MUTHAL NAIDOO made two posts on his Blog that are relevant to this post of mine. The first one is entitled 'The Khojas' and contains a goldmine of information that I was never aware of until I read it a few days ago. The second contains a list of the residents of a place called Tolstoy Farm in 1910, located on the outskirts of Johannesburg. This list includes Mohandas Gandhi, then a succesful lawyer and later to be known as Mahatma Gandhi, and an 8 year old kid named Rajabali Velshi Keshavjee, who was sent to Tolstoy Farm to be mentored by Gandhi. As a result of this mentoring experience Rajabali Velshi Keshavjee was taught, among other things, his Ismaili Muslim prayers by Gandhi(at the request of his father Velshi Keshavjee) and he also became a lifelong vegetarian as a result of Gandhi's influence.
1)THE 'KHOJAS'
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
‘The Khojas'
A Vanished Community
70 000 pairs of eyes, mesmerised by the hand on the large round dial of an enormous weighing scale, watched as it inched its way up and up. On this sunny morning, the flash of diamonds - thousands of diamonds - in small hermetically sealed glass containers, tantalised the huge gathering seated around the high platform erected in the middle of grounds that had been converted into "Diamondabad" in the city of Dar-es-Salaam.
The first boxes of diamonds were placed on the scales by
those who had contributed the highest amounts...Following
this there were presentations by school children, bearing
banners from all the African territories, including East
African territories, Madagascar and South Africa.[1]
The crowd watched spellbound as container after container put on the scale shook the hand and forced it upwards. Some craned their necks, others squinted, and all focused on the dial, willing more and more diamonds onto the scale as the hand moved clockwise, very slowly towards its target - the weight of the regal person seated at the end of the platform, serenely awaiting the outcome. His weight in diamonds would represent a fortune and the weighing-in was a sumptuous display of wealth, power and charity in one spectacular event.
Ismailis from all parts of the world sat tense with suppressed excitement. Finally the weight on the scale matched the weight of the man and a tremendous cheer broke from their lips in praise of their leader on the platform, His Highness, Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan. He had succeeded to the Imamate at the age of eight in 1886 and they were celebrating his sixtieth anniversary as Imam.
The Aga Khan, moved by this presentation, explained how the gift would be used.
"As everyone is well aware, the value of these diamonds
has been unconditionally presented to me on this occasion. I do
not wish to take this money for myself but to use it for any object
that I think is best for my spiritual children.
After long reflection, I have come to the conclusion that
the very best use that I can make of it is that after expenses
of these celebrations, in the wider sense of the word, have been
paid for, then the whole of the residue must be given as an absolute
gift to the Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust.[2]
He told them that the Diamond Jubilee Investment Trust had been created to build up
"a totally new financial outlook among the Ismailis. Co-operative
Societies, Corporations, and, I hope and believe very soon,
Building Societies, too, will draw from the Investment Trust sums
equal to their capital but at a level of three per cent. And they are
not allowed to charge more than six per cent under any conditions
from their borrowers."[3]
With this internal banking system, the Aga Khan was setting up the means to ensure financial security for all his people. Stirred by his wisdom and his concern to preserve the ummah, his followers there in Dar-es-Salaam felt reaffirmed in their faith and in their leader. Just being in the presence of His Highness was an honour that each individual would cherish forever.
After the weighing-in, the Aga Khan joined his family on the dais where the ceremony continued with speeches and special acknowledgment of the outstanding work of individual Ismailis in the fields of health, education and economic development in various communities throughout the world. Among the Ismailis being awarded special titles of authority were two from the Asiatic Bazaar in Pretoria - Allijah Velshi Keshavjee and his son, Allibhai V. Keshavjee who became Vazier and received a diamond ring and gold medal.
When all the awards had been presented, a voice on the loudspeaker cut through the jubilation with an unexpected announcement. A very unusual announcement! The Master of Ceremonies read out the names of two people and asked them to come up to the dais. The couple concerned were shocked to hear their names called out before a crowd of 70 000. They were just ordinary people and being requested to come forward into the presence of the Aga Khan and his family - his son, Prince Ally Khan, and his grandsons, Karim and Amyn - was overwhelming. For a moment the couple stood frozen. On being urged forward by their relatives, they made their way to the dais. Hardly aware of what they were doing, they mounted the platform and unsteadily approached their Imam.
When they were beside the Aga Khan nervously mumbling the characteristic Ismaili greeting Ya Ali Madahd (with the blessings of Ali), chairs were brought, and they were seated. The Aga Khan then introduced Habib Chagan and Miriam Dearman, a couple from the Asiatic Bazaar, to the whole gathering. The Aga Khan had singled them out from the huge crowd for a special reason. Habib and Miriam with their four children lived as a family even though their union had not been consecrated. Because Miriam was Coloured, the local Ismaili Council in Pretoria, believing it could not admit her into the community without authority from the Supreme Council in Nairobi, had not allowed a Muslim wedding ceremony. Miriam was not taken into the Ismaili fold and she and her children had been left in limbo for ten years. Such inconsiderate treatment, was disturbing and a cause for concern.
The Aga Khan, who had made a grand tour of Ismaili communities in Africa the year before, 1945, had stopped in Pretoria and spent several days with the Ismailis in the Asiatic Bazaar. He had visited the Jamatkhana on Boom Street, which had been specially decorated for his visit. He had walked along Boom Street, taking note of the social, educational and economic enterprises of the Ismaili community.
Hundreds of people from the Cape Location, the Asiatic Bazaar and Marabastad, regardless of religious affiliation and race had lined the streets to catch a glimpse of him. The Pretoria City Council, waiving race restrictions, had permitted the Ismailis to hold a huge banquet for him in the City Hall. Jan Hofmeyr and General Jan Smuts were present among the dignitaries.
Habib Chagan, looking very handsome in his tuxedo, had attended.
Miriam, not accepted as an Ismaili, had not accompanied him and the matter of their marriage had not been brought to the Imam's attention during his visit. Born an Anglican, Miriam had converted when she married and wanted her children to take their rightful places in the community. She had asked her sisters-in-law to instruct them in Ismaili beliefs, customs and traditions. When Miriam heard that the city of Dar-es-Salaam had been chosen for the Aga Khan's Diamond Jubilee celebration, she convinced Habib that they should go to Tanganyika to put their case before their Imam. Habib approached Mr Hasan Naran Keshavjee, a member of the Pretoria Ismaili Council and found him very sympathetic. He agreed to speak to the Imam at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and that is how the Aga Khan came to hear of their plight. As their treatment went against Ismaili teachings, reparation had to be made for their humiliation and frustration.
And His Highness, the Aga Khan took action. Right there in front of his followers from all over the world, he wiped out the injustice suffered by Habib and Miriam with one spontaneous and magnanimous gesture. He married them on the spot, on that dais in Dar-es-Salaam with members of the royal family in close attendance. The wedding that had been denied them in their own tiny community became an international event in front of 80 000 Ismailis. After he had pronounced them husband and wife, the Aga Khan performed chato (a ceremony similar to baptism). He gave Miriam a new name; she was to be called Amina after the Imam's own wife. Her youngest son, Edward, who was with them, was renamed Amyn after the Imam's younger grandson. The three children left behind in Pretoria, were also renamed. Sylvia, the eldest, would be called Layla, her sister would retain the name Miriam and their brother would be called Karim, after the Aga Khan's older grandson, who was destined to succeed his grandfather in 1957.
Telegrams were immediately dispatched to Pretoria instructing the local Ismaili Council to go to Habib's home, take the two daughters and the son to the Jamatkhana in Boom Street and perform chato. On that very day, Habib, Miriam and their children, by the grace of the Aga Khan, were immediately accepted as full members of the Ismaili community. According to Miriam's daughter, when the Aga Khan married Habib and Miriam, he said to his followers, "Let this be a lesson to you. You must go and look for my Ismaili children."[4] It was a warning to guard against prejudice. Miriam and Habib's wedding took place just two years before the Nationalist Government came into power in South Africa. Among the first laws passed by this new government were the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and The Immorality Amendment Act (1950).
Miriam and Habib moved through all the proceedings at the Durbar in an almost comatose state. The clearest impression that Miriam retained of her wedding and chato was that of the Aga Khan's grandsons, completely absorbed in their own little world, tickling each other and giggling throughout. The Aga Khan, who wanted to speak more with Miriam, invited her and Habib to a reception in his bungalow later that evening. But where they were the streets were not paved, and after the celebration that day, it rained hard and the roads were muddy so they could not go. They would have had to walk and would not have been presentable.
Although it all turned out to be a brilliant triumph for Miriam and Habib, they had almost not made it to East Africa. Getting to Dar-es-Salaam had been a nightmarish experience. Miriam and Habib with Edward, their youngest, Habib's father and one or two of his sisters and brothers had obtained passports and set off for Lourenço Marques where they would board the boat, The Kandala. When they embarked, though they were on a very old vessel, they had no qualms about their trip. Once the journey was underway, however, the boat buffeted by the rough seas made them very seasick and they vomited copiously and ate nothing. When the boat began to list dangerously and their luggage went flying all over the deck, they prayed that they would survive. For at least two hours they travelled in a vessel that was sharply tilted to one side.
Meanwhile, having heard that a boat bound for Dar-es-Salaam had gone down with all its passengers, the children back home were crazy with anxiety. They tried desperately to get information from people in Lourenço Marques, from the authorities, from relatives. Eventually, their parents got through to them, reassured them that they had arrived safely and had settled into the old refugee camp set aside for the South African contingent. Their accommodation was in large halls with many beds, like general wards in hospitals. They had communal showers and toilets and the use of a kitchen. Since large pots of food were brought to them for every meal, they had no real need of the kitchen. They were very comfortably settled.
Their return journey to Lourenço Marques would have been trouble-free but Miriam had contracted malaria while in Dar-es-Salaam and was quite sick on the boat. In Lourenço Marques, she saw a doctor who prescribed quinine; she recovered temporarily but suffered a relapse some time after her return to Pretoria. On the day they arrived in the Asiatic Bazaar, however, they were heartily welcomed by the family. Miriam's mother-in-law took off her gold bangles and gave them to her daughter-in-law, a traditional gesture signifying that she was now officially a part of the family.
And Miriam, now Amina, became an accepted member of the Ismaili community in the Asiatic Bazaar. She was offered a post at the crèche and the clinic that Habib and Sherbanoo Keshavjee, son and daughter of Velshi Keshavjee, had started at the Jamatkhana. Her dedication and commitment to her work, the children and the community won her great respect, and when Karim Khan, the new Aga Khan who had succeeded his grandfather, Sultan Mohamed Shah, came to visit the Asiatic Bazaar in 1957, members of the Pretoria Ismaili Council were very proud to introduce her to him. They recalled to him her wedding in Dar-es-Salaam at which he, still a little boy, had been present. They also informed him that Amina's daughter, Layla, had achieved the distinction of being the first female in the Ismaili community, and one of the first women in the Asiatic Bazaar, to qualify as a teacher.
In 1995, Amina received further recognition for her services to the Ismaili community. The Pretoria Ismaili Council recommended her for Didar (conference) that was being organised by the Ismaili Council of the United Kingdom in London. She was very surprised and honoured. When she received a ticket and found that travel and accommodation arrangements had been made for her, she felt even more privileged. But a greater honour was in store for her. In London, she discovered that she had been granted an audience with the Aga Khan. This was beyond expectation - a second chance for a private conference with an Imam. She had missed the first opportunity with Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan in 1946 but nothing stood in her way in 1995. She so cherished her interview with Karim Aga Khan that she never revealed any part of their discussion to any one, not even her family.
The community of Shia Muslims to which Miriam and Habib belonged was small but very enterprising. Its founder, Jivan Keshavjee, had arrived in Pretoria in 1894, about the time the Coolie Location was set aside for Indian occupation. He was from Chotila, a village near Rajput in India, where his family was engaged in commerce. He came to South Africa with a friend, Ganibhai Haji Cassim, who had relatives in the country. Jivan and Ganibhai worked in Port Elizabeth for a short while before they left for the Coolie Location in 1894.
In the next year, with the help of other Muslims already established in the area, Jivan started a business at 112 Prinsloo Street, K.J. Keshavjee and Sons, so named as he was known as "Khoja" Jivan Keshavjee. ‘Khoja' means trader. His relatives who were not Keshavjees, entered the country as "Khojas," adopted the designation as their surname and used it for their businesses. At some point, Jivan Keshavjee dropped the term and when his brothers, Velshi, Manjee and Naran, arrived in Pretoria, they came in as Keshavjees.
