331)Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences(IIS Review Article); Quotes of Aga Khan IV.

"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 2003, London, U.K.)

"From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture, accepting, adopting, using and preserving all preceding study of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astronomy, among other areas of learning. The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilisations are founded"(Aga Khan IV, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, 1996)

"Above all, following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the ummah" (Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"The tapestry of Islamic history is studded with jewels of civilization; these jewels poured forth their light and beauty; great statesmen, great philosophers, great doctors, great astronomers; but these individuals, these precious stones were worked into a tapestry, whose dominant theme was Islam, and this theme remained dominant regardless of the swallowing up of foreign lands, foreign cultures, foreign languages and foreign people"(Aga Khan IV, 30 Jan 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan).




This is a re-post of an outstanding review article on "Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences" by Dr Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. Parts of it have recently been receiving some attention on Ismaili Mail's Spirit and Life Blog as well as on Facebook. It is worth a thorough read by all you cybersurfers out there:

Introduction

The pursuit of knowledge is central to the Qur’anic message. The goal of knowledge is not mere contemplation but the discovery of action that leads to ulti­mate felicity. In the intellectually fertile, diverse, multi-faith, multi-ethnic, and stimulating environ­ment of classical and medieval Islamic civilisation, an intense de­bate existed among competing intellectual disci­plines. This debate, which endured across continents and centuries even as these disciplines evolved, fo­cused on the issues of the identity and foundations of “real” knowledge that one ought to acquire and make the basis for action.


The Search for Knowledge

For many, such knowledge was to be found in Islamic law derived from the traditional sources of the Qur’an and the Prophetic Tradition. Salvation, then, re­quired living a life in conformity with the law. For others, real knowledge was esoteric and mystical, and hence the path to salvation lay in seeking the right teacher and be­ing initiated into devotional practices leading to union with God. Still others thought real knowledge consisted of a rational understanding of God’s nature and attributes, His creation of the world, its dependency on Him, and His bounty and mercy to the creatures of this world as manifested in prophecy. For them, salvation lay in the practices instituted by prophets, provided that the per­formance of these practices was grounded in rational knowledge. Yet others regarded real knowledge to be the philosophical wisdom of the ancients as found in the Neoplatonised Aristotelian view of the world. Salvation, they held, was living in conformity with the ethical prin­ciples of this system, namely intellectual self-improve­ment and virtuous living, which allowed the soul to achieve immortality through the “Active Intellect”.

A naive analysis of these formulations would pit the “foreign” or secular sciences derived from the ancients (in particular, the Greeks) against the “religious” or revealed sciences, echoing the erroneous, but nonethe­less prevalent, paradigmatic view of the incompatibility between reason and religion. In the classical and medieval Islamic context, the interaction between secular and religious sciences had profound consequences, for this interac­tion was the process by which knowledge whose ori­gins were non-Islamic was appropriated and then naturalised into a civilisation with a different ethos. Within this interaction, both secular and religious sci­ences adopted methods and doctrines from each other in the course of centuries of critical and sometimes acrimonious, debate. Three philosoph­ical movements can be broadly identified within the historical evolution of this interaction: religious or the­ological philosophy (kalam), Islamic Hellenistic philos­ophy (falsafa), and mystical philosophy. The scientific tradition in Islamic civilisation was pri­marily allied to the second of these, namely Islamic Hellenistic philosophy.

The geography of the early Islamic empire was fun­damental to the emergence of the intellectual disci­plines of classical and medieval Islamic civilisation. The Arabian Peninsula, home to the Prophet Muhammad, was at the periphery of the centres of learning of Late Antiquity. Within a few decades after Muhammad’s death, Muslim armies had gained control of a vast region from the Atlantic to the borders of India. As a result, such Hellenistic centres of learning as Alexandria and Antioch where Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, Platonic, and other texts had been studied over centuries, as well as the centres of Manichean, Bardaisanite, Buddhist, Jewish, and Christian learning, now were part of a nom­inally single empire, where, in time, Arabic became the language of intellectual discourse. Language was just one of the elements uniting this vast and diverse em­pire. Other elements include a measure of cultural uni­formity, aesthetic sensibility, patronage, the struggle to find meaning and discover norms of practice and behaviour in the Islamic message, and, most importantly, an attitude of reverence toward knowledge derived from the Qur’an. Material factors also played a role, in particular, the availability of paper. The discovery of its manufacture originated in China but spread across the Islamic empire in the eighth century. Since books could now be produced cheaply, the pace of the dissemina­tion of knowledge accelerated. A flourishing book trade ensued, indicative of a desire for knowledge, which, in turn, fuelled further intellectual activity.

Read further:
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=106391



Easy nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

330)Matter and Energy: two sides of the same coin; how interpreting the light(energy) from the sun gives precise information about the matter in it.

In the very early and very hot Universe, not long after the Big Bang, matter and energy were united in the fabric of the Universe. As the Universe cooled, they then seperated out from each other into particles of matter and particles of the fundamental forces(or energies) that we find in nature. They are nevertheless two sides of the same coin, as shown by the most famous and well known scientific equation in the world, Albert Einstein's E=MCsquared(Energy equals Mass multiplied by the Speed of Light squared), elucidated in the early part of the 20th century.


The Solar Composition

Although we cannot sample the Sun directly, we can learn a great deal about its composition from the pattern of absorption lines in its spectrum (the Frauenhofer lines). The pattern of these lines serves as a set of fingerprints for the elements that are present in the surface of the Sun, and their intensity serves as a measure of the concentration of these elements.


