Science and Religion in Islam: The Link.: April 2008

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

356)A survey of off-topic posts in the 2-year history of my blog.

January 8th 2007:
The joys of friendship and, what's in a signature?
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/01/101the-joys-of-friendship-and-focussing.html

January 31st 2007:
Another one of those off-topic posts.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/01/125another-one-of-those-off-topic-posts.html

March 17th 2007:
Another one of those off-topic posts: My visit to the City of Lights, Paris, and to the beachhead of my cherished freedoms, Normandy, France.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/03/138another-one-of-those-off-topic-posts.html

May 20th 2007:
China Series No. 3:Coming face to face with Whiplash Wang and Cynical Ali in Kashgar, Xinjiang Province, China.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/174china-series-no-3coming-face-to-face.html

July 4th 2007:
Two interesting viewpoints by a Canadian journalist.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/07/211two-interesting-viewpoints-by.html

February 11th 2008:
How's this for a gutsy sister in religion: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown?; Quote of Easy Nash.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/325hows-this-for-gutsy-sister-in.html

March 27th 2008:
Showcasing Mamdoochacha's Satires Blog; fragrances of our old hometown neighbourhood, biting poetry on ecology, finance and much more; good blog.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/337showcasing-mamdoochachas-satires.html

April 1st 2008:
Our half-sister Irshad Manji says Wilders' movie "Fitna" would be more effective with more "rose" Quran verses in it, not only the "thorn" verses.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/339our-half-sister-irshad-manji-says.html

April 29th 2008:
Whew! I could feel the mirchis and masala blow through my ears when I read this comment by our sister in religion Moghul; I take my hat off to you.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/355whew-i-could-feel-mirchis-and-masala.html

Easy Nash

What's the point having a personal blog if you can't spice it up once in a while?(Easy Nash, 2007)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

355)Whew! I could feel the mirchis and masala blow through my ears when I read this comment by our sister in religion Moghul; I take my hat off to you

This post is now part of the following collection of posts:
A Collection Of Posts Honouring Courageous Sisters in Religion:Irshad Manji,Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,the Redoubtable Moghul,Sheema Khan and Sheela B.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/462a-collection-of-posts-honouring-our.html

http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/

I have blogged before about other sisters in religion who have eloquently expressed their righteous indignation at those representing the entrenched interests of the Muslim Ummah, the men who scratch their itchy clean-shaven groins with one hand while fondling their long beards with the other:

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/325hows-this-for-gutsy-sister-in.html

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/339our-half-sister-irshad-manji-says.html

To complete the hat trick I showcase a comment made on a Washington Post blog by sister Moghul, addressing mostly a stone-age critter which answers to the name of SuhailHajj and a few others:

SuhailHajj: Ignorance is the worst kind of terrorism. You talk like a Jahaliya!

The way you write and behave in a public forum reflects poorly on your faith, which you call Islam. You talk and act like a man who just got up from a bad dream. Or someone shaking in fear because his security blanket has just been snatched from him!

Melvin, I know you very well because for the past 30 years you have been sounding like a broken record, in the same tone, from forum to forum. No matter how hard you try to hide your identity, your language gives you away!

The rest of you, who call yourselves true Muslims, what have you done for Afghanistan besides destroying it? Has Aga Khan not helped Afghanistan? In fact, he continues to help, while your people sit on Thrones!

Who is killing Shias and Sunnis in Iraq? Who is demonizing people in Somalia? Who is responsible for 9/11, 7/7 and bombing in Spain?

Since when is it Islamic to take lives of innocent people? Allah S.W.T. says in the Qur'an, a life destroyed is a mankind destroyed and a life saved is a mankind saved!

Don't blame the Americans and the Jews! First look at the fire under your own feet!

What did you do for your people in Uganda when they were thrown out? Did not Aga Khan help everybody, irrespective of their faith? And your so called protectors of Islam helped Idi Amin, whose hands were drenched with blood!

What have your Protectors of Islam done besides, strapping bombs to young Muslim children in exchange for 72 houris in paradise? Your Protectors of Islam sold Palestine to the British for 20 thousand pounds!

These protectors of Islam, who sit on billions of dollars of oil fields, what have they done for the Ummah besides destruction! They can buy a diamond studded car for their children's birthdays, but they cannot welcome Palestinian refugees in their Kingdom!

For the past 62 years Palestinian refugees have been languishing in camps surrounded by Muslim kingdoms! Why? There is no other race on this Planet who has been displaced and is living in Camps! All Muslims should be ashamed of this.

Instead of shouting obscenities at people who are improving life of fellow human beings, why don't you use your time and help your fellow human beings?

Even the Jews took care of their own when they fled from Russia, Iran and Ethiopia!

In response to your question, "why Aga Khan is not helping Palestinians,", let me ask you, how do you know aga Khan has not tried to help them? I ask you all, who consider us one tenth of the whole Muslim Ummah, What have you done for the Palestinians? Isn't it a duty of a Muslim to help his fellow Muslims? Where are the Ansars of Islam! And you claim to follow the Sunnah of Prophet S.A.W. Then why are the Ismailis, the only Muslims, who not only take care of their own displaced people but of also of other Muslim brothers, including yours!

Didn't Ismaili Muslims take care of their flock from Afghanistan with the help of Aga Khan? What did you do brother Suhail Hajj for your people from Kosovo? When your people were not helping them, didn't the Canadian government ask the Ismaili Muslims to help the Kosovan Muslims? And didn't the Ismailis help them!