In 1903, in an attempt to confine Indian trade to the location, the Coolie Location was given bazaar status and became the Asiatic Bazaar. This meant that Indians could own property, establish businesses and build places of worship. So the Keshavjees, Jivan and his brothers, acquired a number of stands on which they built their homes and shops. They had businesses on almost every corner of Bloed Street. Jivan Keshavjee's shop was on the corner of Fifth and Bloed Streets; Manjee had a shop on the corner of Jerusalem and Bloed. On the corner of Fourth and Bloed was KK Khoja and Company and there was another shop on the corner of Bloed and Sixth. Velshi had a shop at the corner of Grand and Sixth Streets. Other Ismailis, relatives of the Keshavjees, MA Khoja and HK Khoja, also owned general dealerships along Bloed Street and in other places in the location. The Ismailis were hardworking and successful businessmen, and the location, as tiny as it was, was a fortuitous place to have a shop. It consisted of a grid of a dozen streets that housed about twenty thousand people. So business boomed.
By 1920, the Keshavjees, having established flourishing general dealerships, began to diversify and expand their interests. Velshi Keshavjee acquired the ABC Bakery, a tiny business in a tin shanty that made deliveries by horse and cart. He bought out the owner, a Chinese man who had gone bankrupt, modernised the bakery and put in the latest equipment and machinery. Under Rajabali, Velshi's eldest son, it became the eleventh most advanced bakery in the country. Rajabali was an enterprising businessman and a progressive thinker. As a young boy, he had lived at Tolstoy Farm, the satyagrahi settlement that Mahatma Gandhi had established in 1910 at Lawley on the outskirts of Johannesburg. So he was interested in the political movements of the time and in social upliftment and supported the work of the Indian Congresses.
His large, spacious house behind the bakery became a guesthouse for many prominent political figures. As there was no hotel accommodation for people of colour in the area at that time, when the Kajees (A.I. Kajee was chairman of the Natal Indian Congress in the 1940s) came to Pretoria, they went straight to Rajabali's home at the bakery. In 1952, Rahemtullah, Rajabali's son, took part in the Defiance Campaign and marched to Germiston Location in Patrick Duncan's batch, which also included Mrs Thayanayagie Pillay. His involvement in politics brought people like Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu to the bakery. Though their visits were very discreet, the police were aware of the activities at the bakery and raided it frequently.
But the Ismaili community, in general, did not become involved in political activities; it concentrated its efforts on business and building a sound economic base for social services. Among the most successful Ismailis, were the Keshavjees whose various branches comprised many enterprising individuals. In the Velshi Keshavjee family for instance, in addition to Velshi himself there were his sons, Rajabali and Habib, and his daughter Sherbanoo. They took on interests as diverse as the bakery business, the film industry, social work, education and the building of the Jamatkhana, the white mosque in Boom Street.
In the 1920s, when the Ismaili community was ready for a new mosque, Velshi Keshavjee, made that his special project and headed up a committee that undertook to replace the little tin shanty set up as a mosque by Velshi's pioneer brother, Jivan, with a magnificent jamatkhana. The committee commissioned an architect who drew up plans for a fine building with interior décor of wood panelling and plush carpeting. When work on the building in Boom Street was completed in 1928, the Asiatic Bazaar had a new landmark - a beautiful white mosque, the Jamatkhana. A black plaque proudly displays the legend that Velshi Keshavjee laid the foundation stone. As fate would have it, Velshi Keshavjee died in an accident right at the doors of the mosque in 1954. He was crossing the road when a Putco bus hit him and dragged him to the gates of the Jamatkhana where he died. The Jamatkhana, the pride of the Ismaili Muslim community in the location, became renowned among Ismailis throughout Africa. It still stands on the corner of Boom and Fifth Streets and is now a national monument.
During their time in the location, Velshi's son, Habib, and his daughter, Sherbanoo, a social worker, turned the Jamatkhana into a community centre. Habib helped Sherbanoo establish a clinic on the premises with visiting doctors who came in on a regular basis and more frequently when there were epidemics of one sort or another. In 1944, their aunt, Mrs Manjee Keshavjee, donated a plot of land behind the mosque for a crèche and enabled Sherbanoo and Habib to start the first nursery school in the location. Habib recruited Glennie Tomlinson, a teacher from Cape Town, and went from door to door to encourage people to send their children to the crèche. The response was good and they employed several teachers for whom they provided training in Montessori methods. Habib was also something of a dietician and insisted on healthy nutrition at the school.
In 1949, after donating a plot of land on Barber Street for a madressa, Habib recruited Mowlana Sadruddin Khimani and his wife, Malek, from Pakistan, to induct Ismaili children in the Shia understanding of Islam. The Jamatkhana, with the madressa on Barber Street, became the hub of Ismaili community life. It was a multipurpose community centre, with its clinic, nursery school, madressa, a Council Room downstairs and a prayer area upstairs. With the exception of the prayer area, which was restricted exclusively to Ismailis, the venues at the Jamatkhana were open to all.
Habib's involvement at the mosque consumed only a small part of his energies. His main interest was in the cinema business. In the 1920s, the Keshavjee brothers, Jivan, Velshi, Manjee and Naran, originally part of the firm of Keshavjee & Co. split up, formed separate companies and went into independent ventures. Some branches of the clan acquired sites that had been used for showing films, such as the Bombay Star Bioscope and the Nav Jivan. The new owners of these venues, converted the Bombay Star into a shirt factory and sold the Nav Jivan. They left the development of cinemas to Habib and his uncles KK Khoja and Goolam Manjee Keshavjee. Habib had been running film shows for African audiences at the Dougall Hall from about 1926. When, in 1928, his uncles built the Royal Theatre on Grand Street that was the start of a rivalry that gave rise to a thriving cinema industry in the location. Bioscopes were a lucrative venture for the Keshavjees because the entertainment business provided a world of make-believe that allowed people to escape the squalor of their surroundings. In Marabastad, there was a large population hungry for escapist fare. So stars like the young Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, Frank Sinatra, Betty Grable, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald, Tyrone Power, Boris Karloff and Johnny Weismuller became icons in the locations.
At the Royal, KK Khoja and Goolam Manjee showed Warner Brothers movies. In order to outdo them, when Habib acquired the Empire Theatre around 1933, he obtained contracts with MGM, United Artists and Twentieth Century Fox. As a showman, he did everything he could to bring people into the Empire. He kept abreast of technological developments and ensured that his theatre offered the highest quality entertainment. He employed an African pianist to provide background music during the silent film era, and in the forties, he commissioned Omarjee Suliman, a young man with a passionate interest in film technology, to create special exhibits using animation. So there were flamboyant displays at the Empire to advertise new features such as David and Beersheba, Samson and Delilah and Mighty Joe Young.
Habib also used the cinema to promote local talent. In 1947, Miriam Makeba performed at the Empire for five pounds a show. Other African artists who appeared there were the Manhattan Brothers and the cast of the film, The Magic Queen, starring Dolly Rathebe. Habib devised a promotion campaign for the film with photo sessions that took the stars to various venues and landmarks such as the Union Buildings.
At Easter, the bioscope was crowded mainly with African people. They came from Marabastad, Bantule, Lady Selborne, Newclare and locations all over Pretoria, to continuous showings of The Life of Christ. These performances, which began early in the morning and finished late at night, were always sold out.
In 1949, when Canada Lee and the young Sydney Poitier, stars of the film, Cry the Beloved Country, were on location in South Africa, Habib invited them to the Empire. From the stage of the bioscope, they encouraged the mostly African audience not to give up hope for freedom.
Though there were restrictions regarding the admission of African people to the bioscopes, cinema owners ignored them. With the coming of apartheid, however, the authorities began to fine cinema owners for admitting African people to "violent" films, American gangster movies and such like. People like Habib could see the writing on the wall and believed that their progress would be stunted under apartheid. Soon after the Nationalist government came into power in 1948, His Highness, Sultan Mohammed Shah Aga Khan, the Ismaili Imam, called on his followers in South Africa to leave the country. As they saw no hope of a viable future in South Africa, the Keshavjees sold their cinemas to the Chetty brothers, the emerging cinema moghuls, and emigrated.
Habib, like his pioneer Uncle Jivan, was a charismatic figure. When he left in 1952, he drew people to Kenya in the same way that Jivan had drawn people from India to the Asiatic Bazaar. Almost everyone followed. Ten years later there was no longer an Ismaili Muslim community in Pretoria. A few individuals remained but the majority had made their way to other parts of the world.
The ‘Khojas,' as the Ismaili Muslims were called in the location, had always been something of a mystery to other Indians, who imagined that Ismailis practised peculiar rites. Absurd rumours spread amongst them. Some Hindus, believing that Ismaili Muslims were confused about their religion, assumed that their prayers were borrowed from Hindu texts. This confusion arose from several factors. One was the similarity between Hindu and Ismaili names. Many Ismailis in the Asiatic Bazaar were Gujaratis from Kathiawar in India. Their ancestors had been Hindus. When they became Muslims, their names were adapted to reflect their new faith. So Keshav became Keshavjee, Madhav became Madhavjee, Chagan is both a Hindu and an Ismaili surname and first names like Naran and Jivan are common to both Hindus and Ismailis. As Ismaili Muslims also retained some old cultural traditions from India, non-Ismailis were perplexed and thought the "Khojas" didn't know what they were about. Such confusion arises from the fact that outsiders do not easily understand .Ismailism, which is an "esoteric interpretation of Islam that emphasizes the spirit and is akin to Sufism."[5] According to Karen Armstrong, who gives an account of Ismailism in her book A History of God:
Their (the Shiis') piety was too abstruse for most Muslims, who
regarded this incarnational idea (the Imam) as blasphemous, so
Shiis were usually found among the more aristocratic classes and the
intellectuals. Since the Iranian revolution, we have tended in the
West to depict Shiism as an inherently fundamentalist sect but that
is an inaccurate assessment. Shiism became a sophisticated tradition.[6]
But it remains a minority tradition. The majority of Muslims in the world are Sunni Muslims (Sunni from Sunnah meaning ‘practice as prescribed by The Prophet'). About ten per cent of Muslims are Shia Muslims and Ismailis are a minority of this minority. Sunnis believe Muhammad was the last Prophet to appear on earth and that no one succeeded him. But according to Shia Muslims, the Prophet decreed that there always be a spiritual guide (Imam) for Muslims and those appointed to take over leadership after the Prophet's death, fulfilled this function. Sunnis, however, believe that these Caliphs were administrators rather than spiritual leaders and their function was to preserve and protect the ummah and the principles and practices of Islam. For Sunnis, there can be no spiritual leader after Muhammad; the Qur'an and the sunnah provide all the spiritual guidance needed by a Muslim.
Consequently, some Sunni Muslims in the location could not accept the Ismailis as true Muslims because of their allegiance to the Aga Khan. These Sunnis believed that the Ismailis worshipped the Aga Khan and regarded him as divine. It is true that Ismailis revere the Aga Khan, who holds a special place in their beliefs and in their hearts, but he is not regarded as divine. According to Karen Armstrong:
The veneration of the Imams was no mere political enthusiasm,
however. As we have seen, Shiis had come to believe that
their Imams embodied God's presence on earth in some mysterious
way. They had evolved an esoteric piety of their own which depended
upon a symbolic reading of the Koran. It was held that Muhammad
had imparted a secret knowledge to his cousin and son-in-law Ali ibn
Ali Talib and that this ilm[7] had been passed down the line of
designated Imams, who were his direct descendants. Each of the
Imams embodied the "Light of Muhammad" (al-nur-al-Muhammad),
the prophetic spirit which had enabled Muhammad to surrender
perfectly to God. Neither the Prophet nor the Imams were divine,
but they had been so totally open to God that he could be said to
dwell within them in a more complete way than he dwelt in more
ordinary mortals.[8]
Shia Muslims believe that "after the Prophet's death, Hazrat Ali, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, became the first Imam - the spiritual leader - of the Muslim community, and that this leadership (known as Imamate) continues thereafter by heredity through Ali and his wife Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. Succession to the Imamate, according to Shia doctrine and tradition is by way of nass (designation), it being the absolute prerogative of the Imam of the time to appoint his successor."[9] The term Shia derives from Shi‘at Ali (party of Ali) and Imams, being descendants of the Prophet, combine both a temporal and spiritual power.