Solar Elemental Abundances

Element:____ Number %,____ Mass %

Hydrogen: _____92.0, _______73.4
Helium: _______7.8, ________25.0
Carbon: _______0.02, _______0.20
Nitrogen: _____0.008, _______0.09
Oxygen: ______0.06, ________0.8
Neon: ________0.01, ________0.16
Magnesium: ___0.003, _______0.06
Silicon: _______0.004, _______0.09
Sulfur: _______0.002, _______0.05
Iron: ________0.003, _______0.14



The Solar Abundances

Approximately 60 elements have been thus identified in the solar spectrum. The most abundant are listed in the above table, both with respect to the number of atoms or ions present, and with respect to the total mass of the atoms or ions. The Sun is clearly mostly hydrogen and helium, with only a trace of heavier elements. This is also true of the Universe as a whole: most of the Universe is hydrogen, with some helium, and the remainder of the elements occur only in trace concentrations. In that sense the composition of the Earth is highly unrepresentative of the rest of the Universe.


The Discovery of Helium

The element helium is the second most abundant in both the Sun and the Universe, but it is very difficult to find on the Earth. In fact, helium was discovered in the spectrum of the Sun (the name helium derives from helios, which is the Greek name for the Sun). It was postulated that a set of spectral lines observed in the Solar emission spectrum that could not be associated with any known element belonged to a new element (the Sun is too cool to ionize helium appreciably, so absorption lines associated with helium are very weak). Only after this was helium discovered on the Earth and this hypothesis confirmed (helium occurs in certain very deep gas wells on the Earth).


Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

329)Our Sun is a WILD place-doing all kinds of ablutions, looking like a Picasso painting, having a bad hair day, or just scintillating radiantly....

1) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040802.html

2) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021114.html

3) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040725.html

4) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap971120.html

5) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051109.html

6) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061204.html

7) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060807.html

8) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000403.html

9) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990923.html

10) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010301.html

11) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010924.html

12) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060710.html

13) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060611.html

14) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070402.html

15) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071106.html

16) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980601.html

17) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970107.html

18) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031122.html

19) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060407.html

20) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060331.html

21) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021206.html

22) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050407.html

23) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070303.html

24) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051005.html

25) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030530.html



"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, from "What have we forgotten in Islam?")

"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)

"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)

"In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 2003, London, U.K.)

"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)

"Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders(Fatimids) as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)

"Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)



Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

328)Tonight most North Americans will see a total lunar eclipse; What the last one(March 2007) looked like; Quotes of Aga Khans.

"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)

"Astronomy, the so-called “Science of the Universe” was a field of particular distinction in Islamic civilization-–in sharp contrast to the weakness of Islamic countries in the field of Space research today. In this field, as in others, intellectual leadership is never a static condition, but something which is always shifting and always dynamic"(Aga Khan IV, Convocation, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 15th 2006)

"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)

“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)

"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)

"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order"(Aga Khan III, Karachi, Pakistan, April 4th 1952)

"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)




The recent total lunar eclipse(March 2007), seen very clearly in some parts of the world and not so clearly in others, provides for us an informative lesson on the properties and optics of light, an offspring of one of the four forces of nature discovered so far, the Electromagnetic Force. The force carrier for this fundamental force of nature is called a photon, which is a single unit particle of light.

In the scenario of a total lunar eclipse our moon and earth are aligned in such a way that the earth completely obstructs the sun's direct illumination of the moon: the earth is situated between the sun and the moon, completely blocking off the light of the sun shining directly on the moon; theoretically, one should not be able to see the moon at all in a situation like this. Nevertheless, despite this total blocking off, citizens of planet earth still saw the moon illuminated by a reddish-brown colour. This colour and phenomenon are caused by two properties of light: refraction and scattering.

Refraction is the bending of light as it passes from one medium to another: it is light showing the wave aspect of its dual wave-particle nature. In the case of the total lunar eclipse, sunlight, streaming from behind onto the earth, which has totally blocked off the light from directly reaching the moon, nevertheless is refracted by the earth's atmosphere and bends around the edge of the earth to shine on the moon. As the light comes around the earth and through our atmosphere, it is scattered by both air molecules and dust particles present in the atmosphere. However, only the short wavelength components of white light(violet and blue) are scattered away whereas the longer wavelength components of white light(yellow, orange and red) penetrate through the atmosphere and shine onto the other side, which is what gives us our lovely and colourful sunsets(and sunrises) and what gave the moon, during the totality of its eclipse, its reddish-brown colour.

Here are some marvellous pictures of the total lunar eclipse, courtesy of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day website, as well as an explanation of our glorious sunsets within the context of the scattering and refraction of light:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070308.html

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/air/sun.rxml

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070302.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070310.html

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070309.html


Update:
Tonight's total lunar eclipse as seen at about 10.01pm:
http://ccdimager.net/moon-full-eclipse-20-02-08.jpg


Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

327)Comprehensive quotes of Aga Khan IV and others relating to knowledge, intellect, creation, science and religion-FROM 2007CE DOWN TO 322BC

For those who reach this post through the Google or other search engines, know that this post has now been updated and is now known as Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html


This megapost is a composite of posts 299 to 304 on this blogsite, and newer quotes, and comprises quotes ranging in date from 2008CE to 322BC:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/304the-most-amazing-one-liners-and.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/303the-creation-according-to-quran-and.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/302my-favourite-quotes-as-listed-on-my.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/301selected-speech-excerpts-of-aga-khan.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/300timeless-sayings-of-aga-khan-iii.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/299quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-consolidated.html


The above posts have also been published on the Spirit and Life Blog of the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website:
http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/quotes-of-aga-khan/


The 72 quotes and excerpts listed below together form a solid doctrinal underpinning to my blog on the link between science and religion in Islam:


"As we move into that future, we would like to collaborate with the International Baccalaureate movement in a challenging, but inspiring new educational adventure. Together, we can help reshape the very definition of a well educated global citizen. And we can begin that process by bridging the learning gap which lies at the heart of what some have called a Clash of Civilizations, but which I have always felt was rather a Clash of Ignorances.

In the years ahead, should we not expect a student at an IB school in Atlanta to know as much about Jomo Kenyatta or Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a student in Mombasa or Lahore knows about Atlanta's great son, the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.? Should a Bangladeshi IB student reading the poems of Tagore at the Aga Khan Academy in Dhaka not also encounter the works of other Nobel Laureates in Literature such as the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk or America's William Faulkner or Toni Morrison?

