"When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him - one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours - all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied - for they can be clear or milky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect - in fact, the reverse is true."(Aga Khan IV, Inaugural of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments. And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration."(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"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."(Aga Khan IV, May 2oth 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh)
"......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)
"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)
“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)
"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)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order."(Aga Khan III, Karachi, Pakistan, April 4th 1952)
"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, Karachi, Pakistan, April 4th 1952)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
Sura 36, Ayat 33: 'And a sign for them is the way in which we have given life to the earth that is dead: We quickened it and brought forth from it grain, of which they eat'(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Minerals
How rocks evolve
Nov 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition
It is not just living organisms that evolve. Minerals do too, and much of their diversity has arisen in tandem with the evolution of life
EVOLUTION has come a long way since Charles Darwin’s time. Today it is not only animals and plants that are seen as having evolved over time, but also things that involve the hand of humans, like architecture, music, car design and even governments. Now rocks, too, seem to be showing evolutionary characteristics.
Rocks are made from minerals, which like all matter are composed of individual chemical elements. What makes minerals special is the way that the atoms of those elements are arranged in lattices which create unique crystalline structures and shapes. Today more than 4,000 different minerals can be found on Earth. When the planet began to be formed, however, few existed.
Curious as to how this great variety came about, Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, DC, and a team of colleagues set out on their own voyage of discovery. Their study, just published in American Mineralogist, explores the history of minerals by identifying how much of the diversity was created by the rocks alone and how much of it was created by the evolution of life.
Before the formation of the sun and planets, all the chemical elements found on the periodic table were floating around in the primordial dust of the Solar System. Some elements were more common than others, but everything from argon to zinc was there. Minerals, however, were almost entirely absent. Only a handful, like diamonds and olivine, could be found, having been formed far away in exploding stars.
Out of the void
Minerals form from chemical elements in only a few ways. They can crystallise when molten lava becomes a solid; they can be left behind as residues when water carrying dissolved elements evaporates, or they can be deposited in water when concentrations of dissolved elements get too high. In one way or another, atoms of different elements are brought close together to form their crystalline lattices. And once some minerals are formed, more can be created chemically. Usually this happens by exposing minerals to agents that rip away electrons, just as oxygen does during oxidation.
As the planets congealed, gravitational forces and particle collisions created the high temperatures necessary to melt metals floating around in space, and minerals began their diversification. Once the sun and planets took shape, heat became readily available in the form of solar radiation, asteroid impacts, and gravitational pressure. Magma appeared in abundance and in some locations formed vast molten oceans. Dr Hazen and his team speculate from meteorite and early rock studies that several hundred mineral species, including zircon, quartz, clay and halite salt crystals, formed during this early period of mineral evolution.
Although Mercury and the Moon never progressed beyond the planetary-congealing stage, volcanic activity on Mars, Venus and Earth created powerful forces that caused further mineral diversification. Much of it resulted from volcanoes blasting out gases like carbon dioxide and water vapour, which allowed ice (also a mineral) to form near the poles of Earth, and possibly on Mars too.
Plate tectonics, the formation of faults and the moving of the continental crust over a molten interior, is a characteristic unique to Earth and it meant that minerals evolved far beyond those on any other planet in the Solar System. These epic processes melted and reprocessed vast amounts of rock and concentrated chemical elements in new ways. Massive ore deposits of copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold and other metals formed in this way.
Over 1,500 minerals are thought to have formed on Earth before the beginnings of life some four billion years ago. Obviously, minerals do not have genes and thus cannot mutate as living things do. Nevertheless, when life appeared, the evolution of minerals and the diversity of life became entwined.
Microscopic algae, the earliest living organisms, drew carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and expelled oxygen. Over millions of years this created an oxygen-rich atmosphere that rapidly removed electrons from minerals near the surface, creating rust out of iron and forming thousands of new minerals from other metals like nickel, copper and uranium.
Living stones
In the oceans, as animals with hard parts evolved, their bodies mineralised shells and skeletons for protection and support. Corals too started combining the calcium and carbonate that was floating freely in the water to construct reefs. All of the materials that animals made started to litter the sea floor and this vast accumulation of bone, shell and coral got pressed together into a mineral known as calcite.
On the land, plants produced acids around their roots that converted minerals of volcanic origin, like mica, feldspar and pyroxene, into clay minerals that ultimately formed intensely rich soils. This explains why volcanic islands like Hawaii are so lush.
New minerals created by living things continue to turn up. One of the most recent discoveries was by Hexiong Yang, who named it Hazenite as a tribute to Dr Hazen, his former teacher. Hazenite is a mineral formed by microbes in the highly alkaline Mono Lake in California.
Understanding just how dramatically life shapes minerals will play an important role in the exploration of the universe, says Dr Hazen. Knowing which minerals form at different stages of a planet’s evolution, and which depend upon life to be present, are crucial to understanding the mineralogy of other planets and moons.
With NASA’s Messenger probe now going into orbit around Mercury, Dr Hazen predicts that it will find only 300 or so minerals on the planet. If there are 500-1,000 detected, then it will suggest that there is a lot more to Mercury than anyone originally thought. And if minerals that depend upon life for their formation show up, then researchers will be flummoxed. The same is true for Mars and other planets—including the exoplanets that have been known about but which have just been seen for the first time orbiting stars outside the Solar System (see article). Dr Hazen argues that considering minerals in evolutionary terms is a powerful way to help identify how far a planet has developed geologically. Moreover it can tell you whether life was present at some point—and even whether it is present now.
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)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
432)A Shot in the Dark: More Signs of Universal Dark Energy; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and others.
"As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments. And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration."(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"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."(Aga Khan IV, May 2oth 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order."(Aga Khan III, Karachi, Pakistan, April 4th 1952)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
Cosmology
A shot in the dark
Dec 18th 2008
From The Economist print edition
More signs of universal dark energy
IT IS hardly surprising that something called dark energy is hard to study. It is important, though. If it exists at all, it makes up about three-quarters of the stuff in the universe. And if it does not exist, then existing theories of physics will have to be scrapped.
The latest evidence that dark energy really does exist was produced on December 16th by Alexey Vikhlinin, of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues. They used an orbiting X-ray telescope called Chandra to study the way that clusters of galaxies grow. They discovered that this growth is stifled in exactly the way that dark-energy theory predicts.
The idea of dark energy was dreamed up ten years ago, to explain why the expansion of the universe that began with the Big Bang seems to be accelerating, rather than slowing down. That unexpected finding was the result of studies of supernovas whose apparent brightness (and therefore distance) did not match the previous theory. Dark energy causes the acceleration by pushing space itself apart, altering the distances to the supernovas as it does so.
Dark energy is also a convenient explanation for another curiosity. Geometrically, space is flat. For it to be held that way, rather than getting more and more curved over time, the amount of matter and energy it contains must be at a particular, critical density. Without the dark energy needed to explain the acceleration, the universe would have only a quarter of the necessary density. It is therefore a relief that Dr Vikhlinin's results agree with the theory: the pushing apart of space that dark energy causes makes it harder than it otherwise would be for galactic clusters to grow.
This result does not bring physicists much closer to understanding what dark energy actually is. The favoured explanation is the so-called cosmological constant—an as-yet-unobserved consequence of the general theory of relativity. But that theory predicts a force far more powerful than the one actually seen. So the truth is that physicists are still in the dark.
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)
"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."(Aga Khan IV, May 2oth 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order."(Aga Khan III, Karachi, Pakistan, April 4th 1952)
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
Cosmology
A shot in the dark
Dec 18th 2008
From The Economist print edition
More signs of universal dark energy
IT IS hardly surprising that something called dark energy is hard to study. It is important, though. If it exists at all, it makes up about three-quarters of the stuff in the universe. And if it does not exist, then existing theories of physics will have to be scrapped.
The latest evidence that dark energy really does exist was produced on December 16th by Alexey Vikhlinin, of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his colleagues. They used an orbiting X-ray telescope called Chandra to study the way that clusters of galaxies grow. They discovered that this growth is stifled in exactly the way that dark-energy theory predicts.
The idea of dark energy was dreamed up ten years ago, to explain why the expansion of the universe that began with the Big Bang seems to be accelerating, rather than slowing down. That unexpected finding was the result of studies of supernovas whose apparent brightness (and therefore distance) did not match the previous theory. Dark energy causes the acceleration by pushing space itself apart, altering the distances to the supernovas as it does so.
Dark energy is also a convenient explanation for another curiosity. Geometrically, space is flat. For it to be held that way, rather than getting more and more curved over time, the amount of matter and energy it contains must be at a particular, critical density. Without the dark energy needed to explain the acceleration, the universe would have only a quarter of the necessary density. It is therefore a relief that Dr Vikhlinin's results agree with the theory: the pushing apart of space that dark energy causes makes it harder than it otherwise would be for galactic clusters to grow.
This result does not bring physicists much closer to understanding what dark energy actually is. The favoured explanation is the so-called cosmological constant—an as-yet-unobserved consequence of the general theory of relativity. But that theory predicts a force far more powerful than the one actually seen. So the truth is that physicists are still in the dark.
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)
431)The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam; The Amman Message.
Quote:
"Though the Amman Message should not be declared a panacea, it has already made a contribution in the struggle to define Islam, and will continue to do so.......Speaking of Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, al-Husein Madhany, the executive vice president of One Nation, told me, "The reason this document is so critical is because it addresses the kind of language and ideas used by Osama bin Laden and other vigilantes who are part of the global network of terror. The Amman Message tries to wrestle away the underpinnings of their claimed religious authority." Those who are tired of the Reformation analogies that have cluttered discourse about contemporary Islam may have an alternative model in the Aal al-Bayt Institute and its ambitious project of forging ijma' on contentious issues."
The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
12/08/2008
This study was published in Winter 2008 (Volume 6, Number 4) edition of The Review of Faith and International Affairs.
To view it in pdf format, click here.
Jordan's King Abdullah II launched an ambitious project in November 2004 designed to address some of the thorniest theological issues currently facing Muslims. The project, known as the "Amman Message," expressly holds that non-Muslims can reasonably "expect certain things from Muslims" in the contemporary context, in which Muslims and non-Muslims have unprecedented contact.[i] The Amman Message was self-consciously launched against the backdrop of the "global war on terror," where predominantly stateless terror networks claiming allegiance to Islam have managed to drastically alter the geopolitical landscape.
In his introduction to a volume published in 2006, True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message, Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal outlines seven areas in which he believes non-Muslims can expect certain things from Muslims. These include the rights of women, condemnation of terrorism, freedom of religion, and Muslim citizens' loyalty to the non-Muslim countries in which they live. The fact that these issues generate great controversy within the Muslim community makes even more audacious the method by which the Amman Message seeks to address them: through forging scholarly consensus.
In an effort spearheaded by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, a nominally non-governmental institute that receives significant backing from Jordan's monarchy, the Amman Message has already produced a consensus document addressing takfir. Takfir is the practice of declaring an individual or group previously considered Muslim to be cast out of Islam. The question of who has the right to declare someone an apostate is not merely theoretical in nature. The traditional punishment for apostasy from Islam is death, and some leading jihadist ideologues have declared that fellow Muslims who disagree with them on the need to militarily confront the non-Muslim world are in fact non-believers.[ii]
The process by which the Amman Message attempted to forge a consensus on this issue was in itself impressive. King Abdullah sent three questions to 24 senior Islamic religious figures designed to represent "all the branches of Islam, schools of thought, and religious orientations."[iii] The three questions were: (1) Who is a Muslim?; (2) Who has the right to undertake issuing fatwas (legal rulings)?; and (3) Is it permissible to declare someone an apostate (takfir)?[iv]
After the scholars to whom these questions were posed responded, King Abdullah convened a conference in Amman from July 4-6, 2005, featuring approximately 200 Muslim scholars from 50 countries. At the conclusion, participants affixed their signatures to a short consensus document on takfir that synthesized the scholars' rulings. Its general conclusion (albeit with some caveats and questions that this article addresses) was that a broad array of Muslim sects fall under the banner of Islam, including all four major Sunni schools, both major Shia schools, and other smaller jurisprudential schools. The consensus document held that it was impermissible "to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in God ... and His Messenger ... and does not deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion."[v]
Following its ratification at the July 2005 conference, the Amman Message hit the road. Its conclusions on takfir were again ratified two months later at a conference in Mecca. In November 2005, two further conferences (in Jordan and Kuwait) ratified the consensus document's conclusions. In December 2005, Muslim heads of state meeting at the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca likewise affirmed the conclusions. And scholars continued to affirm the document in the following year. By June 2006, it had garnered the signatures of over 550 scholars, representing a true cross-section of contemporary Islamic thought. The signatories were international in scope, and were not limited along sectarian lines; they included acknowledged leaders from all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, Iranian and Iraqi Shia leaders, representatives of smaller Shia schools such as the Ismailis, and representatives of the Ibadi school.
