty, was offered to the heavens, the earth and the mountains but they refused it, recognizing that they could not take up such a weighty truth (33:72). Mankind, however, took it on, but since weakness and forgetfulness are part of the spectrum of human being, he sees himself at all times and forgets his source. This weakness which Allah has placed within human being is to make him remember Him who is Strong (al-Qawi).
Today it has been established, scientifically as well as philosophically that there does not exist an evil human being; there exist only sick human being. This is extremely a significant discovery in the history of humankind which has already been introduced by Islam. According to this theory, bad manners like injustice, stinginess, cunning, jealousy, greed, ingratitude and so on are considered as spiritual illness and should be treated exactly like any other disease. The Holy Qur’an considers the hypocrites as sick persons saying:
There is a sickness in their hearts. (2:10)
This Qur’anic theory requires people not to consider any one as evil person or show any hostility or resentment towards them. Instead, they should look upon them as sick human beings who deserve their sympathy.
The Components of Human Nature
While speaking about the nature of man, Qur’an uses words like nafs, ruh, Qalb etc. Spirit is transcendent and the center of man’s being. Whereas soul (nafs), in its downward or corporeal tendency, is attached to the body and in its upward or spiritual tendency, is attached to the spirit (al-ruh).
In order to understand the Islamic concept of human psyche and nature, one must understand these terms and their relationship to each other. These basic terms are explained here.
Nafs and its levels :
Nafs (pl. Anfus or Nufus) lexically means soul, the psyche, the ego, self, life, person, heart or mind. Tajul Uroos writes that this word is used normally to denote the total personality of a person. It also means knowledge and intellect. (Taj: Ibn-i-Faris). It is used for a person as well. It is further used to express greatness, superiority, courage, resolution, and punishment. (Taj and Lisanul Arab).
The term Nafs has different uses in the Holy Qur’an as well, and in most cases, it means the human being in reality, his self and his person. (see 3: 61; 12:54) It also means the human soul (see 6:93; 50:16 etc.)
The nafs is a basic element in the cosmology of existence. Al-Ghazali mentions the two dimensions of al-nafs: the upward dimension and the downward dimension. The upward dimension is the uppermost limit of psyche which connects it the spirit, whereas the downward dimension is represented by the sensory faculties which connect it to the body.
According to the Sufi understanding, nafs is the source the negative power of anger and sexual appetite in a human being which blinds his intellect. Sufis take "nafs" as the comprehensive word for all the evil attributes of a person. That is why they emphasize on doing battle with it and to break and inactivate it as it is referred to in the Hadith of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
“Your worst enemy is your nafs which lies between your sides.”
The nafs needs to be nourished and developed in the Divine guidance. The nafs starts its career in an undeveloped form but equipped with immense potentialities of corruption as well as the development and getting closer to the Most Perfect Self, Allah (SWT), Whose attributes serve as an objective standard for the human self.
Although some scholars have classified the Nafs up to 7 stages, the Qur’an has described 3 main types of nafs which are:
Nafs ammarah bi al-su’, (the self urging evil)
This nafs surrenders itself to lusts and allows itself to be seduced by the devil. This is the raw self of an untrained person. Al-Nafs al-Ammarah has Shaytan as its ally who falsely promises him great rewards and gains and always invites him and attracts the soul to do evil. He presents falsehood to him in a form that he accepts and admires it.
By its very nature, Al-Nafs al-Ammarah directs its owner towards every wrong action. Allah says:
“Surely the human self urges evil.” (12:53)
Al-Nafs al-Ammara paralyzes the cognitive process of human being. Describing this fatal effect of Al-Nafs al-Ammarah, the Holy Qur’an says:
“They have hearts wherewith they do not understand; have eyes wherewith they do not see; have ears wherewith they do not hear. These are like cattle – no, but they are worse! These are the neglectful.” (7-179)
Al-Ghazali has mentioned the following negative tendencies of this nafs naming tem with ‘spiritual diseases’:
1- Nifaq (hypocrisy)
2- Pride and arrogance
3- Hawa or desire
4- Self-beholding
5- Greediness
6- Negligence
7- Restlessness
8- Ri’a
These are the most harmful tendencies of al-nafs and greatest barriers to the growth of man. When these dominate the self, man loses his insight and his total energies are diverted towards unnecessary activities. As a result, he starts believing deception as truth, fiction as reality and self-glorification as his highest goal in life.