Should the study of medieval architecture not include both the Chartres Cathedral in France and the Mosque of Djenne in Mali? And shouldn't IB science students not learn about Ibn al-Haytham, the Muslim scholar who developed modern optics, as well as his predecessors Euclid and Ptolemy, whose ideas he challenged.

As we work together to bridge the gulf between East and West, between North and South, between developing and developed economies, between urban and rural settings, we will be redefining what it means to be well educated."(Aga Khan IV, "The Peterson Lecture" on the International Baccalaureate, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)


"As you may know, the developing world has been at the centre of my thinking and my work throughout my lifetime. And I inherited a tradition of educational commitment from my grandfather. It was a century ago that he began to build a network of some 300 schools in the developing world through the Aga Khan Education Services - in addition to founding Aligarh University in India.

The legacy which I am describing actually goes back more than a thousand years, to the time when our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures. That commitment has continued in my own Imamat through the founding of the Aga Khan University and the University of Central Asia and through the recent establishment of a new Aga Khan Academies Program."(Aga Khan IV, "The Peterson Lecture" on the International Baccalaureate, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)

"The United States' position as a world leader, in my view, grows directly out of its accomplishments as a Knowledge Society - and this Knowledge - rightly applied - can continue to be a resource of enormous global value"(Aga Khan IV, Austin, Texas, USA, 12 April 2008)

"First, the globalisation of the knowledge of the cultures of the Umma is critical. We have to make known the cultural inheritance of the Muslims to the non-Muslim as well as the Muslim parts of the world because we will never succeed in building the respect and recognition that the Umma deserves unless we present the Umma as a remarkable carrier of civilisation.
The misconceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West exist because we are, even today, absent from the global civilisation. We should encourage the Western education system to bring in knowledge of the civilisation of Islam into the secondary education system.
I am thrilled with the initiative that Dubai and other states in the Gulf are taking by creating museums. Retracing our historical legacies and bringing them back in the modern world is extremely important."(Aga Khan IV, Interview with Gulf News, Dubai, UAE, April 2008)

"The spirit of Islam is to share knowledge and I always tell the community not to think in material terms. Think in terms of knowledge and think what you can offer our institutions in various parts of the world. Raise our performance in healthcare, education, financial services and in civil society. Many minorities from the Middle East countries are living in the West. Just think how wonderful it would be if young women and men return to their respective countries to strengthen institutions and do voluntary work for their countries."(Aga Khan IV, Interview with Gulf News, Dubai, UAE, April 2008)

"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)

"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)

"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)

“Parts of the Ummah are concerned about the relationship between Muslims and the contemporary knowledge society, which is now principally rooted in the West. It is my deepest conviction, my deepest conviction, that we must make that knowledge society our own, in keeping with the Alid tradition towards the intellect, but always doing so within the ethics of our faith. Thus, I have sought from my Jamat your Nazrana of time and knowledge.”(Aga Khan IV, Paris, France, July 11th 2007)

"That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time. The great and central question facing the Ummah of today is how it will relate to the Knowledge Society of tomorrow.The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time."(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 2nd December 2006, AKU, Karachi, Pakistan)

"For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world—not only politically and economically but also intellectually. Some ill-informed historians and biased commentators have tried to argue that these successes were essentially produced by military power, but this view is profoundly incorrect"(Aga Khan IV, 2nd December 2006, AKU, Karachi, Pakistan)

"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)

Astronomy, the so-called “Science of the Universe” was a field of particular distinction in Islamic civilization-–in sharp contrast to the weakness of Islamic countries in the field of Space research today. In this field, as in others, intellectual leadership is never a static condition, but something which is always shifting and always dynamic(Aga Khan IV, Convocation, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 15th 2006)

"A great risk to the modernization of the Islamic world is identity loss — the blind assumption that we should give up all our essential values and cultural expressions to those of other civilizations. In order to contain this risk, for it cannot be totally eliminated, we must re-invigorate our own value systems and cultural expressions. This includes the sciences and the ethical structures that go with them, but also architecture and the design of landscape and towns, literature, music, philosophical thought, and the free space they require, which are unfailing signs of a nation's vitality and confidence". ( Aga KhanIV, AKU , 3 December 2005, Karachi, Pakistan)

"Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly"(Aga Khan IV, Toronto, Canada, 8th June 2005)

"A thousand years ago, my forefathers, the Fatimid imam-caliphs of Egypt, founded al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. In the Islamic tradition, they viewed the discovery of knowledge as a way to understand, so as to serve better God's creation, to apply knowledge and reason to build society and shape human aspirations"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25th June 2004, Matola, Mozambique.)

"Quran Symposium:....a reflection of how Islam's revelation, with its challenge to man's innate gift of quest and reason, became a powerful impetus for a new flowering of human civilisation.This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur'an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations.In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 2003, London, U.K.)

"Several days ago, at a meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia, it was pointed out that the only way the umma can work its way out of its present sad state is to harness the intellect"(Aga Khan IV, Speech,2003, London, U.K.)

"In the ebb and flow of history, "knowledge is a shield against the blows of time". It dispels "the torment of ignorance" and nourishes "peace to blossom forth in the soul"."(Aga Khan IV quoting Nasir Khusraw, Dushanbe, Tajikistan, August 30, 2003)

"What does it (the West) know about the Islamic world? Is anything taught in secondary education? Does anybody know the names of the great philosophers, the scientists, the great theologians? Do they even know the names of the great civilizations?"(Aga Khan IV, Interview, 2nd Feb. 2002)

"The faith of a billion people is not part of the general education process in the West - ignored by school and college curricula in history, the sciences, philosophy and geography"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 2002)

"The basic problem is the enormous lack of knowledge of the Islamic world in the general world-culture. It's a rather remarkable thing and a very sad thing to me, that over a billion people, their 1400 year history, of civilizations, are simply not part of general education in the general Western world. It's a remarkable knowledge gap"(Aga Khan IV, Interview, 2002)

"The Muslim world, once a remarkable bastion of scientific and humanist knowledge, a rich and self-confident cradle of culture and art, has never forgotten its past.The great Muslim philosopher al-Kindi wrote eleven hundred years ago, "No one is diminished by the truth, rather does the truth ennobles all". That is no less true today"(Aga Khan IV, Speech,1996, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.)

