Glimpses of Hidden Reality

“To honor a living person who has made an exceptional contribution affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works,” the Templeton foundation awarded its 2009 prize to a French scientist.

Bernard d’Espagnat, 87, is a theoretical physicist and philosopher of science at the University of Paris-Orsay. He was recognized for his pioneering contributions to the nature of physical reality and making the daring suggestion that matter everywhere is caught in a web of “veiled reality” that lies beneath time, space and energy.

What has “veiled reality” got to do with spirituality? In simple terms, it means that there are limits to what science can explain. Once we acknowledge this, it opens the door to the mysterious and the transcendent.

There is an abundance of good writing on spirituality and faith. What sets apart the work of scientists like D’Espagnat is that they use science to show the limits of science, thus allowing for the possibility that there is more to life than the acceptance of only that which can be seen or measured and rejection of that which cannot.

D’Espagnat’s quest was driven by a single, profound question: “What insight does science reveal about the nature of reality?” His research tool consisted of quantum physics, a subject he learned from one of its founders, another Frenchman named Louis de Broglie, winner of the 1929 Nobel Prize in physics. Broglie showed that matter had wave-like properties and waves had properties that classical physics attributed only to matter. What this meant was that reality was different and more subtle than what it appeared to be. D’Espagnat devoted seven decades of his creative life trying to figure out the deepest aspects of this reality.

His research showed that “veiled reality” could be glimpsed through quantum mechanics. (An analogy from art: Pablo Picasso used cubism to paint his view of reality). In a series of famous experiments performed in 1981-82 on the polarization of photons (a massless particle associated with light waves), it was found that a change in the polarization of a photon (think of it as the direction in which it oscillates) miles away from another photon could be detected in both. In other words, the two photons seemed to be interconnected, or “entangled.” What’s more, the change in their states traveled faster than light, a violation of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

The experiments tested “Bell’s Theorem,” named after the Irish physicist John Bell, which states that nature is composed of objects whose behavior can be understood “locally,” that is, influenced directly only by their immediate surroundings. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, predicts that nature is non-local, that is, the behavior of an object is influenced by objects far removed from it. D’Espagnat predicted that quantum mechanics was right, and experiments with photon oscillations have borne him out. Physical reality turns out to be non-local and entangled, leaving open the possibility of invisible realms, the “veiled reality.”

Understanding the implications of these rigorous experiments can be daunting for the non-scientist but as D’Espagnat explained: “It’s not that science will explain the ultimate reality of certain objects or events. Rather, it is that the concepts we use, such as space, time, causality and so on … are not applicable to ultimate reality.” In other words, it is arrogance to suggest that science can have the final word on the true nature of reality. The best that science can do is to describe reality as it appears to us, taking into account limitations of our own mind and our own sensibilities.

This leads to a humbler understanding of our place in the universe. We are not its master, and its “veiled reality” can point to something larger than ourselves. To some, this may come as a disappointment; to scientists like D’Espagnat, it is a source of awe and inspiration. Matter is not the only reality. According to D’Espagnat, “the possibility that the things we observe may be tentatively interpreted as signs providing us with some perhaps not entirely misleading glimpses of a higher reality and, therefore, that higher forms of spirituality are fully compatible with what seems to emerge from contemporary physics … Mystery is not something negative that has to be eliminated. On the contrary, it is one of the constitutive elements of being.”

One scientist influenced by D’Espagnat’s work is Bruno Guiderdoni, a Muslim convert who is the director of research at France’s National Center for Scientific Research and co-founder and director of the Islamic Institute for Advanced Studies in Paris. Attending one of D’Espagnat’s lectures as a graduate student in 1980, he wrote: “I was deeply impressed by the philosophical implications of what he was addressing. One has to understand that these issues were completely absent from the usual courses in quantum physics … he helped me understand that there were actually a very deep question in this issue of the nature of reality.” Guiderdoni is widely recognized as an expert on galaxy formation and evolution as well as a prominent interpreter of Islam. He has written numerous papers on both topics and has emphasized his own work in astrophysics as a fulfillment of God’s command to seek knowledge and understand His creation.