The Aal al-Bayt Institute has now moved on to a new document tackling another difficult theological issue: jihad and the Islamic law of war. The takfir and jihad documents demonstrate the strengths of the consensus-building process, as well as its limitations. Moreover, the work that has gone into the Amman Message challenges the longstanding view of many academics and commentators that Islam needs a "Muslim Martin Luther," by posing a different model for religious reform.
The Amman Message on Takfir
One distinctive aspect of jihadist movements is that they hold religion to be their raisond'être. As Professor Mary Habeck has noted, "these extremists explicitly appeal to the holy texts ... to show that their actions are justified. They find, too, endorsement of their ideas among respected interpreters of Islam and win disciples by their piety and their sophisticated arguments about how the religion supports them."[vi] This highlights why a competent response to these movements' theology is important. Since their recruiting efforts and prestige depend in large part on the claim that they represent the authentic voice of Islam, successfully undercutting the religious arguments advanced by al-Qaeda and affiliated movements would significantly diminish their power.
Though the new document on jihad drafted by the Aal al-Bayt Institute more directly addresses militants' rationale for undertaking warfare, takfir is also relevant to Islamic terrorists' arguments. The 9/11 Commission considered takfir so significant that in discussing jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb's belief that Islam is locked in mortal combat with the forces of disbelief, it made specific note of his argument that "[a]ny Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction."[vii] Beyond that, various sects have been singled out for vitriol by extremists for alleged heresy, and have been subjected to violence. Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have viewed Shias as particularly desirable targets. There are obvious tactical reasons for this-it is more difficult for coalition forces to fight insurgents when they are attempting to police a sectarian conflict-but there are also ideological reasons. The late Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi referred to the Shias as "the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom."[viii] The Ahmadi sect has also been subjected to persecution and violence due to its alleged heresies, initiated by both governmental and also private actors in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and elsewhere.[ix]
True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message, which addresses takfir, affirms that Muslims across a number of jurisprudential schools should be considered part of the Islamic faith:
Whosoever is an adherent to one of the four Sunni schools (Mathahib) of Islamic jurisprudence ..., the two Shi‘i schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Ja‘fari and Zaydi), the Ibadi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the Thahiri school of Islamic jurisprudence, is a Muslim. Declaring that person an apostate is impossible and impermissible. Verily his (or her) blood, honour, and property are inviolable. ... [I]t is neither possible nor permissible to declare whosoever subscribes to the Ash‘ari creed or whoever practices real Tasawwuf (Sufism) an apostate. ... Equally, it is neither possible nor permissible to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in God, Glorified and Exalted be He, and His Messenger (may peace and blessings be upon him) and the pillars of faith, and acknowledges the five pillars of Islam, and does not deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion.[x]
By affirming that Muslims across the Sunni-Shia divide are still fundamentally Muslim (that "[t]here exists more in common between the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence than there is difference between them"), the document tackles the blanket proclamations seen in Iraq and elsewhere that all Shia are heretics worthy of death.
Yet the document's brief analysis of who is a Muslim leaves certain critical questions unanswered. Some Muslims consider the Ahmadis heretical because the sect's founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, used the terms nabi (prophet) and rasul (messenger) to refer to himself-seemingly contradicting the Muslim belief that Muhammad was God's last prophet. The document says nothing about the Ahmadis: is it permissible, then, to declare them to be outside the fold of Islam?
Also, some language in the document leaves great room for those who would like a more expansive application of takfir. The document prohibits declarations of takfir on Muslims unless they "deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion," without any real discussion of what tenets are self-evident. Some groups have a more expansive view of this than others: Qutb, for example, would hold that his aggressive view of jihad was a self-evident tenet of the faith. The document likewise prohibits declaring takfir on anybody who "practices real Tasawwuf"-yet those who declare some Sufi sects (such as the North American Naqshbandis, a particular object of extremist scorn) to be non-Muslim would argue that they do not practice "real Tasawwuf." Nowhere does the document delineate the difference between real and bogus Tasawwuf.
A final question about True Islam is how seriously its signatories take it. Prince bin Muhammad's introduction to the volume (Prince bin Muhammad is the chairman of the Aal al-Bayt Institute's Board of Trustees) boasts of its ratification by Muslim heads of state at the OIC summit. He states that this means the document has been "adopted by the entire Islamic world represented at the head of state or government level."[xi] Yet at least 14 Muslim states make apostasy illegal. Their citizens have been tried for apostasy not just for conversion out of Islam (trials that are an issue in themselves), but also for making controversial remarks. In Egypt, for example, feminist writer Nawal el-Saadawi was tried for apostasy after describing the Hajj as "a vestige of paganism," while university professor Nasser Abu Zeid was tried for allegedly anti-Islamic writings.[xii] Will states that ratified the takfir document be less likely to use their courts in this manner in the future?
Jihad and the Islamic Law of War
In 2007, the Aal al-Bayt Institute began to address another controversial jurisprudential issue, the Islamic law of war. The institute has not yet produced a final statement on the matter, but I have been able to review a late draft. Entitled Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, the 79-page document has no signatories at present (presumably there will be no signatories until the statement has been finalized). Instead, the Aal al-Bayt Institute's name appears on the cover as an institutional author. Though informed sources tell me that the document will still need amendments, it already makes an interesting contribution to religious debates concerning jihad.
The jihad document is noteworthy in how it differs from the quite brief statement on takfir. The takfir statement's summary nature helped it become known as the Three Points. It detailed relevant conclusions about takfir without trying to make scholars reach a consensus on the reasoning behind those conclusions. Jihad and the Islamic Law of War is more ambitious. Like True Islam, it can be summarized in three essential points: (1) Non-combatants are not legitimate targets; (2) The religion of a person or persons in no way constitutes a cause for war against them; and (3) Aggression is prohibited, but the use of force is justified in self-defense, for protection of sovereignty, and in defense of all innocent people.[xiii] Yet unlike the takfir document, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War features a lengthy explanation of how these conclusions were reached-including analysis of significant Qur'anic verses that terrorist groups use to justify their actions. The Aal al-Bayt Institute would like scholars to agree not only on the new document's conclusions, but also the analysis supporting them. If Aal al-Bayt can get the signatures it would like, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War will likely be published as part of the ongoing Amman Message project. (If Aal al-Bayt does not get sufficient signatures, the document may be published as its own, separate enterprise.)
While takfir is relevant to the argument of Islamic terrorists, the theology of jihad is central to their case: it is this religious concept that provides them the impetus to continue their war, and to widen it. As noted above, Islamic terror groups appeal to holy texts in fashioning their justifications for war. They reference a common set of Qur'anic verses and ahadith (sayings or traditions attributed to Prophet Muhammad) that supposedly supports their case for war. For example, verse 9:29 of the Qur'an states:
Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger ... (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah [a tax paid by non-Muslims to continue practicing their faith under Islamic rule] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.[xiv]
Qutb based his argument that jihad against Jews and Christians is an eternal, communal obligation on this verse. He believed that Islam and the forces of disbelief were locked in mortal combat, and only one could survive. It was not enough, in his view, if a non-Muslim country simply decided to "leave Islam alone," and provide Muslims the right to practice and propagate their faith within its borders. He wrote that there could not be peace unless such countries "submit to [Islam's] authority by paying Jizyah, which will be a guarantee that they have opened their doors for the preaching of Islam and will not put any obstacle in its way through the power of the state."[xv] Similarly, Pakistani ideologue Abul Ala Maududi wrote: "Islam requires the earth, not just a portion, but the entire planet."[xvi]
In contrast, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War holds that the religious identity of a people cannot justify the Muslim community making war on them. The document offers scholarly analysis of some of the critical verses that militants have used to justify warfare against non-Muslims (a notable exception at this point is verse 9:29, which the current version of the jihad document does not discuss), as well as juristic doctrines governing relations with non-believers. For example, the document addresses the distinction between dar al-Harb and dar al-Islam (the Abode of War and Abode of Islam) enshrined by classical jurists. Under this view, dar al-Islam encompasses geographic areas in which sharia law has been erected, while dar al-Harb constitutes the rest of the world, excepting states that have specifically enacted treaties with the Muslim world. Viewing the world as a battlefield between Islam and the forces of disbelief, classical jurists would authorize warfare to expand the dar al-Islam if there were "a reasonable prospect of success."[xvii]
The jihad document tackles this doctrine directly. Aal al-Bayt's scholars note that the classical laws of jihad assumed "that the default position between states was a state of war," and argue that this reflected the state of affairs in seventh century Arabia and the areas surrounding it.[xviii] However, the document claims that the universal treaties that prevail today-such as the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions-alter the context of international relations:
[T]he world was not always governed by the universal treaties of today. The terms Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb are not terms from the Qur'an or from the teachings of the Prophet, but grew out of the work of jurists coming to terms with the new international profile of Islam. As such, they also coined terms such as dar al-sulh ("abode of reconciliation") and dar al-‘ahd ("abode of treaty"), referring to those lands not ruled by Islam but with which the Islamic state had some sort of peace agreement. ... From the point of view of Islamic law, the gradual adoption and advancement of moral principles in international law is a welcome development, and brings the world closer to the Qur'anic ideal of non-aggression and peaceful coexistence.[xix]
The document also delivers a particularly harsh rebuke to Osama bin Laden's claims about war in Islam. Bin Laden has long employed utopian rhetoric in offering his followers the prospect of the caliphate's reestablishment. The jihad document compares this kind of thinking to Vladimir Lenin's statement, "You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs," and insists that Islam does not countenance utopian ideology. "When one can justify any act in the name of a worldly utopia," the drafters warn, "then one has passed into pure utilitarianism."[xx]
Turning to bin Laden's declaration of war against the West in which he instructs his followers to kill both soldiers and civilians,[xxi] Aal al-Bayt's volume assails his scholarly qualifications and religious methodology, describing it as a "takfiri cut-and-paste method." The document states:
That every top authority on Islamic law in the world rejects Bin Laden's conclusions and his temerity in declaring a "fatwa" is, lamentably, often never mentioned in the West. ... [Bin Laden's] method amounts to a cherry-picking of sources to arrive at a conclusion that was decided beforehand. It is misleading to present Bin Laden, and others like him, as men steeped in their religious tradition who take Islam's teachings to their logical conclusions. For all the talk about "madrasahs", which is simply the word for "school", it is important to note that the terrorists who claim to fight in the name of Islam today are almost entirely men educated in medicine, engineering, mathematics, computer science, etc. ... It is striking how absent graduates of recognized madrasahs or Islamic seminaries (such as al-Azhar in Egypt) are among the ranks of the terrorists.[xxii]
Like the document on takfir, the jihad document undercuts key aspects of the terrorists' religious case. Beyond raising questions about bin Laden's theological qualifications, its affirmation that a people's religious identity cannot constitute a cause for war stands in opposition to the views of Qutb and Maududi that Islam can never be at peace with the non-Muslim world. Yet like the takfir document, the document on jihad also leaves some unanswered questions.
Most significant, the circumstances under which the use of force is justified-self-defense, the protection of sovereignty, and "in defense of all innocent people"-are never explained. Are roadside bomb attacks against coalition forces in Iraq justified defenses of sovereignty? What about suicide bombings in Israel? Some very prominent Islamic scholars would answer yes to both questions-and, unfortunately, there is reason to believe that their ranks include signatories of the Amman Message's takfir document. True Islam compiles the proceedings of a number of institutions that affirmed the Three Points. One of these, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, issued a declaration on "Extremism, Radicalism, and Terrorism" that was reprinted in the volume. While the declaration rejects terrorism, it also explicitly recognizes "the rights of occupied peoples to armed resistance," which it asserts "is a right recognized by law and by reason, and is affirmed by international treaties."[xxiii] Such language is frequently used to justify attacks in Iraq and Israel.