Nafs al-lawwama, (the blaming self)
The second level of nafs is nafs al-lawwama, the blameworthy self which blames its owner for his own shortcomings. At this level, nafs is in a state of constant awareness, self-observation and self-criticism. It recognises his shortcomings, his wrong actions, his disobedience and the neglect of his duties. It is referred to it in Sura Al¬-Qiyamah when Allah says:
"And I do call to witness the Nafs that blames" (75:2).
Nafs al-lawwama is the one which cannot rest in one state. It often changes and alters, remembers and forgets, submits and withdraws, loves and hates, rejoices and becomes sad, accepts and rejects, obeys and rebels. Actually nafs, at this stage, is in the mid of its journey towards its growth and perfection.
Nafs al-mutma’inna, (the Self at Peace)
Nafs al-mutma’inna is the third and the highest stage of nafs. A person when advanced to this stage, he achieves full rest and satisfaction while his personality gets equipped with the qualities of quietness, mildness, tolerance, forgiveness, and understanding of all beings. This stage of nafs ultimately leads to resolution of one’s inner conflicts and attainment of harmony with God. His personality is now dyed with His universal Colour while his behavior reflects the Absolute being and the Ultimate Reality. (Haq, Manzurul. (1984). Concept of personality development in the light of Islamic thoughts. The Bangladesh journal of Psychology, 7, 118-128.) (An abridged quotation)
This is the soul to whom it is said at the time of death:
“O soul at peace, return to your Lord, well pleased and well-pleasing. Enter with My servants, enter into My Garden.” (89:27-30)
Al-Qatadah says abut this stage of nafs: "It is the soul of the believer, made calm by what Allah has promised. Its owner is at rest and content with his knowledge of Allah’s Names and Attributes, and with what He has said about Himself and His Messenger (PBUH), and with what He has said about the Hereafter…. So much so that a believer can almost see them with his own eyes. So he submits to the will of Allah and surrenders to Him contentedly, never dissatisfied or complaining, and with his faith never wavering. He does not rejoice at his gains, nor do his sufferings make him despair." (Al-Tabari: Jami’ al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an, vol. 13, Bulaq 1323)
Ruh
Muslim theologians are divided on the issue that whether the terms “nafs” and “ruh” signify one and the same thing or are they two different entities and whether they are interchangeable?” (Ibn Al-Ālusi’s Jala’ al-‘Aynayn, pp. 142-143) Although these terms may be used interchangeably in relation to their essence, each one has clearly separate and restricted applications in certain contexts.
While the ruh spans the entire spectrum of existence - the seen as well as the unseen - the nafs is restricted to only that which may be experienced in the creational world. We may speak of the nafs as being greedy or unjust in some situations only because the light of the ruh highlights these qualities within the nafs. Indeed the nafs only exists because of the ruh which energizes it.
Ruh or spirit is the core of man’s being, yet it remains hidden. During human life on earth, the spirit and the body are united but then there is a temporary separation during death with the final union to take place in the life thereafter.
According to Muslim scholars, Ruh is the reflection of the Divine presence in man. The Holy Qur’an declares that Allah (SWT) has blown His spirit into human body:
“When I have made him and have breathed into him of My spirit, (I ordered the angles to) bow down, prostrating yourself before him. (15:29 also see 38:72 and 32:8)
The status of being the recipient of Divine spirit elevated man from his humble origin, enabled him to overcome the baser part of his nature, and made him worthy of being the vicegerent of God.
