Page 193 - A Call for a Turkish-Islamic Union

Harun Yahya - Adnan Oktar

consequence, many Western countries are forced to fight wide-

spread drug abuse, prostitution, corruption, gambling, alcohol
abuse, and organized crime. Furthermore, weakening religious be-
liefs has created an identity crisis: Materialist philosophies, which
assert that the purpose of life is to acquire material wealth and live
a life of pleasure, cannot satisfy people's spirituality and so end up
creating a void of aimlessness. Under the banner of freedom, its ad-
herents abandon themselves to their own selfish desires.
Islamic morality, on the other hand, frees people from all
kinds of worries and anxieties that trouble their minds. Believers

only heed Allah and seek to win only His good pleasure. Fully
aware of their responsibilities to our Lord, they live by their con-
science at all times and, as such, are content and well-balanced in-
dividuals. They offer their environment goodness and beauty. This
morality frees people from the pressures of envy, excessive desire,
fear of the future and death, and other attitudes and fears that are
incompatible with religious morality. Freed of these negative char-

acteristics, they experience the freedom and peace derived from
submitting to Allah.
Therefore, the development and advancement encouraged
by the Turkish Islamic Union will not be identical to the devel-
opment envisaged by the West. During its period of develop-
ment, the West experienced great social injustice. For instance,
the driving force of development in eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century England was ruthless exploitation. The working classes
endured terrible working and living conditions. Children as

young as 7 or 8 were made to work in filthy coal mines for 16
hours a day; many of them died before they were 20 years old.
In the 1840s, the average life expectancy of coal miners fell to an
16
average of 17 years. On the other hand, the rich lived in excessive
luxury and extravagance. All industrialized Western countries

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