It is a common fact of life to observe difference. Let me at first use this word without qualifying it, in a general sense. I would like to exclaim "difference is beautiful." I am saying this with an understanding of cultural dialogue among the people of the world. If we realize the beauty of difference among different cultures then we can see that dialogue is good, peace is good. Seeing the horrors of two world wars the world is able to realize the need for peace. In fact the ground of peace lies underneath the realization that cultural difference is beautiful. Can you imagine a world that is made up of just one culture and one people? Don’t you think that such a world would be boring? You are all living examples of this truth. For, you have come here and met so many different people in this international conference which made us happy. Now you will return home to tell your friends and other people that there is a beautiful culture here and also inform us also about your ways of living and your ways of human society. We have seen and understood that we have a lot to learn from you also. Isn’t this the way all humans feel when they visit places?

I would like to claim that although difference is beautiful, it also lays the burden of a moral responsibility on all of us. This moral responsibility is to accept and bear the cultural difference of one another. Are we ready to accept and appreciate the difference of our fellow human beings? This is the real issue. I am hoping that there will be papers discussing this issue in this conference. But at least let me declare in the opening of this conference that unless we realize our difference and appreciate the cultural variety of human existence we will not be able to see the beauty of difference and again unless we see the beauty of our cultural existence we will not be able to establish peace on earth. Let me declare again that this conference will be an effort in the way to prepare people for this realization of cultural beauty. We hope that it will be a union manifesting the beauty of difference in the human mosaic. Let us hope that this will be a beautiful beginning for world peace and a happy human coexistence.

The title of my paper may sound romantic; but it is not intended to be so. The romantic title is used to draw attention to a human phenomenon which needs a rigorous philosophical analysis. The definition of man as "rational animal" persisted throughout the history of philosophy. This definition brings to fore two main aspects of human beings: animality and rationality. However, it neglects another significant aspect which can be represented by his emotionality. This means that a "human is an animal, emotional and rational being." By this definition we are claiming that the animality of humans is different from the animality of animals, just as both their emotionality and rationality are different from the emotionality and rationality of animals. It is because of this difference that humans can transcend their physical being and rise to the level of spirituality which is not possible for other species of lower rank. As a result, we need to modify our definition by including a fourth aspect in the classical definitions of man; spirituality which is the characteristic of angels. The first three aspects, namely animality, emotionality and rationality, belong to man as his own nature; whereas the fourth one, namely the spirituality, is given to him as a potentiality which he may or may not develop. Each of these aspects is endowed with certain potentialities and capacities that are given to humans for certain purposes. When they are used outside the limits of these purposes then problems arise. In that case a meticulous analysis of these aspects of human beings must be carried out in order to avoid these problems.

The animal aspect, being endowed with life, has two basic characteristics: one is doing whatever is necessary to preserve life, such as nutrition, reproduction and defense; the other is to hold these activities within the humanly sphere, which is the link between animality and emotionality. This is the difference between human animality and animal animality. The link is found in the fact that humans are weak animals; they do not have the physical power or other defensive mechanism found in other animals. Therefore, at the level of animality they need "togetherness" in order to survive. Even if this characteristic is found in other animals still it is the main characteristic of human animality because it leads to emotionality. That is why we add an emotional aspect to "being together" and thus raise to the level of emotions.

The emotional aspect of human beings represents all human emotions as a whole. When we say that we add an emotional aspect to "being together" and thus raise to the level of emotions we do not mean that this aspect arises as a result of the animal aspect. All human aspects are already given and in this sense they form a unity. What we mean is that each aspect can be analyzed at their lower levels but cannot be distinguished at their higher levels. The basic characteristic of the emotional aspect is to give breath to all human activities whether animal or rational or spiritual. If the animal aspect is able to perceive our biological and physical needs then the emotional aspect is able to perceive our non-physical needs. Since the spiritual aspect is totally non-physical this aspect is the closest to our spirituality.

The rational aspect includes the human characteristic which according to Aristotle defines man’s real nature because this is the aspect of conceptual thinking which no other animal has. The rational aspect analyzes and evaluates all the data that it receives from the lower aspects, namely the animal and emotional. It is as such the seat of scientific knowledge.