Is this parsing too carefully? King Abdullah addressed the International Islamic Fiqh Academy before it issued that declaration, and in the course of his remarks stated:
[I]n Amman you are close to the grief of Iraq to the east, as the people of Iraq undergo a great struggle, and you are close to the grief of the Palestinians to the west, as the blessed al-Aqsa mosque, the first qiblah and third in the triad of Holy Places, suffers under occupation.[xxiv]
So concern about the jihad document's reference to protection of sovereignty is justified. So too is concern about the document's failure to define non-combatants even while intimating that they are not legitimate targets of war. Yusuf Qaradawi, a signatory of the Three Points, has argued that all Israelis are legitimate targets because of the country's conscription: no civilians exist.[xxv]
Evaluating the Amman Message
The benefits of the two documents analyzed above are manifest. The takfir document, endorsed by a broad array of scholars with towering reputations, advances a number of relevant arguments designed to diminish the sectarian fighting that has gripped places like Iraq, and to undermine extremists' claim that they have the power to declare takfir on other Muslims. The jihad document, which may ultimately garner a similarly impressive array of signatures, condemns many of the tactics employed by terrorist organizations, as well as the idea that Muslims are inherently at war with the non-Muslim world.
The documents' shortcomings are also clear if one reads them critically. One failure is that they do not clarify some of the most controversial issues-for example, the jihad document's lack of discussion about Iraq and Israel. Another shortcoming is that the documents frequently employ vague language that can give rise to many questions. This can be seen in the takfir document's failure to specify what terms such as "real Tasawwuf" and "necessarily self-evident tenet of religion" mean, or in the jihad document's silence about the claim there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. These failures are likely inherent to the process of consensus-building that the Aal al-Bayt Institute has chosen. More ambitious statements, though they would surely be more welcome to Western ears, might not garner the kind consensus that the Amman Message seeks. What the documents might have accomplished, however, should not detract from the fact that they do make a contribution.
Surely, the Aal al-Bayt Institute has had its misfires in addition to its successes. Its penchant for attaching unprecedented historical significance to virtually all of its output can be off-putting. The very first sentence of True Islam's introduction, penned by Prince bin Muhammad, reads: "Over the course of the two years 2005-2006 CE, 1426-1427 AH, there occurred a series of events of great historical importance to the worldwide Islamic nation (Ummah), events without parallel for fourteen centuries, ever since the time of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib."[xxvi]
Moreover, some of the documents released through this process have fallen flat. In October 2007, for example, the Aal al-Bayt Institute spearheaded a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and 26 other Christian leaders entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You,"[xxvii] signed by 138 Muslim thinkers. "A Common Word" was a rambling 18-page letter designed to demonstrate the common importance of the principles of love of God and love of neighbor in both Christianity and Islam. Attempting to lend urgency to these commonalities, "A Common Word" asserts that, since the two religions comprise about 55 percent of the world's population, the world cannot have peace if Islam and Christianity are not at peace with each other. "The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," the letter states.[xxviii]
In an apt critique, the Hudson Institute's John F. Cullinan writes that the letter is unfocused and "limited to generalities" while simply ignoring difficult Qur'anic passages that might provide a darker view of the religion.[xxix] Cullinan notes the basic imbalance between the signatories and recipients of "A Common Word." While the signatories are "establishment figures"-with more than half being current or former government officials-the people to whom the letter is addressed "have little or no influence on government policy (like Pope Shenouda III, head of Egypt's beleaguered Coptic community)." Yet the letter was accompanied by the kind of grandiose publicity and declarations of historical importance that typically attend the rollout of Aal al-Bayt publications.
These misfires aside, Aal al-Bayt has already succeeded in releasing one important document, and the jihad document will also be significant upon its release. Moreover, Aal al-Bayt has created an important mechanism for bringing together representatives of divergent Islamic theological schools. In general, consensus-building mechanisms have not figured prominently in discussions about reform within Islam. Instead, many scholars and analysts have pined for a "Muslim Martin Luther": in some circles, the notion that "Islam needs a Reformation" is bandied about so frequently that it has become cliché.[xxx]
Calls for an Islamic Reformation have always rested on a historically flawed analogy. Martin Luther's rebellion against the Catholic Church challenged a central authority: in fact, many of Luther's contemporaries who shared his disdain for the Church's degeneration did not question Rome's authority because they were "leery of anarchy."[xxxi] In contrast, contemporary Islam can be characterized as theologically anarchic, a situation that has been favorable to extremists. Some young Muslims turn to the Internet-where it is difficult to ascertain clerics' qualifications, and sometimes even their identities-to procure religious advice on jihad.[xxxii] Al-Qaeda was able to do its own fatwa-shopping when trying to secure authorization to attack America with weapons of mass destruction, finally obtaining a favorable ruling from Saudi cleric Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd in May 2003.[xxxiii]
Moreover, commentators engaged in the search for a "Muslim Martin Luther" generally assume that Luther acted to diminish the role of religion in the political sphere. He did not. As his authoritative biography explains, the Catholic Church was largely secularized and decadent before Luther, and religion was disengaged enough from politics that "the Most High King of France and His Holiness the Pope did not disdain a military alliance with the Sultan against the Holy Roman Empire." Luther changed this. With his influence, "[r]eligion became again a dominant factor even in politics for another century and a half. Men cared enough for the faith to die for it and to kill for it."[xxxiv] Protestants brutally suppressed Catholicism in areas where they enjoyed political control during the Reformation. For example, after England passed a series of acts between 1534 and 1539 designed to stamp out the Catholic Church's remaining influence, the country's unrepentant Catholics "faced execution and forfeiture of their estates."[xxxv]
The differences between contemporary Islam and the social context that produced the Reformation led scholar Paul Marshall to state that "many of the problems of contemporary Islam are more like Protestant problems than like Catholic problems," and suggest that perhaps "we should be urging an Islamic ‘Counter-Reformation.'" Marshall writes that he does not know if a "Catholicization" of Islam is possible, but that it "might be a more useful metaphor for renewal in Islam" than the Reformation.[xxxvi]
An approach based on scholarly consensus is not unprecedented within Islam. The theological concept, known as ijma' in Arabic, is rooted in a famous hadith in which Muhammad says, "God will not allow my Ummah to agree upon an error."[xxxvii] Though the four major Sunni jurisprudential schools prefer to find answers to important questions in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad-which Muslims consider the most reliable guides to God's dictates-they all consider ijma' to be a legitimate source of law. As Prince bin Muhammad points out in his introduction to True Islam, ijma' is distinct from democracy: rather than simply representing the view of a majority, "[i]t is unanimous, or it is precisely not a universal consensus (ijma') at all."[xxxviii] In forging such a consensus, two groups are of particular relevance: the ulama (scholars of Islamic law), and leaders possessing political authority. The Aal al-Bayt Institute hopes to create ijma' on difficult theological issues via the Amman Message.
Reintroducing ijma' to Islamic jurisprudence could help to mitigate the "dueling fatwas" currently prevalent in the Muslim world. It also offers another benefit that becomes clear when one looks at some of the more controversial scholars who signed the takfir document. Yusuf Qaradawi, for example, has sanctioned attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and against all Israelis.[xxxix] This article has already detailed how both are problem areas for Jihad and the Islamic Law of War because of its failure to define protection of sovereignty. The final draft of the jihad document may well present few obstacles to those seeking to legitimize fighting in Iraq and Israel. But what if the document reached a more satisfactory resolution of these issues? The consensus-building process holds out the possibility of accountability: if Qaradawi or other signatories try to backtrack from the conclusions reached in these documents, other scholars can point out that their new positions contradict the outcome that was reached by scholarly consensus. Moreover, other scholars can point out that ijma' as an interpretive principle should be given more weight than one scholar's proclamation.
None of this is meant to diminish the role that courageous individuals will play in undermining the violent interpretations of Islam that underlie terrorist ideology. But theological consensus is a model for reform to which scholars and policymakers have devoted insufficient attention. The ambitious Amman Message may help to change that.
Conclusion
Though the Amman Message should not be declared a panacea, it has already made a contribution in the struggle to define Islam, and will continue to do so. There is no guarantee as to how far its scholars will be willing to go when grappling with difficult theological issues: there is no reason to believe that they will inevitably condemn attacks against coalition forces in Iraq or Israeli civilians. It is quite possible that the current document is as far as the consensus of scholars will go. Nonetheless, this does not detract from what Aal al-Bayt has already been able to accomplish.
Speaking of Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, al-Husein Madhany, the executive vice president of One Nation, told me, "The reason this document is so critical is because it addresses the kind of language and ideas used by Osama bin Laden and other vigilantes who are part of the global network of terror. The Amman Message tries to wrestle away the underpinnings of their claimed religious authority." Those who are tired of the Reformation analogies that have cluttered discourse about contemporary Islam may have an alternative model in the Aal al-Bayt Institute and its ambitious project of forging ijma' on contentious issues.
_________________________________________
[i] H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, "Introduction," in True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message (Amman, 2006), p. xxxiv.
[ii] I have previously written about the dangers posed to Muslims who convert to other faiths. See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "When Muslims Convert," Commentary, February 2005. For a lengthy justification of this practice, see Abul Ala Mawdudi, The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law (Syed Silas Husain & Ernest Hahn trans., 1994).
[iii] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xviii.
[iv] These questions are taken verbatim from ibid.
[v] Ibid., p. xx.
[vi] Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 3.
[vii] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004), p. 51.
[viii] February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English translation of Musab al-Zarqawi letter, obtained by United States Government in Iraq, available at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm (accessed February 16, 2008).
[ix] See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, "Pakistan: Pandering to Extremists Fuels Persecution of Ahmadis," May 6, 2007; Human Rights Watch, "Bangladesh: Government Fails to Act Against Religious Violence," June 16, 2005.
[x] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," pp. xix-xx.
[xi] Ibid., pp. xxi-xxii.
[xii] "Egyptian Writer Faces Apostasy Trial," BBC News, April 24, 2001.
[xiii] The language of these three points is taken verbatim from Jihad and the Islamic Law of War (Jordan: The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2007), p. vi.
[xiv]Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur'an 9:29 (Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali & Muhammad Muhsin Khan trans., 15th ed. 1996).
[xv] Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (1964), p. 66.
[xvi] Sayyid Abul A‘la Maududi, Jihad fi Sabilillah (Birmingham, UK: Islamic Mission Dawah Centre), p. 7.
[xvii] Cyril Glasse, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), pp. 209-10.
[xviii]Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, pp. 26-27.
[xix] Ibid., pp. 28-29.
[xx] Ibid., p. 63.
[xxi] For an excellent compilation of bin Laden's statements, see Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (London: Verso, 2005).
[xxii]Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, pp. 65-66.
[xxiii]True Islam, p. 143.
[xxiv] Ibid., p. 131.
[xxv] Michael Moss & Souad Mekhennet, "The Guidebook for Taking a Life," New York Times, June 10, 2007.
[xxvi] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xvii.
[xxvii] The document can be found online at http://www.acommonword.com/lib/downloads/CW-Total-Final-v-12g-Eng-9-10-07.pdf (accessed February 17, 2008).
[xxviii] "A Common Word Between Us and You," Oct. 13, 2007, p. 16.
[xxix] John F. Cullinan, "Who Speaks for Islam?", National Review Online, October 12, 2007.
[xxx] See, for example, Mansour al-Nogaidan, "Losing My Jihadism," Washington Post, July 22, 2007, p. B1; Salman Rushdie, "Muslims Unite! A New Reformation will Bring Your Faith into the Modern Era," Times (London), August 11, 2005.
[xxxi] Brian Moynahan, The Faith: A History of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2002), p. 349.
[xxxii] See Richard Kerbaj, "Muslim Youth ‘Shop Around for Fatwas Online,'" The Australian, Dec. 29, 2007.
[xxxiii] Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd, "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels", May 2003.
[xxxiv] Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Abingdon: Nashville, TN), p. 15.
[xxxv] Moynahan, The Faith, p. 405.
[xxxvi] Paul Marshall, "Islamic Counter-Reformation," First Things, August/September 2004.
[xxxvii] Al-Tirmidhi, Sunan, Kitab al-Fitan, Hadith no. 2320.
[xxxviii] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xxvii.
[xxxix] See, e.g., "Those Who Die Fighting U.S. Occupation Forces Are Martyrs," Islam for Today (no date given)
Easy Nash
"Though the Amman Message should not be declared a panacea, it has already made a contribution in the struggle to define Islam, and will continue to do so.......Speaking of Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, al-Husein Madhany, the executive vice president of One Nation, told me, "The reason this document is so critical is because it addresses the kind of language and ideas used by Osama bin Laden and other vigilantes who are part of the global network of terror. The Amman Message tries to wrestle away the underpinnings of their claimed religious authority." Those who are tired of the Reformation analogies that have cluttered discourse about contemporary Islam may have an alternative model in the Aal al-Bayt Institute and its ambitious project of forging ijma' on contentious issues."
The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
12/08/2008
This study was published in Winter 2008 (Volume 6, Number 4) edition of The Review of Faith and International Affairs.