It is a pity that the media often portrays religion and science as a battle between inflexible creationists and atheists. Most of us, however, occupy the space between these two extremes and find no conflict between faith and reason.

Leading scientists have paid homage to Bernard D’Espagnat for his unique contributions. One such is William D. Phillips, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, who said: “Entanglement is one of the key features of quantum mechanics, one that most sets it apart from classical physics. Bernard D’Espagnat was a key figure in providing a mature understanding of both the scientific and philosophical implications of entanglement, a phenomenon so counterintuitive that it continues to intrigue 21^st century physicists. D’Espagnat appreciated that entanglement not only changed our view of how physics works, but also our concept of the very nature of reality.”

D’Espagnat’s work suggests not just that science cannot fully describe reality but more importantly, that scientific research can encourage spirituality. Those who believe in the unseen and whose lives are animated by faith are not irrational; they are only acknowledging the presence of the mysterious and the ineffable in their lives. As Charles Townes, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1964 and the Templeton Prize in 2005 said of the convergence of science and religion: “I believe this confluence is inevitable. For they both represent man’s efforts to understand his universe and must ultimately be dealing with the same substance.”

 You can also read the article here.
 

Reaching Out to the Muslim World

President Barack Obama followed up the promise he made in his inaugural address - “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect” - with an interview with Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language channel based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on January 26. The interview is significant not only for its content but also because it is the first interview he granted since taking office.

In the interview, the president said, “… my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record … America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.”

In case anyone has any illusion about the enormity of the task, the president also said, “But ultimately, people are going to judge me not by my words but by my actions and my administration's actions. And I think that what you will see over the next several years is that I'm not going to agree with everything that some Muslim leader may say, or what's on a television station in the Arab world - but I think that what you'll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity. I want to make sure that I'm speaking to them, as well.”

Since 9/11, we have become acutely aware of the critical role language plays in inflaming passions. Recognizing that, Obama said, “… the language we use matters. What we need to understand is, is that there are extremist organizations - whether Muslim or any other faith in the past - that will use faith as a justification for violence. We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith's name. And so you will I think see our administration be very clear in distinguishing between organizations like al Qaeda - that espouse violence, espouse terror and act on it - and people who may disagree with my administration and certain actions, or may have a particular viewpoint in terms of how their countries should develop. We can have legitimate disagreements but still be respectful. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.”

On Iran: “I said during the campaign that it is very important for us to make sure that we are using all the tools of U.S. power, including diplomacy, in our relationship with Iran. Now, the Iranian people are a great people, and Persian civilization is a great civilization. Iran has acted in ways that's not conducive to peace and prosperity in the region: their threats against Israel; their pursuit of a nuclear weapon which could potentially set off an arms race in the region that would make everybody less safe; their support of terrorist organizations in the past - none of these things have been helpful. But I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress. And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us.”

This radical departure from the policies of the Bush administration - with-us-or-against-us Manichean view replaced with respect and inclusiveness - fills many of us with hope. Perhaps someday peace will reign between Palestinians and Israel and the world will rejoice in a two-state solution. Can hope triumph over history? Only a few weeks ago, such a possibility could not be imagined. Now the words have been spoken and who can say that they will not take wings on their own?

Not that everyone is thrilled. Many right-wingers are aghast that the president has a) given his first interview to an Arab news channel and b) he is reaching out to Muslims so early and so decisively in his presidency. Not continuing Bush’s belligerent attitude toward Iran has outraged them. Others think he is being naïve, that he is undermining the security of America by essentially declaring that the "war on terror" is over.

The predictable Fouad Ajami, writing in The Wall Street Journal, summed up his analysis of the president’s message to Muslims with these words: “Obama Tells Arabia’s Despots they’re safe.” This is a man who never fails to see a dark lining in a silver cloud.

In the president’s inaugural address are words that describe these people perfectly: “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

Meanwhile, our hope has soared on the wings of the president’s promise to Muslims: America will respect those who may hold different views or who are disappointed by past American actions. Only those who use terror and violence to achieve their goals will be targeted by America. What a difference a cosmopolitan president can make!