And you, SuhailHajj, brother, are condeming Aga Khan to Hell? Well, if Aga Khan goes to Hell, I would like to go to that Hell, because no way would I like to go to paradise with the likes of you!
Why did the Aga Khan have to restore the Sunni Masjid in Mopti and Madressas and Masjids in other parts of the world? Where were you guys?

And for brother Jand, the response to your question if Aga Khan has any Jewish blood in him...No, but his ancestor, The Prophet S.A.W. had a Jewish wife named Sofia and she was his tenth wife. He also had a Christian wife, Mary the Copt. She was his last wife!

Majority of you here, sound like you cannot see the work the Aga Khan is doing in the world, because deep inside, you wish your leaders would do this work! Yes, one of your fellows here has pleaded to the Ummah to do just that, but, the Ummah has turned a deaf ear! So go and shout your obscenities at the people who have made sure you do not attain education, and languish in Madressas while they enjoy their lives!

It is never too late, brother, if your leaders are not doing anything, start your own troop and go volunteer and be an Ambassador of Islam. Show the good side of Islam! Cursing in poor English shows the low life you are! And makes you look like a pagan rather than a Muslim.

A good Muslim is ethical, kind and gets along with everyone. Following 5 pillars of Islam and reciting salat with a filthy mouth and dirty heart, is not Islamic.

Maa Salaama! Mohgul

Come to think of it I once made a post in a similar vein to the above 3 myself:

http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/03/138another-one-of-those-off-topic-posts.html

Now I have to go drink some ice cold water to cool down.
Easy Nash

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)

Thursday, April 24, 2008

354)Humans were nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago says Spencer Wells of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project

"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. "(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 1993, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)

"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.)

"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)

In November 2007 I blogged about taking part in a National Geographic Study in which analysis of my cheek cell DNA revealed my ancestry from 10-15 thousand years ago:

http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/249the-genographic-projectnational.html

The lead investigator of the above study was Spencer Wells who, through the same genetic studies, has now shown that human beings may have had a brush with extinction barely 10,000 years before the great migration of our ancestors out of Africa:

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Story Highlights:
1)Drought in Africa reduced population into small, isolated groups, study says
2)Separate study says number of humans may have fallen to 2,000
3)Analysis: Humans banded together again in Stone Age, increased in numbers
4)Migrations out of Africa appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

Geneticist Spencer Wells, here meeting an African village elder, says the study tells "truly an epic drama."

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement.

"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."
Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA -- which is passed down through mothers -- have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.

The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa, who appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.

The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations before the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.

Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago, and researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups that developed independently.

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, said: "Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction?"

Today, more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree DNA and Arizona Research Labs.

Related article from the Economist magazine
Before the exodus
Apr 24th 2008From The Economist print edition

For two-thirds of its history, Homo sapiens lived exclusively in Africa. Only now are the details of that period becoming clear:

MITOCHONDRIAL DNA is a remarkable thing. Itself the remnant of a strange evolutionary event (the merger of an ancient bacterium with the cell ancestral to all plant and animal life), it also carries the imprint of more recent evolution. In many species, humans included, it passes only from mother to child. No paternal genes get mixed into it. That makes it easy to see when particular genetic mutations happened, and thus to construct a human family tree.

The branches of that tree are now well studied. Humans started in Africa, spread to Asia around 60,000 years ago, thence to Australia 50,000 years ago, Europe 35,000 years ago and America 15,000 years ago. What have not been so well examined, though, are the tree's African roots. The genetic diversity of Africans probably exceeds that of the rest of the world put together. But the way that diversity evolved is unclear.

A study carried out under the auspices of the Genographic Project, based in Washington, DC, and just published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, goes some way towards correcting this oversight. The study's researchers, led by Doron Behar of the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa and Spencer Wells of America's National Geographic Society, have used the mitochondrial DNA of more than 600 living Africans to show how genetic diversity has developed in Africa. In doing so, they have shed light on how modern man spread around his home continent long before he took the first, tentative steps into a bigger, wider world.

By the drought divided

The team paid particular attention to samples taken from the Khoi and San people of southern Africa. These people, known colloquially as bushmen, traditionally make their livings by hunting and gathering. Indeed, their way of life is thought by many anthropologists to resemble quite closely that of pre-agricultural people throughout the world.

Comparing Khoi and San DNA with that of other Africans shows that the first big split in Homo sapiens happened shortly after the species emerged, 200,000 years ago. Most people now alive are on one side of that split. Most bushmen are on the other. The consortium's analysis of which DNA “matrilines” are found where suggests that for much of its history the species was divided into two isolated populations, one in eastern Africa and one in the south of the continent, that were defined by this split. However, few other matrilineal splits from the first 100,000 years of the species's history have survived to the present day.

This suggests the early human population was tiny (so the opportunities for new matrilines to evolve in the first place were limited) and reinforces the idea that Homo sapiens may have come close to extinction (eliminating some matrilines that did previously exist). Indeed, there may, at one point, have been as few as 2,000 people left to carry humanity forward.

This shrinkage coincides with a period of prolonged drought in eastern Africa, and was probably caused by it. The end of the drought, however, was followed by the appearance of many new matrilines that survive to the present day. The researchers estimate that by 60,000-70,000 years ago, the period when the exodus that populated the rest of the world happened, as many as 40 such groups were flourishing in Africa—though that migration involved only two of these groups.

