via Easy Nash’s Science and Religion in Islam: The Link
Here, Sunlight offers Rumi’s Ghazal (Ode) 258, in two forms — a poetic translation from Nader Khalili, and a version by Coleman Barks:
1)
if you stay awake
for an entire night
watch out for a treasure
trying to arrive
you can keep warm
by the secret sun of the night
keeping your eyes open
for the softness of dawn
Click here to read more: http://gonashgo.blogspot.com.
All related: http://ismailimail.wordpress.com/tag/laylat-al-qadr/
Blogpost Four Hundred is the cardinal post of my Blog on the link between Science and Religion in Islam and the high octane fuel that powers my Blog. It is continually being updated and this post is one such update. The quotes and excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, Aga Khan IV, his predecessor Imam Aga Khan III, other Imams, cosmologist-philosopher-theologian-poets in Ismaili history and other non-Muslim luminaries, on the subjects of knowledge, intellect, creation, education, science and religion form the doctrinal underpinning of my blog on the link between Science and Religion in Islam. In the Shia Ismaili Muslim tradition we always have a living Imam to guide us and so this list of quotes and excerpts will always be updated when relevant information becomes available. It is, as the title aptly says, a never-ending post:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2010/06/626quotes-and-excerpts-from-foundation.html
In the dying days of 2007 some of my Blog readers were enquiring about why I use the cybername Easy Nash so I did what any self-respecting Blogger would do: I prepared a post to explain myself including why I decided to start writing a Blog in the first place. The Blog was my own private retirement project undertaken to satisfy my curiosity about a topic that has enthralled, fascinated and preoccupied me since I was a 17-year old undergraduate Science student at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada during the early 1970s: the link between Science and Religion in Islam. I began writing my Blog in March 2006 after hearing some inspirational words from His Highness Aga Khan IV, 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Nizari Ismaili Muslims, during his visit to Toronto in June 2005. I also remarked that another reason for blogging was to keep my brain exercised during retirement and “prevent it from turning into mush”
Read further … http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/12/533a-blog-begun-as-retirement-project.html
“That quest for a better life, among Muslims and non-Muslims alike, must lead inevitably to the Knowledge Society which is developing in our time. The great and central question facing the Ummah of today is how it will relate to the Knowledge Society of tomorrow. If we judge from Islamic history, there is much to encourage us. For century after century, the Arabs, the Persians, the Turks and many other Islamic societies achieved powerful leadership roles in the world—not only politically and economically but also intellectually. Some ill-informed historians and biased commentators have tried to argue that these successes were essentially produced by military power, but this view is profoundly incorrect. The fundamental reason for the pre-eminence of Islamic civilizations lay neither in accidents of history nor in acts of war, but rather in their ability to discover new knowledge, to make it their own, and to build constructively upon it. They became the Knowledge Societies of their time.”
(Aga Khan IV, 2nd December 2006, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan)
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
Via Easy Nash
This weekend(June 6th and 7th 2009) at least 420 Keshavjees and other families and friends will be gathering to schmooze and break bread at Toronto’s classy ‘The Old Mill’ Restaurant and to celebrate their first reunion in the new millenium. Previous reunions have taken place in 1995, 1992 and 1980, all also at latitude 79.23 and longitude 43.39 in the fabulous city of Toronto, Canada.
The organizer of this event, Murad Velshi, in e-mail announcement number 9 sent to the participants, maintains that “since my very first email in October 2008 announcing the Reunion, I have sent and received over 5000 emails.” The theme for this year’s get together is “MAKING THE CONNECTION”.
Read at the source: http://gonashgo.blogspot.com
“The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation”
Closing Address by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the “Musée-Musées” Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007
“……The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation – in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters….”
Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007
“The Quran very often refers to nature as a reflection of Allah’s power of creation and says: Look at the mountains, look at the rivers, look at the trees, look at the flowers all as evidence of Allah’s love for the people whom He has created. Today I look at this environment and I say that I believe that Allah is smiling upon you, may His smile always be upon you”
Aga Khan IV, Khorog, Tajikistan, May 27th 1995
From Easy Nash at Science and Religion in Islam: The Link.
“The Quran Says…….”; Quotes of Aga Khan IV and Others on the Subjects of Knowledge, Intellect, Creation, Education, Science and Religion
“The Qur’an itself repeatedly recommends Muslims to become better educated in order better to understand God’s creation”(ClosingAddress by His Highness Aga Khan IV at the “Musée-Musées” Round Table Louvre Museum, Paris, France, October 17th 2007)
“……The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation – in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters….”(Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007).
