"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
"....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)
"Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly"(Aga Khan IV, Toronto, Canada, 8th June 2005)
"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.)
"In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level - one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid."(Azim Nanji, Director, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K., 1998)
"The Divine Intellect, Aql-i Kull, both transcends and informs the human intellect. It is this Intellect which enables man to strive towards two aims dictated by the faith: that he should reflect upon the environment Allah has given him and that he should know himself. It is the Light of the Intellect which distinguishes the complete human being from the human animal, and developing that intellect requires free inquiry. The man of faith, who fails to pursue intellectual search is likely to have only a limited comprehension of Allah's creation. Indeed, it is man's intellect that enables him to expand his vision of that creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11, 1985)
"The Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims. Exchanges of knowledge between institutions and nations and the widening of man's intellectual horizons are essentially Islamic concepts. The Faith urges freedom of intellectual enquiry and this freedom does not mean that knowledge will lose its spiritual dimension. That dimension is indeed itself a field for intellectual enquiry. I can not illustrate this interdependence of spiritual inspiration and learning better than by recounting a dialogue between Ibn Sina, the philosopher, and Abu Said Abu -Khyar, the Sufi mystic. Ibn Sina remarked, "Whatever I know, he sees". To which Abu Said replied," Whatever I see, he knows"."(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University Inauguration Speech, Karachi, Pakistan, November 11th 1985)
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Thus there was an absolute need for the Divine Word's revelation, to Mohammed himself, a man like the others, of God's person and of his relations to the Universe which he had created. Once man has thus comprehended the essence of existence, there remains for him the duty, since he knows the absolute value of his own soul, of making for himself a direct path which will constantly lead his individual soul to and bind it with the universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"According to a famous hadith of the Prophet Muhammad: The first(and only) thing created by God was the Intellect ('aql)(circa 632CE)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
"In the first four chapters, he establishes the intellectual groundwork by exploring the basic issues of human origin and destination, existence and non-existence, perfection and deficiency, the relationship between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, the hidden and the manifest, the nature of time and space, etc."
Shi‘i Interpretations of Islam: Three Treatises on Islamic Theology and Eschatology
Dr Sayyad Jalal BadakhchaniI. B. Tauris Publishers
in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London 2010ISBN (Hardback): Hardback ISBN: 9781848855946
Synopsis
The celebrated 13th-century Persian scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi (1201-1274) was one of the most prominent Muslim scholars and scientists of the medieval era. Tusi dedicated himself from an early age to the search for knowledge and truth. In the course of his long and distinguished career, first under the patronage of the Ismailis at their fortresses in Persia and later in service of the conquering Mongols, he produced over 150 works on a variety of subjects from theology and philosophy to mathematics and astronomy.
In this publication, Dr Jalal Badakhchani brings together critical editions and English translations of three shorter Ismaili works of Tusi, namely Solidarity and Dissociation (Tawalla wa tabarra), Desideratum of the Faithful (Matlub al-mu’minin) and Origin and Destination(Aghaz wa anjam). In these treatises, Tusi provides concise philosophical interpretations of key motifs in Ismaili thought, with special reference to the existential condition of human beings, their primordial origin and nature, their earthly existence and their destiny in the Hereafter.
The Tawalla wa tabarra is grounded in the integral notion of solidarity and dissociation, based on a tradition attributed to Prophet Muhammad: “ Religion is love and hatred for the sake of God”. Tusi takes solidarity with the Imams and dissociation from anything alien to them as an indispensable condition for the seekers of truth. In the manner that Tusi describes it, this principle corresponds to the Shi‘i principle of walaya, the first pillar of Shi‘i Ismaili Islam as articulated by the Fatimid chief da‘i al-Qadi al-Numan in the opening chapter of his Da‘a’im al-Islam. Essentially, walaya requires recognition of the Imams descended from ‘Ali b.Abi Talib, and the demonstration of absolute devotion and obedience to them. Tusi’s object in this treatise in not merely to reaffirm an established theological principle of Shi‘a Islam, but also to delineate the internal, psychological and spiritual process by which solidarity may be cultivated and attained by the individual.
The second treatise, Matlub al-mu’minin, is a development on the main themes introduced in the Tawalla, reminding the reader of the essentials of faith, such as recognition of the Imam, the conditions of faithfulness, solidarity and dissociation, the degrees of certitude, etc. But in contrast to the brevity of Tawalla, it is a longer text with four chapters, and Tusi’s perspective is focused much more on the idea of origin and destination (mabda’wa ma‘ad) or, in his words: ‘Where has man come from, why has he come, and where is he heading to?’ Also, the Matlub goes much farther in its final chapter with a discussion of the seven pillars of Shi‘i Ismaili Islam. In common with his Fatimid predecessors, Tusi provides both the exoteric and esoteric meanings of religious rituals such as prayer, fasting, pilgrimage. He is careful in declaring that the observance of shari‘a practices is obligatory for all Ismailis, but it must be performed in both their exoteric and esoteric aspects.
The third and longest of the treatises collected in this volume, the Aghaz wa anjam, is notable for Tusi’s philosophical exegesis of the Qur’anic doctrine of Qiyama (Resurrection). In his Preamble to the discourse, Tusi admits to the difficulty of writing about the Hereafter, especially because his intention is to record an account ‘not as rendered by scholars,’ but by ‘men of insight’.
In the first four chapters, he establishes the intellectual groundwork by exploring the basic issues of human origin and destination, existence and non-existence, perfection and deficiency, the relationship between the corporeal and spiritual worlds, the hidden and the manifest, the nature of time and space, etc. In the chapters that follow, he ranges across a broad spectrum of eschatological themes from the soundings of the Trumpet and the in-gathering for Resurrection, to the reading of the Scroll of Deeds, Heaven and Hell, angels and satans, the rivers of Paradise, the Tree of Bliss and its counterpart the Infernal Tree.
Tusi concludes the Aghaz with the core message that appears in all of his Ismaili works; that the people of this world who have attained absolute certainty and unity of purpose with the Divine are already resurrected and liberated in spirit. Apparently for Tusi, the essence of this message is encapsulated in the famous Prophetic tradition which he quotes in the Aghaz,Tawalla and Matlub: “This world is forbidden to the people of the Hereafter, and the Hereafter is forbidden to the people of this world and both of them are highly forbidden to the people of God”. Throughout his discourse, Tusi maintains a highly subtle, dialectical balance between the exoteric and esoteric readings of the Qur’an, between fidelity to the letter of the text and its inner, spiritual meaning.
While Tusi’s hermeneutics is consistent with Qur’anic teachings, it draws conclusions which are in certain respects quite distinctive from those of the Sunni and the Twelver Shi‘i authors.
http://iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112225&l=en
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
678)Khairi Abaza Of The FDD Teaches Us The Difference Between The Terms ISLAMIC and ISLAMIST: Failure To Understand The Difference Leads To Armageddon
There are 1400 million Muslims in the world today. This article by Khairi Abaza et al, which appeared in Newsweek, differentiates between the 1300 million Muslims who follow ISLAM and are therefore ISLAMIC and the 100 million Muslims who are ISLAMIST. The difference between the two terms is critically important to understand:
"If Western intellectuals do not get rid of this confusion now, we are headed down a dangerous path. Common people in the West will start to bundle all Muslims with Islamists, picking a potentially losing battle with one quarter of humanity. This clash of civilizations is what Al Qaeda wanted to trigger with the attacks on September 11. The West and its intellectuals should be smarter than Al Qaeda."
Is It ISLAMIC or ISLAMIST?
Written by Khairi Abaza, Soner Cagaptay
Friday, 22 October 2010
Now that even the tolerant, liberal Swedes have elected an anti-Islam party to their Parliament, it's pretty clear that such controversies are mounting because both the left and the right are confused over the politics of Islam. The left is wrongly defending Islamism-an extremist and at times violent ideology-which it confuses with the common person's Islam, while the right is often wrongly attacking the Muslim faith, which it confuses with Islamism. Western thinkers must begin to recognize the difference between Islamism and Islam, or we are headed toward an ideologically defined battle with one quarter of humanity.
