Mufti Sahab (DB) Observed

Mufti Muhammed Taqi Usmani Sahab (DB) has narrated in one of his travelogues that people of Algeria were still pondering over some things which were already solved in Mufti Sahab (DB)'s country. The specific problem was of alcohol. Whether banning of alcohol can be implemented. Some people may quip that there is lots of alcohol in Pakistan so what is the meaning of this statement. Things have to be compared with western situation in regards to alcohol to understand the meaning of above statement. Conclusion : If you think that an Islamic injunction is too impractical to implement then look for an example where it has already been implemented.

Problem in Puttaparthy

Problem is of accounting for income. Here is the blog entry related to the news that a car with thirty five lakh rupees was intercepted by Andhra Police.
Those who do not know the background Puttaparthy is the headquarter of late Sathya Sai Baba.
The remarkable statements are the following:

When was the last time you heard of any police or tax trouble at Puttaparthi or Bangalore? Holy men and their ashrams are considered out of bounds for tax officials and governments. What prompted Hyderabad's sudden interest in Puttaparthi affairs?

We had heard about  problems earlier. Problems in Lucknow. At two different times a guest house owned by Hazrat Maulana Abul Hasan Ali Al-Hasani Nadwi (RA) was raided. That was in his life time. Very equitable country in deed.
 

Who Should Be Outraged?

A Syrian Girl in Damascus is a blog.
Or it was.
It discussed human orientation-other than straight. You see how difficult it has been made to be normal in modern times? You have to find words to describe the norm, the normal, the usual.
Above blog was not from Syria. It was from Ireland.
It was not by a Syrian. It was my an American.
It was not by a girl. It was by a man. A grown up man-technically a student but a grown up man nevertheless.
In short the blog was a hoax.
The differently oriented people were out raged by the behaviour of this man.
He undermined their cause.

But wait a minute. Who should be out raged at this fraud replete with obscenity?
The answer is Muslims-the people who are silent.
There is a man who kept feeding obscenity to the world and the world was swallowing it up.
Muslim society had come of age-for them.
Being numb-that is what we are at the present moment of history, is understandable. Both Islam and Muslims are under assault from the most powerful institutions in the history of world. Assault on Islam is velvet-they declare that they are not against Islam. Assault on Muslims is not so velvety.
Being dumb is not understandable.

Source : BBC (1,2,3,4)

Standard Model

The best physical theory is called the standard model of particle interactions. In the west there is a fashion to get everything in a nut-shell. Or on the front or back of a T-shirt. Or on the coffee mug. Here is standard model:

Source : Flip Tanedo at Quantum Diaries

Touchy Autrians

Dr Ahmet Hamidi was the vice president of Austria's Islamic community. (AP via Taiwan via Islam in Europe)
He is no more holding the post. He resigned from it. Reason? He used his freedom of speech in the continent famous for free speech. He said that extreme sports can be bad for women. Vienna Chamber of Physicians and others were left unamused. These silly Muslims. Can't they understand women are made for extreme sports? Of course child bearing and rearing is for birds. Why should they bring such silly things into discussion? Home keeping? What a blasphemy! Cooking? Off with his head! World is indeed a wonderland.

Strings, Strings

The annual conferences on string theory are called Strings-NNNN, where NNNN is the year. The current conference, that is Strings-2011, is being held right now at Uppsala, Sweden. Here is a report, from a critique of string theory. Here is the poster:

Here are the earlier ones:

• Strings 2010 Texas, USA
• Strings 2009, Rome, Italy
• Strings 2008, CERN, Switzerland
• Strings 2007, Madrid, Spain
• Strings 2006, Beijing, China
• Strings 2005, Toronto, Canada
• Strings 2004, Paris, France
• Strings 2003, Kyoto, Japan
• Strings 2002, Cambridge, UK
• Strings 2001, Mumbai, India
• Strings 2000, Ann Arbor, USA
• Strings 1999, Potsdam, Germany
• Strings 1998, Santa Barbara, USA
• Strings 1997, Amsterdam, Holland
• Strings 1996, Santa Barbara, USA
• Strings 1995, Los Angeles, USA

Beating Around String Theory

Topic of string theory is one that we would like to present to the visitors here. But hesitation is the norm in this matter. It is difficult to convey even the simplest scientific things to the public and the consternation at the prospect of explaining the most intricate things can only be imagined. One impediment, and it is a silly one, is that the moment you present a scientific idea to the public then very soon the echo is heard-if the explanation is any good. Echo per say is not bad but the echo that is dreaded is the following one. People start making there on theories on the basis of what you feed them. On the face of it this is a good thing-a tribute to your science popularization attempts. But that is the only good news there. People after that expect that you shall do work along the lines suggested by them. This pinches. The lay people's ideas are as close to real science as the antipodes.