You can also read the article here.
 

Jamal is an orphan born in the teeming slums of Mumbai. When he is about 5, his mother is killed by a Hindu mob in a burst of communal violence. He and his older sibling Salim somehow survive but are “rescued” by hard-core criminals whose “business” consists of turning helpless orphans into lifelong beggars and a constant source of income by disfiguring and brutalizing them. The two brothers manage to escape and a harrowing sequence of events and escapades ensue, with Jamal finally facing the arrogant game-show host. Each question is the source of flashbacks about how he came to acquire its answer through the hard knocks that he had to endure. While the older Salim becomes the goon of a godfather and loses his soul (eventually he redeems himself), Jamal retains his integrity in adversity while nurturing a keen aptitude for factoids. Not only does he win a gigantic pile of cash, in the end he even gets the girl. The melodrama notwithstanding, all of us came out of the theatre smiling.

The smile did not last. With life imitating art but in reverse, on that very night, terrorists claiming to be Muslims attacked luxury hotels, train stations, a synagogue and even hospitals in Mumbai, killing close to two hundred people and injuring many more. They fired at random, apparently with “serene smiles” on their faces, as screaming bodies fell around them.

We have just started the month of Dhul-Hijjah and I couldn’t help but recall a verse, appropriately enough, from Sura Al-Hajj: “… If God had not enabled people to defend themselves against one another, monasteries and churches and synagogues and mosques - in all of which God’s name is abundantly extolled - would surely have been destroyed …” (22:40)

The injunction to defend all places of worship by people of any faith is the essence of this verse. Yet these nihilists, these remorseless killers, in acts that can only be described as pure evil, even attacked a synagogue, killing its American rabbi and his wife, turning their 2-year old son into an orphan overnight. What a monstrous perversion of God’s command!

We will now hear that sickening sophistry endlessly repeated: “All Muslims are not terrorists but all terrorists are Muslims.”

No definitive details about the terrorists have emerged yet. Still, it is difficult to fathom how human beings can become so brainwashed and turn into such cold-blooded murderers. It is a good thing that Pakistan has agreed to work with India to cauterize this cancer from their midst, although suspicion and distrust between the two nations pose formidable challenges.

The last thing India, and the world, needs are Hindu-Muslim violence. The murderous rampage by a few Muslims has made Muslims everywhere, particularly Indian Muslims, jittery, angry, frustrated and vulnerable.

Ahmed Khan is a taxi driver in Mumbai, having moved to the city from the poor state of Uttar Pradesh to work and to “provide his children with a better future.” He is in his early 40s and, of course, he is a Muslim. “This is so wrong,” he told a German reporter, holding back his tears. “It simply can’t be.” All Muslims he knows are in a state of utter shock. “What these young men have done here is haram, forbidden. Spilling blood is a sin.”

Noted Indian author Shashi Tharoor wrote in the Los Angeles Times that “if these tragic events lead to the demonization of the Muslims of India, the terrorists will have won.” Precisely, but neither should we indulge in any type of grievance-mongering to justify the wanton acts of cruelty and mayhem of these terrorists.

Terrorism threatens us all. It is against all the values we hold dear. It is against everything that gives life its meaning, irrespective of religion and culture. Terrorists have their own “religion,” no matter what they may call themselves, and the essence of that “religion” is to hate and kill. We must unite against it. That is the only way we can defeat it. There is no other way.

The decision to introduce algebra to 8th grade students within three years is a beacon of hope in the otherwise bleak K-12 public education system of California. Numerous studies have identified difficulties with algebra as one of the main reasons why high school and even college students failed to graduate every year. By demanding early mastery in a discipline that Gov. Schwarzenegger called the “key that unlocks the world of science, innovation, engineering and technology,” California has taken a step in the right direction to support the demands of the knowledge-based economy of the 21st century.