At least a few on the left are defending Islamism because they think that they are defending Islam. Recently, a European policymaker told us that she had become sympathetic to Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) because "in the post-September 11 world, I wanted to defend Islam." Well, the AKP, and other Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, do not represent Islam. These Islamist parties, even when not using violence, stand for an ideology that is illiberal to its core-for instance, its refusal to recognize gender equality. In the same way that communism once claimed to speak for the working class, Islamism claims to represent Muslims. By defending radical Islamist movements, the left is helping only to give Muslims a bad name. The left ought to side not with so-called moderate Islamist parties, but rather with liberal Muslim movements, such as the Republican People's Party in Turkey and the pro-democracy movement in Egypt, which support gender equality.
The right, on the other hand, often targets Islam while thinking that it is attacking Islamism. Banning the building of minarets, as Switzerland did, is exactly the wrong thing to do. The problem is not a mosque; the problem is a mosque used to promote violence, jihadism, and illiberal Islamism. The crimes of Al Qaeda, Hizbullah, and other groups are rooted in jihadist Islamism, which advocates violence to impose extremist dogma on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. In response, right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders and other nativist politicians in Europe have suggested a ban on Islam itself by criminalizing the Islamic holy book, the Quran. Wilders should take note that not even Stalin was able to ban religion. It's hard to believe that a politician in liberal Europe can suggest outlawing a faith, but that is what the confusion over Islam has come to. What is more shocking is that Wilders's anti-Islam party emerged as the third-largest political force in the latest Dutch elections. The group has proposed responding to acts of Islamist terror by taxing Muslim women's headscarves. What a shame for the right, which is supposed to stand for religious freedom and should stand for freedom of Islam, even while targeting jihadist Islamist groups.
The confusion over Islam has real consequences. When was the last time you read a piece by a leftist intellectual criticizing how the AKP is trampling media freedoms in Turkey? Or the Muslim Brotherhood's refusal to recognize equal rights for women and Christians in Egypt? By defending Islamism, liberals are strengthening one of the biggest threats facing Muslims and Western liberalism alike. Meanwhile, by targeting the Muslim faith, the right is alienating potential allies in the Muslim community: conservative Muslims who want to practice their faith and despise Al Qaeda's vision. As they try to promote religious values in the secularized and quite often atheistic or agnostic West, right-wing politicians will find natural allies in conservative Muslims.
If Western intellectuals do not get rid of this confusion now, we are headed down a dangerous path. Common people in the West will start to bundle all Muslims with Islamists, picking a potentially losing battle with one quarter of humanity. This clash of civilizations is what Al Qaeda wanted to trigger with the attacks on September 11. The West and its intellectuals should be smarter than Al Qaeda.
Abaza is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
http://www.defenddemocracy.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=11791476&Itemid=0
Easy Nash
If there are 23,000 ISLAMIST JIHADIST websites, blogsites and twittersites out there in cyberspace there is no reason why we should not create 100,000 NON-JIHADIST ISLAMIC websites, blogsites and twittersites(Easy Nash)
Saturday, January 29, 2011
677)Eastern Persian And Central Asian Ismaili Dai Nasir Khusraw's Concept Of Intellect And Theory Of Intellectual Education; Quotes From Blogpost 400.
"In fact this world is a book in which you see inscribed the writings of God the Almighty"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"O brother! You asked: What is the [meaning of] `alam [world] and what is that entity to which this name applies? How should we describe the world in its entirety? And how many worlds are there? Explain so that we may recognize. Know, O brother, that the name `alam is derived from [the word] `ilm(knowledge), because the traces of knowledge are evident in [all] parts of the physical world. Thus, we say that the very constitution (nihad) of the world is based on a profound wisdom"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet, from his book "Knowledge and Liberation")
Kathalika yubayyinu Allahu lakum ayatihi la'allakum ta-'aqiloona: "Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Holy Quran 2:242)
"Here is a relevant verse from the Noble Qur'an, cited by Nasir-i Khusraw, hujjat-i Khurasan in his Khawaan al-Ikhwaan : "It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from a blood clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then lets you reach your age of full strength, then lets you become old - though some of you die before - and then lets you reach the appointed term; and that haply you may find the intellect (la'allakum ta'qilun)."(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"Seek knowledge, even in China"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)
"Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly"(Aga Khan IV, Toronto, Canada, 8th June 2005)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Pir Nasir Khusraw's Concept Of Intellect And Theory Of Intellectual Education, Parts 1 and 2
January 2011
The relationship between intellect (‘aql) and faith has always been of fundamental importance to Muslims and has been widely discussed amongst Muslim philosophers and intellectuals.
Etymologically the word ‘aql in Arabic is derived from the trilateral verb ‘-q-l which means to hobble with the ‘iqal (cord used for hobbling the feet of a camel), to arrest, to pay blood money, to restrain, to reason, to comprehend etc. In Islamic philosophy ‘aql is generally understood to be an immaterial substance, active in itself, through which are comprehended the realities of things. In this first part of the essay, we will attempt to see the concept of intellect from the point of the Fatimid philosopher Nasir-i Khusraw (also referred henceforth as Hakim Nasir). The next part will focus on his theory of Intellectual Education.
Part 1:
http://simerg.com/literary-readings/pir-nasir-khusraws-concept-of-intellect-and-theory-of-intellectual-education/
Editor’s note: In Part I of this essay above, Parvin Peerwani provided a brief background of the life of Nasir Khusraw and explained his definition of ‘aql and the general categories of knowledge such as the distinction between marifah and ‘ilm. The modes of knowledge and the relationship of the human soul with the Universal Intellect was described. Based on Hakim Nasir’s teachings, she concluded her article by stating that it was “through the Imam of the Time whereby the human soul becomes recipient to the divine knowledge and the eternal bliss, and thus takes the steps to perfection.”
The following is the second and final installment of her essay. The link to Part I is provided at the end of this article.
Part 2:
http://simerg.com/literary-readings/pir-nasir-khusraws-theory-of-intellectual-education/
Related:
A Collection of Posts on Nasir Khusraw; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Nasir Khusraw
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/455a-collection-of-posts-on-nasir.html
My Favourite Cosmologist-Philosopher-Theologian-Poets: Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani, Nasir Khusraw And Ikhwan Al-Safa; A Collection Of Posts On My Blog.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/428my-favourite-cosmologist-philosopher.html
Easy Nash http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/ http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"O brother! You asked: What is the [meaning of] `alam [world] and what is that entity to which this name applies? How should we describe the world in its entirety? And how many worlds are there? Explain so that we may recognize. Know, O brother, that the name `alam is derived from [the word] `ilm(knowledge), because the traces of knowledge are evident in [all] parts of the physical world. Thus, we say that the very constitution (nihad) of the world is based on a profound wisdom"(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet, from his book "Knowledge and Liberation")
Kathalika yubayyinu Allahu lakum ayatihi la'allakum ta-'aqiloona: "Allah thus makes clear to you His Signs that you may intellect"(Holy Quran 2:242)
"Here is a relevant verse from the Noble Qur'an, cited by Nasir-i Khusraw, hujjat-i Khurasan in his Khawaan al-Ikhwaan : "It is He who created you from dust, then from a sperm drop, then from a blood clot, then He brings you forth as a child, then lets you reach your age of full strength, then lets you become old - though some of you die before - and then lets you reach the appointed term; and that haply you may find the intellect (la'allakum ta'qilun)."(Nasir Khusraw, 11th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist-philosopher-poet)
"Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"Seek knowledge, even in China"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"One hour of contemplation on the works of the Creator is better than a thousand hours of prayer"(Prophet Muhammad, circa 632CE)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
"....in Islam, but particularly Shia Islam, the role of the intellect is part of faith. That intellect is what seperates man from the rest of the physical world in which he lives.....This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives. Of that I am certain"(Aga Khan IV, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, August 17th 2007)
"Of the Abrahamic faiths, Islam is probably the one that places the greatest emphasis on knowledge. The purpose is to understand God's creation, and therefore it is a faith which is eminently logical. Islam is a faith of reason"(Aga Khan IV, Spiegel Magazine interview, Germany, Oct 9th 2006)
"Our interpretation of Islam places enormous value on knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of faith if it is used properly. Seek out that knowledge and use it properly"(Aga Khan IV, Toronto, Canada, 8th June 2005)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Pir Nasir Khusraw's Concept Of Intellect And Theory Of Intellectual Education, Parts 1 and 2
January 2011
The relationship between intellect (‘aql) and faith has always been of fundamental importance to Muslims and has been widely discussed amongst Muslim philosophers and intellectuals.