All of these aspects have their faculties to perform their functions; the faculties of animality are the five senses at the lower level and the concupiscence in general (which means it is not taken merely in the sexual connotation) at the higher level which represents the passage from animality to emotionality. The lower faculty of emotions is the heart as the seat of emotions and at the higher level it is conscience which is the moral faculty that provides the first step into the intellectual thinking. But since this thinking is supposed to be conceptual we need a faculty at the rational aspect that converts all these data into the raw material that is convenient for our mind to digest. That faculty which provides this conceptual conversion is imagination which is the lower faculty of our rational aspect and intuition is the higher faculty of our rational aspect which also provides the first step into spirituality. I am not saying that these are the only faculties belonging to human nature. The ones mentioned here are important for our purpose to evaluate the ground of human differences. Although the nature with three biological aspects and a spiritual aspect are one and the same in all humans with varying degrees of intensity, the outcome of these aspects are many. Let us try to see how those differences arise.

What I have outlined here provide a rich inner world for a human being. At the animal level, for example, a piece of land is perceived as mere "territory" which provides livelihood for us. The land is defended only for this purpose and is seen precious as long as it provides livelihood. But at the emotional level a human being is passionately attached to the land. As such he may write poems and sing love songs for the land where he lives. Yet at the rational level a human being will try to conceptualize the land and call it his "country" or "homeland". Moreover, he may intellectually idealize the land where he is living. The same approach by the three human aspects can be applied to everything he encounters in this world: his belongings, his friends, his family, his relationships, his actions and so on. Everything human will have the same aspects, namely an animal aspect, an emotional and a rational aspect in so far as a human being looks at things. As a result a human being will have a rich inner world. It is this inner world that is reflected outside. That reflection may have a variety of modalities. For example as a mode of action, it is her/his behaviour; what s/he does to others and in fact to herself /himself. But as a mode of new being it is an achievement, which could be an art work, or a product. When it is in the conceptual mode it is knowledge, which is perhaps the highest achievement for a human being.

All these achievements are reflections and manifestations of the inner world of a human being. These manifestations occur in a social context called "culture". With such a diversified nature man turns in a sense inside out within a social context and turning its entire inner world into what we call "culture." Now here the system that turns an inner world into a culture is one; but that which is turned inside out is not one but many. This is in a sense resembling a system of production that is one in its structure but diversified in its output. Let us consider only two systems that belong to our nature: the digestive system and the knowledge system, by which I mean the human epistemology. Our digestive system is the same, having a mouth, tongue, teeth, stomach and the rest of the organs. We know from anatomy the way they all work is the same and that is why when there is a problem a Turk does not have to go to a Turkish doctor but can go to any human doctor. On the other hand, quite contrary to the unity of our digestive system our culinary culture is immensely diversified. In the same way, our knowledge system also is one, having one logic and epistemology with all similar faculties. Yet the knowledge generated from that system is not one but multiple. This shows the great cultural diversity. We may ask here why only one human being but diversified output?

Let us pass from here to another human dimension which may enable us to evaluate what we referred to above as the spiritual aspect. As we have seen the need to be together with other fellow human beings is grounded in our animal aspect. It is therefore our inner nature to form groups to live together. But this togetherness is only a primitive collection of human beings. When the emotional aspect is added the togetherness gradually turns into a community. In a community bonds are established with strong feelings because they are evaluated emotionally and hence emotional stories of relationships are created. As a result of this the community may be organized on the basis of a "feeling relationship". There may be an elderly group that is respected and obeyed. There will also be other groups that are defined on the basis of feelings which in turn they also contribute to the organization of the community. But with the addition of the rational aspect the organization is maintained with reason. Therefore, a political system is developed according to which the community is governed. Now the community is a society in the true sense and the rational organization of the community is given a name, such as a state or government. In such an organization man is able to exhibit and develop all his potentialities. He can find everything in the society. By using his reason he is also able to find the reason for existence and the cause of the universe. But he is utterly unable to reach to an all comprehensive concept which can provide meaning to all the aspects he reflects. Moreover he finds some potentialities in himself which he is not able to develop. At this juncture he finds "Revelation" defined as religion. Upon an investigation of religion he finds that he is now able to develop some of his potentialities which he could not even imagine. This aspect which is based upon the development of these potentialities with the help of religion we call the "spiritual aspect" of human beings.