Teaching at a community college can give one a sense of how unprepared students generally are in algebra when they graduate from high schools. I began teaching the subject as an adjunct faculty in a community college in northern California this spring. The elementary algebra course included the study of real numbers, linear equations, exponents, polynomials, factorization, quadratic equations, and rational expressions. The first week was revealing. Negative numbers, fractions and divisions, particularly those involving decimals, overwhelmed many students. Calculating something like 54 – (-12) baffled about a quarter of the student who subtracted 12 from 54 to produce a result of 42. Almost half the class was clueless about the order of arithmetic operations, and solved problems like 2 + 4(1/2 + 1/3) = 6(1/2 + 1/3) = 6 * 5/6 = 5. Something more complicated like 1/2 + 3/4[-2(1/4 + 5/12) + 3/5] threw almost the entire class off.

It took me an ordinate amount of time to cover the basics and shake off the students’ fear of numbers and equations. However, once they sensed the power and beauty of algebra and its relevance, not just to their careers but also to such daily tasks as shopping and driving and lobbying for a cause on campus, they made rapid progress. Convincing them that I would be a patient and sympathetic teacher as long as they made a serious effort at learning algebra also helped.

Frank, floundering in fractions in the beginning, displayed fluency with factorization toward the end. Christina, shaky until spring break, suddenly began solving quadratic equations with ease. Paul, easily the oldest student in the class at 53, exuded confidence that after two attempts, he would pass algebra this time. A college degree that he had to postpone after graduating from high school in the ‘70s now appeared as a distinct possibility.

There was no denying that if the average student had a better grasp of algebra from middle and high schools, I could have made more progress and even delve into some exciting real-world applications before the semester ended.

During spring break, the National Mathematics Advisory Panel released a 120-page report that stated, “Although our students encounter difficulties with many aspects of mathematics, many observers of educational policy see algebra as a central concern. The sharp fall off in mathematics achievement in the U.S. begins when students reach late middle school, where, for more and more students, algebra course work begins …” Three words summarized the panel’s recommendation: “Focus on algebra.”

Yes, funding, teacher training, school resources and myriad other issues pose thorny problems to the decision by the California State Board of Education. But by testing eighth-graders in algebra within three years and giving them a head-start to flourish in the knowledge-based global economy will more than justify the investments that must be made to the K-12 public education ecosystem. As a nation (to cite only one example), we cannot afford our fifteen-year-olds to rank 25th among 30 developed nations in math literacy and problem-solving, as the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) found.

Besides, lack of qualified teachers may not be as insurmountable a problem as is currently thought. The EnCorps Teacher Initiative launched in June of last year is attracting retiring baby boomers and other concerned Americans. Their expertise in algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, statistics, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science, honed in the trenches, is precisely what our students need to make these subjects become real for them in classrooms.

This should particularly appeal to Muslims with expertise in these fields, particularly in algebra. After all, the word algebra comes from the Arabic word “al-jabr” from the title of the book “al-Kitāb al-muḫtaṣar fī ḥisāb al-ğabr wa-l-muqābala” by the great Muslim mathematician Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) who invented the field.

What an opportunity it is for us to pay homage to Khwarizmi by teaching algebra in middle and high schools throughout America! With our knowledge and experience, we can do wonders for our students. If we can inspire just one student to excel in math or science, we can turn a life of low expectations into one of high achievement. If we can prevent just one student from dropping out – about a million students drop out of schools every year in America – we may just set off a chain reaction that can significantly reduce this unacceptable statistic. If this is not persuasive enough, consider what Paul, my oldest student, said of his experience: “Everyone gets a second chance in America.” We can be the catalyst for that second chance for someone.

So, enough with conferences and position papers and lectures! Let’s make a difference in the lives of our school students if we can, with the intention of pleasing Allah, and the rest will take care of itself.

You can also read the article here.
 

The Creator and the Created: The 2008 Templeton Prize

Michael Heller, a Polish theologian, cosmologist and philosopher, was awarded the 2008 Templeton Prize “For Progress toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities.”