A principle function of the Imam is to enable believers to go
beyond the apparent or outward form of the revelation in search
of spirituality and intellect. A believer who sincerely submits
to the Imam's guidance may potentially attain the knowledge
of self. The tradition attributed to both the Prophet and Imam
Ali: "He who knows himself, knows his Lord", conveys the
essence of this relationship between the Imam and his follower.
The Shia thus place obedience to the Imams after that to God
and the Prophet by virtue of the command in the Quran for
Muslims to obey those vested with authority.[10]
Hasrat Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet was the first Imam and his son, Hussain, grandson of the Prophet and martyr of Karbala, was the second. Unanimous Shia acceptance of the dynasty continues to the fifth Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq. Then there is a split. Jafar as-Sadiq had two sons. His eldest son, Ismail, died before he did and his second son, Musa al-Kazim, claimed the title of Imam. But those who felt that Ismail, designated Imam before he died, was the true Imam, became his followers and are known as Ismailis. The other, larger group of Shia Muslims, recognising Musa al-Kazim as Imam, became known as the Ithna asharis (the Twelver Shia) as the line of descent ended with their twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi. ‘A messianic strain appeared among the Twelvers, who believed that the Twelfth or Hidden Imam would return to inaugurate a golden age."[11] The majority of Iranians belong to this Shia denomination.
For Ismailis, however, there is an unbroken line of descent from Ali, through Jafar as-Sadiq and Ismail to the present Aga Khan, HH Karim Khan. He is the acknowledged spiritual guide of Ismailis all over the world.
An honest believer accepts the norms and ethics of the faith which
guide his quest, recognises his own inner capacities and knows that
when in doubt he should seek the guidance of the one vested with
authority who, in Shia tradition, is the Alid Imam of the time from
the Prophet's progeny.[12]
In the time of the Islamic Empire, Jewish and Muslim scholars involved in profound philosophical inquiries into the nature of God, had amongst them many Shia scholars who were a powerful influence in developing new understandings and interpretations of the divine. According to Karen Armstrong, they exerted a powerful influence on the Islamic world in the tenth century.
Although they remained a minority form of Islam, the tenth
century is known as the Shii century since Shiis managed to
establish themselves in leading political posts throughout the
empire. The most powerful of these Shii ventures was the
establishment of a caliphate in Tunis in 909 in opposition
to the Sunni caliphate in Baghdad...Their North African
caliphate became extremely powerful: in 973 they moved
their capital to al-Qahirah, the site of modern Cairo,
where they built the great mosque of al-Azhar.[13]
When the Ismailis left Marabastad, Pretoria lost the contributions that fine minds make to enhance a society. Had the "Khojas" remained in the Asiatic Bazaar, however, many avenues of development would have been closed to them. In other countries they had the freedom to fulfil their potential. In Canada and the United Kingdom, they embarked on careers that carried the most gifted - among them the descendants of Velshi Keshavjee - to the top of their professions. In 1987, Murad Keshavjee, Velshi Keshavjee's grandson, who became a member of the Ontario Liberal Government of David Peterson, was deputy whip of the Liberal Party, Chair of the Committee of the Ombudsman and Parliamentary Assistant to the Ministry of Citizenship. Shafique Keshavjee, Sherbanoo Velshi Keshavjee's grandson, is the leading heart-and-lung thoracic surgeon in Canada and director of the Toronto Lung-Transplant Programme.
The successes of Ismailis, even in diaspora, are clearly attributable to the cohesiveness of their community, a unity fostered through religious beliefs and the spiritual guidance of the Imam.
The essence of Shi'ism lies in the desire to search for the true meaning of the revelation in order to understand the purpose of human existence and its destiny. This true, spiritual meaning can never be fettered by the bounds of time, place or the letter of its form. It is to be comprehended through the guidance of the Imam of the time, who is the inheritor of the Prophet's authority, and the trustee of his legacy.[14]
[1] H.B. Keshavjee, The Aga Khan in Africa, p. 192
[2] Ibid. p. 194
[3] Ibid. p. 194
[4] Interview, Miriam Moosa, 2001
[5] Mohammed Keshavjee
[6] Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, New York: Ballantine Books, p. 163
[7] Ilm = true knowledge of God
[8] Karen Armstrong, 1993, A History of God,: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, New York: Ballantine Books, p. 177
[9] Mohammed Keshavjee
[10] The Ismaili Imamat, p 3
[11] A History of God, p 163
[12] The Ismaili Imamat,. p 4
[13] A History of God, p. 176
[14] The Ismaili Imamat, p.4
http://www.muthalnaidoo.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=123&Itemid=96
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/jivan-keshavjee-habib-chagan-and-the-ismaili-community-of-pretoria/
2)TOLSTOY FARM RESIDENTS, 1910
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
LIST OF RESIDENTS AT TOLSTOY FARM IN 1910
(from James D. Hunt, 120 Pineland Circle, Raleigh, NC 27606, USA)
NAME AGE
Adajania, Sorabji 27(1883-1918) PR
Albrecht
Badri, Shipujan 14 IND=Budree
Bawazir, Imam 34 (1886 - 1931) IND PR
(Fatima & Amina)
Bawazir, Fatima 07 of Imam IND
Bhagabhai, Bagho
(Patel?)
Burjorsingh (1890) 20 PR
Bush, Miss (Off. Clerk)
Cachalia, Ahmad Muhammad PR
Cachalia, Ismail 10 (1990?) of Ahmad
Call A.E.
Chettiar, V.A. PR
Chinan PR?
Coopoo/Kuppusamy
(Mudaliar) IND
Dahya, Tulis PR?
Damania, Narandas
Domodar, Virji
Deasi, Pragji K. 26 (1884- ) PR
Desai, Purshottamdas 40 (1870 -1952) & Ani PR
(Nagin & Kisan)
Desai, Kisan of Purshott
Desai, Nagin of Purshott IND
Doctor, Jeki 17 (1893 -) PR13
Doctor, Manilal 29 (1881-1956)
Ernest, Solomon PR
Francis, Veera PR
Gandhi, Chhaganlal K 29 (1881 -) & Kashi
(Prabhu & Krishna)
Gandhi, Krishnadas 03 (1907) of Chh IND
Gandhi, Prabhudas 9 (1901-19920) of Chh IND
Gandhi, Devdas 13 (1900-1957) MKG IND
Gandhi, Harilal 22 (1888 - 1948) MKG, & Chanchal PR
Gandhi, Manilal 18 (1892 -1956) MKG IND PR
Gandhi, Ramdas 13 (1897-1969) MKG IND
Gandhi, Gokuldas Parmananddas PR
Gandhi, Jamnadas 15 (1895-1949)
Gandhi, Karsandas (bro) 44 (1866-1913).
Gandhi, Lakshmidas (bro) 47 (1863-1914).
Gandhi, Maganlal 27 (1883-1928) & Santok IND
(Keshav, Radha, Rukmi)
Gandhi, Keshavlal 04 (1906) of Mag PR13
Gandhi, Radha of Mag IND
Gandhi, Rukmini
of Mag IND
GANDHI, MOHANDAS 41 (1869-1948) & Kasturba IND PR
Gandhi, Kasturba 41(1869-1944)
Gandhi, Narandas 25 (1885)
Gandhi, Raliatbehn (sis) 48 (1862-1960).
Gewurz
Givindu, Raju (Sam)
Govindrajloo, V PR13
Hansraj, Gokuldas Garach PR13?
John, Mrs Aaron PRW
Kallenbach, Herman 39 (1871-1945) PR13
Knudsen, Elizabeth 44 (1866)
Kotwal, Purushottam K
Lailu PR?
Lazarus, Mrs Harry? PRW
Medh, Surendrarai B PR
Molteno, Elizabeth 58 (1852-1927)
Moodley, S.S. PR
Mudaliar, Kuppuswami Moonlight PR
Murgan PR
Muthuswami 1914 foto
Naidoo, Bala of Thambi
Naidoo, Barsodhi of Thambi
Naidoo, C.K. Thambi & wife - Veerammal PR
(Bala, Bars, Pakiri, Naran) IND PR
Naidoo, Pakiri (-1916) of Thambi IND
Naidoo, Gopal
Naidoo, Kuppusamy 16 (1894) of Thambi PR
Naidoo, Mrs Thambi PRW
Naidoo, Naransamy 10 (1900 -1953) of Thambi IND
Naidoo, P.K. PR
Naidoo, Raju PR
Narandas, Mistri PR
Naynah, Mrs Dhobie PRW
Patel, Bhagabhai Manchhabhai 15 1914 foto
Patel, Maganbhai 22 IND
Patel, Raojibhai 22 (1888 -1962)
Pillay, Govindsamy PR
Pillay Kanapathe PR
Polak, Henry 28 PR13
Polak, Maud
Polak, Millie (- 1962)
Polak, Waldo 03 (1907 - 1926)
Rajkumar PR
Ramhorry 26 (1884) PR
Ritch, Lewis W
Royeppen, Joseph (-1960) PR
Rustomji, Parsee 48 (1862 -1924) (Sorab; 2 boys in PHX) PR
Rustomji, Sorabji 10 (1900-1960) of Parsi
Sam (Govindaswamy) PR13
Schlesin, Sonja 22 (1888)
Shanti IND
Shelat, Umiyashankar PR
Shivpujan = Badri
Sodha, Chhotalal 03 (1907) of Ratan IND
Sodha, Ratansi & Rambhabai PR
(Reva& Chhota)
Sodha, Revashanker 12 (1898 -) of Ratan IND
Vihari PR
Virsing
PR
West, Ada "Devi" 21
West, Albert 31 (1879) & Ada, etc.
This list does not include Thayanayagie Pillay (née Naidoo) or her sister, Seshammal, C.K. Thambi Naidoo's daughters who were with their parents at Tolstoy Farm.
ALSO OMITTED FROM THE LIST IS RAJABALI VELSHI KESHAVJEE, OWNER OF THE ABC BAKERY IN THE ASIATIC BAZAAR(MARABASTAD)
The list does not indicate what the following mean:
PR (Permanent Resident?)
PRW (Permanent Resident Woman?)
IND (Indian National?)
PHX Phoenix
PR13 ?
http://www.muthalnaidoo.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=108&Itemid=89
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
503)Dr Shaf Keshavjee, Master Surgeon, Brilliant Scientist: A Newspaper Survey; Quotes of Aga Khan IV And Others.
"Nature is the great daily book of God whose secrets must be found and used for the well-being of humanity"(Aga Khan III, Radio Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan, February 19th 1950)
"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)
"A thousand years ago, my forefathers, the Fatimid imam-caliphs of Egypt, founded al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. In the Islamic tradition, they viewed the discovery of knowledge as a way to understand, so as to serve better God's creation, to apply knowledge and reason to build society and shape human aspirations"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25th June 2004, Matola, Mozambique.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
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)
The above are 5 quotes and excerpts taken from Blogpost Four Hundred, a collection of around 100 quotes on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Science and Religion:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Dr Shaf Keshavjee:
Pioneering Ismaili transplant surgeon from Toronto-Dr Shaf Keshavjee
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/15/pioneering-ismaili-transplant-surgeon-from-toronto/
A chance to breathe again: Singer back on stage after rare double lung transplant
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2009/10/31/11587931-sun.html
Organs can be repaired outside the body-new techinique pioneered by Dr Shaf Keshavjee
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/organs-can-be-repaired-outside-the-body-new-technique-pioneered-by-dr-shaf-keshavjee/
New technique to repair lungs outside the body may double transplants worldwide
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/39645.html
EX VIVO LUNG: Transplant surgeons at Toronto General Hospital make medical history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXqMsraSb84
Gene therapy repairs injured human donor lungs for the first time
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uhn-gtr102309.php
Gene therapy repairs lungs for transplant
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/10/29/gene-therapy-lung-transplant.html
Canadian scientists discover way to heal donor lungs before transplant
http://news.globaltv.com/health/Canadian+scientists+discover+heal+donor+lungs+before+transplant/2155288/story.html
Gene Therapy Repairs Damaged Lungs For Transplants
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1777007/gene_therapy_repairs_damaged_lungs_for_transplants/index.html
Artificial lung kept teen alive until transplant
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090217/artificial_lung_090217/20090218?hub=TopStories
New technique to repair lungs outside the body may double transplants worldwide
Research Profile July 2009
In a room at the Toronto General Hospital (TGH), a pair of human lungs is breathing inside a glass dome. As they breathe in and out, fed by a supply of gases and nutrients, the lungs are healing themselves from injury. This revolutionary technology promises to improve the fate of many patients waiting for lung transplants in Canada.