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
“It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.””
“Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration. Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.”
“World and faith are inseparable in Islam. Faith and learning are also profoundly interconnected. The Holy Qur’an sees the discovery of knowledge as a spiritual responsibility, enabling us to better understand and more ably serve God’s creation.”
“For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures.”
“We have to make known the cultural inheritance of the Muslims to the non-Muslim as well as the Muslim parts of the world because we will never succeed in building the respect and recognition that the Umma deserves unless we present the Umma as a remarkable carrier of civilisation.The misconceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West exist because we are, even today, absent from the global civilisation.”
Continue at the source:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2009/01/434golden-jubilee-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
“Though the Amman Message should not be declared a panacea, it has already made a contribution in the struggle to define Islam, and will continue to do so…….Speaking of Jihad and the Islamic Law of War, al-Husein Madhany, the executive vice president of One Nation, told me, “The reason this document is so critical is because it addresses the kind of language and ideas used by Osama bin Laden and other vigilantes who are part of the global network of terror. The Amman Message tries to wrestle away the underpinnings of their claimed religious authority.” Those who are tired of the Reformation analogies that have cluttered discourse about contemporary Islam may have an alternative model in the Aal al-Bayt Institute and its ambitious project of forging ijma’ on contentious issues.”
The Role of Consensus in the Contemporary Struggle for Islam
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Jordan’s King Abdullah II launched an ambitious project in November 2004 designed to address some of the thorniest theological issues currently facing Muslims. The project, known as the “Amman Message,” expressly holds that non-Muslims can reasonably “expect certain things from Muslims” in the contemporary context, in which Muslims and non-Muslims have unprecedented contact.[i] The Amman Message was self-consciously launched against the backdrop of the “global war on terror,” where predominantly stateless terror networks claiming allegiance to Islam have managed to drastically alter the geopolitical landscape.
Download this post for print and later read.
Quote of Aga Khan IV:
“IT AFFIRMS OUR INTENT to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him – one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
Why rock crystal? Because of its translucency, its multiple planes, and the fascination of its colours – all of which present themselves differently as light moves around them. The hues of rock crystal are subtle, striking and widely varied – for they can be clear or milky, white, or rose coloured, or smoky, or golden, or black.
It is because of these qualities that rock crystal seems to be such an appropriate symbol of the profound beauty and the ever-unfolding mystery of Creation itself – and the Creator. As the Holy Quran so powerfully affirms, “Allah is the Creator and the Master of the heavens and the earth.” And then it continues: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, and everything between them, and everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.”
But in Islamic thought, as in this building, beauty and mystery are not separated from intellect – in fact, the reverse is true. As we use our intellect to gain new knowledge about Creation, we come to see even more profoundly the depth and breadth of its mysteries. We explore unknown regions beneath the seas – and in outer space. We reach back over hundreds of millions of years in time. Extra-ordinary fossilised geological specimens seize our imagination – palm leaves, amethyst flowers, hedgehog quartz, sea lilies, chrysanthemum and a rich panoply of shells. Indeed, these wonders are found beneath the very soil on which we tread – in every corner of the world – and they connect us with far distant epochs and environments.
And the more we discover, the more we know, the more we penetrate just below the surface of our normal lives – the more our imagination staggers. Just think for example what might lie below the surfaces of celestial bodies all across the far flung reaches of our universe. What we feel, even as we learn, is an ever-renewed sense of wonder, indeed, a powerful sense of awe – and of Divine inspiration.
Using rock crystal’s irridescent mystery as an inspiration for this building, does indeed provide an appropriate symbol of the Timelessness, the Power and the Mystery of Allah as the Lord of Creation.
What we celebrate today can thus be seen as a new creative link between the spiritual dimensions of Islam and the cultures of the West. Even more particularly, it represents another new bridge between the peoples of Islam and the peoples of Canada”(Aga Khan IV, Ottawa, Canada, December 6th 2008)
Continue at Blogpost Four Hundred:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/09/400blogpost-four-hundred-knowledge.html
“It affirms our intent to share, within a western setting, the best of Islamic life and heritage. This new Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat, like the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum to be built in Toronto, reflects our conviction that buildings can do more than simply house people and programmes. They can also reflect our deepest values, as great architecture captures esoteric thought in physical form.