To view it in pdf format, click here.
Jordan's King Abdullah II launched an ambitious project in November 2004 designed to address some of the thorniest theological issues currently facing Muslims. The project, known as the "Amman Message," expressly holds that non-Muslims can reasonably "expect certain things from Muslims" in the contemporary context, in which Muslims and non-Muslims have unprecedented contact.[i] The Amman Message was self-consciously launched against the backdrop of the "global war on terror," where predominantly stateless terror networks claiming allegiance to Islam have managed to drastically alter the geopolitical landscape.
In his introduction to a volume published in 2006, True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message, Jordan's Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal outlines seven areas in which he believes non-Muslims can expect certain things from Muslims. These include the rights of women, condemnation of terrorism, freedom of religion, and Muslim citizens' loyalty to the non-Muslim countries in which they live. The fact that these issues generate great controversy within the Muslim community makes even more audacious the method by which the Amman Message seeks to address them: through forging scholarly consensus.
In an effort spearheaded by the Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, a nominally non-governmental institute that receives significant backing from Jordan's monarchy, the Amman Message has already produced a consensus document addressing takfir. Takfir is the practice of declaring an individual or group previously considered Muslim to be cast out of Islam. The question of who has the right to declare someone an apostate is not merely theoretical in nature. The traditional punishment for apostasy from Islam is death, and some leading jihadist ideologues have declared that fellow Muslims who disagree with them on the need to militarily confront the non-Muslim world are in fact non-believers.[ii]
The process by which the Amman Message attempted to forge a consensus on this issue was in itself impressive. King Abdullah sent three questions to 24 senior Islamic religious figures designed to represent "all the branches of Islam, schools of thought, and religious orientations."[iii] The three questions were: (1) Who is a Muslim?; (2) Who has the right to undertake issuing fatwas (legal rulings)?; and (3) Is it permissible to declare someone an apostate (takfir)?[iv]
After the scholars to whom these questions were posed responded, King Abdullah convened a conference in Amman from July 4-6, 2005, featuring approximately 200 Muslim scholars from 50 countries. At the conclusion, participants affixed their signatures to a short consensus document on takfir that synthesized the scholars' rulings. Its general conclusion (albeit with some caveats and questions that this article addresses) was that a broad array of Muslim sects fall under the banner of Islam, including all four major Sunni schools, both major Shia schools, and other smaller jurisprudential schools. The consensus document held that it was impermissible "to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in God ... and His Messenger ... and does not deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion."[v]
Following its ratification at the July 2005 conference, the Amman Message hit the road. Its conclusions on takfir were again ratified two months later at a conference in Mecca. In November 2005, two further conferences (in Jordan and Kuwait) ratified the consensus document's conclusions. In December 2005, Muslim heads of state meeting at the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca likewise affirmed the conclusions. And scholars continued to affirm the document in the following year. By June 2006, it had garnered the signatures of over 550 scholars, representing a true cross-section of contemporary Islamic thought. The signatories were international in scope, and were not limited along sectarian lines; they included acknowledged leaders from all four schools of Sunni jurisprudence, Iranian and Iraqi Shia leaders, representatives of smaller Shia schools such as the Ismailis, and representatives of the Ibadi school.
The Aal al-Bayt Institute has now moved on to a new document tackling another difficult theological issue: jihad and the Islamic law of war. The takfir and jihad documents demonstrate the strengths of the consensus-building process, as well as its limitations. Moreover, the work that has gone into the Amman Message challenges the longstanding view of many academics and commentators that Islam needs a "Muslim Martin Luther," by posing a different model for religious reform.
The Amman Message on Takfir
One distinctive aspect of jihadist movements is that they hold religion to be their raisond'être. As Professor Mary Habeck has noted, "these extremists explicitly appeal to the holy texts ... to show that their actions are justified. They find, too, endorsement of their ideas among respected interpreters of Islam and win disciples by their piety and their sophisticated arguments about how the religion supports them."[vi] This highlights why a competent response to these movements' theology is important. Since their recruiting efforts and prestige depend in large part on the claim that they represent the authentic voice of Islam, successfully undercutting the religious arguments advanced by al-Qaeda and affiliated movements would significantly diminish their power.
Though the new document on jihad drafted by the Aal al-Bayt Institute more directly addresses militants' rationale for undertaking warfare, takfir is also relevant to Islamic terrorists' arguments. The 9/11 Commission considered takfir so significant that in discussing jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb's belief that Islam is locked in mortal combat with the forces of disbelief, it made specific note of his argument that "[a]ny Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy of destruction."[vii] Beyond that, various sects have been singled out for vitriol by extremists for alleged heresy, and have been subjected to violence. Al-Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have viewed Shias as particularly desirable targets. There are obvious tactical reasons for this-it is more difficult for coalition forces to fight insurgents when they are attempting to police a sectarian conflict-but there are also ideological reasons. The late Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi referred to the Shias as "the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom."[viii] The Ahmadi sect has also been subjected to persecution and violence due to its alleged heresies, initiated by both governmental and also private actors in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and elsewhere.[ix]
True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message, which addresses takfir, affirms that Muslims across a number of jurisprudential schools should be considered part of the Islamic faith:
Whosoever is an adherent to one of the four Sunni schools (Mathahib) of Islamic jurisprudence ..., the two Shi‘i schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Ja‘fari and Zaydi), the Ibadi school of Islamic jurisprudence and the Thahiri school of Islamic jurisprudence, is a Muslim. Declaring that person an apostate is impossible and impermissible. Verily his (or her) blood, honour, and property are inviolable. ... [I]t is neither possible nor permissible to declare whosoever subscribes to the Ash‘ari creed or whoever practices real Tasawwuf (Sufism) an apostate. ... Equally, it is neither possible nor permissible to declare as apostates any group of Muslims who believes in God, Glorified and Exalted be He, and His Messenger (may peace and blessings be upon him) and the pillars of faith, and acknowledges the five pillars of Islam, and does not deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion.[x]
By affirming that Muslims across the Sunni-Shia divide are still fundamentally Muslim (that "[t]here exists more in common between the various schools of Islamic jurisprudence than there is difference between them"), the document tackles the blanket proclamations seen in Iraq and elsewhere that all Shia are heretics worthy of death.
Yet the document's brief analysis of who is a Muslim leaves certain critical questions unanswered. Some Muslims consider the Ahmadis heretical because the sect's founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, used the terms nabi (prophet) and rasul (messenger) to refer to himself-seemingly contradicting the Muslim belief that Muhammad was God's last prophet. The document says nothing about the Ahmadis: is it permissible, then, to declare them to be outside the fold of Islam?
Also, some language in the document leaves great room for those who would like a more expansive application of takfir. The document prohibits declarations of takfir on Muslims unless they "deny any necessarily self-evident tenet of religion," without any real discussion of what tenets are self-evident. Some groups have a more expansive view of this than others: Qutb, for example, would hold that his aggressive view of jihad was a self-evident tenet of the faith. The document likewise prohibits declaring takfir on anybody who "practices real Tasawwuf"-yet those who declare some Sufi sects (such as the North American Naqshbandis, a particular object of extremist scorn) to be non-Muslim would argue that they do not practice "real Tasawwuf." Nowhere does the document delineate the difference between real and bogus Tasawwuf.
A final question about True Islam is how seriously its signatories take it. Prince bin Muhammad's introduction to the volume (Prince bin Muhammad is the chairman of the Aal al-Bayt Institute's Board of Trustees) boasts of its ratification by Muslim heads of state at the OIC summit. He states that this means the document has been "adopted by the entire Islamic world represented at the head of state or government level."[xi] Yet at least 14 Muslim states make apostasy illegal. Their citizens have been tried for apostasy not just for conversion out of Islam (trials that are an issue in themselves), but also for making controversial remarks. In Egypt, for example, feminist writer Nawal el-Saadawi was tried for apostasy after describing the Hajj as "a vestige of paganism," while university professor Nasser Abu Zeid was tried for allegedly anti-Islamic writings.[xii] Will states that ratified the takfir document be less likely to use their courts in this manner in the future?
Jihad and the Islamic Law of War
In 2007, the Aal al-Bayt Institute began to address another controversial jurisprudential issue, the Islamic law of war. The institute has not yet produced a final statement on the matter, but I have been able to review a late draft. Entitled Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, the 79-page document has no signatories at present (presumably there will be no signatories until the statement has been finalized). Instead, the Aal al-Bayt Institute's name appears on the cover as an institutional author. Though informed sources tell me that the document will still need amendments, it already makes an interesting contribution to religious debates concerning jihad.
The jihad document is noteworthy in how it differs from the quite brief statement on takfir. The takfir statement's summary nature helped it become known as the Three Points. It detailed relevant conclusions about takfir without trying to make scholars reach a consensus on the reasoning behind those conclusions. Jihad and the Islamic Law of War is more ambitious. Like True Islam, it can be summarized in three essential points: (1) Non-combatants are not legitimate targets; (2) The religion of a person or persons in no way constitutes a cause for war against them; and (3) Aggression is prohibited, but the use of force is justified in self-defense, for protection of sovereignty, and in defense of all innocent people.[xiii] Yet unlike the takfir document, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War features a lengthy explanation of how these conclusions were reached-including analysis of significant Qur'anic verses that terrorist groups use to justify their actions. The Aal al-Bayt Institute would like scholars to agree not only on the new document's conclusions, but also the analysis supporting them. If Aal al-Bayt can get the signatures it would like, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War will likely be published as part of the ongoing Amman Message project. (If Aal al-Bayt does not get sufficient signatures, the document may be published as its own, separate enterprise.)
While takfir is relevant to the argument of Islamic terrorists, the theology of jihad is central to their case: it is this religious concept that provides them the impetus to continue their war, and to widen it. As noted above, Islamic terror groups appeal to holy texts in fashioning their justifications for war. They reference a common set of Qur'anic verses and ahadith (sayings or traditions attributed to Prophet Muhammad) that supposedly supports their case for war. For example, verse 9:29 of the Qur'an states:
Fight against those who (1) believe not in Allah, (2) nor in the Last Day, (3) nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger ... (4) and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians), until they pay the Jizyah [a tax paid by non-Muslims to continue practicing their faith under Islamic rule] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.[xiv]
Qutb based his argument that jihad against Jews and Christians is an eternal, communal obligation on this verse. He believed that Islam and the forces of disbelief were locked in mortal combat, and only one could survive. It was not enough, in his view, if a non-Muslim country simply decided to "leave Islam alone," and provide Muslims the right to practice and propagate their faith within its borders. He wrote that there could not be peace unless such countries "submit to [Islam's] authority by paying Jizyah, which will be a guarantee that they have opened their doors for the preaching of Islam and will not put any obstacle in its way through the power of the state."[xv] Similarly, Pakistani ideologue Abul Ala Maududi wrote: "Islam requires the earth, not just a portion, but the entire planet."[xvi]
In contrast, Jihad and the Islamic Law of War holds that the religious identity of a people cannot justify the Muslim community making war on them. The document offers scholarly analysis of some of the critical verses that militants have used to justify warfare against non-Muslims (a notable exception at this point is verse 9:29, which the current version of the jihad document does not discuss), as well as juristic doctrines governing relations with non-believers. For example, the document addresses the distinction between dar al-Harb and dar al-Islam (the Abode of War and Abode of Islam) enshrined by classical jurists. Under this view, dar al-Islam encompasses geographic areas in which sharia law has been erected, while dar al-Harb constitutes the rest of the world, excepting states that have specifically enacted treaties with the Muslim world. Viewing the world as a battlefield between Islam and the forces of disbelief, classical jurists would authorize warfare to expand the dar al-Islam if there were "a reasonable prospect of success."[xvii]
The jihad document tackles this doctrine directly. Aal al-Bayt's scholars note that the classical laws of jihad assumed "that the default position between states was a state of war," and argue that this reflected the state of affairs in seventh century Arabia and the areas surrounding it.[xviii] However, the document claims that the universal treaties that prevail today-such as the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions-alter the context of international relations:
[T]he world was not always governed by the universal treaties of today. The terms Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb are not terms from the Qur'an or from the teachings of the Prophet, but grew out of the work of jurists coming to terms with the new international profile of Islam. As such, they also coined terms such as dar al-sulh ("abode of reconciliation") and dar al-‘ahd ("abode of treaty"), referring to those lands not ruled by Islam but with which the Islamic state had some sort of peace agreement. ... From the point of view of Islamic law, the gradual adoption and advancement of moral principles in international law is a welcome development, and brings the world closer to the Qur'anic ideal of non-aggression and peaceful coexistence.[xix]
The document also delivers a particularly harsh rebuke to Osama bin Laden's claims about war in Islam. Bin Laden has long employed utopian rhetoric in offering his followers the prospect of the caliphate's reestablishment. The jihad document compares this kind of thinking to Vladimir Lenin's statement, "You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs," and insists that Islam does not countenance utopian ideology. "When one can justify any act in the name of a worldly utopia," the drafters warn, "then one has passed into pure utilitarianism."[xx]
Turning to bin Laden's declaration of war against the West in which he instructs his followers to kill both soldiers and civilians,[xxi] Aal al-Bayt's volume assails his scholarly qualifications and religious methodology, describing it as a "takfiri cut-and-paste method." The document states:
That every top authority on Islamic law in the world rejects Bin Laden's conclusions and his temerity in declaring a "fatwa" is, lamentably, often never mentioned in the West. ... [Bin Laden's] method amounts to a cherry-picking of sources to arrive at a conclusion that was decided beforehand. It is misleading to present Bin Laden, and others like him, as men steeped in their religious tradition who take Islam's teachings to their logical conclusions. For all the talk about "madrasahs", which is simply the word for "school", it is important to note that the terrorists who claim to fight in the name of Islam today are almost entirely men educated in medicine, engineering, mathematics, computer science, etc. ... It is striking how absent graduates of recognized madrasahs or Islamic seminaries (such as al-Azhar in Egypt) are among the ranks of the terrorists.[xxii]
Like the document on takfir, the jihad document undercuts key aspects of the terrorists' religious case. Beyond raising questions about bin Laden's theological qualifications, its affirmation that a people's religious identity cannot constitute a cause for war stands in opposition to the views of Qutb and Maududi that Islam can never be at peace with the non-Muslim world. Yet like the takfir document, the document on jihad also leaves some unanswered questions.