Complain over-at least for the time being.
So here is an interview with the Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, a living legend and a hero, that contains some remarks about string theory. (Thanks again are due to our reliable source of news P&P. Does he, we mean Zaperz, find it all himself or has he got jinns working for him?)

Music As Disease

That is nice quip-music is a disease. Haq Islam reproduces an article by Maulana Muhammed Karolia about curing this illness.

Dr Farhan Mujib

His father had a masters degree in Mathematics but he did his Ph.D. in Education.
He has a masters degree in Physics but he did his Ph.D. in Education.
He was serving as a Reader in the Physics Department at AMU when he took voluntary retirement to pursue art as a profession.
Art was always there in him. He only started taking it seriously.
Here is an article from 2005 in Hindu. And here is his artwork.

This is called a collage. Basically cutting artistic figures from glossy magazines and pasting them with style. The original figures are heavily used but even then the amount of creativity that goes into it is enormous. A look at his work might give you the impression that even you can indulge in it. Well some of us may but most of us can not. Not everybody can cut an exquisite Buraq from Span. He has indulged in conventional paintings. He has painted the cover pictures for famous books, for example the pictures used on most of the books by Gyanpeeth awarded poet Sharyar are by him. He has dabbled in pottery. He maintains a garden that will give inferiority complex to the pseudo intelligentsia that goes by the name of high society.

He gets along famously with everybody except boring people. Javed Akhtar is his school mate from Minto Circle. (Those who are not Aligs for them Minto Circle is a school at AMU whose official name is STS High School or Sayyidina Tahir Saifuddeen High School. The list of alumni of that school is very impressive, for example, Janab Muhammed Hamid Ansari Sahab, the present Vice President of India is one of them.) Javed Akhar's son Farhan Akhtar is named after him. He is married to a very gracious lady Dr Fawzia Mujib who is a Reader in the Physics Section of Women's College. By now he is not an artist of national level but beyond. Here is another collage.

from Apparao Galleries-his main art handlers. Above pictures do no justice to his work. Some people have classified his collage work in miniature, which might or might not be the case, but photographic reduction misses the exquisite poetry of the composition. It can only be called composition for there is no painting in it.

Earlier the collages were full of nostalgia but that is receding now-in his own words.

You can read lots of art critiques' views about his work at various sites. For example here, here, here and here.

Related Posts (1) Ah Farhan Sahab (2) In Memorium Farhan Mujib (3) RIP : Farhan Mujib (4) Sharayar Sahab (5) Pipl Profile of FM

The Followers

At the moment of writing there are five precious followers of An Alig's Armchair. Madni, Malih Ahmed, Fathima Adam, Malik Ajaz and Amna H. Khush Amadeed. Amna is a cub in the community that has been blessed with the benign eye of Hazrat Hakim Akhtar Sahab (DB). She has a number of her own blogs that are now gone private. Malik Ajaz is from Sunni Forum. No idea about dear sister Fathima Adam. Dr Malih Ahmed Siddiqui is the roller coaster physician from Sunni Forum who has a blog of his own now that appears on the blogroll here.
Finally Madni too has a blog here. You can find him too at Sunni Forum and if the cruel world has brain washed you against polygyny then he is the physician for you. Thank you all and may Allah Most High accept your visit here, make it useful for you and grant you ample reward for being the patrons.

Inquilab in Aligarh

Great irritation of modern civilization is when the newspaper boy thinks that he can sell your newspaper to whom so ever he wants for he can always through the Hindi paper Amar Ujala in your house. Then there is Sahafat which thinks that it can replace Urdu daily Roznama Rashtriya Sahara just like that. So this was one of those days when the boy changed the newspaper. It was Inquilab. After turning a few pages you realize that the also have Mumbai (Aligarh) in the top bar. Now Pakistan has an Aligarh but Mumbai? Futher investigations reveal that the fron page also has the announcement article-Arrival of Inquilab in the City of Knowledge and Intellect (Shahr-e-Ilm-o-Danish Main Inquilab ki Aamad). Now it makes sense. 72 years old legendary newspaper from Mumbai has started publication from Aligarh. No dak edition but actual publication. That too just a few days after beginning publication from several other cities. Today Meerut and Agra too are honoured with Aligarh. The introductory issue is full of congratulatory messages from every local member of every political party-small or big. Some local news is also covered. Of course Rashtriya Sahara covers more (and the Hindi dailies even more) as well as has a better get up and production. But one thing that the editor says raises hopes-he asserts that there will not be any emotional overplay in news presentation. This will be indeed very nice. News should be served as news and not as a conspiracy theory. Though other daily news papers are better than Urdu weekly Nai Duniya in news presentation but even then they leave a lot to be desired. So good luck to Inquilab. May Allah grant them progress.