"From the seventh century to the thirteenth century, the Muslim civilizations dominated world culture, accepting, adopting, using and preserving all preceding study of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and astronomy, among other areas of learning. The Islamic field of thought and knowledge included and added to much of the information on which all civilisations are founded. And yet this fact is seldom acknowledged today, be it in the West or in the Muslim world, and this amnesia has left a six hundred year gap in the history of human thought"(Aga Khan IV, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA, 1996)

"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Khorog, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)

"In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level - one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid."(Azim Nanji, Director, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K., 1995)

"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

"The Muslim world, once a remarkable bastion of scientific and humanist knowledge, a rich and self-confident cradle of culture and art, has never forgotten its past"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May 1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

"The great Muslim philosopher al-Kindi wrote eleven hundred years ago, "No one is diminished by the truth, rather does the truth ennoble us all"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May 1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

"An institution dedicated to proceeding beyond known limits must be committed to independent thinking. In a university scholars engage both orthodox and unorthodox ideas, seeking truth and understanding wherever they may be found. That process is often facilitated by an independent governance structure, which serves to ensure that the university adheres to its fundamental mission and is not pressured to compromise its work for short-term advantage. For a Muslim university it is appropriate to see learning and knowledge as a continuing acknowledgement of Allah's magnificence"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 1993, Aga Khan University)

"Science is a wonderful, powerful tool and research budgets are essential. But Science is only the beginning in the new age we are entering. Islam does not perceive the world as two seperate domains of mind and spirit, science and belief. Science and the search for knowledge are an expression of man's designated role in the universe, but they do not define that role totally....."(Aga Khan IV, McMaster University Convocation, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, May 15th 1987)

"The Divine Intellect, Aql-i Kull, both transcends and informs the human intellect. It is this Intellect which enables man to strive towards two aims dictated by the faith: that he should reflect upon the environment Allah has given him and that he should know himself. It is the Light of the Intellect which distinguishes the complete human being from the human animal, and developing that intellect requires free inquiry. The man of faith, who fails to pursue intellectual search is likely to have only a limited comprehension of Allah's creation. Indeed, it is man's intellect that enables him to expand his vision of that creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU Convocation Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11, 1985)

“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)

About the United States of America: "I'm less hypnotized by this country's material wealth than by its wealth of knowledge. This country today represents, without any doubt in my mind, the greatest intensity of human knowledge on the face of the earth. And that is an exhilarating thought, one perhaps not perceived by Americans as much as by non-Americans"(Aga Khan IV, LIFE magazine interview, December 1983)

"Above all, following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the ummah" (Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"One of the first and greatest research centres, the Bayt al-Hikmah established in Baghdad in 830, led Islam in translating philosophical and scientific works from Greek, Roman, Persian and Indian classics. By the art of translation, learning was assimilated from other civilizations"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"It is no exaggeration to say that the original Christian universities of Latin West, at Paris, Bologna and Oxford, indeed the whole European renaissance, received a vital influx of new knowledge from Islam -- an influx from which the later western colleges and universities, including those of North Africa, were to benefit in turn"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU, Karachi, Pakistan)

"The truth, as the famous Islamic scholars repeatedly told their students, is that the spirit of disciplined, objective enquiry is the property of no single culture, but of all humanity. To quote the great physician and philosopher, Ibn Sina: "My profession is to be forever journeying, to travel about the universe so that I may know all its conditions." "(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, AKU, Karachi, Pakistan)

"Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"It (Surah of Light from the Quran) tells us that the oil of the blessed olive tree lights the lamp of understanding, a light that belongs neither to the East nor West. We are to give this light to all. In that spirit, all that we learn will belong to the world and that too is part of the vision I share with you"(Aga Khan IV, Speech 25 Sept. 1979)

"The tapestry of Islamic history is studded with jewels of civilization; these jewels poured forth their light and beauty; great statesmen, great philosophers, great doctors, great astronomers; but these individuals, these precious stones were worked into a tapestry, whose dominant theme was Islam, and this theme remained dominant regardless of the swallowing up of foreign lands, foreign cultures, foreign languages and foreign people"(Aga Khan IV, 30 Jan 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan)

"Our religious leadership must be acutely aware of secular trends, including those generated by this age of science and technology. Equally, our academic or secular elite must be deeply aware of Muslim history, of the scale and depth of leadership exercised by the Islamic empire of the past in all fields"(Aga Khan IV, 6th February 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan)

"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)

The origins of man's religious aspirations are to be found in what we nowadays call science. Those who have studied mythology and primitive psychology know that magic in various forms started various trains of thought in primitive man by which he achieved what seemed to him to be rational accounts of the natural phenomena he saw around him. It seemed to him rational that these phenomena, these events like the rising and the setting of the sun, the passage of the seasons, the flowering of the bud and the ripening of the fruit, the wind and the rain, were caused and controlled by deities or superior beings. Primitive religious experience and primitive scientific reasoning were linked together in magic, in wizardry. Thus, at one and the same time, mankind's experiences in the realm of sensation and his strivings to to explain and coordinate those experiences in terms of his mind led to the birth of both science and religion. The two remained linked throughout prehistoric and ancient times, and in the life of the early empires of which we have knowledge. It was difficult to separate what I may call proto-religion from proto-science; thay made their journey like two streams, sometimes mingling, sometimes separating, but running side by side(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"Thus there was an absolute need for the Divine Word's revelation, to Mohammed himself, a man like the others, of God's person and of his relations to the Universe which he had created. Once man has thus comprehended the essence of existence, there remains for him the duty, since he knows the absolute value of his own soul, of making for himself a direct path which will constantly lead his individual soul to and bind it with the universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