Most significant, the circumstances under which the use of force is justified-self-defense, the protection of sovereignty, and "in defense of all innocent people"-are never explained. Are roadside bomb attacks against coalition forces in Iraq justified defenses of sovereignty? What about suicide bombings in Israel? Some very prominent Islamic scholars would answer yes to both questions-and, unfortunately, there is reason to believe that their ranks include signatories of the Amman Message's takfir document. True Islam compiles the proceedings of a number of institutions that affirmed the Three Points. One of these, the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, issued a declaration on "Extremism, Radicalism, and Terrorism" that was reprinted in the volume. While the declaration rejects terrorism, it also explicitly recognizes "the rights of occupied peoples to armed resistance," which it asserts "is a right recognized by law and by reason, and is affirmed by international treaties."[xxiii] Such language is frequently used to justify attacks in Iraq and Israel.
Is this parsing too carefully? King Abdullah addressed the International Islamic Fiqh Academy before it issued that declaration, and in the course of his remarks stated:
[I]n Amman you are close to the grief of Iraq to the east, as the people of Iraq undergo a great struggle, and you are close to the grief of the Palestinians to the west, as the blessed al-Aqsa mosque, the first qiblah and third in the triad of Holy Places, suffers under occupation.[xxiv]
So concern about the jihad document's reference to protection of sovereignty is justified. So too is concern about the document's failure to define non-combatants even while intimating that they are not legitimate targets of war. Yusuf Qaradawi, a signatory of the Three Points, has argued that all Israelis are legitimate targets because of the country's conscription: no civilians exist.[xxv]
Evaluating the Amman Message
The benefits of the two documents analyzed above are manifest. The takfir document, endorsed by a broad array of scholars with towering reputations, advances a number of relevant arguments designed to diminish the sectarian fighting that has gripped places like Iraq, and to undermine extremists' claim that they have the power to declare takfir on other Muslims. The jihad document, which may ultimately garner a similarly impressive array of signatures, condemns many of the tactics employed by terrorist organizations, as well as the idea that Muslims are inherently at war with the non-Muslim world.
The documents' shortcomings are also clear if one reads them critically. One failure is that they do not clarify some of the most controversial issues-for example, the jihad document's lack of discussion about Iraq and Israel. Another shortcoming is that the documents frequently employ vague language that can give rise to many questions. This can be seen in the takfir document's failure to specify what terms such as "real Tasawwuf" and "necessarily self-evident tenet of religion" mean, or in the jihad document's silence about the claim there is no such thing as an Israeli civilian. These failures are likely inherent to the process of consensus-building that the Aal al-Bayt Institute has chosen. More ambitious statements, though they would surely be more welcome to Western ears, might not garner the kind consensus that the Amman Message seeks. What the documents might have accomplished, however, should not detract from the fact that they do make a contribution.
Surely, the Aal al-Bayt Institute has had its misfires in addition to its successes. Its penchant for attaching unprecedented historical significance to virtually all of its output can be off-putting. The very first sentence of True Islam's introduction, penned by Prince bin Muhammad, reads: "Over the course of the two years 2005-2006 CE, 1426-1427 AH, there occurred a series of events of great historical importance to the worldwide Islamic nation (Ummah), events without parallel for fourteen centuries, ever since the time of Imam Ali bin Abi Talib."[xxvi]
Moreover, some of the documents released through this process have fallen flat. In October 2007, for example, the Aal al-Bayt Institute spearheaded a letter addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and 26 other Christian leaders entitled "A Common Word Between Us and You,"[xxvii] signed by 138 Muslim thinkers. "A Common Word" was a rambling 18-page letter designed to demonstrate the common importance of the principles of love of God and love of neighbor in both Christianity and Islam. Attempting to lend urgency to these commonalities, "A Common Word" asserts that, since the two religions comprise about 55 percent of the world's population, the world cannot have peace if Islam and Christianity are not at peace with each other. "The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake," the letter states.[xxviii]
In an apt critique, the Hudson Institute's John F. Cullinan writes that the letter is unfocused and "limited to generalities" while simply ignoring difficult Qur'anic passages that might provide a darker view of the religion.[xxix] Cullinan notes the basic imbalance between the signatories and recipients of "A Common Word." While the signatories are "establishment figures"-with more than half being current or former government officials-the people to whom the letter is addressed "have little or no influence on government policy (like Pope Shenouda III, head of Egypt's beleaguered Coptic community)." Yet the letter was accompanied by the kind of grandiose publicity and declarations of historical importance that typically attend the rollout of Aal al-Bayt publications.
These misfires aside, Aal al-Bayt has already succeeded in releasing one important document, and the jihad document will also be significant upon its release. Moreover, Aal al-Bayt has created an important mechanism for bringing together representatives of divergent Islamic theological schools. In general, consensus-building mechanisms have not figured prominently in discussions about reform within Islam. Instead, many scholars and analysts have pined for a "Muslim Martin Luther": in some circles, the notion that "Islam needs a Reformation" is bandied about so frequently that it has become cliché.[xxx]
Calls for an Islamic Reformation have always rested on a historically flawed analogy. Martin Luther's rebellion against the Catholic Church challenged a central authority: in fact, many of Luther's contemporaries who shared his disdain for the Church's degeneration did not question Rome's authority because they were "leery of anarchy."[xxxi] In contrast, contemporary Islam can be characterized as theologically anarchic, a situation that has been favorable to extremists. Some young Muslims turn to the Internet-where it is difficult to ascertain clerics' qualifications, and sometimes even their identities-to procure religious advice on jihad.[xxxii] Al-Qaeda was able to do its own fatwa-shopping when trying to secure authorization to attack America with weapons of mass destruction, finally obtaining a favorable ruling from Saudi cleric Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd in May 2003.[xxxiii]
Moreover, commentators engaged in the search for a "Muslim Martin Luther" generally assume that Luther acted to diminish the role of religion in the political sphere. He did not. As his authoritative biography explains, the Catholic Church was largely secularized and decadent before Luther, and religion was disengaged enough from politics that "the Most High King of France and His Holiness the Pope did not disdain a military alliance with the Sultan against the Holy Roman Empire." Luther changed this. With his influence, "[r]eligion became again a dominant factor even in politics for another century and a half. Men cared enough for the faith to die for it and to kill for it."[xxxiv] Protestants brutally suppressed Catholicism in areas where they enjoyed political control during the Reformation. For example, after England passed a series of acts between 1534 and 1539 designed to stamp out the Catholic Church's remaining influence, the country's unrepentant Catholics "faced execution and forfeiture of their estates."[xxxv]
The differences between contemporary Islam and the social context that produced the Reformation led scholar Paul Marshall to state that "many of the problems of contemporary Islam are more like Protestant problems than like Catholic problems," and suggest that perhaps "we should be urging an Islamic ‘Counter-Reformation.'" Marshall writes that he does not know if a "Catholicization" of Islam is possible, but that it "might be a more useful metaphor for renewal in Islam" than the Reformation.[xxxvi]
An approach based on scholarly consensus is not unprecedented within Islam. The theological concept, known as ijma' in Arabic, is rooted in a famous hadith in which Muhammad says, "God will not allow my Ummah to agree upon an error."[xxxvii] Though the four major Sunni jurisprudential schools prefer to find answers to important questions in the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad-which Muslims consider the most reliable guides to God's dictates-they all consider ijma' to be a legitimate source of law. As Prince bin Muhammad points out in his introduction to True Islam, ijma' is distinct from democracy: rather than simply representing the view of a majority, "[i]t is unanimous, or it is precisely not a universal consensus (ijma') at all."[xxxviii] In forging such a consensus, two groups are of particular relevance: the ulama (scholars of Islamic law), and leaders possessing political authority. The Aal al-Bayt Institute hopes to create ijma' on difficult theological issues via the Amman Message.
Reintroducing ijma' to Islamic jurisprudence could help to mitigate the "dueling fatwas" currently prevalent in the Muslim world. It also offers another benefit that becomes clear when one looks at some of the more controversial scholars who signed the takfir document. Yusuf Qaradawi, for example, has sanctioned attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and against all Israelis.[xxxix] This article has already detailed how both are problem areas for Jihad and the Islamic Law of War because of its failure to define protection of sovereignty. The final draft of the jihad document may well present few obstacles to those seeking to legitimize fighting in Iraq and Israel. But what if the document reached a more satisfactory resolution of these issues? The consensus-building process holds out the possibility of accountability: if Qaradawi or other signatories try to backtrack from the conclusions reached in these documents, other scholars can point out that their new positions contradict the outcome that was reached by scholarly consensus. Moreover, other scholars can point out that ijma' as an interpretive principle should be given more weight than one scholar's proclamation.
None of this is meant to diminish the role that courageous individuals will play in undermining the violent interpretations of Islam that underlie terrorist ideology. But theological consensus is a model for reform to which scholars and policymakers have devoted insufficient attention. The ambitious Amman Message may help to change that.
Conclusion
Though the Amman Message should not be declared a panacea, it has already made a contribution in the struggle to define Islam, and will continue to do so. There is no guarantee as to how far its scholars will be willing to go when grappling with difficult theological issues: there is no reason to believe that they will inevitably condemn attacks against coalition forces in Iraq or Israeli civilians. It is quite possible that the current document is as far as the consensus of scholars will go. Nonetheless, this does not detract from what Aal al-Bayt has already been able to accomplish.
Speaking of Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, al-Husein Madhany, the executive vice president of One Nation, told me, "The reason this document is so critical is because it addresses the kind of language and ideas used by Osama bin Laden and other vigilantes who are part of the global network of terror. The Amman Message tries to wrestle away the underpinnings of their claimed religious authority." Those who are tired of the Reformation analogies that have cluttered discourse about contemporary Islam may have an alternative model in the Aal al-Bayt Institute and its ambitious project of forging ijma' on contentious issues.
_________________________________________
[i] H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, "Introduction," in True Islam and the Islamic Consensus on the Amman Message (Amman, 2006), p. xxxiv.
[ii] I have previously written about the dangers posed to Muslims who convert to other faiths. See Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, "When Muslims Convert," Commentary, February 2005. For a lengthy justification of this practice, see Abul Ala Mawdudi, The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law (Syed Silas Husain & Ernest Hahn trans., 1994).
[iii] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xviii.
[iv] These questions are taken verbatim from ibid.
[v] Ibid., p. xx.
[vi] Mary Habeck, Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 3.
[vii] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004), p. 51.
[viii] February 2004 Coalition Provisional Authority English translation of Musab al-Zarqawi letter, obtained by United States Government in Iraq, available at http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/31694.htm (accessed February 16, 2008).
[ix] See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, "Pakistan: Pandering to Extremists Fuels Persecution of Ahmadis," May 6, 2007; Human Rights Watch, "Bangladesh: Government Fails to Act Against Religious Violence," June 16, 2005.