The African matrilines, however, seem to have remained isolated from each other for tens of millennia after the exodus. It was not until 40,000 years ago that they began to re-establish conjugal relations, possibly as a result of the technological revolution of the Late Stone Age, which yielded new and more finely crafted tools. Only the bushmen seem to have missed out on this panmictic party. They were left alone until a few hundred years ago, when their homelands were invaded from the north by other Africans and from the south by Europeans. Panmixis thus came full circle. And that particular party was certainly not a happy one.

Easy Nash

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)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

353)Scientists' discovery of the world's oldest oil paintings in Afghan cave a painful reminder of the philistine taliban a la wahhabi-salafi

Apr 22, 2008 11:29 AM Reuters

KABUL–Scientists said on Tuesday they have proved the world's first oil paintings were in caves near two destroyed giant statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, hundreds of years before oil paint was used in Europe.

Samples from paintings, dating from the 7th century AD, were taken from caves behind two statues of Buddha in Bamiyan blown up as un-Islamic by Afghanistan's hardline Taliban in 2001.
Scientists discovered paintings in 12 of the 50 caves were created using oil paints, possibly from walnut or poppy, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France said on its Web site on Tuesday.

"This is the earliest clear example of oil paintings in the world, although drying oils were already used by ancient Romans and Egyptians, but only as medicines and cosmetics," said Yoko Taniguchi, leader of the team of scientists.

It was not until the 13th century that oil was added to paints in Europe and oil paint was not widely used in Europe till the early 15th century.

Bamiyan was once a thriving Buddhist centre where monks lived in a series of caves carved into the cliffs by the two statues.

The cave paintings were probably the work of artists travelling along the Silk Road, the ancient trade route between China, across Central Asia to the West and show scenes of Buddhas in vermilion robes and mythical creatures, the ESRF said.

Afghanistan's Taliban government used dozens of explosive charges to bring down the two 6th century giant Buddhas in March 2001, saying the statues were un-Islamic.

Later in the same year, U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government after it refused to give up al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Now work is underway to try restore the biggest of the two statues, once the tallest standing Buddha in the world, but the mammoth task could take a decade to complete.

Easy Nash

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).

352)Two back-to-back pictures on NASA Astronomy website reflect the tiniest living organisms(viruses) versus the largest galaxies of stars in space

"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)

“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)

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)

"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."(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"...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)

"......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)

".....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)

Above quotes are 7 of 72 taken from:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/327comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html

1) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080421.html :

Explanation: There are more bacteriophages on Earth than any other life-like form. These small viruses are not clearly a form of life, since when not attached to bacteria they are completely dormant. Bacteriophages attack and eat bacteria and have likely been doing so for over 3 billion years. Although initially discovered early last century, the tremendous abundance of phages was realized more recently when it was found that a single drop of common seawater typically contains millions of them. Extrapolating, phages are likely to be at least a billion billion (sic) times more numerous than humans. Pictured above is an electron micrograph of over a dozen bacteriophages attached to a single bacterium. Phages are very small -- it would take about a million of them laid end-to-end to span even one millimeter. The ability to kill bacteria makes phages a potential ally against bacteria that cause human disease, although bacteriophages are not yet well enough understood to be in wide spread medical use.

2) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080420.html :

Explanation: Billions of years from now, only one of these two galaxies will remain. Until then, spiral galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163 will slowly pull each other apart, creating tides of matter, sheets of shocked gas, lanes of dark dust, bursts of star formation, and streams of cast-away stars. Astronomers predict that NGC 2207, the larger galaxy on the left, will eventually incorporate IC 2163, the smaller galaxy on the right. In the most recent encounter that peaked 40 million years ago, the smaller galaxy is swinging around counter-clockwise, and is now slightly behind the larger galaxy. The space between stars is so vast that when galaxies collide, the stars in them usually do not collide.

Easy Nash

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)

Monday, April 21, 2008

351)The architect of universal good -Gulf News Interview with Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, April 2008, United Arab Emirates.

This article has been copied from the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/the-architect-of-universal-good-interview-with-his-highness-the-aga-khan/

By Ashfaq Ahmed, Staff Writer
Published: April 18, 2008, 00:28

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/08/04/17/10206325.html

The global Muslim “Umma” needs to develop a form of democracy that fits its social, ethnic, religious and economic structure, said Prince Karim Aga Khan, Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community.

“We have to look at the nature of democracy because I don’t believe that one shape fits all. I believe the Umma, like many other parts of the world, needs to develop its own form of democracy to overcome the issues Muslims are facing,” he said.

The Aga Khan noted that the Muslim Umma today is highly pluralistic and that it is going to function as a body of brotherly states.

“Acceptance of pluralism and investing in pluralism is to be one of the principles we have to look at to resolve issues facing the Muslims,” he said.

In an exclusive interview with Weekend Review during his visit to Dubai, where he inaugurated the Ismaili Centre, the Aga Khan said the problems of extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam.

“I personally don’t ascribe these to Islam. I ascribe these to a portfolio of political issues — be it issues in the Middle East, Afghanistan or Kashmir,” he said.

The soft-spoken Aga Khan, who has a charismatic personality, has nearly 15 million followers around the world. Today, Ismailis live in some 25 countries — mainly in west and central Asia, Africa, the Middle East and in North America and Western Europe. The United Arab Emirates hosts some 5,000 Ismailis.

During the interview, the Aga Khan talked about the spirit behind Ismaili Centres, his development work in the fields of education, healthcare, architecture, culture, microfinancing and his vision to alleviate poverty.

He thanked His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, for making the site available for construction of the Ismaili Centre in Dubai.

Excerpts:

1)What are the issues facing the Muslim Umma?

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.