In Canada, nearly 300 patients with lung disease died between 1997 and 2006. These patients died because of a shortage of suitable lungs available for transplant. In fact, as few as one in 10 donated lungs available can be used. The new technology at TGH may allow doctors to more than double the number of lung transplants done worldwide, according to Dr. Shaf Keshavjee of TGH's Division of Thoracic Surgery.
"Lungs are very fragile as organs," says Dr. Keshavjee, who directs the Toronto Lung Transplant Program. "This new system allows you to assess the lungs, to diagnose what's wrong with them, and then repair them."
Dr. Keshavjee's team worked for years studying lung transplant and repair experiments on animal models. In December 2008 they announced a successful first use of the system in transplanting a pair of lungs into a patient. They have since completed twelve other successful transplants with the system, called The Toronto XVIVO System.
The work is being funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's CIHR/Rx&D Collaborative Research Program, a partnership of CIHR and Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies. Other collaborative partners include Astellas Canada, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Vitrolife Inc.
The Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System was developed by Dr. Keshavjee's team and Virolife Inc., which specializes in lung preservation. The technique allows lungs to be kept at body temperature, outside the body. Fed with a bloodless solution containing nutrients, proteins and other medications, the organs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide through a ventilator and can repair themselves while the researchers facilitate the recovery and check them. The lungs can be kept inside the device for up to 18 hours, though 12 hours is the current routine limit. A similar blood perfusion system developed in Sweden for short term assessment only works for about an hour before the lung becomes damaged.
"We've already successfully transplanted twelve patients now using the XVIVO System, so those patients received lungs that couldn't have been used before," says Dr. Keshavjee. "They've all done superbly, every single one of them. We're now able to use lungs that we couldn't use before."
Predicting transplant success:
A key part of the work to fix lungs involves a prediction of transplant success. Dr. Keshavjee is studying how to change lungs with certain genes while they are in the Toronto XVIVO System. His team has found new "biomarker" genes that can indicate damage and a bad outcome following a transplant. If such biomarkers are detected, he can increase the activity of helpful molecules that can reduce lung inflammation and lower the chances of the body rejecting the new lungs.
At a glance:
Who: Dr. Shaf Keshavjee is Director of Thoracic Surgery Research at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, Professor and Chair of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Toronto.
Issue: Patients with lung disease, who could benefit from a lung transplant, aren't getting them because of the shortage of suitable organs available.
Solution: Thanks to funding from CIHR, Rx&D, Astellas Canada, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Vitrolife Inc., Dr. Keshavjee and his team developed a system that specializes in lung preservation and repair. In a matter of hours, donor lungs, that otherwise would have been considered unusable, can be repaired from injury in a small glass dome, outside of the body.
Impact: The work that Dr. Keshavjee and his team are doing will help double the number of lungs available for transplant, saving the lives of many Canadians. Twelve patients have already reaped the rewards of this great new research, and are healthy.
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/39645.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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 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)
"A thousand years ago, my forefathers, the Fatimid imam-caliphs of Egypt, founded al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. In the Islamic tradition, they viewed the discovery of knowledge as a way to understand, so as to serve better God's creation, to apply knowledge and reason to build society and shape human aspirations"(Aga Khan IV, Speech, 25th June 2004, Matola, Mozambique.)
"Education has been important to my family for a long time. My forefathers founded al-Azhar University in Cairo some 1000 years ago, at the time of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt. Discovery of knowledge was seen by those founders as an embodiment of religious faith, and faith as reinforced by knowledge of workings of the Creator's physical world. The form of universities has changed over those 1000 years, but that reciprocity between faith and knowledge remains a source of strength"(Aga Khan IV, 27th May1994, Cambridge, Massachusets, U.S.A.)
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)
The above are 5 quotes and excerpts taken from Blogpost Four Hundred, a collection of around 100 quotes on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Science and Religion:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Dr Shaf Keshavjee:
Pioneering Ismaili transplant surgeon from Toronto-Dr Shaf Keshavjee
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/15/pioneering-ismaili-transplant-surgeon-from-toronto/
A chance to breathe again: Singer back on stage after rare double lung transplant
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/joe_warmington/2009/10/31/11587931-sun.html
Organs can be repaired outside the body-new techinique pioneered by Dr Shaf Keshavjee
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/20/organs-can-be-repaired-outside-the-body-new-technique-pioneered-by-dr-shaf-keshavjee/
New technique to repair lungs outside the body may double transplants worldwide
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/39645.html
EX VIVO LUNG: Transplant surgeons at Toronto General Hospital make medical history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXqMsraSb84
Gene therapy repairs injured human donor lungs for the first time
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-10/uhn-gtr102309.php
Gene therapy repairs lungs for transplant
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/10/29/gene-therapy-lung-transplant.html
Canadian scientists discover way to heal donor lungs before transplant
http://news.globaltv.com/health/Canadian+scientists+discover+heal+donor+lungs+before+transplant/2155288/story.html
Gene Therapy Repairs Damaged Lungs For Transplants
http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1777007/gene_therapy_repairs_damaged_lungs_for_transplants/index.html
Artificial lung kept teen alive until transplant
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090217/artificial_lung_090217/20090218?hub=TopStories
New technique to repair lungs outside the body may double transplants worldwide
Research Profile July 2009
In a room at the Toronto General Hospital (TGH), a pair of human lungs is breathing inside a glass dome. As they breathe in and out, fed by a supply of gases and nutrients, the lungs are healing themselves from injury. This revolutionary technology promises to improve the fate of many patients waiting for lung transplants in Canada.
In Canada, nearly 300 patients with lung disease died between 1997 and 2006. These patients died because of a shortage of suitable lungs available for transplant. In fact, as few as one in 10 donated lungs available can be used. The new technology at TGH may allow doctors to more than double the number of lung transplants done worldwide, according to Dr. Shaf Keshavjee of TGH's Division of Thoracic Surgery.
"Lungs are very fragile as organs," says Dr. Keshavjee, who directs the Toronto Lung Transplant Program. "This new system allows you to assess the lungs, to diagnose what's wrong with them, and then repair them."
Dr. Keshavjee's team worked for years studying lung transplant and repair experiments on animal models. In December 2008 they announced a successful first use of the system in transplanting a pair of lungs into a patient. They have since completed twelve other successful transplants with the system, called The Toronto XVIVO System.
The work is being funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's CIHR/Rx&D Collaborative Research Program, a partnership of CIHR and Canada's Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies. Other collaborative partners include Astellas Canada, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Vitrolife Inc.
The Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System was developed by Dr. Keshavjee's team and Virolife Inc., which specializes in lung preservation. The technique allows lungs to be kept at body temperature, outside the body. Fed with a bloodless solution containing nutrients, proteins and other medications, the organs exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide through a ventilator and can repair themselves while the researchers facilitate the recovery and check them. The lungs can be kept inside the device for up to 18 hours, though 12 hours is the current routine limit. A similar blood perfusion system developed in Sweden for short term assessment only works for about an hour before the lung becomes damaged.
"We've already successfully transplanted twelve patients now using the XVIVO System, so those patients received lungs that couldn't have been used before," says Dr. Keshavjee. "They've all done superbly, every single one of them. We're now able to use lungs that we couldn't use before."
Predicting transplant success:
A key part of the work to fix lungs involves a prediction of transplant success. Dr. Keshavjee is studying how to change lungs with certain genes while they are in the Toronto XVIVO System. His team has found new "biomarker" genes that can indicate damage and a bad outcome following a transplant. If such biomarkers are detected, he can increase the activity of helpful molecules that can reduce lung inflammation and lower the chances of the body rejecting the new lungs.
At a glance:
Who: Dr. Shaf Keshavjee is Director of Thoracic Surgery Research at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, Director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program, Professor and Chair of Thoracic Surgery at the University of Toronto.
Issue: Patients with lung disease, who could benefit from a lung transplant, aren't getting them because of the shortage of suitable organs available.
Solution: Thanks to funding from CIHR, Rx&D, Astellas Canada, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Vitrolife Inc., Dr. Keshavjee and his team developed a system that specializes in lung preservation and repair. In a matter of hours, donor lungs, that otherwise would have been considered unusable, can be repaired from injury in a small glass dome, outside of the body.
Impact: The work that Dr. Keshavjee and his team are doing will help double the number of lungs available for transplant, saving the lives of many Canadians. Twelve patients have already reaped the rewards of this great new research, and are healthy.
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/39645.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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, November 16, 2009
502)The Ikhwan al-Safa Revisited: The Original Encyclopedists; Quote of Aga Khan IV.
"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)
Taken from:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
1)Interview with Nader El-Bizri
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110657
Get Flash to see this video.
Publication: 'Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: Rasail Ikhawan al-Safa'
Editor: Nader El-Bizri
Questions addressed in the interview:
1) Can you briefly introduce the Ikhwan al-Safa’ to our audience.
2) Can you briefly describe what were the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’.
3) What are the major themes covered in the Rasa’il and how do they relate to the intellectual situation of their time?
4) What was the impact of the Rasa’il in the history of ideas in Islam?
5) How does the Rasa’il corpus compare with other classical encyclopaedic works?
6) Can you describe the project of publishing an Arabic edition and English translation of the Rasa’il, and what role this publication will play in public education about Muslim civilisations?
The Ikhwan al-Safa' and their Rasa'il: An Introduction
Dr Nader El-Bizri
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110037
2)Launch of The Ikhwan al-Safa’ and their Rasa’il
August 2009
The Ikhwan al-Safa’ and their Rasa’il: An Introduction, published by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, in association with Oxford University Press, was launched in Nairobi and Mombasa in June 2009. The events in Kenya, which marked the first worldwide launch of the publication, were attended by members of the local academic and Muslim communities.
The editor of the text, Dr Nader El-Bizri, a Research Associate and Coordinator of the project at the IIS, presented the key ideas discussed in this introductory volume by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic studies. Many of these contributors are also editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and complete English translations of the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa’, which is planned to be published as a 16-volume series entitled The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity.
The Ikhwan al-Safa’ or Brethren of Purity were a group of Muslim thinkers based in Basra, Iraq, who, in the 10th century, thought seriously about the key issues of the time in a political and historical context. Consequently, they produced an encyclopaedic work of 52 epistles which treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. Though the identity of the Ikhwan al-Safa’ remains a mystery, it is apparent that their agenda was primarily intellectual. Their contributions to science and philosophy were immense for their time.
In Mombasa, Dr El-Bizri was joined by Professor Azim Nanji, Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Programme in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and former Director of the IIS. Professor Nanji highlighted that one of the key goals of the IIS is to conduct research at the highest academic level and that projects such as this enable a greater demographic to access the works of the Ikhwan al-Safa’ as well as other Muslim thinkers of past civilisations. Both scholars discussed the rationale behind the groundbreaking project of translating and publishing the 52 epistles or Rasa’il of the Ikhwan al-Safa’.
The next volume in the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity series, Epistle 22: The Case of the Animals versus Man, is due for publication by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, in association with Oxford University Press, in 2010.
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110492
Other blogposts relating to the Ikwan al-Safa:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ikhwan-al-safa/
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Taken from:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
1)Interview with Nader El-Bizri
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110657
Get Flash to see this video.
Publication: 'Epistles of the Brethren of Purity: Rasail Ikhawan al-Safa'
Editor: Nader El-Bizri
Questions addressed in the interview:
1) Can you briefly introduce the Ikhwan al-Safa’ to our audience.
2) Can you briefly describe what were the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’.
3) What are the major themes covered in the Rasa’il and how do they relate to the intellectual situation of their time?
4) What was the impact of the Rasa’il in the history of ideas in Islam?
5) How does the Rasa’il corpus compare with other classical encyclopaedic works?
6) Can you describe the project of publishing an Arabic edition and English translation of the Rasa’il, and what role this publication will play in public education about Muslim civilisations?
The Ikhwan al-Safa' and their Rasa'il: An Introduction
Dr Nader El-Bizri
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110037
2)Launch of The Ikhwan al-Safa’ and their Rasa’il
August 2009
The Ikhwan al-Safa’ and their Rasa’il: An Introduction, published by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, in association with Oxford University Press, was launched in Nairobi and Mombasa in June 2009. The events in Kenya, which marked the first worldwide launch of the publication, were attended by members of the local academic and Muslim communities.