Since human body is from the earth while the spirit is from the heaven and Divine, it always longs to be united with Whom it was separated from. It is stated in Qur’an “to God we belong, to Him is our return.”
Rumi says in his book, Masnavi that the reason why a child cries the first moment after it is born on earth is because it realizes its exile from the higher place. It is unhappy because it seems captive in this worldly body. Explaining the idea of the captivity of the spirit, Rumi narrates a Qur’anic story. It says that God made a statue of Adam and asked the Ruh to enter into the body but it refused saying, ‘Lord, I do not want to be imprisoned in this physical body’. Then God told the angels to sing and dance, and on hearing their song and with the rhythm of the dance the soul went into delight, and in that condition it entered the body. Rumi says that the reason why every soul is longing to attain something is that it is in exile and a captive in this physical body.
Due to the captivity of the spirit and limitation of his physical body, man’s vision remains small and narrow. Man’s innermost being can not be satisfied except for a short time by outside factors. There always comes a time when every one finds that nothing pleases him even if he possesses all what he wants. His lack of freedom causes a continual longing for spiritual achievements. And when man reaches the stage of spiritual attainment and gets closer to its origin, he gets inner satisfaction, he develops the outlook of God and his manners become the manners of God.
Qalb
The qalb (heart) is an immaterial and formless spiritual entity or basic subtle element which has got connection with the material heart. The qalb has the capacities to acquire comprehensive intuition, to retain real knowledge, the gnosis (ma’rifa) of God and the Divine mysteries, (‘ilm al-batin) and to gain far greater insight than that of human intellect. The Qur’an considers al-Qalb as the seat of wisdom and intellect. It says:
“Do they not travel trough the land, so that their hearts may learn wisdom and their ears may learn to hear? Truly it is not their eyes, rather it is their hearts which are in their chests are blind.” (22:46)
The qalb is nourished by dhikr (remembrance of God). Its health also depends on its purity and freedom. It is the organ of a perception which is both an experience and a taste (dhawq). Al-qalb is also the master of human body which controls its organic and physical functions. All external behavioral acts of man are actually the reflection of states and conditions of al-qalb.
According to a Hadith of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) the heart is owned mutually by an angel and a shaytan:
"There are two impulses in the soul, one from an angel which calls towards good and confirms truth; whoever finds this let him know it is from God and praise Him. Another impulse comes from the enemy which leads to doubt and denies truth and forbids good; whoever finds this, let him seek refuge in God from the accursed devil." Then he recited the verse: "The devil shows you fear of poverty and enjoins evil upon you" (2:268) (Sahih Tirmidhi)
The mutual resistance of the angels and the devils remains constant in the battle over the qalb, until it is conquered by one of the two.
The same position of al-qalb and its relationship with al-ruh and al-nafs has been interestingly explained by Maulana Thanwi:
“The spirit (al-ruh) and the soul (al-nafs) engage in the battle for the possession of their common son, the heart (al-qalb). This is a symbolical way of expressing the nature of the spirit, which is masculine and the nature of soul, which is feminine.” (Thanvi, Ashraf Ali, al-sihhat hukm al-waswasah, (Deoband 1365 A.H.), 225)
According to another writer, if the spirit wins the battle, the heart will be transformed into spirit and, at the same time, transmutes its soul, engulfing her with spiritual light. Then the heart reveals itself; it becomes the lamp (mishkat) of Divine Mystery (sirr) in man. (T. Burckhardt, An introduction to Sufi Doctrine, trans. D. M. Matheson (Lahore: M. Ashraf, 1983) 27.)
The Healthy Heart
It is a heart purified from any passion that challenges Allah’s commands and safeguarded against the worship of anything other than Him. It seeks the judgement of no one other than him and His Messenger. Its services are exclusively reserved for Allah, willingly and lovingly, with total reliance, relating all matters to Him, in fear, hope and sincere dedication. When it loves, its love is for the sake of Allah. If it hates, its hate is for the sake of Allah. When it gives, it gives for Allah. If it withholds, it withholds for Allah (SWT). The Holy Qur’an uses adjectives such as ‘healthy’, ‘wholesome’ ‘contented’ and so on to describe this kind of heart.