2)How do you see the problem of terrorism in the world? Do you think it is widening the gap between the West and the Muslim world or even the Muslims and the non-Muslims?

I personally don’t ascribe these [extremism or terrorism] to Islam. I ascribe these to a portfolio of political issues. I consider these political issues the essence of the problem in the Middle East. It started in 1917 and, since then, the problem has been becoming worse.

The problem of Kashmir is again a political problem which started after withdrawal of the British from the subcontinent. Similarly, the problem in Iraq today is also political and has nothing to do with Islam.

But now we have an overlay. Since these political problems are located in the parts of the Muslim Umma, the totality of the Umma is being held responsible for this situation.

The media also tends to concentrate on the problem areas even as they ignore the Umma’s successes. Painting a negative picture of the entire situation is wrong because it does not involve the face of Islam. It involves essentials of politics within the Islamic world.

Secondly, it [the problem of extremism and terrorism] does not cover the Islamic world alone. Countries in Eastern Europe, Ireland and Spain face similar issues. I think that we should not say that the Umma is unstable and the rest of the world is perfect.

3)What should be done to resolve this issue?

More efforts are needed to resolve political crises. I think there are governments and organisations that recognise that the longer these problems continue, the more difficult they will be to solve. Similarly, the Irish problem and the Spanish problem have also been there for decades.

4)There have been theories about what brought unrest in the world. Do you think the world is heading towards a “clash of capturing natural resources”?

I think you are right. People are looking for a better quality of life and they are in a hurry. There is, in many countries, a sense of time lost. And when there is a sense of time lost, there is also a sense of urgency.

In the developing world, the sense of urgency is getting stronger. I think it is leading a number of forces to look at resources they can mobilise to harness those resources to the development process.

I think we are seeing a concentration of wealth in a number of countries. There is a search for new resources to exploit for national or strategic purposes. The situation can be changed by making a move towards using nuclear power, as it has the potential to change the global economic scenario.

5)Congratulations on the golden jubilee of your Imamat. Are you launching any special projects to mark this special year?

I am hoping to develop two new projects by the end of this year. The first is the sociological analysis of the communities around the world and an attempt to redefine the nature of acute poverty. We think that certain segments of the population in many countries are ultra poor.
As we see economies evolve, we are worried these segments will continue to become more and more poor. We are trying to understand the causes of this phenomenon in order to reduce, if not eliminate, poverty.

We believe poverty is not only economic but social as well. Families have no access to the platform from which they can grow, no access to healthcare, education, micro-credit or even a normal support system. It is a problem and should be addressed.

As far as our second programme is concerned, we are going to concentrate on increased longevity. People are living longer and the aged are increasingly finding themselves isolated from their families and from society. We would like to develop a programme to create a capacity to care for these people.

Since extended families are becoming less common in the industrialised world, it is now important to look at this issue. Through this programme, we will try to help the aged live an honourable life.

Also, during this jubilee year, we will lay the foundation of a number of educational and health institutions.

6)The Aga Khan Development Network has numerous projects focusing on communities. How do you select the areas and why?

We select areas to launch projects on a case-by-case basis. The projects stem from the analysis of the absence of certain facilities. If we find there is no credit system in isolated areas, we go for microcredit programmes. If we find a government wants to privatise an industry which has gone wrong, we try to step in. So it is with our educational, healthcare and cultural development projects around the world.

7)What is your vision of development?

There is a realisation that development should be in human terms. And to be measured in human terms, you have to look at quality of life, which is directly linked to education, housing and healthcare.

Today, many of the world’s economic and financial institutions have moved away from lending only for economy activities. They are lending for educational and health initiatives. This is changing the nature of the development support system.

The private sector in the fields of education, healthcare and microcredit can also be very important. It is in the interest of the developing countries to have a composite of facilities [which can be achieved] by involving both the private and public sectors.

8)What do you think you have achieved through your massive network of community development projects?

Success depends on the maturity of the projects. We have considerable maturity in our healthcare and educational projects and they have been serving the purpose. But we have less maturity in our cultural initiatives.

We are beginning to see the trend in cultural initiatives and I would love to say I have the confidence in the cultural initiatives but they are still young.

One of the important cultural projects — aimed at improving the quality of life —was the development of Al Azhar Park in Cairo. I am confident that we can replicate the cultural project in other parts of the world.

By launching such cultural projects, our focus is to improve quality of life and create opportunities for the ultra poor.

9)Why did you set up an Ismaili Centre in Dubai and what is your vision behind setting up such centres in other countries?

I think the creation of the Ismaili Centres is important because they represent the Ismaili community in the important countries in the world.

I hope that the centre will bring a sense of institutional purpose. We call them ambassadorial buildings because they are representatives of the Ismaili community and all its aspirations.

We first started building the centres in the West. Like the Ismaili Centres in London, Vancouver and Lisbon, the Ismaili Centre in Dubai will reflect a mood of humility, forward outlook, friendship and dialogue. More such centres are on the cards in Toronto and Dushanbe.
The buildings have a two-fold purpose. First, they serve as institutions for the Ismaili community and, secondly, they reach out to groups of people, creating spaces for quality exhibitions, culture and musical representation.

These centres allow us to build bridges for interaction among various communities, areas and cultures.

10)You have been involved in so many things. What do you do in your leisure?

(Laughs) Usually it is work, work and more work. Occasionally, if I am able to get out, I go to the sea, to the snow or I look at the thoroughbreds that we have, because it is essentially the hobby that fits into the time that I have.

11)Any message for the community?

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.