The editor of the text, Dr Nader El-Bizri, a Research Associate and Coordinator of the project at the IIS, presented the key ideas discussed in this introductory volume by leading philosophers, historians and scholars of Islamic studies. Many of these contributors are also editors and translators of the first Arabic critical editions and complete English translations of the Rasa'il Ikhwan al-Safa’, which is planned to be published as a 16-volume series entitled The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity.
The Ikhwan al-Safa’ or Brethren of Purity were a group of Muslim thinkers based in Basra, Iraq, who, in the 10th century, thought seriously about the key issues of the time in a political and historical context. Consequently, they produced an encyclopaedic work of 52 epistles which treated themes in mathematics, logic, natural philosophy, psychology, metaphysics and theology, in addition to moral and didactic fables. Though the identity of the Ikhwan al-Safa’ remains a mystery, it is apparent that their agenda was primarily intellectual. Their contributions to science and philosophy were immense for their time.
In Mombasa, Dr El-Bizri was joined by Professor Azim Nanji, Senior Associate Director of the Abbasi Programme in Islamic Studies at Stanford University and former Director of the IIS. Professor Nanji highlighted that one of the key goals of the IIS is to conduct research at the highest academic level and that projects such as this enable a greater demographic to access the works of the Ikhwan al-Safa’ as well as other Muslim thinkers of past civilisations. Both scholars discussed the rationale behind the groundbreaking project of translating and publishing the 52 epistles or Rasa’il of the Ikhwan al-Safa’.
The next volume in the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity series, Epistle 22: The Case of the Animals versus Man, is due for publication by The Institute of Ismaili Studies, in association with Oxford University Press, in 2010.
http://www.iis.ac.uk/view_article.asp?ContentID=110492
Other blogposts relating to the Ikwan al-Safa:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ikhwan-al-safa/
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
501) The 19 Grand Ideas Of Science: What Is The Universe Made Up Of And How Does It Operate? Quotes Of Aga Khan IV And Others.
"The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
In the 21st century these 19 grand ideas represent the solid known facts about our universe, what it is made up of and how it operates:
1)THE UNIVERSE IS REGULAR AND PREDICTABLE.
This core idea provides the very foundation for all of experimental science. In some ways, it is impossible to prove this notion, but in others it is proven by every moment of every day. The universe behaves in a consistent fashion. Every day the sun rises and gravity continues to function. The surprises that come our way tend to be either from incomplete information or inaccurate interpretation of information, not from an inherent chaotic nature to the universe itself. Since the entire rational nature of scientific inquiry is built on this idea, if one does not understand it (or does not believe it), then they will obviously have difficulty fully appreciating the findings of science.
2)THE ENERGY OF A CLOSED SYSTEM IS CONSERVED
This principle is known as the first law of thermodynamics and is fundamental to the manner in which energy flows in our universe. It provides the basis of the law of conservation of energy, which is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but only transferred from one form to another.
3)HEAT WILL NOT FLOW SPONTANEOUSLY FROM A COLD TO A HOT BODY.
This idea is also known as the second law of thermodynamics and is closely tied into the notion of entropy, or the measurement of disorder within a system. In the simplest form, this means that, over time, any thermodynamic process will lose energy (frequently in the form of waste energy) and, therefore, a perfect engine or "perpetual motion device" cannot be created.
4)MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS GOVERN ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.
Nineteenth century scientist James Clerk Maxwell discovered a key insight into the nature of the universe - that electricity and magnetism were actually manifestations of the same underlying phenomena, which came to be called electromagnetism. For example, a moving particle with an electric charge produces (or induces) a magnetic field. This and other concepts were codified in a series of equations called Maxwell's equations.
5)MATTER IS MADE FROM ATOMS.
A concept which was put forth as far back as the ancient Greeks, the core idea of atomism is that the matter we interact with is composed of still smaller things which we cannot see. While the Greek conception of this was that the atoms would be smallest constituent of matter, modern particle physics is, in fact, a very rich field of study which has shown that the atom itself is composed of many constituent particles.
6)MATERIAL PROPERTIES ARE DETERMINED BY THE IDENTITY AND ARRANGEMENT OF ATOMS.
Or, in the precise words Trefil uses, "The properties of materials depend on the identity, arrangement, and binding of the atoms of which they are made." The nuclear structure of the atom determines what element it is, while it's outer electron structure determines how the atoms can bond together. This is the core of chemistry, chemical physics, and other areas of study.
7)IN THE QUANTUM WORLD YOU CANNOT MEASURE AN OBJECT WITHOUT CHANGING IT.
One of the most unexpected findings in all of scientific history, in the tiny realm of quantum physics the line between observer & observed is very fine indeed, to the point of being non-existent. One of the best examples of this issue is in the quantum double slit experiment, where the time of a measurement has a direct impact on how the system behaves ... even in cases when one wouldn't normally expect it to have any impact.
8)THE LAWS OF NATURE ARE THE SAME IN ALL FRAMES OF REFERENCE.
This was the great insight of Albert Einstein, which led to the development of his theory of relativity. Basically, if the laws of nature are the same, regardless of how different observers are moving, then he determined that there had to be a way to translate all observations so that they were consistent. In doing so, he discovered some quite unexpected properties of reality, such as space and time itself appearing inconsistent depending on how two observers were moving.
9)THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF ENERGY IN THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS.
As Einstein developed his theory of relativity, he came to realize that there was an intimate connection between mass and energy. In fact, he discovered that mass was really just another form of energy and that it was actually possible to write an equation - the famed E = mc2 - which related the mass (m) to the energy E, which was based on the speed of light (c) squared. Well, the speed of light is a very large number, so the energy contained within the atomic nucleus is correspondingly also very large (even though the mass itself is very small).
10)THE NUCLEUS IS MADE OF PARTICLES, WHICH ARE MADE OF QUARKS.....
Though it was once believed that atoms were the smallest constituents of matter, it has been known for nearly a century that this is not the case. Atoms are composed of a nucleus surrounded by negatively-charged electrons. The nucleus itself contains protons (particles with particle charge) and neutrons (particles with neutral charge). In addition, the protons & neutrons appear to be composed of even smaller particles called quarks.
11)STARS LIVE AND DIE LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE.
It was once believed that the heavens were eternal and unchanging, though this notion was thrown out the window by Galileo (and by ample evidence prior to Galileo). Today we know that stars are formed when hydrogen gas draws together in space and the gravitational pressure causes nuclear fusion to begin. Similarly, when the nuclear fuel of the star runs out, the star will die, possibly in a massive supernova that results in a black hole.
12)THE UNIVERSE BEGAN IN A MANNER ROUGHLY CONSISTENT WITH THE "BIG BANG" THEORY
Or, as Trefil says it, "The universe began in a hot, dense state about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since." This is certainly the scenario that is outlined in the Big Bang Theory, although even alternatives (such as the cyclic model provided by Paul J. Steinhardt & Neil Turok in their book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang) would have to account for the same extensive evidence. No matter what the theory that ultimately proves most successful, the general outlines have been established and heavily proven and are highly unlikely to prove faulty.
13)THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH IS CONSTANTLY CHANGING.
Just like the heavens, it was once believed that the Earth itself was constant and unchanging, except for superficial changes such as erosion. In the years since plate tectonics was first put forth, the field of geology has grown immensely, discovering a wealth of information about how the Earth's surface continuously changes.
14)THE EARTH WORKS IN CYCLES.
There are a variety of cycles in how the Earth functions, from the hundred millions of years of the rock cycle to the much shorter cycles involved in weather patterns (the atmospheric cycle), nitrogen cycles, wetland cycles, ice ages, and the like.
15)LIFE IS BASED ON CHEMISTRY.
From birth to death, life is entirely dictated by chemical processes. Reproduction is a chemical process and, on the other end, aging and death are processes whereby the chemistry that keeps the cells going breaks down. Every stage in between is similarly dictated by the biochemical processes that take place within our bodies.
16)THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOLECULES IN LIVING SYSTEMS DEPENDS ON THEIR SHAPE.
This insight helps us understand why enzymes and proteins are so important in the chemistry of life. They allow the molecules within the body to assume shapes which are more appropriate for certain jobs and, therefore, to more readily perform those jobs. Without the right chemicals, such as insulin, produced (or introduced) into the body in some fashion, some of these jobs wouldn't be able to get done.
17)LIFE'S CHEMISTRY IS ENCODED IN DNA.
One of the greatest conjunctions of chemistry, biology, & physics was the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA molecules. At the most basic level, the important thing to remember is that DNA is a long molecule which contains coded information which is used by some cells to produce other chemicals, which in turn perform jobs such as creating new cells, attacking germs, and the like. Without this coding, our cells would never have any instructions on how to act and would, in effect, be like a computer with no operating system ... a pile of useless junk.
18)ALL LIVING THINGS SHARE THE SAME GENETIC CODE.
While this may be a miraculous finding, it's true. All life (on Earth, at least) encodes its genetic information in the form of DNA. This provides us with a connective thread throughout all of life, but also provides the foundation of genetic engineering, which is a topic which will only increase as biotechnologies become more adept at manipulating the genome of various plant & animal species.
19)LIFE EVOLVED THROUGH THE PROCESS OF NATURAL SELECTION.
Biological evolution is a fact and even the scientists who espouse "intelligent design" must account for the wealth of data in support of evolution. Even if you believe there is an intelligent designer, a realistic look at the evidence tells that the designer must, by necessity, be using evolution by natural selection as the primary production process. Still, on both sides of the Evolution/Creationism debate, it is a highly emotionally charged issue ... really more so than any other on this list. Regardless, it remains necessary for a scientifically literate education.
Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others:
"The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion." (Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"It (Surah of Light from the Quran) tells us that the oil of the blessed olive tree lights the lamp of understanding, a light that belongs neither to the East nor West. We are to give this light to all. In that spirit, all that we learn will belong to the world and that too is part of the vision I share with you"(Aga Khan IV, Speech to the Asia Society, New York, USA, September 25 1979)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"In 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)
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. "(Albert Einstein, circa 1950)
"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)
"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"The Intellect is the substance of (God's) unity and it is the one (al-wahid), both cause and caused, the act of origination (al-ibda) and the first originated being (al-mubda al-awwal); it is perfection and perfect, eternity and eternal, existence and that which exists all in a single substance"( Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, 11th centuryFatimid Ismaili cosmologist (Kitab al-Riyad, pp. 221-222))
"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 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)
"Human history, as conceived in Ismailism, operates cyclically. According to this typological view, the epoch of the great prophets mirrors the cosmological paradigm, unfolding to recover the equilibrium and harmony inherent in the divine pattern of creation. Prophets and, after them, their appointed successors, the imams, have as their collective goal the establishment of a just society. The function of the Prophet is to initiate the cycle for human society and of the Imam to complement and interpret the teaching to sustain the just order at the social and individual levels."(Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 1998)
"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)
"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")
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
"Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God, because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being and the light of the Command of God shines in it. Understand this!"(Abu Yakub Al Sijistani, 10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971, Kashf al-Mahjub("Unveiling of the Hidden"))
Related posts:
Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
What Do You Get If You Divide Science By God? A Cosmopolitan Sampling of Opinion;Quotes of Aga Khans IV+ III,Al Sijistani,Nasir Khusraw,Azim Nanji
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/477what-do-you-get-if-you-divide.html
20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe".
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.html
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
Ismaili Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ismaili/
Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; Quotes of Aga Khans.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/a-cosmos-full-of-signs-and-symbols-that-evoke-the-perfection-of-allahs-creation-and-mercy/
No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
A Collection of Posts on Charles Darwin,a Scientist Way Ahead of His Time; Dynamic vs Static Creation; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khans IV and III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/450a-collection-of-posts-on-charles.html
http://physics.about.com/od/physics101thebasics/tp/grandideas.htm http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/480the-grand-ideas-of.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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 the 21st century these 19 grand ideas represent the solid known facts about our universe, what it is made up of and how it operates:
1)THE UNIVERSE IS REGULAR AND PREDICTABLE.
This core idea provides the very foundation for all of experimental science. In some ways, it is impossible to prove this notion, but in others it is proven by every moment of every day. The universe behaves in a consistent fashion. Every day the sun rises and gravity continues to function. The surprises that come our way tend to be either from incomplete information or inaccurate interpretation of information, not from an inherent chaotic nature to the universe itself. Since the entire rational nature of scientific inquiry is built on this idea, if one does not understand it (or does not believe it), then they will obviously have difficulty fully appreciating the findings of science.