In accepting the prize, professor Heller said, “Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence. The paradox is that these two great values seem often to be in conflict. I am frequently asked how I could reconcile them with each other. When such a question is posed by a scientist or a philosopher, I invariably wonder how educated people could be so blind not to see that science does nothing but explore God’s creation.”

Heller was only 4-years old in 1940 when Joseph Stalin banished 1 million Poles, including Heller, his four siblings and his parents, to Siberia. This was after the Germans had invaded Poland in 1939 and Heller’s family had to flee from Tarnow, Poland, to what is now Ukraine. The suffering he experienced and witnessed in Siberia became for him a life-defining experience. Even at that tender age he sensed that many people survived the brutal Siberian extremities through the power of prayer. Heller resolved that if he survived the ordeal, he would take on one of life’s greatest challenges. “I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion,” he recalled.

Heller wrote 30 books, almost all of them dedicated to the creative dialogue between science, theology, and philosophy. His seminal contribution was to see in these seemingly distinct realms of human understanding a profound synergy, and he used his considerable intellect and insight in clarifying the nature of this synergy for us.

Attention to Heller’s work comes at a critical time. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins and atheists/secularists such as Christopher Hitchens have declared a war on religion. Their books are best-sellers. Many religionists have responded in kind, polarizing the religion-science issue further. What we seem to overlook is that inflexible ideologies, both secular and religious, drive away common senses, and that is a loss for all. It is this loss that Heller is determined to stem, by engaging our collective common sense and without minimizing the complexity involved in reconciling the knowable scientific world with the mysterious, and ultimately unknowable, nature of God. Through a rare combination of scientific acumen and theological insight, Heller addresses fundamental questions of knowledge and meaning in a holistic context that go far beyond the parochial arguments of the secularists and the religionists. In doing so, he also rejects a “God of the gaps” theory that uses God to explain what science cannot.

In a chapter titled “Cosmological Singularity and the Creation of the Universe” from his book “Creative Tension,” for instance, Heller writes how difficult it would be to find a book or an article on cosmology in which the author is silent on the Big Bang and the creation of the universe. But, Heller notes, it would be even harder to find a book or an article in which this problem is dealt with responsibly from the point of view of both science and theology. This is what Heller boldly sets out to do. By tracing the evolution of singularity as it relates to the origin of the universe, from Newton and Friedman to Einstein and Hawkins and others, Heller writes that “God knows the outcomes of laws and chance not by calculating from the initial conditions, but in the same direct way as God knows everything. What for us is a chance, for God is a detail of the picture that is simply present.” Even though such a viewpoint disturbs some theologians who speak of God’s immanence over God’s transcendence, Heller shows that this is nitpicking, that a transcendent God is also an immanent God. A reader may have difficulty following Heller’s carefully constructed arguments, but no one can accuse him of lacking rigor in his thinking, moving fluently between the scientific and the theological world as only one deeply versed in both can.

In the chapter called “Generalizations: From Quantum Mechanics to God” in the same book, Heller raises the metaphysical question, so persistently asked by the 17^th-century German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Heller suggests that we read old religious masters from the perspective of the most recent scientific theories such as quantum mechanics. We should not repeat their doctrines blindly, he writes, but look at them with an eye sharpened by the enlargements of imagination prompted by the achievements of modern science. He writes: “Today we ask such questions as: How old is the Universe? Did it initiate in a “Big Bang”? Will the future theory of quantum gravity remove the initial singularity appearing in the standard cosmological model? Is the fundamental level of the world atemporal and nonlocal? There are many similar queries. All these questions are purely scientific, and we hope that, with the continuous progress in developing our theoretical and empirical tools, we will sooner or later find answers to some of them. I do believe that this will greatly contribute to our better posing of philosophical and theological questions, and more cautiously formulating tentative answers to them. The main lesson we should learn from science in this respect is that we must always be open to broader and broader horizons.”