Quote from a letter written by Our 48th Imam to a friend in 1952 under the title: 'What have we forgotten in Islam?':"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion. Alas, Islam which is a natural religion in which God's miracles are the very law and order of nature drifted away and is still drifting away, even in Pakistan, from science which is the study of those very laws and orders of nature.……Islam is a natural religion of which the Ayats are the universe in which we live and move and have our being………..The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats are the universe……"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. "(Albert Einstein, circa 1950)

About Hafiz, the renowned Iranian poet:"Then came Hafiz - by far the greatest singer of the soul of man. In him we can find all the strivings, all the sorrow, all the victories and joys, all the hopes and disappointments of each and every one of us. In him we find contact, direct and immediate, with the outer universe interpreted as an infinite reality of matter, as a mirror of an eternal spirit, or indeed (as Spinoza later said) an absolute existence of which matter and spirit alike are but two of infinite modes and facets."(Inaugural Lecture Before the Iran Society by Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, November 9, 1936 London, United Kingdom.)

"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)

"The Intellect is the substance of (God's) unity and it is the one (al-wahid), both cause and caused, the act of origination (al-ibda) and the first originated being (al-mubda al-awwal); it is perfection and perfect, eternity and eternal, existence and that which exists all in a single substance"( Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, 11th centuryFatimid Ismaili cosmologist (Kitab al-Riyad, pp. 221-222))

"My profession is to be forever journeying, to travel about the Universe so that I may know all its conditions."(Ibn Sina, aka Avicenna, 11th century Muslim Philosopher, Physician and Scientist, author of the Canon of Medicine, circa 1037CE)

"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker).

"God – may He be Glorified and Exalted – created Intellect ('aql) first among the spiritual entities; He drew it forth from the right of His Throne, making it proceed from His own Light. Then he commanded it to retreat, and it retreated, to advance, and it advanced; then God proclaimed: 'I created you glorious, and I gave you pre-eminence over all my creatures.'"(Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, Circa 765CE)

"The beginning of all things, their origin, their force and their prosperity, is that intellect ('aql), without which one can profit from nothing. God created it to adorn His creatures, and as a light for them. It is through intellect ('aql) that the servants recognize God is their Creator and that they themselves are created beings …It is thanks to intellect ('aql) that they can distinguish what is beautiful from what is ugly, that they realize that darkness is in ignorance and that light is in Knowledge"( Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, (al-Kulayni, Usul al-Kafi, Vol. 1, pp. 34), circa 765CE)

"No belief is like modesty and patience, no attainment is like humility, no honour is like knowledge, no power is like forbearance, and no support is more reliable than consultation"(Hazrat Ali, the first Imam of Shia Islam, circa 650CE)

Kathalika yubayyinu Allahu lakum ayatihi la'allakum ta-'aqiloona: "Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Holy Quran 2:242)

"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)

"Here is a relevant verse from the Noble Qur'an, cited by Nasir-i Khusraw, hujjat-i Khurasan in his Khawaan al-Ikhwaan : "It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from a blood clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then lets you reach your age of full strength, then lets you become old - though some of you die before - and then lets you reach the appointed term; and that haply you may find the intellect (la'allakum ta'qilun)."(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)

Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)

Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)

Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)

Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)

"According to a famous hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: The first(and only) thing created by God was the Intellect ('aql)(circa 632CE)

"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)

"Seek knowledge, even in China"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)

"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)

"The ink of the scholar is better than the blood of the martyr"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)

"All human beings, by their nature, desire to know."(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, circa 322BC)


This megapost was also added to the Spirit and Life Blog of the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website on Feb 16th 2008:
http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others/


Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

326)Mountains according to the Quran, as we know them today and as part of the dynamic, roiling, rumbling surface of the Earth; Quotes of Aga Khans.

"The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah's power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah's love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I beleive that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you"(Aga Khan IV, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)

"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)

“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.”(Aga Khan IV, Charlottesville, Virginia, 13 April 1984)

".....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)

"Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)

"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952, Karachi, Pakistan)

"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world"(Aga Khan IV, Speech,1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

I post this excerpt from the Quran Miracles website discussing the subject of mountains because in the past I have seen a good selection of mountains in various parts of the world, eg, the Tien Shan mountain range in western China, the Appalachians in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., the Laurentians in Quebec, Canada, the northern Rocky mountains in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada, the Alps in Central Europe, Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya in East Africa, the Atlas mountains in Morocco, the Drakensburg mountains in South Africa, Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, the southern Rocky mountains just to the west of Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. and Mount St. Helens in southern Washington State, U.S.A. The most amazing aspect of the existence of all these mountains is that what you see above ground is only about one eigth of the total mountain; seven eigths of the mountain remains underground where, according to the Quranic verses below, they act as pegs that stabilise the earth's crust, much like a tent peg stabilises a tent when it is hammered into the ground. This has been borne out by geological knowledge uncovered during the past century:

MOUNTAINS AS PEGS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6- Have We not made the earth habitable?
7- And the mountains as pegs?
78-The Event, 6-7

Mountains are often mentioned in the Quran. The simile of pegs seems to be preternatural in the light of geological findings of the last century. The mountains we observe on the surface of the earth rest on immense strata that may be ten to fifteen times as deep as the portion remaining on the surface of the earth. For instance, the highest mountain on earth, whose peak attains an altitude of 9 km from the ground, possesses a substratum that goes about 125 km into the depths of the earth. For a peg to be able to fulfill its function, the length of the portion stuck in the earth is important. The same holds true for the mountain.

There also exist mountains rising from the bottom of seas that also possess substratum. These substrata support the visible portion of the mountains in accordance with the Archimedean principle. These substrata were unknown until a few centuries back, let alone during the time of the Prophet. The simile in the Quran is once again a miraculous statement.


FUNCTION OF MOUNTAINS

In geology textbooks that have not been updated, information is not available about the role the mountains play, the role of stabilizing the crust of the earth. However, there are some publications on this issue.