Background:
A)Addressing social challenges

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a group of private, non-denominational development agencies whose mandates range from the fields of healthcare and education to architecture, rural development and the promotion of private-sector enterprise.
Its agencies and institutions, working together, seek to empower communities and individuals, often in disadvantaged circumstances, to improve living conditions and opportunities, and promote creative solutions to problems that impede social development, primarily in Asia and East Africa.

They collaborate in working towards a common goal — building institutions and programmes that can continuously respond to the challenges of social, economic and cultural change.
Active in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, the network’s underlying impulse is the ethic of compassion for the vulnerable in society. Its agencies and institutions work for the common good of all citizens, regardless of origin, gender or religion.
The network’s agencies are active in the Gulf and Middle East regions in the areas of urban development, conservation, restoration, education, healthcare, microfinance, higher education, culture and rural development.

The AKDN is an independent self-governing system of agencies, institutions, and programmes under the leadership of the Ismaili Imamat. Their main sources of support are the Ismaili community with its tradition of philanthropy, voluntary service and self-reliance.

B)Prince Karim Aga Khan

Prince Karim Aga Khan became Imam (spiritual leader) of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims on July 11, 1957, succeeding his grandfather Sir Sultan Mohammad Shah Aga Khan.

He is the 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Imami Ismaili Muslims.

Son of Prince Aly Khan and Princess Tajuddawalah Aly Khan, the Aga Khan was born on December 13, 1936, in Geneva. He spent his early childhood in Nairobi, Kenya, and then attended Le Rosey School in Switzerland for nine years.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1959 with a BA Honours Degree in Islamic History. He emphasised the view of Islam as a thinking, spiritual faith: one that teaches compassion and tolerance, and upholds the dignity of man.

In the course of history, the Ismailis have, under the guidance of their Imams, made major contributions to the growth of Islamic civilisation.

The Aga Khan has one daughter and three sons. They are Princess Zahrah, Prince Rahim, Prince Hussain and Prince Aly Mohammad.

The Ismaili community is at present celebrating the golden jubilee of the Aga Khan’s Imamat, which began on July 11, 2007, and will continue until July 11 this year.

The Aga Khan has plans to pay official visits to some 35 countries during this year and use this occasion to recognise the friendship and support of leaders of the state and government and other partners in the work of the Ismaili Imamat, and to set the direction for the future, including laying the foundations of major initiatives and programmes.

Easy Nash

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)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

350)The fundamental particles that make up the visible matter and forces in the Universe, in verse!

A Facebook friend of mine allowed me to copy these off his note collection:

1)
Quarks are Fermions,
And leptons are Fermions;
Quarks make up hadrons
Like neutrons and protons

Electrons are leptons
With charge minus-one!
Neutrinos, however,
Are leptons with none!

Eight gluons carry
The Strong Nuclear Force
Which binds the quarks
Making hadrons, of course!

Photons and gluons
Are bosons you know,
And the bosons are what
Make the Forces go.

Two quarks make up
Most all of the matter
But we only see them
When we make them scatter.

We think there are bosons
That we can't detect,
But we know that without them
Some theories are wrecked!

From there to here,
From here to there,
Fundamental particles
Are everywhere!

2)
one quark
two quark
red quark
blue quark
strange quark
three quark
charm quark
green quark
This one
has two-third's of a charge
This one is rather large
Say, what a lot of quarks there are!
From there to here
from here to there
funny particles are everywhere
Fermions matter
Bosons, the carriers
Some fermions are quarks
Some fermions are leptons
Quarks make up protons,
neutrons, and those hadrons
Yet leptons are electrons
with a charge of minus one!
Neutrinos, they say,
are leptons with none!
Oh me ! Oh My!
Oh me ! Oh My!
What a lot of funny
particles go by!
Eight gluons are with the
Strong Nuclear Force!
and the Strong Nuclear Force
make up the quarks, of course!
Intermediate vector bosons,
you may,
find them, find them
with nuclear decay!
Where do they come from?
I can not say,
But I bet they have come
a long long way
From here to there
from there to here
funny elementary
particles are Everywhere!

Easy Nash

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)

Saturday, April 19, 2008

349)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education.

For those who reach this post through the Google or other search engines, know that this post contains quotes and excerpts extracted from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html

1)"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)

Related Post:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/296one-mega-post-encompassing-four.html

2)"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)

Read the full account here:
http://www.akdn.org/speeches/2008april18.html

Related post:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/306the-uninterrupted-thread-of-search.html

3)"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)

Read the full account here:
http://www.akdn.org/speeches/2008april12.html

Related quote from 1983:
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)

Related posts:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/347quotes-and-excerpts-from-aga-khan-iv.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/348quotes-and-speech-excerpts-of-aga.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/327comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html

Easy Nash

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)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

348)Quotes and speech excerpts of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and others with the word "SCIENCE" in them.

For those who reach this post through the Google or other search engines, know that this post contains quotes and excerpts extracted from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html

"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)

"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.)

"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 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.)

"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)

"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)

"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)

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)

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)

Easy Nash

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)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

347)Quotes and excerpts of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and others with the word "CREATION" in them.

For those who reach this post through the Google or other search engines, know that this post contains quotes and excerpts extracted from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html

"World and faith are inseparable in Islam. Faith and learning are also profoundly interconnected. The Holy Qur’an sees the discovery of knowledge as a spiritual responsibility, enabling us to better understand and more ably serve God’s creation.Our traditional teachings remind us of our individual obligation to seek knowledge unto the ends of the earth - and of our social obligation to honor and nurture the full potential of every human life.......The beauty of Creation is a function of its variety. A fully homogenized world would be far less attractive and interesting."(Aga Khan IV, May 2oth 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh)

"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)

"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)

"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.)