Religion is in fact the Divine Guidance for humanity. Therefore, religion is God-given. There is no seat or ground in human nature to provide a foundation for the rise of religion. There are only, if my phrase is clear enough, "receptive points" which I have called "potentialities" in human nature that may receive religion but cannot make or unmake religion. Human beings may invent religion by imitating the true religion that has been revealed. But that is a different case. I believe that man is not given the authority to invent religion because those inventions will not find the receptive points in human nature and as a result will be dangerous to humanity. There are such instances in human history. Therefore, by definition human beings do not have an authority to establish religion. Although religion is a Divine Guidance for humanity, it is not the kind of guidance that gives us an exhaustive list of how we should behave in any given situation. If this were done by religion we would have had to act as robots according to that list, in which case there would be no room for human intellectual creativity in any field, including sciences. In that case, religion as a Divine Guidance bestows upon us two fundamental states of mind: one is the consciousness of the Divine Presence in all; the other is the moral sensitivity in our behaviors. Both states of mind are expressed in general principles by religion. We therefore feel the need to interpret these principles in order to apply them to certain situations in our life. This need of interpretation gradually gives rise to a systematic exposition of religion as a system of guidance. In that case, this second intellectual understanding is also defined as religion. We thus need to distinguish between these two phenomena: Religion as Divine Guidance and Religion as the interpretation of this Divine Guidance; the former is Pure Religion and the latter is the religion within a certain cultural context. I believe that there is no harm in interpreting the Pure Religion in a certain cultural context. On the contrary, it is inevitable and indeed required by God; a requirement that is clear in the fact that He does not send His Guidance as a complete set of rules readily available to be applied to human life. It is as a result of this that we develop our spiritual potentialities.

When we consider these aspects of human nature we realize that humans have a very rich inner world. When this inner world, as we have seen, is projected within a social context then it gives rise to human culture. In this sense the human being is depicted in Islamic thought as the microcosm because s/he includes in its being representations of all the worlds in the universe. In this sense a human being can be called a "mini universe". It is therefore natural for him to reflect all these diverse universes in the mirror of society. That is why we have so many diversified cultures and civilizations. It is this aspect of man that is taken as the locus of revelation by religion which means it is also a God-given right for humans to have diverse cultures, societies and communities. This diversified nature of man makes him a valuable creature as the Qur’an also points out:

Therefore, the abundance of different cultures makes life enjoyable and breaks the monotonous flow of events in history. But the beauty of diverse cultures has another aspect; it lays the burden of bearing differences. This is because each aspect of human nature is left free without any boundaries. Therefore if they are not controlled there will arise injustice and violations. That is why each aspect of human nature must be kept under control. I think this can be done by taming the lower aspect with the good use of its next higher aspect. In that case, the animal aspect is controlled by the good use of the emotional aspect and the emotional aspect is controlled by the good use of the rational aspect; and in turn the rational aspect is controlled by the spiritual aspect which is nourished by divine revelation. If the final phase is the greatest good then religion as the divine revelation is the greatest good providing tolerance for differences. Therefore, if different cultures arise within a civilization of religion then we can tell that the religion is fulfilling its function as cared by divine will. But human beings must also perform accordingly to tolerate different cultures, or rather differences in general.

We may then briefly express our point: human nature is diversified giving him a rich inner world to be realized within a social context. When it is realized it leads to rich cultures which may eventually turn into a significant civilization. But since the realization of the inner world would be manifested at different planes in different communities there will be necessarily differences which open a challenge for humanity to face. Today the world is moving towards globalization which poses a greater challenge for the diversity of cultures. In the past people knew of different cultures but today we face and live with different cultures. That presents a challenge every day at every place. This puts on us greater moral responsibility to tolerate cultures and differences within even the same culture. It is this diverse goodness in our nature that is reflected into our social contexts with the formidable challenge that I have tried to present here as the beauty of difference. I believe that the human destiny depends on our realization of this beauty to face it with the challenge to accept and tolerate cultural variety. That is why I would like to express this with a romantic motto with its philosophical connotation: difference is beautiful.