The book entitled “Earth” is one of the many now on the market. Frank Press, author of this book, is the president of the Academy of Sciences, adviser to Jimmy Carter, ex-President of the USA. This author likens the mountains to wedges, the greater part of which remain underneath the surface of the earth. In this book, Dr. Press explains the functions of mountains, drawing special attention to their important role in stabilizing the crust of the earth. This information exactly matches the statement in the Quran:

31- “And We have set on the earth mountains standing firm lest it should shake with them.”
21-The Prophets, 31

Actually, the crust of the earth floats on a liquid. This outermost layer of the earth extends 5 km from the surface. The depths of the mountain strata go as far down as 35 km. Thus, the mountains are sort of pegs driven into the earth. Just like the pegs used to stabilize a tent on the ground, so these pegs stabilize the crust of the earth. Mountains are the outcome of collisions between strata of the earth’s crust; the result of the encroachment of a given stratum on another one. These strata that go deeper and deeper enable the crust layers to integrate.

Isostasy is defined in the Webster’s Third New Twentieth Century Dictionary as follows: “Isostasy is the general equilibrium in the earth’s crust, maintained by a yielding flow of rock material beneath the surface under gravitate stress, and by the approximate equality in mass of each unit column of the earth from the surface to a depth of about 100 km.” At a time when mountains were viewed as mere prominences, the Quran’s reference to mountains’ strata invisible to the eye and their stabilization role leaves us in awe.




Sura 27, Ayat 88: "Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away: (such is) the artistry of God, who disposes of all things in perfect order: for he is well acquainted with all that ye do":

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/276no-3-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html



Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

325)How's this for a gutsy sister in religion: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown?; Quote of Easy Nash.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: What he wishes on us is an abomination;
Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion

The Independent
Saturday, 9 February 2008
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

What Rowan Williams wishes upon us is an abomination and I write here as a modern Muslim woman. He lectures the nation on the benefits of sharia law – made by bearded men, for men – and wants the alternative legal system to be accommodated within our democracy in the spirit of inclusion and cohesion.

Pray tell me sir, how do separate and impenetrable courts and schools and extreme female segregation promote commonalities and deep bonds between citizens of these small isles?
What he did on Thursday was to convince other Britons, white, black and brown, that Muslims want not equality but exceptionalism and their own domains. Enlightened British Muslims quail. Friends like this churchman do us more harm than our many enemies. He passes round what he believes to be the benign libation of tolerance. It is laced with arsenic.

He would not want his own girls and women, I am sure, to "choose" to be governed by these laws he breezily endorses. And he is naive to the point of folly if he imagines it is possible to pick and choose the bits that are relatively nice to the girls or ones that seem to dictate honourable financial transactions.

Look around the Islamic world where sharia rules and, in every single country, these ordinances reduce our human value to less than half that is accorded a male; homosexuals are imprisoned or killed, children have no free voice or autonomy, authoritarianism rules and infantilises populations.

What's more, different Muslim nations claim to have their own allegedly god-given sharia. In Saudi Arabia, women cannot drive (What in Allah's name could the Koran have warned about cars?). In Bangladesh and Pakistan, they have no such bar to driving, although increasingly Saudi Wahabi Islam is taking over and we see Saudi sharia taking hold.

It is growing in influence here, too. Ten years ago, the only fully shrouded Muslim women around were from the Arab fiefdoms, the many wives of sheikhs often drawn by cartoonists to convey the absurdity and inhumanity of such cloaks. Now all of Europe has these girls and women rendering themselves invisible in public spaces. It is their elected sharia, so they claim without credibility. There is no agreed body of sharia, it is all drafted by males and the most cruel is now claiming absolute authority.

In Pakistan, on the statutes are strictures on adultery introduced by the military dictator Zia ul-Haq. Women activists in that country have given their lives protesting against the injustice of those laws where women suspected of adultery, or rape victims, are punished in hideous ways and the man goes free.

The Iranian theocracy changes its regulations from year to year, capriciously playing with the lives of females. The morality police hound women and girls, beat them up, imprison them for showing an ankle, walking too provocatively or singing in the streets. They fight back but are ground down eventually.

Two Iranian friends chose to die rather than live under the demeaning religious orders. Go to Afghanistan if you fancy a 12-year-old bride – a practice approved by the mullahs. That's sharia for you. Many women, gay men and dissidents came to Britain to escape Islamic tyrants and their laws. Dr Williams supports those laws and, by default, makes the refugees victims again.
Four years ago, a Saudi woman in her fifties came to my home. She was divorced from a Saudi prince who had sent her away and kept her children. What she said about sharia cannot be repeated. She had money, this princess, but no parental rights and she howled like a child in excruciating pain in my living room.

Yet, family disputes, says Dr Williams, would be easier, within sharia. For whom exactly? The polygamous men who live in this country, yes, certainly. Not for their wives who will be told that God intends them to lower their eyes and accept unjust verdicts.

Many will be sent back to bastard husbands or flinty-eyed mullahs will take their children away. In Bradford and Halifax, they may be forbidden to drive or work where men are employed. Adultery will be punished. I don't think we will have public stonings but violence of some sort will be meted out (it already is) with lawmakers' backing.

Sensing the drift in their direction, British sharia "experts" today shamelessly direct female medical students not to wash their forearms, essential to prevent the spread of infections, because that exposes their flesh.

Does the Archbishop even know that sharia comes in many guises and that several schools of jurisprudence have their own versions? The list is long – Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi, Hanbali, Jafari, Salafi and on and on. Ayatollah Khomeini preferred his DIY set of crimes and punishments when he came to power.

No women are allowed to be imams or serious jurists, so cannot help make their own fair and free set of female-friendly sharia. All the systems insist on ultimate truths, hard certainties. Sharia cannot provide solutions to the complex challenges of modern life and many violate fundamental human rights as established by the United Nations.