Etymologically the word ‘aql in Arabic is derived from the trilateral verb ‘-q-l which means to hobble with the ‘iqal (cord used for hobbling the feet of a camel), to arrest, to pay blood money, to restrain, to reason, to comprehend etc. In Islamic philosophy ‘aql is generally understood to be an immaterial substance, active in itself, through which are comprehended the realities of things. In this first part of the essay, we will attempt to see the concept of intellect from the point of the Fatimid philosopher Nasir-i Khusraw (also referred henceforth as Hakim Nasir). The next part will focus on his theory of Intellectual Education.
Part 1:
http://simerg.com/literary-readings/pir-nasir-khusraws-concept-of-intellect-and-theory-of-intellectual-education/
Editor’s note: In Part I of this essay above, Parvin Peerwani provided a brief background of the life of Nasir Khusraw and explained his definition of ‘aql and the general categories of knowledge such as the distinction between marifah and ‘ilm. The modes of knowledge and the relationship of the human soul with the Universal Intellect was described. Based on Hakim Nasir’s teachings, she concluded her article by stating that it was “through the Imam of the Time whereby the human soul becomes recipient to the divine knowledge and the eternal bliss, and thus takes the steps to perfection.”
The following is the second and final installment of her essay. The link to Part I is provided at the end of this article.
Part 2:
http://simerg.com/literary-readings/pir-nasir-khusraws-theory-of-intellectual-education/
Related:
A Collection of Posts on Nasir Khusraw; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Nasir Khusraw
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/455a-collection-of-posts-on-nasir.html
My Favourite Cosmologist-Philosopher-Theologian-Poets: Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani, Nasir Khusraw And Ikhwan Al-Safa; A Collection Of Posts On My Blog.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/428my-favourite-cosmologist-philosopher.html
Easy Nash http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/ http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
676)The Orbiting Hubble Space Telescope Reveals The Oldest And Furthest Known Galaxy In The Universe; Quotes From Blogpost Four Hundred.
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)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
"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, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Astronomy, the so-called “Science of the Universe” was a field of particular distinction in Islamic civilization-–in sharp contrast to the weakness of Islamic countries in the field of Space research today. In this field, as in others, intellectual leadership is never a static condition, but something which is always shifting and always dynamic"(Aga Khan IV, Convocation, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 15th 2006)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
"A galaxy formed when the 14 billion year old universe was only half a billion years old is a big story, being so close(relatively) to the moment of genesis."(Easy Nash)
January 26, 2011
In Hubble’s Lens, Signs of a Galaxy Older and Farther Than Any Other
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Leapfrogging into the past with the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers says it has detected what may be the most distant and earliest galaxy yet found. It is a smudge of light only a tiny fraction of the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, and it existed when the universe was only 480 million years old. Its light has been on its way to us for 13.2 billion years, making it the long-distance champion in an expanding universe.
If confirmed, the discovery takes astronomers deep into an era when stars and galaxies were first lighting up the universe and burning their way out of a primordial fog known as the dark ages. The birth rate of stars, they concluded from their observations, increased tenfold in the 200 million years between the time of the newly discovered galaxy and the next earliest known galaxies, which date to 650 million years after the Big Bang — a rate even faster than astronomers had thought.
“This is clearly an era when galaxies were evolving rapidly,” the astronomers said in an article published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The team was led by Rychard J. Bouwens of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, and Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Shortly after the Hubble was refurbished in 2009, Dr. Bouwens and his colleagues observed a patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in the constellation Fornax with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3, which is sensitive to the long-wave “heat” radiation known as infrared. That is important because as galaxies fly away from us in the expanding universe, the light they emit is shifted to longer wavelengths — “red-shifted,” in cosmological parlance — the way a receding siren sounds lower.
That data yielded a crop of galaxies dating from 600 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang and a hint of the even earlier galaxy, in which visible light appears to have been shifted all the way into the infrared by a factor of 10, corresponding to a time of only 480 million years after the universe began. After a year of testing and simulations, the team concluded that it was the most primordial galaxy yet found. Spectroscopic observations with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, however, are needed to cement the identification of the smudge as a galaxy.
Meanwhile, the new result fits in well with a picture cosmologists have developed from a variety of sources. In it, the first stars formed around 200 million or 300 million years after the Big Bang, and then the universe continued building more and more stars, reaching a peak of fecundity when it was about two and a half billion years old. Its glory days behind it, the cosmos is now in a middle-age slump.
They leave unclear, however, a longstanding mystery as to how the universe became transparent. As the initial fires of the Big Bang cooled, cosmologists say, the universe was enveloped in a pea-soup fog of hydrogen gas. Over the next billion years, that fog lifted as the hydrogen atoms were stripped of their electrons — ionized — by high-energy radiation, presumably from the early stars, and became transparent. The problem is that astronomers disagree on whether they have been able to find enough stars or galaxies in the very early universe yet to account for the amount of light it would have taken to burn off all the fog.
As a result, some astronomers have suggested that massive black holes could have been partly or mostly responsible for clearing the dark ages. The black holes would have whipped the space around them with high-energy particles and radiation shed by matter in its death throes.
Dr. Bouwens said it was not quite time to resort to black holes as the explanation, however; he noted that many more galaxies could be lurking in the noise just below the limits of detection for the Hubble.
“We really are not probing faint enough with the current Hubble observations to see beyond the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Bouwens said.
The Webb telescope, which is expected to be launched later this decade once NASA figures out how to pay for it, has been designed to find these primordial galaxies and thus illuminate the dark ages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/science/space/27galaxy.html?_r=2&src=mv
Related:
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain which Allah sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of the winds, and the clouds which they Trail like their slaves between the sky and the earth; (Here) indeed are Signs for the people of intellect"(Noble Quran)
"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, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"Astronomy, the so-called “Science of the Universe” was a field of particular distinction in Islamic civilization-–in sharp contrast to the weakness of Islamic countries in the field of Space research today. In this field, as in others, intellectual leadership is never a static condition, but something which is always shifting and always dynamic"(Aga Khan IV, Convocation, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 15th 2006)
"......The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation - in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters...."(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007)
"In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God"(Aga Khan IV, July 23rd 2008, Lisbon, Portugal)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
"A galaxy formed when the 14 billion year old universe was only half a billion years old is a big story, being so close(relatively) to the moment of genesis."(Easy Nash)
January 26, 2011
In Hubble’s Lens, Signs of a Galaxy Older and Farther Than Any Other
By DENNIS OVERBYE
Leapfrogging into the past with the refurbished Hubble Space Telescope, a team of astronomers says it has detected what may be the most distant and earliest galaxy yet found. It is a smudge of light only a tiny fraction of the size of our own Milky Way galaxy, and it existed when the universe was only 480 million years old. Its light has been on its way to us for 13.2 billion years, making it the long-distance champion in an expanding universe.
If confirmed, the discovery takes astronomers deep into an era when stars and galaxies were first lighting up the universe and burning their way out of a primordial fog known as the dark ages. The birth rate of stars, they concluded from their observations, increased tenfold in the 200 million years between the time of the newly discovered galaxy and the next earliest known galaxies, which date to 650 million years after the Big Bang — a rate even faster than astronomers had thought.
“This is clearly an era when galaxies were evolving rapidly,” the astronomers said in an article published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The team was led by Rychard J. Bouwens of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, and Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Shortly after the Hubble was refurbished in 2009, Dr. Bouwens and his colleagues observed a patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in the constellation Fornax with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3, which is sensitive to the long-wave “heat” radiation known as infrared. That is important because as galaxies fly away from us in the expanding universe, the light they emit is shifted to longer wavelengths — “red-shifted,” in cosmological parlance — the way a receding siren sounds lower.
That data yielded a crop of galaxies dating from 600 million to 800 million years after the Big Bang and a hint of the even earlier galaxy, in which visible light appears to have been shifted all the way into the infrared by a factor of 10, corresponding to a time of only 480 million years after the universe began. After a year of testing and simulations, the team concluded that it was the most primordial galaxy yet found. Spectroscopic observations with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, however, are needed to cement the identification of the smudge as a galaxy.