[x] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," pp. xix-xx.
[xi] Ibid., pp. xxi-xxii.
[xii] "Egyptian Writer Faces Apostasy Trial," BBC News, April 24, 2001.
[xiii] The language of these three points is taken verbatim from Jihad and the Islamic Law of War (Jordan: The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, 2007), p. vi.
[xiv]Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur'an 9:29 (Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali & Muhammad Muhsin Khan trans., 15th ed. 1996).
[xv] Sayyid Qutb, Milestones (1964), p. 66.
[xvi] Sayyid Abul A‘la Maududi, Jihad fi Sabilillah (Birmingham, UK: Islamic Mission Dawah Centre), p. 7.
[xvii] Cyril Glasse, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1989), pp. 209-10.
[xviii]Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, pp. 26-27.
[xix] Ibid., pp. 28-29.
[xx] Ibid., p. 63.
[xxi] For an excellent compilation of bin Laden's statements, see Bruce Lawrence, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (London: Verso, 2005).
[xxii]Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, pp. 65-66.
[xxiii]True Islam, p. 143.
[xxiv] Ibid., p. 131.
[xxv] Michael Moss & Souad Mekhennet, "The Guidebook for Taking a Life," New York Times, June 10, 2007.
[xxvi] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xvii.
[xxvii] The document can be found online at http://www.acommonword.com/lib/downloads/CW-Total-Final-v-12g-Eng-9-10-07.pdf (accessed February 17, 2008).
[xxviii] "A Common Word Between Us and You," Oct. 13, 2007, p. 16.
[xxix] John F. Cullinan, "Who Speaks for Islam?", National Review Online, October 12, 2007.
[xxx] See, for example, Mansour al-Nogaidan, "Losing My Jihadism," Washington Post, July 22, 2007, p. B1; Salman Rushdie, "Muslims Unite! A New Reformation will Bring Your Faith into the Modern Era," Times (London), August 11, 2005.
[xxxi] Brian Moynahan, The Faith: A History of Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 2002), p. 349.
[xxxii] See Richard Kerbaj, "Muslim Youth ‘Shop Around for Fatwas Online,'" The Australian, Dec. 29, 2007.
[xxxiii] Nasir bin Hamd al-Fahd, "A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels", May 2003.
[xxxiv] Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Abingdon: Nashville, TN), p. 15.
[xxxv] Moynahan, The Faith, p. 405.
[xxxvi] Paul Marshall, "Islamic Counter-Reformation," First Things, August/September 2004.
[xxxvii] Al-Tirmidhi, Sunan, Kitab al-Fitan, Hadith no. 2320.
[xxxviii] bin Muhammad, "Introduction," p. xxvii.
[xxxix] See, e.g., "Those Who Die Fighting U.S. Occupation Forces Are Martyrs," Islam for Today (no date given)
Easy Nash
Saturday, December 27, 2008
430)Ismaili Mail promotes "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity - The Ikhwan Al-Safa’ and Their Rasa’il" with comment by me; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
"....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)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
My comment on the posted article:
"The Epistles of the Ikhwan al-Safa give us a classification that reveals a continuum of knowledge ranging from rationally-acquired knowledge of the mind to transcendental knowledge of the divine. This kind of all-encompassing and holistic treatment of knowledge and intellect is a hallmark of Shia Islam and the subsequent development of cosmological, philosophical and theological doctrines by the Fatimid Ismaili Muslims reflects this holistic ethos. In today’s world where new discoveries are being made daily about nature and the universe through scientific enquiry, the treatises of the Ikhwan al-Safa(Brethern of Purity) and Fatimid cosmologist-philosopher-theologians offer priceless ways to integrate science and religion in Islam."(Easy Nash, December 26th 2008)
Other related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/306the-uninterrupted-thread-of-search.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/ikhwan.htm
Published on ISMAILI MAIL:
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity - The Ikhwan Al-Safa’ and Their Rasa’il: An Introduction
December 26, 2008
Posted by ismailimail in Books, Institute of Ismaili Studies, Islam.
Description
Ikhwan al-Safa’ (The Brethren of Purity) were the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity of lettered urbanites that was principally based in Basra and Baghdad. This brotherhood occupied a prominent station in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopedia: Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity) . This compendium contained fifty-two epistles that offered synoptic explications of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age. Divided into four classificatory parts, it treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. The Ikhwan were learned compilers of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and their Rasa’il constituted a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization.
This present volume gathers studies by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic Studies, who are also the editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and first complete annotated English translations of the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ , which will be published in the OUP Series that this present volume initiates, as well as being members of the Editorial Board.
Oxford University Press - Institute of Ismaili Studies - AmazonRelated: Ikhwan al-Safa
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110037
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)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
My comment on the posted article:
"The Epistles of the Ikhwan al-Safa give us a classification that reveals a continuum of knowledge ranging from rationally-acquired knowledge of the mind to transcendental knowledge of the divine. This kind of all-encompassing and holistic treatment of knowledge and intellect is a hallmark of Shia Islam and the subsequent development of cosmological, philosophical and theological doctrines by the Fatimid Ismaili Muslims reflects this holistic ethos. In today’s world where new discoveries are being made daily about nature and the universe through scientific enquiry, the treatises of the Ikhwan al-Safa(Brethern of Purity) and Fatimid cosmologist-philosopher-theologians offer priceless ways to integrate science and religion in Islam."(Easy Nash, December 26th 2008)
Other related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/306the-uninterrupted-thread-of-search.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/i/ikhwan.htm
Published on ISMAILI MAIL:
Epistles of the Brethren of Purity - The Ikhwan Al-Safa’ and Their Rasa’il: An Introduction
December 26, 2008
Posted by ismailimail in Books, Institute of Ismaili Studies, Islam.
Description
Ikhwan al-Safa’ (The Brethren of Purity) were the anonymous adepts of a tenth-century esoteric fraternity of lettered urbanites that was principally based in Basra and Baghdad. This brotherhood occupied a prominent station in the history of science and philosophy in Islam due to the wide reception and assimilation of their monumental encyclopedia: Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity) . This compendium contained fifty-two epistles that offered synoptic explications of the classical sciences and philosophies of the age. Divided into four classificatory parts, it treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. The Ikhwan were learned compilers of scientific and philosophical knowledge, and their Rasa’il constituted a paradigmatic legacy in the canonization of philosophy and the sciences in mediaeval Islamic civilization.
This present volume gathers studies by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic Studies, who are also the editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and first complete annotated English translations of the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ , which will be published in the OUP Series that this present volume initiates, as well as being members of the Editorial Board.
Oxford University Press - Institute of Ismaili Studies - AmazonRelated: Ikhwan al-Safa
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110037
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)
Sunday, December 7, 2008
429)Inaugural Ceremony of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, Ottawa, Canada, Dec 6 2008; a Treasure Trove of Knowledge on Creation from Aga Khan IV
I added a comment to this post, which was also published by the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website, as follows:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/inaugural-ceremony-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat-from-easy-nash/
Quotes of Aga Khan IV and others:
"It affirms our intent to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him - one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours - all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied - for they can be clear or milky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.
It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”
But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect - in fact, the reverse is true. As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.
Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.
What we celebrate today can thus be seen as a new creative link between the spiritual dimensions of Islam and the cultures of the West. Even more particularly, it represents another new bridge between the peoples of Islam and the peoples of Canada"(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"Quran Symposium:....a reflection of how Islam's revelation, with its challenge to man's innate gift of quest and reason, became a powerful impetus for a new flowering of human civilisation.This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur'an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations.In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 2003, London, U.K.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"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, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
".......universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"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"Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"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)
"Nature is the great daily book of God whose secrets must be found and used for the well-being of humanity"(Aga Khan III, Radio Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, February 19th 1950)
"....we find contact, direct and immediate, with the outer universe interpreted as an infinite reality of matter, as a mirror of an eternal spirit, or indeed (as Spinoza later said) an absolute existence of which matter and spirit alike are but two of infinite modes and facets."(Inaugural Lecture Before the Iran Society by Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, November 9, 1936 London, United Kingdom.)
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
The above 17 quotes are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
FULL TEXT of the speech of His Highness Aga Khan at the inaugural ceremony of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa, Canada; taken from the AKDN website:
Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mrs. Harper
Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin and Mr. McCardle
Madame Adrienne Clarkson and Mr. John Ralston Saul
Your Excellencies
Honourable Ministers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Je voudrais commencer mes commentaires aujourd’hui en vous souhaitant la bienvenue dans le nouveau bâtiment de la Délégation de l’imamat ismaili à Ottawa. Nous sommes ravis que vous participiez à cette journée importante pour nous.
My warmest thanks go out to all of you for being part of this wonderful occasion. I particularly want to thank the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephen Harper, for the honour of his presence, at a time of immense global challenges for those who bear the responsibilities of national leadership.
Let me also express my gratitude to the former Governor General of Canada, Madame Adrienne Clarkson. She was present at the Foundation Stone Ceremony for this building - and she thoughtfully predicted then, that this edifice would not be just another monumental structure, but would, both in its unity and its transparency, represent, as she put it, “the way in which the world can work when we are all at our best.”
I am also deeply grateful to the National Capital Commission and to all those who helped to design, construct and decorate this Delegation building, including all those who so generously volunteered their energies. This is the third important new Canadian building with which I will have been associated over the last five years. It affirms our intent to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him - one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours - all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied - for they can be clear ormilky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.
It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”
But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect - in fact, the reverse is true. As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.
Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.
What we celebrate today can thus be seen as a new creative link between the spiritual dimensions of Islam and the cultures of the West. Even more particularly, it represents another new bridge between the peoples of Islam and the peoples of Canada.
Many of you may remember that my personal involvement with Canada dates back more than three decades when, at a time of great upheaval in Uganda, many members of the Ismaili community and others found here a new home in which they could quickly re-build their lives. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and expressing habits of mind and spirit which have long been central to the Canadian character, this country provided a welcoming haven to those who had been victimised by history.
Since that time, Ismailis from other parts of the world have also come to Canada, contributing not only to Canadian society, but also to the diverse mosaic of the global Ismaili community.
One of the principal reasons, I believe, for the great rapport between the Ismaili and Canadian communities through the years is our shared commitment to a common ethical framework - and especially to the ideals of pluralism. By this I mean not only social pluralism, which embraces a diversity of ethnic and religious groups, but also pluralism in our thinking about government, and pluralism in our approach to other institutions. One of the reasons governments have failed in highly diverse settings around the world is that dogma has too often been enshrined at the price of more flexible, pluralistic approaches to political and economic challenges.
Within Islam itself, we can see a broad sense of pluralism, including a variety of spiritual interpretations, and a diversity of governments and social institutions.
The spirit of pluralism, at its base, is a response to the realities of diversity – a way of reconciling difference on the one hand with cooperation and common purpose on the other. It is an attitude, a way of thinking, which regards our differences not as threats but as gifts - as occasions for learning, stretching, growing - and at the same time, as occasions for appreciating anew the beauties of one’s own identity.
The challenge of pluralism is particularly important for those who are called upon to lead diversified communities and to act in diversified environments. It is a challenge to which Canadians have responded nobly through the years - and it is also a challenge which has been central to our work through the Aga Khan Development Network, what we callAKDN.
The AKDN’s principal focus, as you know, has been the under-served populations of Central and South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Our approach has observed the principles of neutrality and pragmatism, but this has not always been an easy matter. Turbulence and discontinuity have characterised these regions, including the transition from colonial rule, the struggles of the Cold War, the tensions of the nuclear age, the rise of new nationalisms - of both the right and the left, as well as revolutions in communications and transportation which have so dramatically increased encounters among different peoples. Our Network has inevitably been drawn into a tangled variety of social and cultural contexts - including highly fragile, conflictual and post-conflictual situations. Our response has always been to focus on the pursuit of pluralistic progress.
Even against the most daunting challenges, social and economic progress can and must be a shared experience, based on a cosmopolitan ethic and nurtured by a spirit of genuine partnership.
When we have talked of development in this context over the years, we have always found responsive interlocutors in Canada. We recognise together the interdependence of economic progress on one hand and inclusive governmental structures on the other. We affirm together the centrality of communication and education in any progressive formula. We both embrace the interdependent role of various social sectors - private and governmental and voluntary - including the institutions of pluralistic civil society.
For the last quarter century, Canada, especially through CIDA, has been actively collaborating with the Aga Khan Development Network to support sustainable development in marginalised communities in Africa and in Asia. In the course of this work we have seen at first hand Canadian global leadership at its best – thoughtful, empathetic and avoiding both intellectual pretensions and dogmatic simplifications.