Taj Hargey, a historian and Islamic theologian, runs the Muslim Education Centre in Oxford. He, with me, is a trustee of British Muslims For Secular Democracy which is attempting to educate Muslims out of authorised obscurantism and non-Muslims into a better understanding of the progressive and evolutionary nature of the practice of Islam.

He is incandescent that Dr Williams backs a perilous Islamic conservatism, already too powerful in Britain: "Sharia is nothing but a human concoction of medieval religious opinion, largely archaic and outmoded and irrelevant to life today. Most sharia contradicts the letter and spirit of the Koran, distorts the transcendental text."

During his sermons Dr Hargey explains to congregations that, for example there is no blasphemy in the Koran, that the Prophet himself allowed a man to mock the divine revelations. Apostasy, says the holy text, will be dealt with by Allah in the afterlife. Sharia policemen insist apostates should be tortured and killed.

Dr Williams says Muslims want the choice to opt for sharia. What he believes to be choice is, in truth, inner compulsion, the result of brainwashing which begins in the madrassas when girls and boys are young enough to mould.

I have often admired the Archbishop's lofty thoughts, his intellectualism, the passion for human rights, his guts when the Government needs to be chastised. But this time his kind indulgences betray his own invaluable principles and deliver Muslim women, girls and dissidents into the hands of religious persecutors – an unforgivable intervention, which I hope he now sincerely regrets.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown


Easy Nash aka easynash

If there are 23,000 jihadist websites and blogsites out there in cyberspace there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 non-jihadist websites and blogsites(Easy Nash, 2007)

324)Unconscious or conscious anti-Semitism in Al-Fatiha?: A courageous post by blogger Jalaledin Ebrahim.

As I once asked myself, what's the point having a blog if you can't spice it up once in a while?

This blogpost is a transplant of a post made by blogger Jalaledin Ebrahim on his blog, entitled "Al-Fatiha-The Opening; In the name of Allah, the infinitely Compassionate, the infinitely Merciful":

http://jalaledin.blogspot.com/2008/02/unconscious-or-conscious-anti-semitism.html

The link to Jalaledin's blog is also in my Suggested Links section on the upper right hand side of my blog.



Quote of Aga Khan IV, the chosen quote of Jalaledin's blog:
"This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur’an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations. This freedom of interpretation is a generosity which the Qur'an confers upon all believers, uniting them in the conviction that All-Merciful Allah will forgive them if they err in their sincere attempts to understand His word. Happily, as a result, the Holy Book continues to guide and illuminate the thought and conduct of Muslims belonging to different communities of interpretation and spiritual affiliation, from century to century, in diverse cultural environments. The Noble Qur’an extends its principle of pluralism also to adherents of other faiths. It affirms that each has a direction and path to which they turn so that all should strive for good works, in the belief that, wheresoever they may be, Allah will bring them together. Tradition honours the vocation of the learned scholars who are gathered here for this colloquium. The Qur’an itself acknowledges that people upon whom wisdom has been bestowed are the recipients of abundant good; they are the exalted ones. Hence Islam's consistent encouragement to Muslim men and women to seek knowledge wherever it is to be found. We are all familiar that al-Kindi, even in the 9th century, saw no shame in acknowledging and assimilating the truth, whatever its source. He argued that truth never abases, but only ennobles its seeker...

Does not the Qur’an challenge the artist, as much as the mystic, to go beyond the physical - the outward - so as to seek to unveil that which lies at the centre but gives life to the periphery? Is not a great work of art, like the ecstasy of the mystic, a gesture of the spirit, a stirring of the soul that comes from the attempt to experience a glimpse of, and an intimacy with, that which is ineffable and beyond being?"

(Remarks made by Aga Khan IV, October 19, 2003 , "Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions", an International Colloqium sponsored by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, England)



Reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "The Caged Version" in an attempt to understand her wounding and subsequent rejection of Islam, I came upon this passage which relates directly to the politicization of Al-Fatiha by many Muslim commentators:

"As a child I used to hear nothing but negative comments about Jews. My earliest memory dates from the time we lived in Saudi Arabia in the mid-seventies. Sometimes we would have no running water. I remember hearing my mother wholeheartedly agreeing with our neighbor that the Jews had been pernicious again. Those Jews hate Muslims so much that they'll do anything to dehydrate us. "Jew" is the worst term of abuse in both Somali and Arabic. Later, when I was a teenager living in Somalia and Kenya, from the mid-eighties onward, every prayer we said contained a request for the extermination of the Jews. Just imagine that: five times a day. We were passionately praying for their destruction but had never actually met one. With that background experience, and my loyalty to the political, cultural, and religious variant of Islam, which I (and millions with me) inherited from my childhood, I arrived in the Netherlands. Here I came into contact with an entirely different view of the Jews: they are human beings before anything else. But what upset me more was learning about the immense injustice that had been done to the people labled "Jews." The Holocaust and the anti-Semitism that led to it cannot be compared to any other form of ethnic cleansing. This makes the history of the Jews in Europe unique."

~ Excerpted from "The Caged Version" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, p. 98


One particular commentary entitled "Key to al-Fatihah" published by the Islamic Foundation, authored by Abdur Rashid Siddiqui (formerly a Secretary General of the UK Islamic Mission and a past Chairman of the Shura Council of the Islamic Society of Britain) illustrates how susceptible the hermeneutics of the Holy Qur'an are to being (mis)interpreted, (mis)construed or politicized based on one's personal or a collective political bias.

He begins by discussing the meaning of al-ghadab, then he proceeds with an analysis that borders on anti-Semitism, exemplifying a current of thinking about Jews and Christians
referred to in the Holy Qur’an as “ahl al-kitab “ or “People of the Book” which is unfortunately very prevalent in Muslim circles and communities world-wide:

"1. Meaning: The literal meaning of al-Ghadab is hardness. Hence a hard rock is called Ghadabah and a deadly poisonous snake is called ghadub. Thus, anger is called ghadab and an angry person is referred to as ghadban. Ghadab is a relative state and varies. The hardness of a rock, the poison of a snake and the anger of a human being differ in their manifestation but all possess a quality of extremism. Allah (swt) is above feelings and sensations that we experience and, thus, we cannot really comprehend the quality of His Anger.