Meanwhile, the new result fits in well with a picture cosmologists have developed from a variety of sources. In it, the first stars formed around 200 million or 300 million years after the Big Bang, and then the universe continued building more and more stars, reaching a peak of fecundity when it was about two and a half billion years old. Its glory days behind it, the cosmos is now in a middle-age slump.
They leave unclear, however, a longstanding mystery as to how the universe became transparent. As the initial fires of the Big Bang cooled, cosmologists say, the universe was enveloped in a pea-soup fog of hydrogen gas. Over the next billion years, that fog lifted as the hydrogen atoms were stripped of their electrons — ionized — by high-energy radiation, presumably from the early stars, and became transparent. The problem is that astronomers disagree on whether they have been able to find enough stars or galaxies in the very early universe yet to account for the amount of light it would have taken to burn off all the fog.
As a result, some astronomers have suggested that massive black holes could have been partly or mostly responsible for clearing the dark ages. The black holes would have whipped the space around them with high-energy particles and radiation shed by matter in its death throes.
Dr. Bouwens said it was not quite time to resort to black holes as the explanation, however; he noted that many more galaxies could be lurking in the noise just below the limits of detection for the Hubble.
“We really are not probing faint enough with the current Hubble observations to see beyond the tip of the iceberg,” Dr. Bouwens said.
The Webb telescope, which is expected to be launched later this decade once NASA figures out how to pay for it, has been designed to find these primordial galaxies and thus illuminate the dark ages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/science/space/27galaxy.html?_r=2&src=mv
Related:
A Collection of Posts on Astronomy; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al Sijistani and Aristotle
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/456a-collection-of-posts-on-astronomy.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
Thursday, January 20, 2011
675)University Of Oxford Exhibition Explores Early Islamic Science; Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
"The second great historical lesson to be learnt is that the Muslim world has always been wide open to every aspect of human existence. The sciences, society, art, the oceans, the environment and the cosmos have all contributed to the great moments in the history of Muslim civilisations. The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation"(Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
"The tapestry of Islamic history is studded with jewels of civilization; these jewels poured forththeir light and beauty; great statesmen, great philosophers, great doctors, great astronomers; but these individuals, these precious stones were worked into a tapestry, whose dominant theme was Islam, and this theme remained dominant regardless of the swallowing up of foreign lands, foreign cultures, foreign languages and foreign people"(Aga Khan IV, 30 Jan 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan)
It is no exaggeration to say that the original Christian universities of Latin West, at Paris, Bologna and Oxford, indeed the whole European renaissance, received a vital influx of new knowledge from Islam -- an influx from which the later western colleges and universities, including those of North Africa, were to benefit in turn"(Aga Khan IV, 16 March 1983, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
"Above all, following the guidance of the Holy Quran, there was freedom of enquiry and research. The result was a magnificent flowering of artistic and intellectual activity throughout the ummah" (Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"The Muslim world, once a remarkable bastion of scientific and humanist knowledge, a rich and self-confident cradle of culture and art, has never forgotten its past"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May 1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
"That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time. The great and central question facing the Ummah of today is how it will relate to the Knowledge Society of tomorrow.The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time."(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 2nd December 2006, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
"First, the globalisation of the knowledge of the cultures of the Umma is critical. We have to make known the cultural inheritance of the Muslims to the non-Muslim as well as the Muslim parts of the world because we will never succeed in building the respect and recognition that the Umma deserves unless we present the Umma as a remarkable carrier of civilisation.The misconceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West exist because we are, even today, absent from the global civilisation. We should encourage the Western education system to bring in knowledge of the civilisation of Islam into the secondary education system.I am thrilled with the initiative that Dubai and other states in the Gulf are taking by creating museums. Retracing our historical legacies and bringing them back in the modern world is extremely important."(Aga Khan IV, Interview with Gulf News, Dubai, UAE, April 2008)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Exhibition explores early Islamic science
13th Dec 2010
Oxford University, UK
Picture:
Detail of a Persian astrolabe by Muhammed al-Yazdi made in 1647, from the Museum of the History of Science's collection
A new exhibition at the Museum of the History of Science explores the world of early Islamic scientific instrument makers as they sought a delicate balance between function and beauty.
‘Al-Mizan: Sciences and the Arts in the Islamic World’ marks the 25th anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies and is open until 20 March 2011. 'Al-Mizan' is the Arabic word for 'balance'.
For hundreds of years Arabic was the primary language of science and mathematics. Islamic scholars made incredible advancements and scientific discoveries, and built the foundations of modern science. These intellectual achievements of scholars in the Islamic world were matched by the emergence of a highly distinctive visual and artistic culture.
Al-Mizan explores the connections between the sciences and arts in Muslim societies. Highlights include ornate Medieval manuscripts, decorative metalwork and ceramics on loan from the British Museum, the Bodleian Library and the Ashmolean Museum, along with rarely-shown objects from the Khalili Collection. Objects from the Museum of the History of Science’s own unique collection of Islamic scientific instruments are only on display.
(Rather than projecting backwards our modern idea of science to discover past achievements, we've looked at science as culture in its contemporary context: Dr Stephen Johnston)
Dr Stephen Johnston, curator of the exhibition, said: “A recent flurry of exhibitions and television series about Islam and science has emphasised the Islamic contribution to the story of modern science and technology. With that perspective now so well-established, we wanted to take a different view. Rather than projecting backwards our modern idea of science to discover past achievements, we've looked at science as culture in its contemporary context.
“By highlighting the artistry and decorative beauty of our Islamic scientific instruments we recover the medieval connections between science and the arts, and show that they were not the essentially different endeavours that they are so often now assumed to be.”
Dr Farhan Nizami, Director of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, said: “We welcome the opportunity, as part of our 25th anniversary celebrations, to collaborate with the Museum of the History of Science, which has done so much to preserve and promote the Islamic heritage in Oxford and beyond. We hope this exhibition will contribute to a wider appreciation of the beauties of Islamic art and encourage scholarship in this field.”
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/101312.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
674)Dr Nader El-Bizri Of The Institute Of Ismaili Studies Summarizes 'Concepts Of Time' Among Philosophers Spanning The Sweep Of History; Blogpost 400
"The creation according to Islam is not a unique act in a given time but a perpetual and constant event; and God supports and sustains all existence at every moment by His will and His thought. Outside His will, outside His thought, all is nothing, even the things which seem to us absolutely self-evident such as space and time. Allah alone wishes: the Universe exists; and all manifestations are as a witness of the Divine Will"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation"(Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan University, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
"In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level - one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid."(Azim Nanji, Director, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K., 1998)
"Thus there was an absolute need for the Divine Word's revelation, to Mohammed himself, a man like the others, of God's person and of his relations to the Universe which he had created. Once man has thus comprehended the essence of existence, there remains for him the duty, since he knows the absolute value of his own soul, of making for himself a direct path which will constantly lead his individual soul to and bind it with the universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Concepts of Time
Dr Nader El-Bizri
This is an edited version of an article that was originally published in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopaedia, Vol. 2, pp. 810-812, ed.Josef W. Meri, Routledge (New York-London, 2006).
Download PDF version of the article
Classical concepts of time confronted philosophers with perplexing paradoxes. Some wondered whether time altogether was nonexistent, whereas others doubted the reality of its divisibility into parts by arguing that the past ceased to be, the future does not yet exist, and the present as a moment/now that is without magnitude (i.e., like a mathematical point is not part of time). In addition, it was unclear whether time progressed smoothly or proceeded by way of discontinuous and divisible leaps.