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, 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., 1998)

"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(creation). 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 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)

"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 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)

"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)

"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 first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)

Easy Nash

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)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)

346)Easy Nash attempting to explain........along with others.

Over the past weekend we saw clear evidence of a "clash of ignorance" in newspaper and blog comments about the current visit of His Highness the Aga Khan to the United States of America. Various bloggers and commentators lined themselves up on both sides of the issue and my final impression was that a small level of understanding was achieved and the level of vitriol had substantially subsided as the argument progressed from start to finish. Speaking for myself, the two comments that I made were slightly different in intensity. One of them involved a response to LindaC, who asked a legitimate question in my view:

LindaC wrote:
"SpeedeeG does not sound intolerant of Muslims. He or she seems to be simply pointing out a fact about the Muslim religion. To be tolerant of something or someone does not mean one has to be in wholehearted agreement, but rather that they respectfully accept and allow the other's right to exist in peace. Christians and Jews are the most tolerant of all faiths. For example, in predominantly Christian and Jewish countries, people of all religions are allowed to freely practice their faiths. Muslim nations are intolerant of any religion but Islam. In Muslim countries, the Islamic religion prohibits people from wearing crosses or Stars of David, even prohibits them having Christian literature, a Bible or Torah, and non-Muslim women are forced to wear veils and scarves."

EasyNash55(myself) answered:
"LindaC, what you say is very true and I will not condone it. As a Muslim I was born in a western country and have never lived in a Muslim country. I have never been prevented from practising my religion of Islam in a Judeo-Christian environment and I am deeply grateful for that.

I think if we take the full sweep of history into account we can perhaps see that Islam is currently in its Middle Ages relative to Judaism and Christianity. During the actual Middle Ages of the common era we see that there was terrible conflict within Christianity and between Judaism and Christianity. Examples include the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic-Protestant schism and all the wars that it precipitated, eg, the 30 years war, the 100 years war, the war of the Roses; the Reformation, the Holocaust, etc. The present relative stability we see within Christianity and Judaism were forged from the horror and angst of all those conflicts over many centuries.

Islam is now going through its own Middle ages and must come to terms with the modern world around it, all the advances in science and technology as well as evolve its own systems of government compatible with its own cultural expressions but moving away from dictatorial regimes and towards more representative forms of government. The most important principle it must learn to accept is the principle of pluralism which will gradually make it more tolerant not only of other religions but also of the myriad interpretations of faith within its own diverse flock. Unfortunately, this takes time and cannot be accomplished overnight."

The above comment by me was a sweeping statement about the entirety of the Islamic Ummah, all 1.4 billion of us. My next comment was a direct response to a large number of comments painting all Muslims with one paintbrush, taking the vile actions of a few and generalising it to the many. I made a couple of attention-grabbing but truthful assertions to ensure that my comment was read and not ignored(blame my course on creative writing for this). The key point of this comment was to clearly explain that it is wrong to see all 1.4 billion Muslims on the planet as one big monolith, that there is immense and wonderful diversity and pluralism within the Muslim Ummah and that not everyone has the same interpretation of the Quran. I then went on to explain, to the best of my knowledge, what I think His Highness the Aga Khan's interpretation of Islam is in the key areas of the humanistic dimension of Islam and the link between intellect and faith:

easynash(myself) wrote:
"It's not appropriate to treat the adherents of Islam as one big monolith. Islam is populated by 1.4 billion adherents who are multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-interpretational and live in many parts of the world. At least you should allow for this clearly-evident pluralism within this worldwide faith, the vast majority of whom truly are peace-loving and brotherly. Just because the Catholic Irish Republican Army carried out bombing campaigns against British civilians during the 20th century does not mean that ALL Catholics are terrorists. Its wrong to paint all Muslims with one paintbrush the way most of you have been doing. Just because President Bush held the hand of the Saudi Monarch, the leader of a country which produced 15 of the 18 9/11 hijackers, does not mean that the President is all bad; he does have redeeming features IMHO.

The Aga Khan is a man of vision who emphasises, above everything else, the humanistic dimension of Islam as being on a par with the humanistic dimensions of all other religions, especially Islam's two sister monotheistic religions. His interpretation of Islam links intellect to faith and this post on my blog will give you an inkling of what I mean by this:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/327comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html

Other commentators of significance also chimed in, including the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website(imblog) and Mike Ghouse of the World Muslim Congress; commentators Hunzai and Sajjad also did valuable pinch hitting to round off the innings thus far.

In the end I am convinced that some level of understanding of the issues was achieved by the worldwide audience reading this discussion. As things stand thus far my two comments have been voted by the online newspaper among the top five recommended comments to read:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5692737.html

Easy Nash

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)

345)More about Hakim Pir Nasir Khusraw, by Ali Musofer, taken from the Pamir News Blog; including other excerpt and poem from my old blog

1)Courtesy of Pamir News Blog:

http://pamirtimes.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/547/#comments

2) and 3) below courtesy of Ali Musofer:

2)View this excellent account, accompanied by priceless pictures, of Hakim Pir Nasir Khusraw:

http://xiwoor.piczo.com/pirnosirkhusraw?cr=3&vsrc=preview&linkvar=000044

3)Poetry, Kalam Pir Nasir Khusraw:

http://www.madoh.multiply.com/

4)Others, from my old blog:

