The heart of a heartless world: the Blessed Birth

We live in a merciless, ruthless world. This age, which is called modern, is an age in which all the projects of the Enlightenment are claimed to have been realized.

Modernity is thought to represent a condition in which the accumulated human heritage of universal human values has reached its highest level. Yet when one looks at what this journey has cost humanity, one finds nothing more than blood and tears. The project was expected to end the wars of religion and to bring about a kind of religious freedom. Strangely, of course, this religious freedom was ultimately to be secured under conditions in which religions would be rendered ineffective and unimportant. And yet, in the middle of the last century, just when this project was nearing realization and modernism was at its proudest of secularism, the cruelest and most tragic genocides and massacres in the recorded history of humanity were carried out with religious motivations.

Faced with such a scene, we are compelled to reflect on the need to go beyond such a heartless world. We need a heart, a strong heart. A heart so great that, without distinguishing or excluding any part of humanity, it can suffice for all of humanity and embrace all of it. This could be a manifestation and expression of God's mercy, which is withheld from no one. His mercy and compassion encompass everything, living or non-living, whether Muslim or not. Looking from the viewpoint of a single class, a single ethnicity, country, status group or region (homeland) can distance a person from altruism toward others. All these positions are in fact human conditions, and by their nature they are particular. Attempts to universalize these particular positions and to place one above another are the most important cause of the formation of a merciless world. This appears as ethnocentrism, racism, selfishness and other forms. In every form it produces a systematic destruction of empathy and mercy toward the Others. The conception of the Other is in fact where morality itself begins.

This is probably exactly why we try to look for figures who can inspire in us what we have lost: a reason that will inspire in us the possible wholeness and guide us in finding it. This guidance, while we continue to remain in a given time and place, can take us beyond our own historicity and sociality, that is, our particularity, and can integrate us with universal values. On the other hand, in a situation in which forming a consistent and ideal wholeness is generally considered impossible, such guidance is hoped to help us reintegrate the fragmented personality.

A human being is, of course, not a fixed entity but a process, an incomplete mode of existence. With every new experience one lives, a new effect is made on one's personality. This existential process requires us to see a person's personality as a continuously changing process. Nevertheless, any personality can be distinguished to the extent that it manages to create the impression of a certain consistency within itself. Consistency can come about through the prominence of only one of the many human qualities that a personality may possess. It is very difficult for all the positive qualities to be seen in a single personality.

We are generally accustomed to an intellectual who is extremely sensitive in the pursuit of truth yet is far from displaying the ethical or political conduct that this truth requires. Likewise we are very accustomed to the profile of an artist who, despite the skill he shows in producing very fine works, has an extremely capricious or asocial personality in his relationships. In a similar way, we are generally not very familiar with the type of politician who has a very deep intellectual vision or depth. We are even accustomed to figures who, though extremely knowledgeable and broad-minded in political theory or political science, have achieved no success in the actual field of politics and, on the contrary, have created great disappointments.

Generally, such persons are those whose caprices or weak character traits are tolerated by the societies in which they live, for the sake of their achievements in certain fields. This "tolerance fee" is paid by their communities to asocial poets, capricious artists, and irresponsible or cynical intellectuals on account of their extraordinary qualities.

The most important characteristic of the Prophet, by contrast, is precisely that he gathered, collected and integrated these fragmented human qualities, each of which is dispersed among a different personality, within a single personality. The problem is in fact a common one that can be encountered at all times and in all places.

Especially in our day, that is, in a day when a theme such as "the end of man" is being discussed, the fragmented personality is one of the most tragic dimensions of our contemporary existence. The existence of a personality such as the Prophet, or the possibility or reality of a personality like him existing as an example, is a result of God's greatest mercy to humanity. He (pbuh) represents the realistic possibility of the manifestation of the ideal in this world. He is the proof that the ideal is not so far from us. For everyone who wishes to be purified by God's compassion and mercy, it is a very near possibility.

Moreover, no one needs to pay a price for this possible and real personality of Muhammad, who manifested himself as a mercy. Because of this wholeness, no one is expected to put up with any one of his traits. There is not a single trait of his that has to be put up with. There is no trait that would require people to bear it on account of what he gave to humanity, or that would constitute a burden on his society. His leadership revived and brought back to life a dead society.

Death is the exhaustion of hopes and feelings concerning the world. He also had a charismatic personality kneaded with genius and a deep aesthetic sensibility. While he was a perfect commander on the battlefield, in his social life he was an extremely compassionate, merciful and peaceable personality. When he loved children, especially his grandchildren, you can see him behaving in an utterly childlike manner. When at just such a moment he was warned by some people out of concern that his seriousness and his image of gravity might be harmed, the answer he gave would become a great maxim for all times: "He who does not show mercy will not be shown mercy."

We thank the President of Religious Affairs and the whole Diyanet community for the extraordinary and beautiful effort they have shown in bringing the Blessed Birth (Mawlid) onto the agenda of this heartless world.