Although inquiries about the nature of time were integrated within physical theories of motion, their broad cosmological and metaphysical bearings had an impact on speculations about creation and causation. In Plato’s Timaeus (37d; 38a) time (kronos) was pictured as a moving image (eikona) that imitated (mimoumenon) eternity (aiona) by circling around according to number (arithmos) and came into existence with the generation of the heavens. In the earliest systemic investigation of the essence and existence of time, which was contained in Aristotle’s Physics (219b3-4; 220a25-b20; 222b20-23), kronos was defined as the number (metron) of a continuous (sunekhes) motion (kinesis) with respect to the anterior (proteron) and the posterior (husteron). Rejecting the claim that time was the movement of the whole (holos), Aristotle argued that the circular, uniform, and continuous motion of the celestial sphere (sphaira) acts as the measure (metron) of time (Physics, 223b21). His theory subsequently received numerous responses by Neoplatonist and Hellenist exegetes; these are grouped in a monumental edition titled Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Damascius argued that time was a simultaneous whole, Plotinus grasped it as the changing life of the soul (Enneads, 3. 7. 11-13), and Simplicius defended the thesis of the eternity of the world against doubts raised by the grammarian Philoponus, who adopted a Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. As for the author of the Confessions, Augustine of Hippo, he noted that tempus (time) was created when the world came to be while affirming that the existential reality of time is grounded in the present (praesens), which in itself is what tends not to be (tendit non esse), given that only eternity was stable (semper stans).
On the basis of a belief in the linear directionality of time, from Genesis to Judgment, Augustine argued that the present of things past was preserved in memory, the presence of present things was confirmed by visual perception, and the presence of things future was secured through expectation. Accordingly, the reality of time depended on an anima who remembers, perceives, and expects events; this is similar to Aristotle’s claim in the Physics (218b29-219a1-6, 223a25) that kronos required psukhe to compute its numbering (arithmein). Ishaq ibn Hunayn’s translation of Aristotle’s Physics (al-Tabi‘a) secured the transmission of the Aristotelian conception of kronos into Arabic, which subsequently inspired variegated philosophical interpretations of time among Muslims. Al-Kindi held that al-zaman (time) had a beginning and an end and that it measured motion according to number (Tempus ergo est numerus numerans motum), whereas al-Farabi and Ikhwan al-Safa’ affirmed that time resulted from the movement of the created celestial sphere (al-falak). Abu Bakr al-Razi claimed that the dahr (perpetuity) was absolute (mutlaq), while taking al-zaman (time) to be a flowing substance (jawhar yajri) that is bound (mahsur) as well as being associated with the motion of al-falak (the celestial sphere). In Kitab al-Hudud, Ibn Sina defined al-zaman (time) as that which resembles the created being (yudahi al-masn) and acts as the measure of motion (miqdar al-haraka) in terms of the anterior and the posterior (mutaqaddim wa muta’akhkhir). He also noted that al-dahr (supra-temporal duration) resembled the Creator (yudahi al-san‘i) insofar that it was stable throughout the entirety of time. In the Isharat wa’l-Tanbihat, he linked time to physical inquiries about motion; in ‘Uyun al-Hikma, he construed it as a quantity (kamiyyat) of motion that measures change (yuqaddir) and whose perpetuity (dahr al-haraka) generated temporality. Time also played a notable role in Kitab al-Manazir (Optics; II. 3, II. 7, III. 7) by the polymath Ibn al-Haytham, who argued that the propagation of light rays was subject to time and consequently inferred that the velocity of light (al-daw’) was finite despite being immense in magnitude. Moreover, he held that acts of visual discernment and comparative measure (al-tamyyiz wa’l-qiyas) were subject to the passage of time even if not felt by the beholder, and he cautioned that if the temporal duration of contemplative or immediate visual perception fell outside of a moderate range, it resulted in optical errors. In addition he listed al-zaman as one of the known entities (ma‘lumat), while taking duration (mudda) to be its essence (mahiyya) and the scale (miqyas) of its magnitude (miqdar) and quantity (kamiyya) that become knowable in reference to the motion of the celestial sphere (al-falak).
Opposing the views of the peripatetic Muslim philosophers, the exponents of kalam (dialectical theology) articulated alternative conceptions of time that rested on physical theories inspired by Greek atomism. Time was grasped by the mutakallimun (dialectical theologians) as being a virtual (mawhum) phenomenon of changing appearances and renewed atomic events (mutajaddidat), whereby a discrete moment (waqt) replaced the concept of a continuous zaman. Motivated by this theory - although resisting its thrust - al-Nazzam believed in the divisibility of particles ad infinitum, which entailed that a spatial distance with infinitely divisible parts requires an infinite time to be crossed unless its traversal proceeded by way of leaps (tafarat); this echoes the Stoic views regarding the Greek notion of halma (leap). When doubting the doctrine of the eternity of the world in Tahafut al-Falasifa, al-Ghazali attempted to show that duration (mudda) and time (zaman) were both created, and he argued that the connection between what is habitually taken to be a cause and an effect was not necessary, given that observation only shows that they were concomitant. Consequently, he proclaimed that the ordering relation of an antecedent cause with a consequent effect does not necessarily rest on an irreversible directionality in time.
In defense of causation, Ibn Rushd argued in Tahafut al-Tahafut that the refutation of the causal principle entailed an outright rejection of reason while asserting that the eternal (al-qadim) was timeless and that the world was subject to the workings of a continuous zaman. Affirming the truth of Genesis, Maimonides asserted in Dalalat al-Ha’irin the belief that time was created, given that the celestial sphere and the motion on which it depended were both generated. Although speculations about time continued with scholars of the calibre of Nasir al-din Tusi, Fakhr al-din al-Razi, Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra, Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdadi, al-Iji, and al-Jurjani, the elucidation of its uncanny reality remained inconclusive.
Primary Sources
Aristotle. Physics, ed. W. David Ross. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Augustine. Confessions, ed. James O'Donnell. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Ghazali. Tahafut al-Falasifa, transl. Michael Marmura. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1997.
Ibn al-Haytham. Kitab al-Manazir, ed. Abdelhamid I. Sabra. Kuwait: National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1983.
_ _ T he Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, transl. A. I. Sabra. London: Warburg Institute, 1989.
Ibn Rushd. Tahafut al-Tahafut, ed. Muhammad ‘Abid al-Jabiri. Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihda al-‘Arabiyya, 1998.
Ibn Sina. Kitab al-Hudud. ed. A. M. Goichon. Cairo: Institut Francais d’Archeologie Orientale du Caire, 1963.
_ _ al-Isharat wa’l-Tanbihat, 3 vols., ed. Sulayman Dunya. Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif bi-Misr, 1957-1960.
Ikhwan al-Safa’. Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ wa Khullan al Wafa’, vol. II, ed. Butrus Bustani. Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1957.
Maimonides. Dalalat al-Ha’irin, The Guide for the Perplexed, transl. M. Friedlander. New York: Dover, 1956.
Philoponus. Corollaries on Place and Void; Simplicius. Against Philoponus on the Eternity of the World, transl. David Furley and Christian Wildberg. London: Duckworth, 1991.
Plato. Timaeus, transl. R. G. Bury. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Simplicius. Corollaries on Place and Time, transl. J. O. Urmson. London: Duckworth, 1992.
Further Reading
Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalam. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
Mallet, D. “Zaman”, In Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. XI. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
Massignon, Louis. “Le Temps dans la Pensee Islamique”. In Opera Minora, vol. II, ed. Y. Moubarak. Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1963.
Rashed, Roshdi. Les Mathematiques Infinitesimales du IX au XI siecle, vol. IV. London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2002.
Sorabji, Richard. Time, Creation and the Continuum. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Walzer, Richard. Greek into Arabic: Essays in Islamic Philosophy. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1962.