Book excerpt:
Nasir Khusraw, in his treatise on philosophical theology entitled "Knowledge and Liberation" has the following comments to make on the notion of time and how it relates to the acquisition of rational and suprarational knowledge:

'We say that first it is necessary to know what time is so that this knot can be untied. It should be known that in reality, time is (contained in) the act of an agent, because it is (a measure of) the movement of the (celestial) sphere. Thus, when a measure (equal to) a constellation passes from the sphere, we say that two hours from night or day have elapsed, and when half of the sphere passes we say twelve hours of time from day or night have elapsed. (However), if you take away the sphere from (your) imagination, nothing remains of time. When the existence of a thing depends on another thing, then if you remove the latter, the former which had come into existence through the latter (also) disappears. For instance, if we remove the sun from (our) imagination, the day would be removed. From this demonstration it is evident that if from the imagination you remove the sphere, time (too) would be removed. (In reality), since the rotation of the sphere is the act of an agent by the command of the Creator, time is (caused by) the act of the Creator Himself.'

'In this connection, those in possession of wisdom have also said that time is nothing but (a measure of) change in the conditions of body, one after the other. This view is the same as that of time being (contained in) the act of an agent, because the totality of the world's body is within the vault of the spheres, and when the spheres rotate its condition changes as every pont of it moves from its existing place to another place. (Furthermore), the rotation of the spheres does not stop because its time is never-ending.'

'It is inconceivable for the simple (person) that time can be removed from the imagination. This is because of the fact that since the human soul is linked with a body which is under time, it cannot go beyond (time) without being nurtured with the knowledge of the truth. As God says: "O assembly of jinn and men, if you can penetrate the bounds of the heavens and the earth, do so, but you cannot without the proof"(Quran 55:33)-that is, jinn and men cannot conceive anything in their souls other than what they see in the heavens and the earth, and they cannot go beyond what is under thr heavens and time unless they receive nurture(of true knowledge) from the Imam of the time, who is proof of God(hujjat-i Khuda) on earth.'

Poem:
The Eye of the Intellect, by Nasir Khusraw:

http://easynash.blogspot.com/2006/12/link-between-science-and-religion.html

Easy Nash

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)

Sunday, April 13, 2008

344)"Knowledge Society", by Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV

343)The Ten Most Beautiful Scientific Experiments: Book Review

"Born in Basra in 965, Ibn al-Haytham was the first person to test hypotheses with verifiable experiments, developing the modern scientific method more than two hundred years before European scholars learned of it—by reading his books(Bradley Steffens, "Ibn al-Haytham: First Scientist", 2006)

"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)

"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, Karachi, Pakistan)

"At the basis of the Muslim religion is the fundamental concept of nature’s unity and the absolute oneness of God.The learning of mathematics was therefore linked to the Muslim religion and developing an understanding of the world, which was helped by knowledge of the Qur’an and vice-versa. The objective was to make students capable of formulating and understanding abstractions and master symbols. Moving from concrete to the abstract, from experience to formulation of ideas and images, and from reality to symbolisation; this preparation was considered essential for improving the understanding of the Universe and its Creator"(Professor Afzal Ahmed, Oslo, Norway,May 2001)

THE TEN MOST BEAUTIFUL EXPERIMENTS
By George Johnson
Illustrated. 192 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $22.95.

April 13, 2008

Pure Science
By PETER DIZIKES

Beauty is truth, Keats declared, and truth beauty. Many prominent scientists have wished a version of this famous equation described their own work. The British quantum theorist Paul Dirac, for one, called his career “a search for pretty mathematics.” Most scientific aesthetes gaze fondly upon equations or arrangements of facts. A few, like the science writer George Johnson, also see beauty in the act of research. Johnson’s new book, “The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments,” is an appealing account of important scientific discoveries to which a variation of Keats applies: occasionally, beauty yields truth.

Johnson’s list is eclectic and his outlook romantic. “Science in the 21st century has become industrialized,” he states, with experiments “carried out by research teams that have grown to the size of corporations.” By contrast, Johnson (a longtime contributor to The New York Times) favors artisans of the laboratory, chronicling “those rare moments when, using the materials at hand, a curious soul figured out a way to pose a question to the universe and persisted until it replied.”

His selections include the canonical and the overlooked. The first chapter describes Galileo’s studying motion by rolling balls down an incline, often considered the founding experiment of modern science. Another chapter recounts Isaac Newton’s using prisms to grasp the nature of color. But Johnson also brings to life less familiar figures like Luigi Galvani, who illuminated the nature of electricity; Albert Michelson, who (with Edward Morley) determined the constant speed of light; and — a particularly inspired choice — Ivan Pavlov, whose famous dog experiments advanced physiology and neurology.

Johnson has a good feel for detail — Pavlov, in fact, rarely used a bell — and an easy touch with larger concepts. The vexing, counterintuitive Michelson-Morley result showed that light always appears to travel at the same rate, regardless of our relative movement or the mythical “aether” once thought to slow it down. As part of Einstein’s theory of special relativity, Johnson writes, this principle helped make clear that “there is no fixed backdrop of space, or even of time.” Instead, the speed of light is “the one true standard.”

Historians have wondered how much Einstein knew about the Michelson-Morley experiment, or if he reached the same conclusion independently. Johnson bypasses such discussions, although he could have noted this one (or explained why Michelson is more significant than Morley). Instead, he quickly sets the scene of each discovery and explores how each scientist sorted out a rich, messy mixture of evidence and theory — no fixed formulas here about how science progresses.