Our work together in northern Pakistan is one rich chapter in this story. Our newer efforts in places like Tajikistan and Afghanistan have opened further horizons. We could also point directly to early childhood programmes in Africa. Or we could speak of our projects in higher education, working with Canadian universities such as McMaster, McGill, University of Toronto, University of Alberta, and University of Calgary.
The establishment of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat represents yet another step on a long path. It will give us another platform for strengthening and extending our relationship. It will be a site for robust dialogue, intellectual exchange, and the forging of new partnerships –with government, and with the institutions of civil society and the private sector of Canada and so many other countries. To be able to site this building on Confederation Boulevard, in close proximity to your major national institutions as well as representations from abroad, is itself a symbol of the outgoing, interactive spirit which must guide our response to global challenges.
It is our prayer that the establishment of the Delegation will provide a strongly anchored, ever-expanding opportunity for rich collaboration - in the devoted service of ancient values, in the intelligent recognition of new realities, and in a common commitment to our shared dreams of a better world.
Thank you.
(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
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)
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/inaugural-ceremony-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat-from-easy-nash/
Quotes of Aga Khan IV and others:
"It affirms our intent to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him - one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours - all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied - for they can be clear or milky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.
It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”
But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect - in fact, the reverse is true. As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.
Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.
What we celebrate today can thus be seen as a new creative link between the spiritual dimensions of Islam and the cultures of the West. Even more particularly, it represents another new bridge between the peoples of Islam and the peoples of Canada"(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
"Quran Symposium:....a reflection of how Islam's revelation, with its challenge to man's innate gift of quest and reason, became a powerful impetus for a new flowering of human civilisation.This programme is also an opportunity for achieving insights into how the discourse of the Qur'an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations.In this context, would it not also be relevant to consider how, above all, it has been the Qur'anic notion of the universe as an expression of Allah's will and creation that has inspired, in diverse Muslim communities, generations of artists, scientists and philosophers? Scientific pursuits, philosophic inquiry and artistic endeavour are all seen as the response of the faithful to the recurring call of the Qur'an to ponder the creation as a way to understand Allah's benevolent majesty. As Sura al-Baqara proclaims: 'Wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah'.The famous verse of 'light' in the Qur'an, the Ayat al-Nur, whose first line is rendered here in the mural behind me, inspires among Muslims a reflection on the sacred, the transcendent. It hints at a cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, Institute of Ismaili Studies, October 2003, London, U.K.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"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, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
".......universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"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"Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"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)
"Nature is the great daily book of God whose secrets must be found and used for the well-being of humanity"(Aga Khan III, Radio Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, February 19th 1950)
"....we find contact, direct and immediate, with the outer universe interpreted as an infinite reality of matter, as a mirror of an eternal spirit, or indeed (as Spinoza later said) an absolute existence of which matter and spirit alike are but two of infinite modes and facets."(Inaugural Lecture Before the Iran Society by Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, November 9, 1936 London, United Kingdom.)
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
The above 17 quotes are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
FULL TEXT of the speech of His Highness Aga Khan at the inaugural ceremony of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa, Canada; taken from the AKDN website:
Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mrs. Harper
Chief Justice Beverly McLaughlin and Mr. McCardle
Madame Adrienne Clarkson and Mr. John Ralston Saul
Your Excellencies
Honourable Ministers
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Je voudrais commencer mes commentaires aujourd’hui en vous souhaitant la bienvenue dans le nouveau bâtiment de la Délégation de l’imamat ismaili à Ottawa. Nous sommes ravis que vous participiez à cette journée importante pour nous.
My warmest thanks go out to all of you for being part of this wonderful occasion. I particularly want to thank the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. Stephen Harper, for the honour of his presence, at a time of immense global challenges for those who bear the responsibilities of national leadership.
Let me also express my gratitude to the former Governor General of Canada, Madame Adrienne Clarkson. She was present at the Foundation Stone Ceremony for this building - and she thoughtfully predicted then, that this edifice would not be just another monumental structure, but would, both in its unity and its transparency, represent, as she put it, “the way in which the world can work when we are all at our best.”
I am also deeply grateful to the National Capital Commission and to all those who helped to design, construct and decorate this Delegation building, including all those who so generously volunteered their energies. This is the third important new Canadian building with which I will have been associated over the last five years. It affirms our intent to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him - one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours - all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied - for they can be clear ormilky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.
It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”
But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect - in fact, the reverse is true. As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas - and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination - palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread - in every corner of the world - and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives - the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.
Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.
What we celebrate today can thus be seen as a new creative link between the spiritual dimensions of Islam and the cultures of the West. Even more particularly, it represents another new bridge between the peoples of Islam and the peoples of Canada.
Many of you may remember that my personal involvement with Canada dates back more than three decades when, at a time of great upheaval in Uganda, many members of the Ismaili community and others found here a new home in which they could quickly re-build their lives. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and expressing habits of mind and spirit which have long been central to the Canadian character, this country provided a welcoming haven to those who had been victimised by history.
Since that time, Ismailis from other parts of the world have also come to Canada, contributing not only to Canadian society, but also to the diverse mosaic of the global Ismaili community.
One of the principal reasons, I believe, for the great rapport between the Ismaili and Canadian communities through the years is our shared commitment to a common ethical framework - and especially to the ideals of pluralism. By this I mean not only social pluralism, which embraces a diversity of ethnic and religious groups, but also pluralism in our thinking about government, and pluralism in our approach to other institutions. One of the reasons governments have failed in highly diverse settings around the world is that dogma has too often been enshrined at the price of more flexible, pluralistic approaches to political and economic challenges.
Within Islam itself, we can see a broad sense of pluralism, including a variety of spiritual interpretations, and a diversity of governments and social institutions.
The spirit of pluralism, at its base, is a response to the realities of diversity – a way of reconciling difference on the one hand with cooperation and common purpose on the other. It is an attitude, a way of thinking, which regards our differences not as threats but as gifts - as occasions for learning, stretching, growing - and at the same time, as occasions for appreciating anew the beauties of one’s own identity.
The challenge of pluralism is particularly important for those who are called upon to lead diversified communities and to act in diversified environments. It is a challenge to which Canadians have responded nobly through the years - and it is also a challenge which has been central to our work through the Aga Khan Development Network, what we callAKDN.
The AKDN’s principal focus, as you know, has been the under-served populations of Central and South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Our approach has observed the principles of neutrality and pragmatism, but this has not always been an easy matter. Turbulence and discontinuity have characterised these regions, including the transition from colonial rule, the struggles of the Cold War, the tensions of the nuclear age, the rise of new nationalisms - of both the right and the left, as well as revolutions in communications and transportation which have so dramatically increased encounters among different peoples. Our Network has inevitably been drawn into a tangled variety of social and cultural contexts - including highly fragile, conflictual and post-conflictual situations. Our response has always been to focus on the pursuit of pluralistic progress.
Even against the most daunting challenges, social and economic progress can and must be a shared experience, based on a cosmopolitan ethic and nurtured by a spirit of genuine partnership.
When we have talked of development in this context over the years, we have always found responsive interlocutors in Canada. We recognise together the interdependence of economic progress on one hand and inclusive governmental structures on the other. We affirm together the centrality of communication and education in any progressive formula. We both embrace the interdependent role of various social sectors - private and governmental and voluntary - including the institutions of pluralistic civil society.
For the last quarter century, Canada, especially through CIDA, has been actively collaborating with the Aga Khan Development Network to support sustainable development in marginalised communities in Africa and in Asia. In the course of this work we have seen at first hand Canadian global leadership at its best – thoughtful, empathetic and avoiding both intellectual pretensions and dogmatic simplifications.
Our work together in northern Pakistan is one rich chapter in this story. Our newer efforts in places like Tajikistan and Afghanistan have opened further horizons. We could also point directly to early childhood programmes in Africa. Or we could speak of our projects in higher education, working with Canadian universities such as McMaster, McGill, University of Toronto, University of Alberta, and University of Calgary.
The establishment of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat represents yet another step on a long path. It will give us another platform for strengthening and extending our relationship. It will be a site for robust dialogue, intellectual exchange, and the forging of new partnerships –with government, and with the institutions of civil society and the private sector of Canada and so many other countries. To be able to site this building on Confederation Boulevard, in close proximity to your major national institutions as well as representations from abroad, is itself a symbol of the outgoing, interactive spirit which must guide our response to global challenges.
It is our prayer that the establishment of the Delegation will provide a strongly anchored, ever-expanding opportunity for rich collaboration - in the devoted service of ancient values, in the intelligent recognition of new realities, and in a common commitment to our shared dreams of a better world.
Thank you.
(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
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)
Thursday, December 4, 2008
428)Waiting For The Fire To Return To My Belly.......
It's been a busy November what with the Canadian Golden Jubilee Visit among other things, and December is proving to be just as busy. I'm still basking in the afterglow of Toronto's day 1 Darbar as I wait for the fire to return to my belly so I can resume blogging on the link between Science and Religion in Islam.
My signature posts (the quotes I put after my name on every blogpost) have evolved over the life of my blog ever since I started it in March 2006. They are listed below. They focus on God's creation in its totality as being part of the structure of truth, the ultimate nature of which it is the goal of religion to reach. This touches on the fundamental Islamic principle of Monotheism but taken to its logical pinnacle, Monorealism. Knowledge of God's creation means searching for knowledge of the Divine Intellect, which informs and inspires the human intellect. According to Shia Ismaili Muslim cosmologist-philosophers of yesteryear Divine Intellect, or Universal Intellect, or just Intellect, was the only thing to issue forth, by a process of origination, through the Divine Command, from the Absolutely Transcendent God, and everything else in creation is merely an emanation from this Divine Intellect. Everything in the material universe in which we live, move and have our being therefore has Intellect wrapped within it and by learning about the universe, what it is made up of and how it operates, we are really trying to reach knowledge of the Intellect wrapped within it. Aristotle puts it so beautifully and succinctly when he says "All human beings, by their nature, desire to know":
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)
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(1952)
Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly:Aga Khan IV(2005)
All human beings, by their nature, desire to know(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, a few hundred years BC)
All the above quotes are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Links to the Golden Jubilee Visits(Canada and all other countries) on the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website:
Singapore visit, Dec 1-3 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/singapore-visit/
Canada Visit(still unfolding), November 18-25 2008 and December5- 6 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/canada-visit/
Central Asia, October 28-November 7 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/central-asia-visit/
Syria Visit, August 24-29 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/syria-visit/
Portugal Visit, July 10-14 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/portugal-visit/
United Kingdom, July 2-8 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/united-kingdom-visit/
Bangladesh Visit, May 19-22 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/bangladesh-visit/
India Visit, May 12-19 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/india-visit/
West Africa Visit, April 24-May 2 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/west-africa/
USA Visit, April 11-19 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/usa-visit/
Dubai Visit, March 23-27 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/dubai-visit/
Canada Visit as depicted on the Ismaili.org website:
http://www.theismaili.org/cms/622/Canada-visit
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)
My signature posts (the quotes I put after my name on every blogpost) have evolved over the life of my blog ever since I started it in March 2006. They are listed below. They focus on God's creation in its totality as being part of the structure of truth, the ultimate nature of which it is the goal of religion to reach. This touches on the fundamental Islamic principle of Monotheism but taken to its logical pinnacle, Monorealism. Knowledge of God's creation means searching for knowledge of the Divine Intellect, which informs and inspires the human intellect. According to Shia Ismaili Muslim cosmologist-philosophers of yesteryear Divine Intellect, or Universal Intellect, or just Intellect, was the only thing to issue forth, by a process of origination, through the Divine Command, from the Absolutely Transcendent God, and everything else in creation is merely an emanation from this Divine Intellect. Everything in the material universe in which we live, move and have our being therefore has Intellect wrapped within it and by learning about the universe, what it is made up of and how it operates, we are really trying to reach knowledge of the Intellect wrapped within it. Aristotle puts it so beautifully and succinctly when he says "All human beings, by their nature, desire to know":
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)
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(1952)
Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly:Aga Khan IV(2005)
All human beings, by their nature, desire to know(Aristotle, The Metaphysics, a few hundred years BC)
All the above quotes are taken from Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Links to the Golden Jubilee Visits(Canada and all other countries) on the much-visited and wildly popular Ismaili Mail website:
Singapore visit, Dec 1-3 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/singapore-visit/
Canada Visit(still unfolding), November 18-25 2008 and December5- 6 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/canada-visit/
Central Asia, October 28-November 7 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/central-asia-visit/
Syria Visit, August 24-29 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/syria-visit/
Portugal Visit, July 10-14 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/portugal-visit/
United Kingdom, July 2-8 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/united-kingdom-visit/
Bangladesh Visit, May 19-22 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/bangladesh-visit/
India Visit, May 12-19 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/india-visit/
West Africa Visit, April 24-May 2 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/west-africa/
USA Visit, April 11-19 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/usa-visit/
Dubai Visit, March 23-27 2008:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/category/jubilee/gj-visits/dubai-visit/
Canada Visit as depicted on the Ismaili.org website:
http://www.theismaili.org/cms/622/Canada-visit
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)
427)Fall And Winter Reading For Those Who Are Interested: My Choice Of The Top 50 Posts On My 427-Post Blog.