When I invited Professor Maki, a master of form and light, to design this building, I made a suggestion to him – one that I hoped would help connect this place symbolically to the Faith of Islam. The suggestion I made focused on creating a certain mystique, centred around the beautiful mysteries of rock crystal.
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/12/429inaugural-ceremony-of-delegation-of.html
Science and Religion in Islam: The Link.: 2 intellectual giants speak to each other accross a millenium on “time”: can it be slowed, sped up, reversed, transcended? Ask Einstein and Nasir Khusraw
Easy Nash thought it might stimulate our readership to consider modern discoveries about time in the light of what our cosmologists thought about time a thousand years ago and he uses the discoveries of two intellectual giants from a thousand years apart as examples, Albert Einstein and Nasir Khusraw.
It is fitting to quote the following, which describes the proper place of “time” in creation from an Islamic perspective and the need to be cognisant of all types of knowledge with a committment to independent thinking:
“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)
Continued at the source:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/3592-intellectual-giants-speak-to-each.html
From Easy Nash, a timely post.
I have blogged on a few occasions about the Large Hadron Collider that straddles two countries (France and Switzerland) and which conducted its first successful test yesterday. This mammoth scientific project, many years in the making, promises to have the same or greater short and long term impact on the world of pure science as Albert Einstein’s General and Special Relativity did about 100 years ago. What starts of as pure science eventually morphs into practical applications and benefits for humanity but the discoveries have to be made in the realm of pure science first before the benefits can accrue. At the level of pure science it is first and foremost a search for knowledge about the universe in which we live, move and have our being.
“Muslims believe in an all-encompassing unit of man and nature. To them there is no fundamental division between the spiritual and the material while the whole world, whether it be the earth, sea or air, or the living creatures that inhabit them, is an expression of God’s creation.” (Aga Khan IV, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, 13 April 1984)
From Easy Nash:
My wife and daughter are participating this weekend in the 60km walk as the main event in the “Weekend to End Breast Cancer” in Toronto, Canada. This walk has recently taken place and is currently taking place in other large cities accross Canada as well. They and their team have been training hard for a good part of the summer for the gruelling 60km walk, which will be split into two 30km walks on consecutive days this weekend(starting @ 7.30am this Saturday morning and ending @ 5pm on Sunday afternoon). All the long training walks along the many beautiful trails in the city of Toronto, all the uphill walk training, the cardio swimming, the treadmill thumping, the weights and other gym training have combined to make their team ready to tackle the task this weekend. Along the way they will raise at least $2000.00 each(and some of them much more than $2000.00) that will go towards Breast Cancer research at Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital, among the top five cancer hospitals in the world. Breast Cancer will strike 1 in 9 women so we all know of someone(friend, relative or friend of a friend) who has been afflicted by this disease. Two of my wife’s sisters are breast cancer survivors and their grandmother had the disease and survived it as well. Today’s walk has already generated over $13 million for the hospital. I salute my wife and daughter, their team as well as all the donors to their campaign for their voluntary efforts, in the great spirit of promoting civil society and the cosmopolitan ethic, to try to wrestle this disease to the ground.
From Easy Nash: Science and Religion in Islam: The Link
This is my 400th post and is also the central post of my blog, now entitled Blogpost Four Hundred. It is continually being updated and the last update was blogpost 327 from February 15th 2008. The quotes and excerpts of Mawlana Hazar Imam, Aga Khan IV, his predecessor Imam Aga Khan III, other Imams, cosmologist-philosopher-theologian-poets in Ismaili history and others, on the subjects of knowledge, intellect, creation, science and religion form the doctrinal underpinning of my blog on the link between science and religion in Islam. In the Shia Ismaili Muslim tradition we always have a living Imam to guide us and so this list of quotes and excerpts will always be updated when relevant information becomes available. It is, as the title aptly says, a never-ending post:
“….And shouldn’t IB science students not learn about Ibn al-Haytham, the Muslim scholar who developed modern optics, as well as his predecessors Euclid and Ptolemy, whose ideas he challenged…..The legacy which I am describing actually goes back more than a thousand years, to the time when our forefathers, the Fatimid Imam-Caliphs of Egypt, founded Al-Azhar University and the Academy of Knowledge in Cairo. For many centuries, a commitment to learning was a central element in far-flung Islamic cultures. That commitment has continued in my own Imamat through the founding of the Aga Khan University and the University of Central Asia and through the recent establishment of a new Aga Khan Academies Program.”