2)THE ENERGY OF A CLOSED SYSTEM IS CONSERVED
This principle is known as the first law of thermodynamics and is fundamental to the manner in which energy flows in our universe. It provides the basis of the law of conservation of energy, which is that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, but only transferred from one form to another.
3)HEAT WILL NOT FLOW SPONTANEOUSLY FROM A COLD TO A HOT BODY.
This idea is also known as the second law of thermodynamics and is closely tied into the notion of entropy, or the measurement of disorder within a system. In the simplest form, this means that, over time, any thermodynamic process will lose energy (frequently in the form of waste energy) and, therefore, a perfect engine or "perpetual motion device" cannot be created.
4)MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS GOVERN ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.
Nineteenth century scientist James Clerk Maxwell discovered a key insight into the nature of the universe - that electricity and magnetism were actually manifestations of the same underlying phenomena, which came to be called electromagnetism. For example, a moving particle with an electric charge produces (or induces) a magnetic field. This and other concepts were codified in a series of equations called Maxwell's equations.
5)MATTER IS MADE FROM ATOMS.
A concept which was put forth as far back as the ancient Greeks, the core idea of atomism is that the matter we interact with is composed of still smaller things which we cannot see. While the Greek conception of this was that the atoms would be smallest constituent of matter, modern particle physics is, in fact, a very rich field of study which has shown that the atom itself is composed of many constituent particles.
6)MATERIAL PROPERTIES ARE DETERMINED BY THE IDENTITY AND ARRANGEMENT OF ATOMS.
Or, in the precise words Trefil uses, "The properties of materials depend on the identity, arrangement, and binding of the atoms of which they are made." The nuclear structure of the atom determines what element it is, while it's outer electron structure determines how the atoms can bond together. This is the core of chemistry, chemical physics, and other areas of study.
7)IN THE QUANTUM WORLD YOU CANNOT MEASURE AN OBJECT WITHOUT CHANGING IT.
One of the most unexpected findings in all of scientific history, in the tiny realm of quantum physics the line between observer & observed is very fine indeed, to the point of being non-existent. One of the best examples of this issue is in the quantum double slit experiment, where the time of a measurement has a direct impact on how the system behaves ... even in cases when one wouldn't normally expect it to have any impact.
8)THE LAWS OF NATURE ARE THE SAME IN ALL FRAMES OF REFERENCE.
This was the great insight of Albert Einstein, which led to the development of his theory of relativity. Basically, if the laws of nature are the same, regardless of how different observers are moving, then he determined that there had to be a way to translate all observations so that they were consistent. In doing so, he discovered some quite unexpected properties of reality, such as space and time itself appearing inconsistent depending on how two observers were moving.
9)THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF ENERGY IN THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS.
As Einstein developed his theory of relativity, he came to realize that there was an intimate connection between mass and energy. In fact, he discovered that mass was really just another form of energy and that it was actually possible to write an equation - the famed E = mc2 - which related the mass (m) to the energy E, which was based on the speed of light (c) squared. Well, the speed of light is a very large number, so the energy contained within the atomic nucleus is correspondingly also very large (even though the mass itself is very small).
10)THE NUCLEUS IS MADE OF PARTICLES, WHICH ARE MADE OF QUARKS.....
Though it was once believed that atoms were the smallest constituents of matter, it has been known for nearly a century that this is not the case. Atoms are composed of a nucleus surrounded by negatively-charged electrons. The nucleus itself contains protons (particles with particle charge) and neutrons (particles with neutral charge). In addition, the protons & neutrons appear to be composed of even smaller particles called quarks.
11)STARS LIVE AND DIE LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE.
It was once believed that the heavens were eternal and unchanging, though this notion was thrown out the window by Galileo (and by ample evidence prior to Galileo). Today we know that stars are formed when hydrogen gas draws together in space and the gravitational pressure causes nuclear fusion to begin. Similarly, when the nuclear fuel of the star runs out, the star will die, possibly in a massive supernova that results in a black hole.
12)THE UNIVERSE BEGAN IN A MANNER ROUGHLY CONSISTENT WITH THE "BIG BANG" THEORY
Or, as Trefil says it, "The universe began in a hot, dense state about 14 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since." This is certainly the scenario that is outlined in the Big Bang Theory, although even alternatives (such as the cyclic model provided by Paul J. Steinhardt & Neil Turok in their book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang) would have to account for the same extensive evidence. No matter what the theory that ultimately proves most successful, the general outlines have been established and heavily proven and are highly unlikely to prove faulty.
13)THE SURFACE OF THE EARTH IS CONSTANTLY CHANGING.
Just like the heavens, it was once believed that the Earth itself was constant and unchanging, except for superficial changes such as erosion. In the years since plate tectonics was first put forth, the field of geology has grown immensely, discovering a wealth of information about how the Earth's surface continuously changes.
14)THE EARTH WORKS IN CYCLES.
There are a variety of cycles in how the Earth functions, from the hundred millions of years of the rock cycle to the much shorter cycles involved in weather patterns (the atmospheric cycle), nitrogen cycles, wetland cycles, ice ages, and the like.
15)LIFE IS BASED ON CHEMISTRY.
From birth to death, life is entirely dictated by chemical processes. Reproduction is a chemical process and, on the other end, aging and death are processes whereby the chemistry that keeps the cells going breaks down. Every stage in between is similarly dictated by the biochemical processes that take place within our bodies.
16)THE BEHAVIOUR OF MOLECULES IN LIVING SYSTEMS DEPENDS ON THEIR SHAPE.
This insight helps us understand why enzymes and proteins are so important in the chemistry of life. They allow the molecules within the body to assume shapes which are more appropriate for certain jobs and, therefore, to more readily perform those jobs. Without the right chemicals, such as insulin, produced (or introduced) into the body in some fashion, some of these jobs wouldn't be able to get done.
17)LIFE'S CHEMISTRY IS ENCODED IN DNA.
One of the greatest conjunctions of chemistry, biology, & physics was the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA molecules. At the most basic level, the important thing to remember is that DNA is a long molecule which contains coded information which is used by some cells to produce other chemicals, which in turn perform jobs such as creating new cells, attacking germs, and the like. Without this coding, our cells would never have any instructions on how to act and would, in effect, be like a computer with no operating system ... a pile of useless junk.
18)ALL LIVING THINGS SHARE THE SAME GENETIC CODE.
While this may be a miraculous finding, it's true. All life (on Earth, at least) encodes its genetic information in the form of DNA. This provides us with a connective thread throughout all of life, but also provides the foundation of genetic engineering, which is a topic which will only increase as biotechnologies become more adept at manipulating the genome of various plant & animal species.
19)LIFE EVOLVED THROUGH THE PROCESS OF NATURAL SELECTION.
Biological evolution is a fact and even the scientists who espouse "intelligent design" must account for the wealth of data in support of evolution. Even if you believe there is an intelligent designer, a realistic look at the evidence tells that the designer must, by necessity, be using evolution by natural selection as the primary production process. Still, on both sides of the Evolution/Creationism debate, it is a highly emotionally charged issue ... really more so than any other on this list. Regardless, it remains necessary for a scientifically literate education.
Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others:
"The God of the Quran is the One whose Ayats(Signs) are the Universe in which we live, move and have our being"(Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"Islam is fundamentally in its very nature a natural religion. Throughout the Quran God's signs (Ayats) are referred to as the natural phenomenon, the law and order of the universe, the exactitudes and consequences of the relations between natural phenomenon in cause and effect. Over and over, the stars, sun, moon, earthquakes, fruits of the earth and trees are mentioned as the signs of divine power, divine law and divine order. Even in the Ayeh of Noor, divine is referred to as the natural phenomenon of light and even references are made to the fruit of the earth. During the great period of Islam, Muslims did not forget these principles of their religion." (Aga Khan III, April 4th 1952)
"It (Surah of Light from the Quran) tells us that the oil of the blessed olive tree lights the lamp of understanding, a light that belongs neither to the East nor West. We are to give this light to all. In that spirit, all that we learn will belong to the world and that too is part of the vision I share with you"(Aga Khan IV, Speech to the Asia Society, New York, USA, September 25 1979)
"Islamic doctrine goes further than the other great religions, for it proclaims the presence of the soul, perhaps minute but nevertheless existing in an embryonic state, in all existence in matter, in animals, trees, and space itself. Every individual, every molecule, every atom has its own spiritual relationship with the All-Powerful Soul of God"(Memoirs of Aga Khan III, 1954)
"In 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)
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God. "(Albert Einstein, circa 1950)
"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)
"God has given us the miracle of life with all its attributes: the extraordinary manifestations of sunrise and sunset, of sickness and recovery, of birth and death, but surely if He has given us the means with which to remove ourselves from this world so as to go to other parts of the Universe, we can but accept as further manifestations the creation and destructions of stars, the birth and death of atomic particles, the flighting new sound and light waves. I am afraid that the torch of intellectual discovery, the attraction of the unknown, the desire for intellectual self-perfection have left us"(Aga Khan IV,Speech, 1963, Mindanao, Phillipines)
Chapter 30, Verse 27: He originates creation; then refashions it - for Him an easy task. His is the most Sublime Symbol in the heavens and the earth(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 21, Verse 30: Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before We clove them asunder, and of water fashioned every thing? Will they not then believe?(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 51, verse 47: We built the heavens with might, and We expand it wide(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter79, verse 30: And then he gave the earth an oval form(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
Chapter 86, verse 11: I swear by the reciprocating heaven.....(Noble Quran, 7th Century CE)
"The Intellect is the substance of (God's) unity and it is the one (al-wahid), both cause and caused, the act of origination (al-ibda) and the first originated being (al-mubda al-awwal); it is perfection and perfect, eternity and eternal, existence and that which exists all in a single substance"( Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, 11th centuryFatimid Ismaili cosmologist (Kitab al-Riyad, pp. 221-222))
"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 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)
"Human history, as conceived in Ismailism, operates cyclically. According to this typological view, the epoch of the great prophets mirrors the cosmological paradigm, unfolding to recover the equilibrium and harmony inherent in the divine pattern of creation. Prophets and, after them, their appointed successors, the imams, have as their collective goal the establishment of a just society. The function of the Prophet is to initiate the cycle for human society and of the Imam to complement and interpret the teaching to sustain the just order at the social and individual levels."(Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 1998)
"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)
"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")
"Tarkib' is composition as in the compounding of elements in the process of making more complex things, that is, of adding together two things to form a synthesis, a compound. Soul composes in the sense of 'tarkib'; it is the animating force that combines the physical elements of the natural universe into beings that move and act. Incorporating is an especially apt word in this instance. It means to turn something into a body, as in 'composing'. But it is actually the conversion of an intellectual object, a thought, into a physical thing. Soul acts by incorporating reason into physical objects, the natural matter of the universe and all the things composed of it"(Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani,10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971CE, from the book, 'Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani: Intellectual Missionary', by Paul Walker)
"Every particle of the Creation has a share of the Command of God, because every creature shares a part of the Command of God through which it has come to be there and by virtue of which it remains in being and the light of the Command of God shines in it. Understand this!"(Abu Yakub Al Sijistani, 10th century Fatimid Ismaili cosmologist, d971, Kashf al-Mahjub("Unveiling of the Hidden"))
Related posts:
Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
What Do You Get If You Divide Science By God? A Cosmopolitan Sampling of Opinion;Quotes of Aga Khans IV+ III,Al Sijistani,Nasir Khusraw,Azim Nanji
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/477what-do-you-get-if-you-divide.html
20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
Einstein=Genius squared: the man who taught us key insights about the Universal "Soul that sustains, embraces and is the Universe".
http://easynash.blogspot.com/2007/05/178einsteingenius-squared-man-who.html
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
Ismaili Philosophy
http://www.iep.utm.edu/ismaili/
Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; Quotes of Aga Khans.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/a-cosmos-full-of-signs-and-symbols-that-evoke-the-perfection-of-allahs-creation-and-mercy/
No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
A Collection of Posts on Charles Darwin,a Scientist Way Ahead of His Time; Dynamic vs Static Creation; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khans IV and III
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/450a-collection-of-posts-on-charles.html
http://physics.about.com/od/physics101thebasics/tp/grandideas.htm http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/480the-grand-ideas-of.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Easy Nash Is On A Blogging Timeout But........