1)Blogpost Four Hundred, Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Science and Religion: Comprehensive Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others; a never-ending post..
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
2)2 intellectual giants speak to each other accross a millenium on "time": can it be slowed, sped up, reversed, transcended?Ask Einstein and Khusraw
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/3592-intellectual-giants-speak-to-each.html
3)Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; QuoteofAgaKhans.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html
4)No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
5)The Death of Science in Islam/What have we forgotten in Islam?-COMBO DELIGHT
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/305the-death-of-science-in-islamwhat.html
6)The Wonders of Blood: the Foundation of our Existence as Multi-Cellular Creatures; Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/418the-wonders-of-blood-foundation-of.html
7)The architect of universal good -Gulf News Interview with Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, April 2008, United Arab Emirates.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/351the-architect-of-universal-good-gulf.html
8)Intellect and Faith in Shia Ismaili Islam as described on the Preamble to the AKDN website:Intellect and Faith
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/361intellect-and-faith-in-shia-ismaili.html
9)The uninterrupted thread of the search for knowledge of all types.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/306the-uninterrupted-thread-of-search.html
10)Abu Yakub al-Sijistani: Cosmologist, Theologian, Philosopher par excellence.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/284abu-yakub-al-sijistani-cosmologist.html
11)WATER, Life's Little Essential: Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Fatimid Shia Ismaili Muslim cosmologist-philosopher Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/07/381water-lifes-little-essential-quotes.html
12)The Particle Zoo: The Building Blocks of All Matter; Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III and others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/393the-particle-zoo-building-blocks-of.html
13)One mega-post, encompassing five regular posts, on the pioneering 9th century Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen(965CE to 1039CE).
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/296one-mega-post-encompassing-four.html
14)So how old is the Universe anyway, 6000 years or 14 billion(14,000,000,000) years old?; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/317so-how-old-is-universe-anyway-6000.html
15)Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
16)Islam and Astronomy: Vestiges of a fine legacy; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Ibn Sina
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/358islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-fine.html
17)Al-Nitak, Al-Nilam, Mintaka, Betelgeuse, Al-Deberan: Arabic-named stars in nearby constellations in space.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289al-nitak-al-nilam-mintaka-betelgeuse.html
18)The Peter McKnight 4-part series should be read alongside my Blogpost Four Hundred to make them more relevant and meaningful for Muslims
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/425the-peter-mcknight-4-part-series.html
19)A collection of speeches by Aga Khans IV and III, source of some of my doctrinal material on science, religion, creation, knowledge and intellect
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/365a-collection-of-speeches-by-aga.html
20)Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
21)The Large Hadron Collider and the God Particle: Can Islam be in the middle of this exciting melding of Science and Religion?; Quotes of Aga Khans
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/403the-large-hadron-collider-and-god.html
22)Existential Wonderment: Huge star exploded 7.5 billion yrs ago, Earth was created 5 billion yrs ago: light from the star arrived here Mar 19 '08!!http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/340existential-wonderment-huge-star.html
23)"Knowledge Society", by Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
24)Pluralism and Ikhwan al-Safa: If society is to start from a premise that knowledge should be foundational, what form should that knowledge take?http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
25)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
26)Humans were nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago says Spencer Wells of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/354humans-were-nearly-wiped-out-70000.html
27)Two back-to-back pictures on NASA Astronomy website reflect the tiniest living organisms(viruses) versus the largest galaxies of stars in space
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/352two-back-to-back-pictures-on-nasa.html
28)No. 3, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: The dynamic, roiling, rumbling surface of the earth.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/276no-3-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
29)No. 4, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series. Photosynthesis: Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth....
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/288no-4-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
30)No. 2, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: The miniscule universe inside a living cell.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/275no-2-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
31)No. 1, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: A magnificent vista of nature as seen from a cottage deck
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/272no-1-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
32)No. 5, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: Speeding angels; the relativity of time; everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289no-5-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
33)Excerpt: Aga Khan IV's interview with Spiegel newspaper, October 9th 2006.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/28760excerpt-aga-khan-ivs-interview.html
34)Symmetry in nature; Symmetry as a product of the human mind.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/288symmetry-in-nature-symmetry-as.html
35)Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit?http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
36)The bending and scattering of light in the recent total lunar eclipse; Quote of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/308the-bending-and-scattering-of-light.html
37)Harmonious mathematical reasoning and the Universe in which we live, move and have our being; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/309harmonious-mathematical-reasoning.html
38)20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
39)Nima Arkani-Hamed, theoretical physicist, Iranian, American, Canadian: a junior Albert Einstein?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/360nima-arkani-hamed-theoretical.html
40)Sir Isaac Newton: Man of Science and Religion.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/283sir-isaac-newton-man-of-science-and.html
41)Abdus Salam: 1979 Nobel laureate in Physics.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/285abdus-salam-1979-nobel-laureate-in.html
42)"The learning of mathematics was therefore linked to the Muslim religion and developing an understanding of the world...."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/319the-learning-of-mathematics-was.html
43)Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences(IIS Review Article); Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/331muslim-philosophy-and-sciencesiis.html
44)Matter and Energy: two sides of the same coin; how interpreting the light(energy) from the sun gives precise information about the matter in it.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/330matter-and-energy-two-sides-of-same.html
45)Transcendence and Distinction: Metaphoric Process in Isma‘ili Muslim Thought, by Dr Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/397transcendence-and-distinction.html
46)Our Sun is a WILD place-doing all kinds of ablutions, looking like a Picasso painting, having a bad hair day, or just scintillating radiantly....
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/329our-sun-is-wild-place-doing-pesap.html
47)The Top Ten Hubble Space Telescope photographs of the past 16 years.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/265the-top-ten-hubble-space-telescope.html
48)The Quran itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation(Aga Khan IV)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/250the-quran-itself-repeatedly.html
49)Four giants of 10th to 13th century Science in early Islam:Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Butlan, Nasir al-Din Tusi; more quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/07/219four-giants-of-10th-to-13th-century.html
50)Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe".
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.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)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
2)2 intellectual giants speak to each other accross a millenium on "time": can it be slowed, sped up, reversed, transcended?Ask Einstein and Khusraw
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/3592-intellectual-giants-speak-to-each.html
3)Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; QuoteofAgaKhans.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html
4)No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
5)The Death of Science in Islam/What have we forgotten in Islam?-COMBO DELIGHT
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/305the-death-of-science-in-islamwhat.html
6)The Wonders of Blood: the Foundation of our Existence as Multi-Cellular Creatures; Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/418the-wonders-of-blood-foundation-of.html
7)The architect of universal good -Gulf News Interview with Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, April 2008, United Arab Emirates.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/351the-architect-of-universal-good-gulf.html
8)Intellect and Faith in Shia Ismaili Islam as described on the Preamble to the AKDN website:Intellect and Faith
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/361intellect-and-faith-in-shia-ismaili.html
9)The uninterrupted thread of the search for knowledge of all types.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/306the-uninterrupted-thread-of-search.html
10)Abu Yakub al-Sijistani: Cosmologist, Theologian, Philosopher par excellence.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/284abu-yakub-al-sijistani-cosmologist.html
11)WATER, Life's Little Essential: Quotes of Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III and Fatimid Shia Ismaili Muslim cosmologist-philosopher Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/07/381water-lifes-little-essential-quotes.html
12)The Particle Zoo: The Building Blocks of All Matter; Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III and others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/393the-particle-zoo-building-blocks-of.html
13)One mega-post, encompassing five regular posts, on the pioneering 9th century Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen(965CE to 1039CE).
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/296one-mega-post-encompassing-four.html
14)So how old is the Universe anyway, 6000 years or 14 billion(14,000,000,000) years old?; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/317so-how-old-is-universe-anyway-6000.html
15)Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
16)Islam and Astronomy: Vestiges of a fine legacy; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Ibn Sina
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/358islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-fine.html
17)Al-Nitak, Al-Nilam, Mintaka, Betelgeuse, Al-Deberan: Arabic-named stars in nearby constellations in space.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289al-nitak-al-nilam-mintaka-betelgeuse.html
18)The Peter McKnight 4-part series should be read alongside my Blogpost Four Hundred to make them more relevant and meaningful for Muslims
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/425the-peter-mcknight-4-part-series.html
19)A collection of speeches by Aga Khans IV and III, source of some of my doctrinal material on science, religion, creation, knowledge and intellect
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/365a-collection-of-speeches-by-aga.html
20)Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
21)The Large Hadron Collider and the God Particle: Can Islam be in the middle of this exciting melding of Science and Religion?; Quotes of Aga Khans
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/403the-large-hadron-collider-and-god.html
22)Existential Wonderment: Huge star exploded 7.5 billion yrs ago, Earth was created 5 billion yrs ago: light from the star arrived here Mar 19 '08!!http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/340existential-wonderment-huge-star.html
23)"Knowledge Society", by Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
24)Pluralism and Ikhwan al-Safa: If society is to start from a premise that knowledge should be foundational, what form should that knowledge take?http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
25)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
26)Humans were nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago says Spencer Wells of the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/354humans-were-nearly-wiped-out-70000.html
27)Two back-to-back pictures on NASA Astronomy website reflect the tiniest living organisms(viruses) versus the largest galaxies of stars in space
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/352two-back-to-back-pictures-on-nasa.html
28)No. 3, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: The dynamic, roiling, rumbling surface of the earth.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/276no-3-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
29)No. 4, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series. Photosynthesis: Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth....
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/288no-4-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
30)No. 2, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: The miniscule universe inside a living cell.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/275no-2-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
31)No. 1, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: A magnificent vista of nature as seen from a cottage deck
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/272no-1-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
32)No. 5, 'Ayats'(Signs) in the Universe series: Speeding angels; the relativity of time; everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289no-5-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
33)Excerpt: Aga Khan IV's interview with Spiegel newspaper, October 9th 2006.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/28760excerpt-aga-khan-ivs-interview.html
34)Symmetry in nature; Symmetry as a product of the human mind.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/288symmetry-in-nature-symmetry-as.html
35)Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit?http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
36)The bending and scattering of light in the recent total lunar eclipse; Quote of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/308the-bending-and-scattering-of-light.html
37)Harmonious mathematical reasoning and the Universe in which we live, move and have our being; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/309harmonious-mathematical-reasoning.html
38)20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
39)Nima Arkani-Hamed, theoretical physicist, Iranian, American, Canadian: a junior Albert Einstein?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/360nima-arkani-hamed-theoretical.html
40)Sir Isaac Newton: Man of Science and Religion.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/283sir-isaac-newton-man-of-science-and.html
41)Abdus Salam: 1979 Nobel laureate in Physics.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/285abdus-salam-1979-nobel-laureate-in.html
42)"The learning of mathematics was therefore linked to the Muslim religion and developing an understanding of the world...."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/319the-learning-of-mathematics-was.html
43)Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences(IIS Review Article); Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/331muslim-philosophy-and-sciencesiis.html
44)Matter and Energy: two sides of the same coin; how interpreting the light(energy) from the sun gives precise information about the matter in it.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/330matter-and-energy-two-sides-of-same.html
45)Transcendence and Distinction: Metaphoric Process in Isma‘ili Muslim Thought, by Dr Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/397transcendence-and-distinction.html
46)Our Sun is a WILD place-doing all kinds of ablutions, looking like a Picasso painting, having a bad hair day, or just scintillating radiantly....
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/329our-sun-is-wild-place-doing-pesap.html
47)The Top Ten Hubble Space Telescope photographs of the past 16 years.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/265the-top-ten-hubble-space-telescope.html
48)The Quran itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation(Aga Khan IV)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/250the-quran-itself-repeatedly.html
49)Four giants of 10th to 13th century Science in early Islam:Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham, Ibn Butlan, Nasir al-Din Tusi; more quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/07/219four-giants-of-10th-to-13th-century.html
50)Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe".
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.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)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
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