Allah (SWT) has declared that on the Day of Resurrection, only those would be saved who come with a healthy heart:
"The day on which neither wealth nor sons will be of any use, except for whoever brings to Allah a sound heart. (26:88-89)"
According to an authentic saying of the Holy Prophet (PBUH):
“Inside the human body there is a piece of flesh which, if it is healthy, the whole body is healthy and if it becomes unhealthy, the whole body gets unhealthy. That is al-qalb.” (Sahih Bukhari)
The heart can not be healthy i.e. successful, righteous, contented, pleased, assured except by the worship of Allah, love of Him and repentance to Him as it has an inherent need for its Lord. According to the Holy Qur’an, the heart will remain restless until it rests in God:
“For sure it is in the remembrance of God that the heart finds rest,” (13:28)
The Dead Heart
The dead or sealed heart is that which is veiled from higher inspiration for example the hearts of the hypocrites. There is little or nothing one can do to heal such hearts. This is the opposite of the healthy heart. It does not know its Lord and does not worship Him. It clings instead to its lusts and desires, even if these are likely to incur Allah’s displeasure and anger. It worships things other than Allah, and its loves and its hatreds, its giving and its withholding, arise from its whims, which are of paramount importance to it.
The Sick Heart
A large number of Qur’anic verses describe the ‘sick’ heart. The sick hearts are those that find whatever they do, attractive to them. These hearts dislike what turns them away from the course they are on. They are wrapped up in fantasies, they are contemptuous, and they follow routines and old patterns, doing ‘what their forefathers practiced’. The sick heart is also proud and hardened. It lacks real understanding because it is engulfed in desire.
This is a heart with life as well as illness in it. It has love for Allah, faith in Him, sincerity towards Him, and reliance upon Him. These are the qualities that give it life. It also has longing for lust and pleasure; it prefers them and strives to experience them. It is full of self-admiration, which can lead to its own destruction. It listens to two callers: one calling it to Allah and His Prophet; and the other calling it to the momentary pleasures. It responds to whichever one of the two happens to have most influence over it at the time.
A Hadith of the Holy Prophet explain the process of heart getting sickness. It is as follows:
“When a believer commits a sin, a dark spot appears on his heart. If he repents and seeks forgiveness (of Allah), his heart becomes spotless again. But if he persists in sin, the dark spot increases. This is the spot that has been mentioned in the Qur’an: “But on their hearts is the stain of (the ill) which they do.” (83:14) (Ibn Majah)
Other Ahadith mention that if the sinner does not repent, and instead keeps on committing sins, the stain on his heart increases and gets more darkened until it overwhelms the whole heart. Ultimately, the heart of sinner is sealed and he becomes spiritually dead.
For the purpose of simplification, nafs can be thought of as the outer man, ruh as the inner man, and qalb, the composite faculties of reasoning and decision-making, and a bridge between the two.
Conclusion
Man, being the vicegerent of God on earth and the theater wherein the Divine qualities are reflected, can reach felicity only by remaining faithful to his nature or by being truly himself. And this in turn implies that he must become integrated. Man is composed of body, mind, nafs and spirit, and each needs to be integrated on its own level. The integration of man, according to Syyed Hossain Nasr, (Sufi Essays, 51) means the realization of the One and the transmutation of the many in the light of the One. Integration and unity of man himself as well as of the whole humanity has always been the highest goal of Islam. It is also an essential part of basic Islamic belief of Tawhid. The same concept has been highlighted by a sufi poet as:
“See but One, say but One, know but One,
In this, the roots and branches of faith are summed up.”
(source : http://www.hssrd.org/journal/fallsu...)
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