2. Analysis: The word ghadab signifies anger, displeasure and wrath. Those who incurred Allah's Wrath are those who were deprived of His Favours and received punishment:Thus they (Jews) have drawn on themselves Wrath upon Wrath, and humiliating is their punishment of those who reject Faith. (al-Baqarah 2:90) They (Jews) were covered with humiliation and misery, they drew on themselves the Wrath of Allah. (al-Baqarah 2:61)

It is instructive to note the word maghdub is used impersonally and means that their actions are responsible for Allah's Wrath. Thus, the Jews either rejected the Shari'ah of Allah, or if they accepted it, they tried to distort it or mould it to suit their own desires. Thus, they incurred Allah's Wrath. Their worst crime was to conceal the Truth. For this they were deprived of Allah's blessings and incurred His Curse which is signified by the word la'nah.

Those who conceal the clear (Signs) We have sent down, and the Guidance, after We made it clear for the People in the Book - on them shall be Allah's Curse, and the curse of those entitled to curse. (al-Baqarah 2:159) (2001, pp 45-46).

Hamid Algar too, in his "Surat Al-Fatiha - Foundation of the Qur'an" confirms that there are numerous commentators who take a similar narrow approach:

“What groups constitute those two negative categories? Again, many commentators suggest relatively restricted interpretations. “Those who have incurred anger” are said to be the Jews and “those who are straying” are said to be the Christians.” (1997, p. 41)

From the perspective of a more esoteric tradition, the above analysis, in pointing fingers at other Abrahamic faiths, would be considered completely flawed and derelict. In response, one could cite the Holy Qur'an in al-Baqara itself in Sura 2:62:

"Those who believe (in the Quran),
And those who follow the Jewish (scriptures),
And the Christians and the Sabians,
- Any who believe in God And the Last Day,
And work righteousness,
Shall have their reward With their Lord:
on them Shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve."


Jalaledin Ebrahim



Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)

323)A sampling of my most recent comments and articles published on the main Ismaili Mail website and its Spirit and Life Blog; Quotes of Aga Khan IV

It (Surah of Light from the Quran) tells us that the oil of the blessed olive tree lights the lamp of understanding, a light that belongs neither to the East nor West. We are to give this light to all. In that spirit, all that we learn will belong to the world and that too is part of the vision I share with you. (Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25 Sept. 1979)

Above all, following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the Ummah (Aga Khan IV, Speech @AKU, 16 March 1983)

One of the first and greatest research centres, the Bayt al-Hikmah established in Baghdad in 830, led Islam in translating philosophical and scientific works from Greek, Roman, Persian and Indian classics. By the art of translation, learning was assimilated from other civilizations. (Aga Khan IV, Speech @ AKU, 16 March 1983)

The Muslim world, once a remarkable bastion of scientific and humanist knowledge, a rich and self-confident cradle of culture and art, has never forgotten its past(Aga Khan IV, 27th May 1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)

The great Muslim philosopher al-Kindi wrote eleven hundred years ago, "No one is diminished by the truth, rather does the truth ennoble us all"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May 1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)



The Ismaili Mail is a much-visited and wildly popular website:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/
http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/

Main Ismaili Mail website:

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/11/tabish-bhimani-aspires-to-communicate-the-diversity-that-exists-in-the-muslim-world/

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/13/stamps-commemorating-ismaili-community-in-portugal/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/rahim-moloo-has-made-it-to-the-semi-finals-for-the-canadas-next-great-prime-minister-contest/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/calgary-flames-flag-hoisted-up-at-uhuru-peak-tanzania-by-almoonir-dewji/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/aga-khan-historic-cities-programme-photo-collage/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/lisbon-portugal-masterpieces-of-islamic-art-from-the-aga-khan-museum-collection/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/faith-gather-in-hope-festival-of-eid-ul-adha/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/19/calgarian-hits-spiritual-peak-almoonir-dewji-and-37-member-group-of-canadians-tackled-kilimanjaro-to-raise-money-for-save-the-children/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/fatimid-rock-crystal-ewer/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/places-of-worship-tour-of-the-ismaili-centre-and-jamatkhana/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/26/a-quick-trip-to-cairo-and-beyond-from-paul-levy/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/pumping-up-desert-agriculture/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/bridges-that-unite-exhibition/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/diversity-and-sisterhood-in-islam-an-imaginative-example-shared-by-easy-nash/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/04/dictionary-of-islam-by-azim-nanji/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/2008-berkeley-prize-dedicated-to-the-aga-khan-award-for-architecture-2/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/the-amazing-faiths-project/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/creative-syria/#comments

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2006/11/21/the-aga-khan-museum-at-mindanao-state-university/#comment-21955



Spirit and Life Blog(also part of the Ismaili Mail website):

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/inseparable-nature-of-faith-and-world/#comment-155

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/shia-islam/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/science-and-belief/

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/the-creation-according-to-quran-updated/

http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/our-list-of-websites-blogs/

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/ikhwan-al-safa/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/abu-yakub-al-sijistani-intellectual-missionary/

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/ibn-al-haytham/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/there-is-no-fundamental-division-between-the-spiritual-and-the-material/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/nasir-khusraw-1004-1060/

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/quotes-of-aga-khan/

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/islamic-humanism-by-dr-noor-gillani/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/traces-of-the-calligrapher-islamic-calligraphy-in-practice/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/intellectual-search/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/science-and-belief-2/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/quotes-about-the-concept-of-imam/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/astrolabe/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/06/splendor-of-the-fatimids/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/lunar-crater/#comments

http://spiritandlife.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/the-%e2%80%98islamic%e2%80%99-in-islamic-education-assessing-the-discourse/


Posts and comments made before January 9th 2008:

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/281a-sampling-of-most-recent-comments-i.html



Easy Nash aka easynash

The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)