Johnson’s best chapter describes the ad hoc scientific duel in the 1790s over the nature of electricity between Galvani, who had accidentally discovered “animal electricity” in dismembered frogs (don’t ask), and a skeptical Alessandro Volta, who thought Galvani’s metal tools had generated the effect. Neither was entirely right. Their debate, however, helped prove that there is only one form of electricity (not many, as some thought), and that it flows through life, too.

Johnson’s lively book nicely evokes the lost world of the tabletop experiment. But are all remaining advances really beyond the reach of individual hands and minds, as he supposes? Might we still attribute major ideas to ingenious individuals, even if the ideas are tested by teams?

Certainly, Johnson is entitled to his nostalgia. Still, if lone scientists rarely push knowledge forward today, they rarely impede it, either. Consider William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, who appears here in a chapter on James Joule’s heat experiments. For all he accomplished, Kelvin later dismissed geological evidence about the Earth’s age, using his authority in thermodynamics to insist our planet was much younger than evolutionists like Charles Darwin and T. H. Huxley supposed. Kelvin’s conclusions were wrong, but it took decades to overturn his views. Sometimes, less individual influence is a good thing.

One other question lingers: What makes a scientific experiment beautiful? Johnson favors simplicity — not just clean, artful experiments, but those that let us replace convoluted theories with simple explanations. Galileo applied uniform mathematics to the motion of all objects, contradicting Aristotle’s idea that heavier objects fall at faster rates. William Harvey showed that one form of blood circulates throughout the body, not two. Newton proved colors are refracted light beams, not Descartes’s complex “spinning globules of aether.”

Historically, few people seeking beauty in science have displayed a baroque sensibility. The traditional aesthetic is classical, invoking the simplicity and symmetry of revealed forms — whether they have been revealed on a cluttered lab bench or through elegantly spare theorizing.
Indeed, the notion that scientific thinking is beautiful enjoyed a neoclassical revival, following the spread of Newton’s work in the 18th century. When Johnson says his 10 scientists found “an unknown piece” of the universal “scaffolding,” the architectural metaphor is telling. In this view, scientists who have sized up the world’s complexity and extracted lucid explanations are a bit like the engineers of ancient Greece or Rome who studied piles of stones and formulated basic building principles. We judge their work based on both form and function.

If Johnson’s aesthetic sense is conventional, however, his vision is broad. This tidy book finds beauty throughout science — even among dead frogs and drooling dogs.

Peter Dizikes is working on a book about scientific illiteracy in America.

Easy Nash

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)

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

342)Excitement mounts as Peter Higgs announces that the discovery of the "God Particle" is at hand; Quotes of Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khans and others.

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

"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)

"Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Noble Quran 2:242)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"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, Khorog, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995)

"Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders(the Fatimid Ismailis) 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)

"Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)

"The God of the Quran is the one whose Ayats(Signs) are the universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)

Apr 08, 2008 09:12 AM
Alexander G. Higgins
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

The father of a theoretical subatomic particle dubbed "the God particle" says he's almost sure its existence will be confirmed in the next year.

British physicist Peter Higgs first postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom more than 40 years ago.

Higgs, speaking during a visit the site of a massive new atom smashing accelerator in Switzerland, says scientists in both Europe and North America are about to confirm his theory. Higgs was visiting the new $2-billion Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, which is expected to begin operation in June.

The collider, the world's most powerful, has been installed in a 27-kilometre circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border. It is operated by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, known as CERN.

Higgs said Monday the particle may already have been created at the rival Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, but that analyzing data from the lab's Tevatron accelerator is a time-consuming task.

"The Tevatron has plenty of energy to do it," Higgs said. "It's just the difficulty of analyzing the data which prevents you from knowing quickly what's hiding in the data."

The new, even more powerful Geneva collider, will re-create the rapidly changing conditions in the universe a split second after the Big Bang. It will be the closest that scientists have come to the event that they theorize was the beginning of the universe. They hope the new equipment will enable them to study particles and forces yet unobserved.

But Fermilab still has time to be first if it can show that it has discovered the Higgs boson, Higgs said.

Nobel laureate Leon Lederman has dubbed the theoretical boson "the God particle" because its discovery could unify understanding of particle physics and help humans "know the mind of God." Higgs told reporters he is hoping to receive confirmation of his theory by the time he turns 80 in May 2009.

If not, he added, "I'll just have to ask my GP to keep me alive a bit longer," referring to his general practitioner, not the God particle, a term he does not embrace because he fears it might offend some people.

Higgs predicted the existence of the boson while working at the University of Edinburgh to explain how atoms – and the objects they make up – have weight.

Without the particle, the basic physics theory – the "standard model" – lacks a crucial element, because it fails to explain how other subatomic particles – such as quarks and electrons – have mass.

The Higgs theory is that the bosons create a field through which the other particles pass.The particles that encounter difficulty going through the field as though they are passing through molasses pick up more inertia, and mass. Those that pass through more easily are lighter.Higgs said he would be "very, very puzzled" if the particle is never found because he cannot image what else could explain how particles get mass.

Higgs said initial reaction to his ideas in the early 1960s was skeptical.

"My colleagues thought I was a bit of an idiot," he said, noting that his initial paper explaining how his theory worked was rejected by an editor at CERN.

He said a colleague spent the summer at CERN right after he did his work on the theory.

"He came back and said, 'At CERN they didn't see that what you were talking about had much to do with particle physics.'

"I then added on some additional paragraphs and sent it off across the Atlantic to Physical Review Letters, who accepted it. The mention of what became known as the Higgs boson was part of the extra which was added on."

Easy Nash

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)

Science and Religion in Islam: The Link.