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112195
Related from my Blog:
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
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/two-intellectual-giants-speak-to-each-other-accross-a-millenium-on-time/
Abu Yakub al-Sijistani: Cosmologist, Theologian, Philosopher par excellence.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/284abu-yakub-al-sijistani-cosmologist.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
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. 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)
"In sum the process of creation can be said to take place at several levels. Ibda represents the initial level - one transcends history, the other creates it. The spiritual and material realms are not dichotomous, since in the Ismaili formulation, matter and spirit are united under a higher genus and each realm possesses its own hierarchy. Though they require linguistic and rational categories for definition, they represent elements of a whole, and a true understanding of God must also take account of His creation. Such a synthesis is crucial to how the human intellect eventually relates to creation and how it ultimately becomes the instrument for penetrating through history the mystery of the unknowable God implied in the formulation of tawhid."(Azim Nanji, Director, Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, U.K., 1998)
"Thus there was an absolute need for the Divine Word's revelation, to Mohammed himself, a man like the others, of God's person and of his relations to the Universe which he had created. Once man has thus comprehended the essence of existence, there remains for him the duty, since he knows the absolute value of his own soul, of making for himself a direct path which will constantly lead his individual soul to and bind it with the universal Soul of which the Universe is, as much of it as we perceive with our limited visions, one of the infinite manifestations. Thus Islam's basic principle can only be defined as mono-realism and not as monotheism. Consider, for example, the opening declaration of every Islamic prayer: "Allah-o-Akbar". What does that mean? There can be no doubt that the second word of the declaration likens the character of Allah to a matrix which contains all and gives existence to the infinite, to space, to time, to the Universe, to all active and passive forces imaginable, to life and to the soul. Imam Hassan has explained the Islamic doctrine of God and the Universe by analogy with the sun and its reflection in the pool of a fountain; there is certainly a reflection or image of the sun, but with what poverty and with what little reality; how small and pale is the likeness between this impalpable image and the immense, blazing, white-hot glory of the celestial sphere itself. Allah is the sun; and the Universe, as we know it in all its magnitude, and time, with its power, are nothing more than the reflection of the Absolute in the mirror of the fountain"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Concepts of Time
Dr Nader El-Bizri
This is an edited version of an article that was originally published in Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopaedia, Vol. 2, pp. 810-812, ed.Josef W. Meri, Routledge (New York-London, 2006).
Download PDF version of the article
Classical concepts of time confronted philosophers with perplexing paradoxes. Some wondered whether time altogether was nonexistent, whereas others doubted the reality of its divisibility into parts by arguing that the past ceased to be, the future does not yet exist, and the present as a moment/now that is without magnitude (i.e., like a mathematical point is not part of time). In addition, it was unclear whether time progressed smoothly or proceeded by way of discontinuous and divisible leaps.
Although inquiries about the nature of time were integrated within physical theories of motion, their broad cosmological and metaphysical bearings had an impact on speculations about creation and causation. In Plato’s Timaeus (37d; 38a) time (kronos) was pictured as a moving image (eikona) that imitated (mimoumenon) eternity (aiona) by circling around according to number (arithmos) and came into existence with the generation of the heavens. In the earliest systemic investigation of the essence and existence of time, which was contained in Aristotle’s Physics (219b3-4; 220a25-b20; 222b20-23), kronos was defined as the number (metron) of a continuous (sunekhes) motion (kinesis) with respect to the anterior (proteron) and the posterior (husteron). Rejecting the claim that time was the movement of the whole (holos), Aristotle argued that the circular, uniform, and continuous motion of the celestial sphere (sphaira) acts as the measure (metron) of time (Physics, 223b21). His theory subsequently received numerous responses by Neoplatonist and Hellenist exegetes; these are grouped in a monumental edition titled Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Damascius argued that time was a simultaneous whole, Plotinus grasped it as the changing life of the soul (Enneads, 3. 7. 11-13), and Simplicius defended the thesis of the eternity of the world against doubts raised by the grammarian Philoponus, who adopted a Christian doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. As for the author of the Confessions, Augustine of Hippo, he noted that tempus (time) was created when the world came to be while affirming that the existential reality of time is grounded in the present (praesens), which in itself is what tends not to be (tendit non esse), given that only eternity was stable (semper stans).
On the basis of a belief in the linear directionality of time, from Genesis to Judgment, Augustine argued that the present of things past was preserved in memory, the presence of present things was confirmed by visual perception, and the presence of things future was secured through expectation. Accordingly, the reality of time depended on an anima who remembers, perceives, and expects events; this is similar to Aristotle’s claim in the Physics (218b29-219a1-6, 223a25) that kronos required psukhe to compute its numbering (arithmein). Ishaq ibn Hunayn’s translation of Aristotle’s Physics (al-Tabi‘a) secured the transmission of the Aristotelian conception of kronos into Arabic, which subsequently inspired variegated philosophical interpretations of time among Muslims. Al-Kindi held that al-zaman (time) had a beginning and an end and that it measured motion according to number (Tempus ergo est numerus numerans motum), whereas al-Farabi and Ikhwan al-Safa’ affirmed that time resulted from the movement of the created celestial sphere (al-falak). Abu Bakr al-Razi claimed that the dahr (perpetuity) was absolute (mutlaq), while taking al-zaman (time) to be a flowing substance (jawhar yajri) that is bound (mahsur) as well as being associated with the motion of al-falak (the celestial sphere). In Kitab al-Hudud, Ibn Sina defined al-zaman (time) as that which resembles the created being (yudahi al-masn) and acts as the measure of motion (miqdar al-haraka) in terms of the anterior and the posterior (mutaqaddim wa muta’akhkhir). He also noted that al-dahr (supra-temporal duration) resembled the Creator (yudahi al-san‘i) insofar that it was stable throughout the entirety of time. In the Isharat wa’l-Tanbihat, he linked time to physical inquiries about motion; in ‘Uyun al-Hikma, he construed it as a quantity (kamiyyat) of motion that measures change (yuqaddir) and whose perpetuity (dahr al-haraka) generated temporality. Time also played a notable role in Kitab al-Manazir (Optics; II. 3, II. 7, III. 7) by the polymath Ibn al-Haytham, who argued that the propagation of light rays was subject to time and consequently inferred that the velocity of light (al-daw’) was finite despite being immense in magnitude. Moreover, he held that acts of visual discernment and comparative measure (al-tamyyiz wa’l-qiyas) were subject to the passage of time even if not felt by the beholder, and he cautioned that if the temporal duration of contemplative or immediate visual perception fell outside of a moderate range, it resulted in optical errors. In addition he listed al-zaman as one of the known entities (ma‘lumat), while taking duration (mudda) to be its essence (mahiyya) and the scale (miqyas) of its magnitude (miqdar) and quantity (kamiyya) that become knowable in reference to the motion of the celestial sphere (al-falak).
Opposing the views of the peripatetic Muslim philosophers, the exponents of kalam (dialectical theology) articulated alternative conceptions of time that rested on physical theories inspired by Greek atomism. Time was grasped by the mutakallimun (dialectical theologians) as being a virtual (mawhum) phenomenon of changing appearances and renewed atomic events (mutajaddidat), whereby a discrete moment (waqt) replaced the concept of a continuous zaman. Motivated by this theory - although resisting its thrust - al-Nazzam believed in the divisibility of particles ad infinitum, which entailed that a spatial distance with infinitely divisible parts requires an infinite time to be crossed unless its traversal proceeded by way of leaps (tafarat); this echoes the Stoic views regarding the Greek notion of halma (leap). When doubting the doctrine of the eternity of the world in Tahafut al-Falasifa, al-Ghazali attempted to show that duration (mudda) and time (zaman) were both created, and he argued that the connection between what is habitually taken to be a cause and an effect was not necessary, given that observation only shows that they were concomitant. Consequently, he proclaimed that the ordering relation of an antecedent cause with a consequent effect does not necessarily rest on an irreversible directionality in time.
In defense of causation, Ibn Rushd argued in Tahafut al-Tahafut that the refutation of the causal principle entailed an outright rejection of reason while asserting that the eternal (al-qadim) was timeless and that the world was subject to the workings of a continuous zaman. Affirming the truth of Genesis, Maimonides asserted in Dalalat al-Ha’irin the belief that time was created, given that the celestial sphere and the motion on which it depended were both generated. Although speculations about time continued with scholars of the calibre of Nasir al-din Tusi, Fakhr al-din al-Razi, Mir Damad, Mulla Sadra, Abu’l-Barakat al-Baghdadi, al-Iji, and al-Jurjani, the elucidation of its uncanny reality remained inconclusive.
Primary Sources
Aristotle. Physics, ed. W. David Ross. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Augustine. Confessions, ed. James O'Donnell. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1992.
Ghazali. Tahafut al-Falasifa, transl. Michael Marmura. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1997.
Ibn al-Haytham. Kitab al-Manazir, ed. Abdelhamid I. Sabra. Kuwait: National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, 1983.
_ _ T he Optics of Ibn al-Haytham, transl. A. I. Sabra. London: Warburg Institute, 1989.
Ibn Rushd. Tahafut al-Tahafut, ed. Muhammad ‘Abid al-Jabiri. Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihda al-‘Arabiyya, 1998.
