By IINA,
Jeddah : Hira magazine, the first Arabic magazine published from Turkey after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, is now available in Saudi Arabia, the birth place of Islam. There was a tremendous response from the Saudi public for this magazine, which is focusing specially on science and culture in the light of the Holy Quran and the Prophet’s Tradition. Al Wataniya Distribution, one of the two leading distribution companies in the Kingdom, is distributing the magazine. The magazine has caught the attention of the Arab press and Arab intellectual circles to a certain extent, but still to reach the Arab public, according to its publishers.
Hira magazine, a new venture of the Gulen movement, started publishing during the holy month of Ramadan in December 2005. A quarterly magazine, of which eleven issues have appeared to date. The Istanbul-based magazine drew attention of a wide circle of readers within a short of span time, mainly because of the depth of its content, balanced and moderate approach and elegant style. It is mainly intra-Muslim in its aims and aspirations. The magazine, published in the Quranic language of Arabic, features articles written by both Turkish and Arabic writers; a lead article by the world-renowed Islamic scholar and thinker Fethullah Gulen opens and sets the tone of each issue. The magazine acts to bring the intellectual outlook of the Gulen movement to the Arab world, serving as a cultural bridge between Turks and Arabs, as a forum in which pressing issues in contemporary Islam can be aired and treated by leading Muslim thinkers. It also acts as a tool for the global Muslim community to consolidate a renewed vision of its relation to the intellectual and socio-political realities of the modern world.
The magazine has so far proved that it has the potential to speak effectively to the Muslim Ummah as a leading voice for the future of Islam. The magazine treats a wide range of topics such as education, science, religion, art and culture, philosophy, civilization, history, poetry, and above all the psychological and spiritual formation of the human soul—all through the lens of Islam. The emphasis on the interior life make sense of the magazine’s name, Hira’, which refers to the cave on Jabal Al Nur (Mount of Light) in Makkah where the Prophet Muhammad (peace be up on him) would go for meditation and contemplation and the first verses of the Holy Quran were revealed from there. The prophetic cave of Hira shows that something more is needed for religion to realize its purpose: spiritual insight that rejects the notion that material reality is final measure of the worth of religion.
Hira does not therefore focus on theological disputes, which never end decisively.
The presentation of the magazine and not only the content of its articles seeks to appeal to the Muslim psyche and remind it of the heavenly desire within that can only be fulfilled in a realm beyond the material one. A lead article by Fethullah Gulen opens and sets the tone of each issue. It is worth noting that the Arab figures brought together by the magazine represents some of the most highly respected Muslim voices in the Arab world today.