These Mullas

Maulwis are the favourite punching bags of us Aligs. Here is a segment from the review of Conflict Zone by Professor Ariful Islam that we mentioned in the previous post:

With tea cups, come fresh arguments — mullahs still hold grip on community, ...

Why this resentment?
There is a reason for this.
There was a Fatwa of kufr on Sir Syed. And fatwas are issued by Maulwis.
This is an old issue.
If an issue is not solved then with time it may die out.
Or it may not.
This one has not. Above statement is a testimony to this fact.
This issue should be solved for it is dividing the Ummah-into groups of religiously and secularly educated.
Allah Most High has decreed that hold on fast to His rope and do not be divided.
Two or three things can be said with surety in this regard. Sir Syed said that his desire was to prepare those students who had philosophy in one hand, science in another and a crown of no god but God on their heads.
The least we can conclude from this that he desired his graduates and hence his followers to remain completely within the bounds of Islam, to submit completely to the Will of Allah Almighty, to give preference to Deen over anything else, to make Islam his guiding principle. In the humble opinion of your poor Alig this is what gave him the strength when he embarked on his journey of reinterpretation of Islam.
The second thing is his obituary of Hazrat Maulana Qasim Sahab Nanotwi (RA). If he had such a high regard for him then why we, nobodies, should indulge in random degradation of Maulwis?
Thirdly this is not a new topic and lots of things have happened from the beginning till now. One of them is the frequent and regular visits by the religious scholars to the university. Clearly the do not trash it. From personal experience due regard and love has been observed about things Aligarian from the religious scholars. Not to return the gesture will be bad etiquette.

So where to begin?
Well by resisting the quips like the above-do not allow it to escape from your lips, er keyboard.
Any thing more?
Yes. What about you suggesting that?

Dr Arif-ul-Islam

He is professor in the statistics section of Women's College at AMU. Has written several books-fiction and non-fiction. He uses fiction too for some purpose. The idea in fiction is that many of the things that you can not say yourself you can get them uttered by the characters. Smart choice indeed. But then if you can not say something yourself then is it not better to leave it unsaid? Hikayat bood bepayaan ba khamoshi ada kardam. (There were to many stories so told them silently.) His book Ataturk Fi Karbala got published as Conflict Zones in English and here is a review.

The book’s importance also lies in the fact that very few original works in English, fiction in particular, recounts student life at AMU.

Then Professor Shafey Kidwai in Hindu.
Amazon
Book Adda
 Urdu version had many more reviews. 

A Haunting Poem About Prayer

Qari Saleem Seedat takes you to higher planes with his reading. Here.

Eyes Have Begun To Hurt Heart

A poem that will touch your heart. Here.

May Allah Most High provide us the shadow of Hazrat Hakim Muhammed Akhtar Sahab for a long time.

Jumping the Shark

This is a modern phrase. There was a television show that was popular. After sometime they ran out of ideas to keep the viewership of the programme. Try something very adventurous-like jumping a shark. This idea was implemented. So what happened? Nothing. When ratings go down they go down. But a phrase is created. Some thing outrageous in the name of creativity is called jumping the shark. (This post is not an invitation to get hooked to television, serials, shows and all that.)

So there were surfers in the sea. A shark decided to return the favour. Rather then surfer jumping over the shark the shark decided to jump over the surfer. Here is the link. A commenter says that he is shark expert and it is all real. Why not?

She Got It

What would you associate with the beloved city of your beloved Prophet (PBUH)? Outrage of the day has been identified by sister Miskeenah here.
Hat Tip: Musafir-e-Dasht

Non-Vegetarian Plants

 Some plants are non-vegetarian. By non-vegetarian it is not meant that eating them will be like eating non-veg-the meaning is that these plants eat non-veg. They eat animals. Like this one.

For botany people it is a mundane topic.
See here for a perspective.
A brother grows them as a hobby. See here.
He has to feed them a few times a week. Eeek!

On their own they can trap up to rats and baby monkeys! See the size here.
Monsters-these carnivorous plants.

Only bats can put them in place. See what they do here.
More here, here, here, and here.
And finally Wikipedia.

Weapons of Islamophobia : Demography

Use lies, deceptions, half-truths, technical analysis suited to the needs and create a monster out of Islam (Izlam).

(1) Not a Friend of Muslims Really
(2) Vote for Us

Via : Islam in Europe

PPP (Picture Perfect Preposition)

Question: Who killed BB (Benazir Bhutto)?
Answer : B (Bin Laden, of Osama  type).
Question : Says Who?
Answer: Rehman Malik (Of Surah Fatiha Fame: See here and here).