Ibn Sina. Kitab al-Hudud. ed. A. M. Goichon. Cairo: Institut Francais d’Archeologie Orientale du Caire, 1963.
_ _ al-Isharat wa’l-Tanbihat, 3 vols., ed. Sulayman Dunya. Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif bi-Misr, 1957-1960.
Ikhwan al-Safa’. Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ wa Khullan al Wafa’, vol. II, ed. Butrus Bustani. Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1957.
Maimonides. Dalalat al-Ha’irin, The Guide for the Perplexed, transl. M. Friedlander. New York: Dover, 1956.
Philoponus. Corollaries on Place and Void; Simplicius. Against Philoponus on the Eternity of the World, transl. David Furley and Christian Wildberg. London: Duckworth, 1991.
Plato. Timaeus, transl. R. G. Bury. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.
Simplicius. Corollaries on Place and Time, transl. J. O. Urmson. London: Duckworth, 1992.
Further Reading
Dhanani, Alnoor. The Physical Theory of Kalam. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
Mallet, D. “Zaman”, In Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. XI. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
Massignon, Louis. “Le Temps dans la Pensee Islamique”. In Opera Minora, vol. II, ed. Y. Moubarak. Beirut: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1963.
Rashed, Roshdi. Les Mathematiques Infinitesimales du IX au XI siecle, vol. IV. London: al-Furqan Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2002.
Sorabji, Richard. Time, Creation and the Continuum. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Walzer, Richard. Greek into Arabic: Essays in Islamic Philosophy. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1962.
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112195
Related from my Blog:
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
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/two-intellectual-giants-speak-to-each-other-accross-a-millenium-on-time/
Abu Yakub al-Sijistani: Cosmologist, Theologian, Philosopher par excellence.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/284abu-yakub-al-sijistani-cosmologist.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
673)In Memoriam: Oleg Grabar (1929-2011); Quotes from Blogpost Four Hundred.
"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., where Professor Oleg Grabar presented the opening lecture)
"I should emphasise, as well, that the Museum building itself will be an important work of art — designed by the great Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. Many of you know his superb building in Ottawa that has been the home for the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat since 2008. That Delegation building was inspired by the evanescent mysteries of rock crystal. The new Toronto Museum will take as its theme the concept of light — suffusing the building from a central courtyard, through patterned glass screens. From the outside, it will glow by day and by night, lit by the sun and the moon. This use of light speaks to us of the Divine Light of the Creator, reflected in the glow of individual human inspiration and vibrant, transparent community. As the poet Rumi has written: “The light that lights the eye is also the light of the heart… but the light that lights the heart is the Light of God.”"(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"It now includes three elements: a new Ismaili Centre — the sixth such representational building in the world; a new Aga Khan Museum; and a beautiful, welcoming Park, which will link these two new buildings. Together, these three projects will symbolise the harmonious integration of the spiritual, the artistic and the natural worlds — in keeping with the holistic ideal which is an intimate part of Islamic tradition. At the same time they will also express a profound commitment to inter-cultural engagement, and international cooperation."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
As our plans began to take shape, we came to realise that the Museum’s focus on the arts of Islam will make it a unique institution in North America, contributing to a better understanding of Islamic civilisations — and especially of the plurality within Islam and of Islam’s relationship to other traditions. It will be a place for sharing a story, through art and artefacts, of highly diverse achievements — going back over 1 400 years. It will honour the central place within Islam of the search for knowledge and beauty. And it will illuminate the inspiration which Muslim artists have drawn from faith, and from a diverse array of epics, from human stories of separation and loss, of love and joy — themes which we know reverberate eloquently across the diverse cultures of humanity."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"Like the Museum, the Ismaili Centre will also be part of a supportive global network — a group of Centres that now includes Vancouver, London, Lisbon, Dubai and Dushanbe — and with new Centres planned in Houston, Los Angeles and Paris. The focal point of the Toronto Centre will be a circular prayer hall, dedicated to spiritual reflection, while other spaces will provide for deeper engagement with the broader community among whom Ismailis live. The Centre has been designed by Charles Correa, the award-winning architect based in Mumbai. The building will feature a crystalline frosted glass dome — standing like a great beacon on top of a building that is itself at the highest point of the site — and illuminating the Prayer Hall and its Qibla wall. What about the Park? The Park will comprise some 75 000 square metres — and what an impressive site it will be! It was designed by Vladimir Djurovic, a Lebanon- based artist, who was selected for this role following an international competition. His design draws upon the concept of the traditional Islamic garden, and especially the gardens of the Alhambra, which flourished during the great era of Spanish history when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in creative harmony."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
“Even more exciting are the proposed contents of the Museum, a rich repository of art and artefacts tracing the evolution of Muslim culture through the ages. It will be a grand destination for Muslim visitors from across Canada and around the world, and it will introduce Canadians from other faith and cultural backgrounds to the compelling history of Islam, one of the world’s great religions and the inspiration for countless major advancements in art, science, music and philosophy."(Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foundation Ceremony of the Aga Khan Museum, Ismaili Center and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"Part of what makes this site so captivating, is that it links the natural environment with the built environment, the Divine Creation, on the one hand with human creativity on the other. Here endless seascapes humble us in the face of the eternal and unknowable – while a splendid cityscape expresses the confident accomplishments of particular historic moments......"(Aga Khan IV, Forodhani Park, Stone Town, Zanzibar, July 30th 2009)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
In Memoriam: Oleg Grabar (1929-2011)
January 2011
Prof Oleg Grabar, one of the most prominent Islamic art historians and scholars of our time passed away in Princeton on 8th January 2011 at the age of 81. His spirit of critical inquiry and tireless efforts in challenging pre-conceived perspectives in Western thought about art and architecture in the Muslim world will be much missed by many at the Institute and beyond.
Over the course of six decades, his innovative and prolific output and teaching have touched the lives of many, besides being the motive force behind a surge in the number of historians specialising in Islamic art, particularly in the United States. Prof. Azim Nanji, former director of the IIS and currently Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, reiterates this: "In addition to his writings, many of which are classics in the field, his most lasting legacy was the training and development of a generation of scholars. Each of them, as archaeologists, architects, museum directors and creators of new academic programmes in Muslim Arts, built on his teaching and scholarship to make the field what it is today.”
Throughout his lifetime, he was part of myriad archaeological expeditions and research trips, across the Islamic world in Africa, the Middle East and Muslim Asia, continually documenting and devising new methods to illuminate aspects of art, history and culture of Muslim peoples. According to Prof. Nanji it is because of Grabar that, “the Arts and Architecture of the Muslim World are now part of the larger study of human civilisations and a lens that allows us to see Muslim cultures beyond a narrowly defined, theological and textually-centred field of study.”
Prof. Grabar was the first Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture when that chair was established at Harvard in 1980. In 1990, he retired from Harvard to assume a position of Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In November 2010, he received the Chairman’s Award by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, “in acknowledgement of the valuable contributions he has made to the study of the Islamic world’s architectural evolution, from the early Islamic period up to the present. Through his teaching, writings, and lectures, Oleg Grabar has greatly widened and enriched our understanding of the Islamic world’s architectural production, emphasising its geographic and chronological diversity, as well as positioning it within the wider political, social, cultural and economic contexts”.
His involvement dates back to 1990, when he participated in the Islam in the Contemporary World Conference held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford and delivered a lecture on the arts in Islam. In 2003, Oleg Grabar delivered the opening lecture at the international colloquium, Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions that was held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the IIS. In his memorable lecture, he raised several theoretical questions using examples from Muslim history to examine how revelations, more generally, and the Qur'an specifically, have interfaced with the arts in providing a visual expression to the Sacred Word. More recently, in March 2009, Prof. Grabar delivered a lecture at the IIS/British Museum co-sponsored conference, People of the Prophet’s House: Art, Architecture and Shi‘ism in the Islamic World. In his paper entitled: “Can we identify Shi‘i Features in Art and Architecture?” he put forth that there is a distinction between labelling an object as Shi‘i purely because of certain inscriptions and attributing Shi‘i provenance to forms and subjects, stating that we must consider the receiver rather than the creator of an object in order to understand it.