(Aga Khan IV, “The Peterson Lecture” on the International Baccalaureate, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 18 April 2008)
From Science and Religion in Islam: The Link
This is the story: All the cells in the human body have a full complement of genetic information in their nuclei but only specific genetic information is activated that will turn that particular cell into a specialised cell type, eg, a skin cell or a brain cell. Most of the rest of the full genetic complement of the cell is ‘switched off’. Through decades of research scientists have found the genes that make the various ‘on’ switches that make one cell a skin cell and another a brain cell. By creating viruses that have these switching genes incorporated into their DNA, they now have been able to infect one type of pancreas cell(the alpha cell, the one that makes enzymes to break down the food we eat as it reaches the small intestine) with the virus, which then incorporates these unique ‘on’ switches into the pancreas cell’s DNA, and turn it into another type of pancreas cell whose sole function it is to produce the life-sustaining hormone insulin (the beta cell).
The implication of this for the millions of people worldwide who are diabetic is enormous! This is also a testament to the ingenuity and rational intellect of man.
In the Islamic tradition, and in keeping with the ethos of this blogsite, that intellect is always subservient to a higher intellect:
“In Islamic belief, knowledge is two-fold. There is that revealed through the Holy Prophet (s.a.s.) and that which man discovers by virtue of his own intellect. Nor do these two involve any contradiction, provided man remembers that his own mind is itself the creation of God. Without this humility, no balance is possible. With it, there are no barriers. Indeed, one strength of Islam has always lain in its belief that creation is not static but continuous, that through scientific and other endeavours, God has opened and continues to open new windows for us to see the marvels of His creation” (Aga Khan IV, AKU, 16 March 1983, Karachi, Pakistan)
From Easy Nash at his: Science and Religion in Islam: The Link
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/02/327comprehensive-quotes-of-aga-khan-iv.html
From Easy Nash
Summer reading for those who are interested; My choice of the top 50 posts in my 375-post Blog
My blog postings are about to become sporadic as the summer vacation dawns upon us so I came up with a list of my top 50 posts as I see them. They represent a tiny fraction of my experiential encounter with the religion of my birth, Islam. The idea that learning about our universe, what it is made up of and how it operates, can be and is an integral part of the faith of Islam is a very powerful idea indeed. Here they are in descending order:
Very well made, and funny too!
Visit his blog for an intellectually entertaining post:
http://gonashgo.blogspot.com/2008/05/366dawood-lettermans-top-10-reasons-why.html
Our shout out to Easy Nash.
From Easy Nash:
I came across 2 pictures recently from the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day web-site taken by Iranian astro-photographers from the area around the Alborz Mountains in Iran:
This picture shows a side view of the Milky Way Galaxy as well as 2 Arabic-named stars Deneb and Altair
Above picture shows the Arabic-named yellow-tinged star Betelgeuse as well as the belt of Orion, made up of the 3 Arabic-named stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka
The Alborz Mountains are where the Shia Ismaili Muslims built their mountain fortress state of Alamut after the fall of the Fatimid Empire. The above pictures show the kind of views that astronomer Nasir Al-Din Tusi must have commanded of the heavens from this lofty mountain fortress.
“……The Quran tells us that signs of Allah’s Sovereignty are found in the contemplation of His Creation – in the heavens and the earth, the night and the day, the clouds and the seas, the winds and the waters….”
Aga Khan IV, Kampala, Uganda, August 22 2007
“Astronomy, the so-called “Science of the Universe” was a field of particular distinction in Islamic civilization-–in sharp contrast to the weakness of Islamic countries in the field of Space research today. In this field, as in others, intellectual leadership is never a static condition, but something which is always shifting and always dynamic”
Aga Khan IV, Convocation, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, June 15th 2006
“Our religious leadership must be acutely aware of secular trends, including those generated by this age of science and technology. Equally, our academic or secular elite must be deeply aware of Muslim history, of the scale and depth of leadership exercised by the Islamic empire of the past in all fields”
Aga Khan IV, 6th February 1970, Hyderabad, Pakistan
“My profession is to be forever journeying, to travel about the Universe so that I may know all its conditions.”
Ibn Sina, aka Avicenna, 11th century Muslim Philosopher, Physician and Scientist, author of the Canon of Medicine, circa 1037CE