"I'll be back"(Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator, 1984, Hollywood, California, USA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8I4zFSipKs
and
"....I shall return"(General Douglas MacArthur, March 11th 1942, Corregidor, Phillipines)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRmO_BL1l88
My previous 2 posts, Blogpost 499 and Blogpost 500, made during early August 2009:
500)Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
499)Summer, Fall and Winter Reading For Those Who Are Interested: My Choice Of The Top 50 Posts In My 500-post Blog
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/499summer-fall-and-winter-reading-for.html
For excellent accompanying music while reading visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOt2Qp0H9G8
Highlighted Post:
A Collection Of Posts Describing The Ethos Of My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8I4zFSipKs
and
"....I shall return"(General Douglas MacArthur, March 11th 1942, Corregidor, Phillipines)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRmO_BL1l88
My previous 2 posts, Blogpost 499 and Blogpost 500, made during early August 2009:
500)Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
499)Summer, Fall and Winter Reading For Those Who Are Interested: My Choice Of The Top 50 Posts In My 500-post Blog
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/499summer-fall-and-winter-reading-for.html
For excellent accompanying music while reading visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOt2Qp0H9G8
Highlighted Post:
A Collection Of Posts Describing The Ethos Of My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
500)Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam
Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam: Its Genesis And Offshoots
Blogpost Four Hundred is the cardinal post of my Blog on the link between science and religion in Islam and the pivot upon and around which the entire Blog revolves; I also describe it as the high-octane fuel that powers my Blog and the one that gives a solid doctrinal underpinning to it:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
It contains about 100 quotes and excerpts on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion and the sources of these are many and varied: Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad(sas), Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Hazrat Ali, Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani, Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, Ibn Sina, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, Aristotle, Albert Einstein and Azim Nanji. The 500-post Blog, however, is very Aga Khan IV-centric and most of the excerpts and quotes come from the speeches, interviews, articles and irshads of our 49th Imam as the present living Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.
You will find much repetition of the quotes and excerpts listed in Blogpost Four Hundred as you go from post to post. In fact if you read the entire Blog from start to finish(all 500 posts) just once you will remember all 100 or so quotes by heart. Indeed, one of the goals of this Blog is for the reader to ultimately internalise those excerpts and quotes and hopefully their relentless repetition achieves this in the end. The order, number and choice of quotes are made by me to match each post. Repetition of these quotes and excerpts from post to post is also necessary because all the internet search engines treat each individual blogpost as a seperate and exclusive entitiy unto itself.
Blogpost Four Hundred has had a number of offshoots and these are as follows:
1)Golden Jubilee Quotes of Aga Khan IV on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion, July 11 '07 to Dec 13 '08
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/434golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
2)The Quran Says......."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others on the Subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/446the-quran-says-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
3)Blogpost Four Hundred updated with quotes from the opening of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
Various posts, reflecting quotes made during various Darbars, were also brought together in the genesis of Blogpost Four Hundred:
4)"Knowledge Society", by Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
5)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
6)Key quotes by Aga Khan IV relating to learning, education, faith, world, creation in Academy foundation speech, Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 20th 2008
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/364key-quotes-by-aga-khan-iv-relating.html
7)Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III with the word 'Science', 'Scientist' or 'Scientific' in them
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/392quotes-of-aga-khans-iv-and-iii-with.html
8)Quotes and Excerpts from the Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and Park in Toronto added to my Blogpost Four Hundred
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/06/626quotes-and-excerpts-from-foundation.html
Finally, much earlier accumulations of quotes and excerpts that contributed to the creation of Blogpost Four Hundred are listed in this post:
9)Blogpost Four Hundred and all its earlier incarnations; the Cardinal Post of My Blog on the Link between Science and Religion in Islam
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/412blogpost-four-hundred-and-all-its.html
This post, BLOGPOST FIVE HUNDRED, therefore, describes all the postings that went into the making of BLOGPOST FOUR HUNDRED as well as those postings that were created as its offshoots.
Related, from Ismaili Mail:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge-intellect-creation-science-and-religion-comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others-a-never-ending-post/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/knowledge-society/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/science-and-belief-2/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/quotes-of-aga-khan/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/the-creation-according-to-quran-updated/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/what-is-the-full-extent-of-gods-creation/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/the-creation-according-to-quran-prophet-muhammad-pbuh-aga-khan-iv-aga-khan-iii-imam-jafar-as-sadiq-al-kirmani-al-sijistani-nasir-khusraw-et-al/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/selected-speech-excerpts-of-aga-khan-iv-from-1963-to-2004-relating-to-the-subjects-of-knowledge-intellect-science-and-religion/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/timeless-sayings-of-aga-khan-iii/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Blogpost Four Hundred is the cardinal post of my Blog on the link between science and religion in Islam and the pivot upon and around which the entire Blog revolves; I also describe it as the high-octane fuel that powers my Blog and the one that gives a solid doctrinal underpinning to it:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
It contains about 100 quotes and excerpts on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion and the sources of these are many and varied: Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad(sas), Aga Khan IV, Aga Khan III, Hazrat Ali, Imam Jafar as-Sadiq, Nasir Khusraw, Abu Yakub Al-Sijistani, Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, Ibn Sina, Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali, Aristotle, Albert Einstein and Azim Nanji. The 500-post Blog, however, is very Aga Khan IV-centric and most of the excerpts and quotes come from the speeches, interviews, articles and irshads of our 49th Imam as the present living Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims.
You will find much repetition of the quotes and excerpts listed in Blogpost Four Hundred as you go from post to post. In fact if you read the entire Blog from start to finish(all 500 posts) just once you will remember all 100 or so quotes by heart. Indeed, one of the goals of this Blog is for the reader to ultimately internalise those excerpts and quotes and hopefully their relentless repetition achieves this in the end. The order, number and choice of quotes are made by me to match each post. Repetition of these quotes and excerpts from post to post is also necessary because all the internet search engines treat each individual blogpost as a seperate and exclusive entitiy unto itself.
Blogpost Four Hundred has had a number of offshoots and these are as follows:
1)Golden Jubilee Quotes of Aga Khan IV on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion, July 11 '07 to Dec 13 '08
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/434golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
2)The Quran Says......."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others on the Subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/446the-quran-says-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
3)Blogpost Four Hundred updated with quotes from the opening of the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
Various posts, reflecting quotes made during various Darbars, were also brought together in the genesis of Blogpost Four Hundred:
4)"Knowledge Society", by Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
5)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
6)Key quotes by Aga Khan IV relating to learning, education, faith, world, creation in Academy foundation speech, Dhaka, Bangladesh, May 20th 2008
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/364key-quotes-by-aga-khan-iv-relating.html
7)Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III with the word 'Science', 'Scientist' or 'Scientific' in them
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/392quotes-of-aga-khans-iv-and-iii-with.html
8)Quotes and Excerpts from the Foundation Ceremony of the Ismaili Center, Aga Khan Museum and Park in Toronto added to my Blogpost Four Hundred
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/06/626quotes-and-excerpts-from-foundation.html
Finally, much earlier accumulations of quotes and excerpts that contributed to the creation of Blogpost Four Hundred are listed in this post:
9)Blogpost Four Hundred and all its earlier incarnations; the Cardinal Post of My Blog on the Link between Science and Religion in Islam
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/412blogpost-four-hundred-and-all-its.html
This post, BLOGPOST FIVE HUNDRED, therefore, describes all the postings that went into the making of BLOGPOST FOUR HUNDRED as well as those postings that were created as its offshoots.
Related, from Ismaili Mail:
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge-intellect-creation-science-and-religion-comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others-a-never-ending-post/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/knowledge-society/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/science-and-belief-2/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/quotes-of-aga-khan/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/12/17/the-creation-according-to-quran-updated/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/what-is-the-full-extent-of-gods-creation/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/the-creation-according-to-quran-prophet-muhammad-pbuh-aga-khan-iv-aga-khan-iii-imam-jafar-as-sadiq-al-kirmani-al-sijistani-nasir-khusraw-et-al/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/07/03/selected-speech-excerpts-of-aga-khan-iv-from-1963-to-2004-relating-to-the-subjects-of-knowledge-intellect-science-and-religion/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/19/timeless-sayings-of-aga-khan-iii/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
499)Summer, Fall and Winter Reading For Those Who Are Interested: My Choice Of The Top 50 Posts In My 500-post Blog
SUMMER, FALL AND WINTER READING FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED: MY CHOICE OF THE TOP 50 POSTS IN MY 500-POST BLOG
1)Blogpost Four Hundred, Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Science and Religion: Comprehensive Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others; a never-ending post.. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge-intellect-creation-science-and-religion-comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others-a-never-ending-post/
2)A Blog Constructed Within a Scaffolding of the Al Sijistani-Khusraw Cosmological Doctrine and, Everywhere I Turn, There is Blogpost Four Hundred.. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
3)Golden Jubilee Quotes of Aga Khan IV on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion, July 11 '07 to Dec 13 '08 http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/434golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
4)"The Quran Says......."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others on the Subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/446the-quran-says-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
5)What Do You Get If You Divide Science By God? A Cosmopolitan Sampling of Opinion;Quotes of Aga Khans IV+ III,Al Sijistani,Nasir Khusraw,Azim Nanji http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/477what-do-you-get-if-you-divide.html
6)The Conservative Government Of The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister Of Canada, Has Righteously, Rightfully And Consistently Shown The Utmost Deference And Respect to His Highness The Aga Khan, 49th Hereditary Imam Of The Shia Ismaili Muslims. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/486the-conservative-government-of-prime.html
7)The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam; The Amman Message. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/12/431the-role-of-consensus-in.html
8)'Animal Voyage' by Prince Hussain Aga Khan: A Book On The Natural World To Possess And Savour; Quotes of Aga Khans and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/494animal-voyage-by-prince-hussain-aga.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-photograph-collection-of-prince-hussein-aga-khan/
9)A Collection Of Posts Describing The Ethos Of My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
10)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/
11)Canadian Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney makes Courageous and Necessary Immigration Reforms http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/475canadian-conservative-minister-of.html
12)Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; Quotes of Aga Khans. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/a-cosmos-full-of-signs-and-symbols-that-evoke-the-perfection-of-allahs-creation-and-mercy/
13)"The learning of mathematics was therefore linked to the Muslim religion and developing an understanding of the world...."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/319the-learning-of-mathematics-was.html
14)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
15)No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
16)How Cells Work: The Miniscule, Ordered, Dynamic And Thriving Universe Inside A Cell; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/498how-cells-work-miniscule-ordered.html
17)A collection of posts about life: tiniest matter, supernovae, living cells, water, proteins, blood, photosynthesis, etc;Quotes of Aga Khans+others
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/435a-collection-of-posts-about-life.html
18)Ayats(Signs) In The Universe Series:A Collection of Seven+ Posts;Quotes of Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khans, Nasir Khusraw + Al Sijistani http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/460ayatssigns-in-universe-seriesa.html
19)The architect of universal good -Gulf News Interview with Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, April 2008, United Arab Emirates. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/351the-architect-of-universal-good-gulf.html
20)The bending and scattering of light in the recent total lunar eclipse; Quote of Aga Khan IV. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/308the-bending-and-scattering-of-light.html
21)Matter and Energy: two sides of the same coin; how interpreting the light(energy) from the sun gives precise information about the matter in it. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/330matter-and-energy-two-sides-of-same.html
22)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
23)Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences(IIS Review Article); Quotes of Aga Khan IV. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/331muslim-philosophy-and-sciencesiis.html
24)One mega-post, encompassing five regular posts, on the pioneering 9th century Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen(965CE to 1039CE). http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/296one-mega-post-encompassing-four.html
25)A Collection of Posts on this Blog about Great Scientists; Quote of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/437a-collection-of-blogposts-on-great.html
26)Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
27)So how old is the Universe anyway, 6000 years or 14 billion(14,000,000,000) years old?; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/317so-how-old-is-universe-anyway-6000.html
28)Islam and Astronomy: Vestiges of a fine legacy; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Ibn Sina http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/358islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-fine.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-a-fine-legacy-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-ibn-sina/