Prof. Grabar is survived by his wife of 59 years, Dr. Terry Grabar, a retired professor of English, his son Nicolas, daughter-in-law Jennifer Sage and grandchildren Henry, Margaret and Olivia. The IIS extends its condolences to his family and pays tribute to this outstanding scholar who dedicated much of his life to the study of art and architecture of Muslim societies. He will be remembered for many years to come by his many colleagues, friends and students at the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Image courtesy of Cliff Moore
Related Pages on the IIS Website
Academic Article: Fatimid Art, Precursor or Culmination
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112205
Related from my Blog:
A Collection of Posts on Symmetry in Nature, as a Product of the Human Mind, Geometry and Harmonious Mathematical Reasoning; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/454a-collection-of-posts-on-symmetry-in.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
"I should emphasise, as well, that the Museum building itself will be an important work of art — designed by the great Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. Many of you know his superb building in Ottawa that has been the home for the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat since 2008. That Delegation building was inspired by the evanescent mysteries of rock crystal. The new Toronto Museum will take as its theme the concept of light — suffusing the building from a central courtyard, through patterned glass screens. From the outside, it will glow by day and by night, lit by the sun and the moon. This use of light speaks to us of the Divine Light of the Creator, reflected in the glow of individual human inspiration and vibrant, transparent community. As the poet Rumi has written: “The light that lights the eye is also the light of the heart… but the light that lights the heart is the Light of God.”"(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"It now includes three elements: a new Ismaili Centre — the sixth such representational building in the world; a new Aga Khan Museum; and a beautiful, welcoming Park, which will link these two new buildings. Together, these three projects will symbolise the harmonious integration of the spiritual, the artistic and the natural worlds — in keeping with the holistic ideal which is an intimate part of Islamic tradition. At the same time they will also express a profound commitment to inter-cultural engagement, and international cooperation."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
As our plans began to take shape, we came to realise that the Museum’s focus on the arts of Islam will make it a unique institution in North America, contributing to a better understanding of Islamic civilisations — and especially of the plurality within Islam and of Islam’s relationship to other traditions. It will be a place for sharing a story, through art and artefacts, of highly diverse achievements — going back over 1 400 years. It will honour the central place within Islam of the search for knowledge and beauty. And it will illuminate the inspiration which Muslim artists have drawn from faith, and from a diverse array of epics, from human stories of separation and loss, of love and joy — themes which we know reverberate eloquently across the diverse cultures of humanity."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"Like the Museum, the Ismaili Centre will also be part of a supportive global network — a group of Centres that now includes Vancouver, London, Lisbon, Dubai and Dushanbe — and with new Centres planned in Houston, Los Angeles and Paris. The focal point of the Toronto Centre will be a circular prayer hall, dedicated to spiritual reflection, while other spaces will provide for deeper engagement with the broader community among whom Ismailis live. The Centre has been designed by Charles Correa, the award-winning architect based in Mumbai. The building will feature a crystalline frosted glass dome — standing like a great beacon on top of a building that is itself at the highest point of the site — and illuminating the Prayer Hall and its Qibla wall. What about the Park? The Park will comprise some 75 000 square metres — and what an impressive site it will be! It was designed by Vladimir Djurovic, a Lebanon- based artist, who was selected for this role following an international competition. His design draws upon the concept of the traditional Islamic garden, and especially the gardens of the Alhambra, which flourished during the great era of Spanish history when Muslims, Jews and Christians lived together in creative harmony."(Aga Khan IV, Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
“Even more exciting are the proposed contents of the Museum, a rich repository of art and artefacts tracing the evolution of Muslim culture through the ages. It will be a grand destination for Muslim visitors from across Canada and around the world, and it will introduce Canadians from other faith and cultural backgrounds to the compelling history of Islam, one of the world’s great religions and the inspiration for countless major advancements in art, science, music and philosophy."(Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Foundation Ceremony of the Aga Khan Museum, Ismaili Center and their Park, Toronto, Canada, May 28 2010)
"Part of what makes this site so captivating, is that it links the natural environment with the built environment, the Divine Creation, on the one hand with human creativity on the other. Here endless seascapes humble us in the face of the eternal and unknowable – while a splendid cityscape expresses the confident accomplishments of particular historic moments......"(Aga Khan IV, Forodhani Park, Stone Town, Zanzibar, July 30th 2009)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
In Memoriam: Oleg Grabar (1929-2011)
January 2011
Prof Oleg Grabar, one of the most prominent Islamic art historians and scholars of our time passed away in Princeton on 8th January 2011 at the age of 81. His spirit of critical inquiry and tireless efforts in challenging pre-conceived perspectives in Western thought about art and architecture in the Muslim world will be much missed by many at the Institute and beyond.
Over the course of six decades, his innovative and prolific output and teaching have touched the lives of many, besides being the motive force behind a surge in the number of historians specialising in Islamic art, particularly in the United States. Prof. Azim Nanji, former director of the IIS and currently Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, reiterates this: "In addition to his writings, many of which are classics in the field, his most lasting legacy was the training and development of a generation of scholars. Each of them, as archaeologists, architects, museum directors and creators of new academic programmes in Muslim Arts, built on his teaching and scholarship to make the field what it is today.”
Throughout his lifetime, he was part of myriad archaeological expeditions and research trips, across the Islamic world in Africa, the Middle East and Muslim Asia, continually documenting and devising new methods to illuminate aspects of art, history and culture of Muslim peoples. According to Prof. Nanji it is because of Grabar that, “the Arts and Architecture of the Muslim World are now part of the larger study of human civilisations and a lens that allows us to see Muslim cultures beyond a narrowly defined, theological and textually-centred field of study.”
Prof. Grabar was the first Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture when that chair was established at Harvard in 1980. In 1990, he retired from Harvard to assume a position of Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In November 2010, he received the Chairman’s Award by the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, “in acknowledgement of the valuable contributions he has made to the study of the Islamic world’s architectural evolution, from the early Islamic period up to the present. Through his teaching, writings, and lectures, Oleg Grabar has greatly widened and enriched our understanding of the Islamic world’s architectural production, emphasising its geographic and chronological diversity, as well as positioning it within the wider political, social, cultural and economic contexts”.
His involvement dates back to 1990, when he participated in the Islam in the Contemporary World Conference held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford and delivered a lecture on the arts in Islam. In 2003, Oleg Grabar delivered the opening lecture at the international colloquium, Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions that was held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of the IIS. In his memorable lecture, he raised several theoretical questions using examples from Muslim history to examine how revelations, more generally, and the Qur'an specifically, have interfaced with the arts in providing a visual expression to the Sacred Word. More recently, in March 2009, Prof. Grabar delivered a lecture at the IIS/British Museum co-sponsored conference, People of the Prophet’s House: Art, Architecture and Shi‘ism in the Islamic World. In his paper entitled: “Can we identify Shi‘i Features in Art and Architecture?” he put forth that there is a distinction between labelling an object as Shi‘i purely because of certain inscriptions and attributing Shi‘i provenance to forms and subjects, stating that we must consider the receiver rather than the creator of an object in order to understand it.
Prof. Grabar is survived by his wife of 59 years, Dr. Terry Grabar, a retired professor of English, his son Nicolas, daughter-in-law Jennifer Sage and grandchildren Henry, Margaret and Olivia. The IIS extends its condolences to his family and pays tribute to this outstanding scholar who dedicated much of his life to the study of art and architecture of Muslim societies. He will be remembered for many years to come by his many colleagues, friends and students at the Institute of Ismaili Studies.
Image courtesy of Cliff Moore
Related Pages on the IIS Website
Academic Article: Fatimid Art, Precursor or Culmination
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=112205
Related from my Blog:
A Collection of Posts on Symmetry in Nature, as a Product of the Human Mind, Geometry and Harmonious Mathematical Reasoning; Quotes of Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/454a-collection-of-posts-on-symmetry-in.html
Easy Nash
http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/blog/science_and_religion_in_islam_the_link/
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
In Shia Islam, intellect is a key component of faith. Intellect allows us to understand the creation of God: Aga Khan IV(2008)
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 Holy Qu'ran's encouragement to study nature and the physical world around us gave the original impetus to scientific enquiry among Muslims: Aga Khan IV(1985)
The first and only thing created by God was the Intellect(Aql): Prophet Muhammad(circa 632CE)
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