Issue 134 (Mar - Apr 2020)

The Coronavirus pandemic has swept the world in recent months and with it came a wave of panic, unease, and a need for courage. Humanity is collectively fighting for its health, a treasure that we sometimes take for granted. It is imperative that we constantly look to maintain our health through re…

The Example of the First Circle around the Prophet and Those Who Followed Them  (continuing from the previous issue) Zayn al-Abidin (659-713), the son of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn, was a deeply spiritual person who voiced his woeful sighs, hoping to gain God’s forgiveness and mercy. The…

As a rabbi and professor of rabbinic literature, I am naturally drawn to interpreting texts. The best moments are when these texts come alive and inform my life (inshallah). I have long been intrigued by an ancient text attributed to a pre-rabbinic figure from the first century BCE (Before the Comm…

How excessive cell phone usage can cripple a child’s mental developmentThe scene of a quiet child tapping away at a phone or tablet with glee is an image that, by now, most people are familiar with. It may seem cute at first, however a sinister reality lurks beneath this scenario. Overwhelming rese…

Diabetes is one of the most serious public health risks today. The United Nations declared diabetes as a global threat in 2007 in order to highlight just how widespread and destructive diabetes had become. Diabetes is one of the oldest known diseases, and was even mentioned in the ancient Egyptian…

To attain happiness and to avoid mood disorders, which should we pursue The messages of modern society are all too familiar to us: buy more, eat more, sleep more, take more pictures, and care less about the effects of our actions. We are encouraged to maximize pleasure while avoiding anything…

We perceive several problems related to the functions in many situations in life and develop solutions accordingly. The function shows the effect of one (or more) variable(s) on another variable. In simple terms, one factor can be called the transformation of another factor. When you send a piece o…

- Hello grandma, how is everything? - Oh, my dear Seyma, is that you? Since you are calling all the way from America I will not waste much. I am doing well, take good care of yourself and never forget to put aside your charity before Friday prayer every week. - Sure, grandma, is there anything yo…

In the language of Sufism, tahqiq (verification) means that not only does an initiate who has almost come to the final step of the journey know the Unique, Eternally Besought One with His Existence and Perfect Attributes in accordance with the Qur’anic presentation of Him, but also that the truth o…

There is often mixed joy and sorrow when traveling abroad, sometimes discovered in the journeying, sometimes found at the destination. Such a mixture was mine on a recent trip with Hizmet to India, where interfaith dialogue and its wonderful fruits across the many faiths of that subcontinent were v…

Our hands are vital for performing tasks throughout our daily lives and must be taken care of and cleaned regularly. They can easily spread germs, bacteria, or viruses such as Covid-19 (Coronavirus). Coronavirus has spread rapidly throughout the entire world in the past few months and health offici…

Advertising is an age-old concept of conveying the messages to the people. In prehistoric days, people used to write with chalk, which was available in plenty, in their own languages the messages they wanted to propagate on the walls of the caves or on tree trunks. While doing excavations in Pompei…

Violence. It surrounds us. It is all over the media. It is so common in our society today that violence has become the norm rather than the exception. Perhaps one out of every ten people in the United States have experienced or witnessed a violent crime. Psychology Today states that homicide is the…

All human beings have similar organs, but each organ has qualities unique to itself and to the person it belongs to. Research has revealed that even some of the genes of monozygotic twins are different [1]. As opposed to the previous assumption that “when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is…

Andersen KG et al. The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2. Nature Medicine, March 2020.Cases of Covid-19 first emerged in December 2019, when a mysterious illness was reported in in the city of Wuhan, China. The cause of the disease was soon confirmed as a new kind of coronavirus, and the infection has…

Question: Jihad is a significant concept in Islamic tradition, yet it is being misinterpreted and misrepresented in our times. What does it mean? What are the differences between “the lesser jihad” and “the greater jihad”? The word Jihad comes from the root “j-h-d,” which includes meanings such as…