The Ghazālian Alchemy of an Islamic Nation

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lim

Since the dawn of intellectual reasoning, religious and spiritual leaders, philosophers, academics, writers and thinkers have been asking the same fundamental question of what is ‘happiness’. Aristotle describes ‘happiness’ as the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. In a different era, across space and time, Mahatma Gandhi asserts that “…happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”. Contemporary perception views ‘happiness’ as having all material wants and needs in abundance, but it is only recently that a United Nations study contends otherwise. Material well-being has correlations to ‘happiness’ but it is not the cause of happiness. Abu Hamid al-Ghāzali, in his Alchemy of Happiness, articulated the essence and path, not to mere happiness, but to true happiness. This paper examines this timeless masterpiece by al-Ghazāli and seeks insights and relevance for the Islamic nation.

Author(s):  
Manu Bhagavan

This chapter discusses India’s association with the United Nations. Guided by the vision of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, the country initially had a highly successful grand strategy guiding its foreign policy that placed that UN at the centre of its diplomatic efforts. Things took a sharp downward turn, however, during the administration of Indira Gandhi, and the relationship has lacked cohesion and meaningful direction ever since. In recent times, India has sought to become a permanent member of the Security Council and has relatedly but unsuccessfully attempted to wield influence, though large questions about its purpose and goals remain. Contemporary crises, though, now make the answers ever more urgent.


2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-133
Author(s):  
Karol Bujnowski

Nowadays more often people are asking about the meaning of life. It is a fundamental question that every human being faces. Man is asking whether life is worth living, what to do to make our life meaningful?A human being, among many needs, has the need for discovering the sense of life, the need comes from the very core of human existence as placed in time and connected with the phenomenon of passing away. Discovering the sense of life leads to the experience of happiness, joy, and to inner life lived much more to the full. Showing the meaning of life and helping to find that meaning are very important functions of religion. Due to it, a man is able to live one’s life, ambitions, goals, joyful moments as well as his or her suffering in the light of deeper understanding. Religion is the one that can often bring the richest and deepest answers to the question of the two meanings: the meaning of life and the world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tiago Gabriel Tasca ◽  
Roberta De Freitas Campos

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are one of the main challenges to the development and well-being of populations. Based on the documents issued by the United Nations system (FAO, ECOSOC, UNGA, and WHO), it is argued that the 2030 Agenda is partially harmonized with the recommendations of these organizations. This partial harmonization is explained through political coherence by illustrating explanatory vectors from 2005 to 2019 for products associated with NCDs risk factors: alcohol, pesticides, ultra-processed foods, and tobacco. 


Mäetagused ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 79 ◽  
pp. 167-184
Author(s):  
Eda Kalmre ◽  

The article follows the narrative trend initiated by the social media posts and fake news during the first months of the corona quarantine, which claims that the decrease of contamination due to the quarantine has a positive effect on the environment and nature recovery. The author describes the context of the topic and follows the changes in the rhetoric through different genres, discussing the ways in which a picture can tell a truthful story. What is the relation between the context, truth, and rhetoric? This material spread globally, yet it was also readily “translated” into the Estonian context, and – what is very characteristic of the entire pandemic material – when approaching this material, truthful and fabricated texts, photos, and videos were combined. From the folkloristic point of view, these rumours in the form of fake news, first presented in the function of a tall tale and further following the sliding truth scale of legends, constitute a part of coping strategies, so-called crisis humour, yet, on the other hand, also a belief story presenting positive imagery, which surrounds the mainly apocalyptically perceived pandemic period and interprets the human existence on a wider scale. Even if these fake news and memes have no truth value, they communicate an idea – nature recovers – and definitely offer hope and a feeling of well-being.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabela Battistello Espindola ◽  
Maria Luisa Telarolli de Almeida Leite ◽  
Luis Paulo Batista da Silva

The global framework set forth by the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include water resources in their scope, which emphasizes how water assets and society well-being are closely intertwined and how crucial they are to achieving sustainable development. This paper explores the role of hydropolitics in that Post-2015 Development Agenda and uses Brazilian hydropolitics set to reach SDG6 as a case study.


2022 ◽  
pp. 181-197
Author(s):  
María Luisa Gracia-Pérez ◽  
Marta Gil-Lacruz ◽  
Arelys López-Concepción ◽  
Victor Bazán-Monasterio ◽  
Isabel Saz-Gil ◽  
...  

In 2015, the United Nations adopted 17 major Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address current economic, social, and environmental challenges. Governments play a key role in achieving the SDGs through advocacy, awareness, and regulation. In this work, the authors focus on SDG 3, “Guarantee a Healthy Life and Promote Well-Being for All Ages.” Specifically, the articulation of citizen participation for health promotion in health schools is reviewed. They have been selected by choosing four schools and a Spanish entity that show how health education can facilitate the development of citizen participation in the field of health. The health schools and their corresponding training programs show the multiplicity of ways that citizens acquire access to the health field, ranging from information to decision-making in the system.


2014 ◽  
pp. 526-538
Author(s):  
Deva-Marie Beck ◽  
Barbara M. Dossey ◽  
Cynda H. Rushton

In almost every nation, the severe and chronic global nursing shortage continues to threaten the health and well-being of people across the globe. Florence Nightingale’s legacy of activism is closely aligned with integrative nursing and the United Nations Millennium Goals. Together, they lay out a bold agenda that calls nurses to a way of being-doing-knowing that embraces activism, advocacy and transformation. As 21st century Nightingales, our own deep personal and professional integrative nursing mission can continually transform our own lives, thus allowing each of us to become effective catalysts for human health and to sustain our change agency for global transformation.


Author(s):  
Hohmann Jessie

This chapter focuses on the rights to identity, existence, and non-assimilation in Articles 7(2), 8, and 43, which together enshrine rights to the protection of indigenous peoples' continued survival and existence, both physically as individuals and as cultural entities in accordance with levels of human dignity and well-being. Indigenous peoples pressed for the inclusion of such principles in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in the recognition that pre-existing international, regional, and national laws had failed to protect their survival as communities with distinct cultures, or recognise them as distinct peoples. The three provisions studied in this chapter reflect this central concern of indigenous group/cultural survival and flourishing as peoples. As such, the final agreed text of Articles 7(2), 8, and 43 must be seen as containing norms aimed at the development of existing international law, which would protect and confirm indigenous collectivities in ways not currently recognised or only now emerging.


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