29)Al-Nitak, Al-Nilam, Mintaka, Betelgeuse, Al-Deberan: Arabic-named stars in nearby constellations in space.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289al-nitak-al-nilam-mintaka-betelgeuse.html
30)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
31)The Peter McKnight Collection Of Posts On Science And Religion; Read Them Along With Blogpost Four Hundred; Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/441the-peter-mcknight-collection-of.html
32)A Collection of Posts on my Blog from the Institute of Ismaili Studies, Aga Khan Development Network and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/467a-collection-of-posts-on-my-blog.html
33)Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy: "If we are not practicing good science, we probably aren’t practicing good democracy. And vice versa" http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/444elevating-science-elevating.html
34)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education, and more.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/364key-quotes-by-aga-khan-iv-relating.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/392quotes-of-aga-khans-iv-and-iii-with.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/412blogpost-four-hundred-and-all-its.html
35)Science and Religion in Christianity: The Link http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/451science-and-religion-in-christianity.html
36)Science and Religion in The Islamic World, a Talk by Professor Mehdi Golshani at Cambridge University's Faraday Institute; Quotes of Aga Khans http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/452science-and-religion-in-islamic.html
37)An Article By Khalil Andani That Reaches The Heart Of The Shia Ismaili Muslim Belief System;Light Upon Light:Succession in the Shia Ismaili Imamat http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/492an-article-by-khalil-andani-that.html
38)A Collection of Posts on Charles Darwin,a Scientist Way Ahead of His Time; Dynamic vs Static Creation; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khans IV and III http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/450a-collection-of-posts-on-charles.html
39)Knowledge Society: A Collection of Posts on the Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/438knowledge-society-collection-of.html
40)A Magnificently Detailed Interview With Ismaili Astrophysicist Professor Arif Babul By Blogger Simerg; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/485a-magnificently-detailed-interview.html
41)A Collection Of Posts By Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, World-Renowned Physics Professor And Disciple Of 1979 Physics Nobel Laureate Abdus Salaam http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/461a-collection-of-posts-on-pervez.html
42)Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
43)Pluralism and Ikhwan al-Safa: If society is to start from a premise that knowledge should be foundational, what form should that knowledge take? http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
44)Excerpt: Aga Khan IV's interview with Spiegel newspaper, October 9th 2006. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/28760excerpt-aga-khan-ivs-interview.html
45)Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit? http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
46)20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
47)Transcendence and Distinction: Metaphoric Process in Isma‘ili Muslim Thought, by Dr Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/397transcendence-and-distinction.html
48)The Top Ten Hubble Space Telescope photographs of the past 16 years.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/265the-top-ten-hubble-space-telescope.html
49)The Quran itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation(Aga Khan IV)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/250the-quran-itself-repeatedly.html
50)Worried About H1N1 Flu This Fall?First Learn About Your Immune System+Viruses:What Are They Made Of+How Do They Operate?Marvels Of God's Creation. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/496worried-about-h1n1-flu-this.html
Bonus Post:
51)Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam: Genesis and Offshoots
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
Related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/491summer-reading-for-those-who-are.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/427fall-and-winter-reading-for-those.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/06/375summer-reading-for-those-who-are.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/366dawood-lettermans-top-10-reasons-why.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/365a-collection-of-speeches-by-aga.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/333dawood-lettermans-top-ten-reasons.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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)
1)Blogpost Four Hundred, Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Science and Religion: Comprehensive Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others; a never-ending post.. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/easy-nashs-blogpost-four-hundred-updated-with-quotes-from-the-opening-of-the-delegation-of-the-ismaili-imamat/
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge-intellect-creation-science-and-religion-comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-others-a-never-ending-post/
2)A Blog Constructed Within a Scaffolding of the Al Sijistani-Khusraw Cosmological Doctrine and, Everywhere I Turn, There is Blogpost Four Hundred.. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/453a-blog-constructed-within.html
3)Golden Jubilee Quotes of Aga Khan IV on the subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion, July 11 '07 to Dec 13 '08 http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/434golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv/
4)"The Quran Says......."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others on the Subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/446the-quran-says-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/quotes-on-holy-quran-by-aga-khan-iv-and-others/
5)What Do You Get If You Divide Science By God? A Cosmopolitan Sampling of Opinion;Quotes of Aga Khans IV+ III,Al Sijistani,Nasir Khusraw,Azim Nanji http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/05/477what-do-you-get-if-you-divide.html
6)The Conservative Government Of The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, 22nd Prime Minister Of Canada, Has Righteously, Rightfully And Consistently Shown The Utmost Deference And Respect to His Highness The Aga Khan, 49th Hereditary Imam Of The Shia Ismaili Muslims. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/486the-conservative-government-of-prime.html
7)The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam; The Amman Message. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/12/431the-role-of-consensus-in.html
8)'Animal Voyage' by Prince Hussain Aga Khan: A Book On The Natural World To Possess And Savour; Quotes of Aga Khans and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/494animal-voyage-by-prince-hussain-aga.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words-photograph-collection-of-prince-hussein-aga-khan/
9)A Collection Of Posts Describing The Ethos Of My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/463a-collection-of-posts-describing.html
10)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/
11)Canadian Conservative Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney makes Courageous and Necessary Immigration Reforms http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/475canadian-conservative-minister-of.html
12)Allegories in Nature: "....a Cosmos full of signs and symbols that evoke the perfection of Allah's creation and mercy"; Quotes of Aga Khans. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/332allegories-in-nature-cosmos-full-of.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2007/11/05/a-cosmos-full-of-signs-and-symbols-that-evoke-the-perfection-of-allahs-creation-and-mercy/
13)"The learning of mathematics was therefore linked to the Muslim religion and developing an understanding of the world...."; Quotes of Aga Khan IV http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/319the-learning-of-mathematics-was.html
14)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
15)No. 7: Ayats(Signs) in the Universe series. How are proteins made inside living cells and what does this have to do with religion?
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/282no-7-ayatssigns-in-universe-series.html
16)How Cells Work: The Miniscule, Ordered, Dynamic And Thriving Universe Inside A Cell; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/498how-cells-work-miniscule-ordered.html
17)A collection of posts about life: tiniest matter, supernovae, living cells, water, proteins, blood, photosynthesis, etc;Quotes of Aga Khans+others
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/435a-collection-of-posts-about-life.html
18)Ayats(Signs) In The Universe Series:A Collection of Seven+ Posts;Quotes of Noble Quran, Prophet Muhammad, Aga Khans, Nasir Khusraw + Al Sijistani http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/460ayatssigns-in-universe-seriesa.html
19)The architect of universal good -Gulf News Interview with Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, April 2008, United Arab Emirates. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/351the-architect-of-universal-good-gulf.html
20)The bending and scattering of light in the recent total lunar eclipse; Quote of Aga Khan IV. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/308the-bending-and-scattering-of-light.html
21)Matter and Energy: two sides of the same coin; how interpreting the light(energy) from the sun gives precise information about the matter in it. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/330matter-and-energy-two-sides-of-same.html
22)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
23)Muslim Philosophy and the Sciences(IIS Review Article); Quotes of Aga Khan IV. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/331muslim-philosophy-and-sciencesiis.html
24)One mega-post, encompassing five regular posts, on the pioneering 9th century Muslim scientist Ibn al-Haytham or Alhazen(965CE to 1039CE). http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/296one-mega-post-encompassing-four.html
25)A Collection of Posts on this Blog about Great Scientists; Quote of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/437a-collection-of-blogposts-on-great.html
26)Basics on the vast distances and sizes in Astronomy. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/273basics-on-vast-distances-and-sizes.html
27)So how old is the Universe anyway, 6000 years or 14 billion(14,000,000,000) years old?; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/317so-how-old-is-universe-anyway-6000.html
28)Islam and Astronomy: Vestiges of a fine legacy; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Ibn Sina http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/358islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-fine.html
http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/islam-and-astronomy-vestiges-of-a-fine-legacy-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv-and-ibn-sina/
29)Al-Nitak, Al-Nilam, Mintaka, Betelgeuse, Al-Deberan: Arabic-named stars in nearby constellations in space.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/289al-nitak-al-nilam-mintaka-betelgeuse.html
30)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
31)The Peter McKnight Collection Of Posts On Science And Religion; Read Them Along With Blogpost Four Hundred; Quotes of Aga Khans IV and III http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/441the-peter-mcknight-collection-of.html
32)A Collection of Posts on my Blog from the Institute of Ismaili Studies, Aga Khan Development Network and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/04/467a-collection-of-posts-on-my-blog.html
33)Elevating Science, Elevating Democracy: "If we are not practicing good science, we probably aren’t practicing good democracy. And vice versa" http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/444elevating-science-elevating.html
34)Latest 2008 USA quotes and speech excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, His Highness Aga Khan IV, on the subjects of knowledge, learning and education, and more.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/349latest-2008-quotes-and-speech.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/04/344knowledge-society-by-aga-khan-iv.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/364key-quotes-by-aga-khan-iv-relating.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/392quotes-of-aga-khans-iv-and-iii-with.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/10/412blogpost-four-hundred-and-all-its.html
35)Science and Religion in Christianity: The Link http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/451science-and-religion-in-christianity.html
36)Science and Religion in The Islamic World, a Talk by Professor Mehdi Golshani at Cambridge University's Faraday Institute; Quotes of Aga Khans http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/452science-and-religion-in-islamic.html
37)An Article By Khalil Andani That Reaches The Heart Of The Shia Ismaili Muslim Belief System;Light Upon Light:Succession in the Shia Ismaili Imamat http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/492an-article-by-khalil-andani-that.html
38)A Collection of Posts on Charles Darwin,a Scientist Way Ahead of His Time; Dynamic vs Static Creation; Quotes of Noble Quran, Aga Khans IV and III http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/02/450a-collection-of-posts-on-charles.html
39)Knowledge Society: A Collection of Posts on the Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain; Quotes of Aga Khan IV.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/438knowledge-society-collection-of.html
40)A Magnificently Detailed Interview With Ismaili Astrophysicist Professor Arif Babul By Blogger Simerg; Quotes Of Aga Khans And Others. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/06/485a-magnificently-detailed-interview.html
41)A Collection Of Posts By Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, World-Renowned Physics Professor And Disciple Of 1979 Physics Nobel Laureate Abdus Salaam http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/03/461a-collection-of-posts-on-pervez.html
42)Albert Einstein and Faith; Quote of Aga Khan III. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/311albert-einstein-and-faith-quote-of.html
43)Pluralism and Ikhwan al-Safa: If society is to start from a premise that knowledge should be foundational, what form should that knowledge take? http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/267pluralism-and-ikhwan-al-safa-if.html
44)Excerpt: Aga Khan IV's interview with Spiegel newspaper, October 9th 2006. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/28760excerpt-aga-khan-ivs-interview.html
45)Tiniest matter: The strange world of the Quantum; harbinger of the world of spirit? http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/297tiniest-matter-strange-world-of.html
46)20 things you need to know about Albert Einstein, the smartest scientist of the 20th century; Quotes of Aga Khan III.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/01/31220-things-you-need-to-know-about.html
47)Transcendence and Distinction: Metaphoric Process in Isma‘ili Muslim Thought, by Dr Azim Nanji, Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/08/397transcendence-and-distinction.html
48)The Top Ten Hubble Space Telescope photographs of the past 16 years.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/12/265the-top-ten-hubble-space-telescope.html
49)The Quran itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation(Aga Khan IV)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2007/11/250the-quran-itself-repeatedly.html
50)Worried About H1N1 Flu This Fall?First Learn About Your Immune System+Viruses:What Are They Made Of+How Do They Operate?Marvels Of God's Creation. http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/496worried-about-h1n1-flu-this.html
Bonus Post:
51)Blogpost Five Hundred IS Blogpost Four Hundred, The High-Octane Fuel That Powers My Blog On The Link Between Science And Religion In Islam: Genesis and Offshoots
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/08/500blogpost-five-hundred-is-blogpost.html
Related:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/07/491summer-reading-for-those-who-are.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/11/427fall-and-winter-reading-for-those.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/06/375summer-reading-for-those-who-are.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/366dawood-lettermans-top-10-reasons-why.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/365a-collection-of-speeches-by-aga.html
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/03/333dawood-lettermans-top-ten-reasons.html
Easy Nash
The Qur'an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
The Quran tells us that signs of Allah's Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation: Aga Khan IV(2007)
This notion of the capacity of the human intellect to understand and to admire the creation of Allah will bring you happiness in your everyday lives: Aga Khan IV(2007)
Islam, eminently logical, placing the greatest emphasis on knowledge, purports to understand God's creation: Aga Khan IV(2006)
The 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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