Finally, in the chapter titled “Chaos, Probability, and the Comprehensibility of the World," Heller writes: “Modern developments in science have discovered two kinds of elements (in the Greek sense of this word) shaping the structure of the Universe—the cosmic elements (integrability, analycity, calculability, predictability) and the chaotic elements (probability, randomness, unpredictability, and various stochastic properties). I think I have convincingly argued in this chapter for a thesis that the chaotic elements are in fact as “mathematical” as the cosmic ones, and if the cosmic elements provoke the question of why the world is mathematical, the same is true as far as the chaotic elements are concerned. On this view, cosmos and chaos are not antagonistic forces but rather two components of the same Logos immanent in the structure of the Universe.” This is why Heller believes that religious objection to teaching evolution “is one of the greatest misunderstandings” because it “introduces a contradiction or opposition between God and chance.”

When evolutionists and intelligent design proponents clashed in 2005 over the origin of life, spawning legal fights over high school biology curricula in Pennsylvania, Kansas, Ohio and other states, I wrote in an article that “There are many theologians from different faiths who find in the theory of evolution evidence of God’s glorious self-disclosure, and many scientists whose research leads them to ask the deeper questions of life – why are we here, why do we suffer, what makes our life meaningful - that lie outside the realm of science.” I also wrote, “The unexplored region between religion and science beckons people with open minds seeking spiritual and scientific truths. Is it not possible that wildflowers of insight will bloom on it if nurtured with humor and humility?” I did not know then that the ideal I had in my mind when I wrote those sentences were theologian-scientists like Michael Heller.

Heller’s concluding statement after winning the Templeton Prize for 2008 should become a basis for public discourse on religion and science in America and elsewhere: “When thinking about science as deciphering the Mind of God, we should not forget that science is also a collective product of human brains, and the human brain is itself the most complex and sophisticated product of the universe. It is in the human brain that the world's structure has reached its focal point – the ability to reflect upon itself. Science is but a collective effort of the Human Mind to read the Mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made. To place ourselves in this double entanglement is to experience that we are a part of the Great Mystery. Another name for this Mystery is the Humble Approach to reality … The true humility does not consist in pretending that we are feeble and insignificant, but in the audacious acknowledgement that we are an essential part of the Greatest Mystery of all – of the entanglement of the Human Mind with the Mind of God.”

You can also read the article here.

Don’t Let a Teddy Bear Mask the Horrors of Darfur

So the Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir has “pardoned” Gillian Gibbons after meeting with two Muslim members of the British House of Lords. Hold the applause, please.

Gibbons was the British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her 6- and 7-year-old students in Khartoum’s Unity High School to name a teddy bear “Muhammad”, a name chosen by the young learners themselves. While in custody for eight days, cruel clerics and assorted Sudanese “defenders of the faith” chanted for Gibbons’s execution.

That they were doing so under the patronage of a government desperate to deflect the world’s attention away from Darfur was plain for all to see.

But we must not allow Darfur to be eclipsed by the zany tale of a teddy bear.

The Janjaweed Arab militia, armed and recruited by the Sudanese government, has massacred over 200,000 tribal people in the Darfur region, and 2.5 million were forced to flee their homes, in four years of fighting.

Conspiracy theories cannot be admitted here: it is a case of Muslims killing mostly Muslims.

No private citizen has been more vocal, daring and persistent in opening our eyes to the genocide in Darfur than the actress Mia Farrow.

Farrow put the Gibbons episode in perspective: “One white woman in peril with a teddy bear has captured more media attention than the past three years of our brothers and sisters in the Darfur region. I look back at what we were doing during the Rwanda situation and in America we were watching the O. J. Simpson trial.”

A goodwill ambassador for UNICEF who visited Darfur seven times since 2004 and witnessed the effects of the carnage firsthand, Farrow launched a fund for the region and said: “This is the first genocide of the 21^st century and the one genocide that is ongoing as we speak. We have a regime that launched a military campaign on an unarmed population for no other reason than that they are not Arab.”

Actors George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon have also worked tirelessly to raise our awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Their Not On Our Watch project seeks to "focus international attention on the continuing carnage in Darfur, encouraging governments and international organizations to take meaningful action to protect the vulnerable, marginalized, and displaced.  Where governments have remained silent, we are committed to working to render otherwise invisible atrocities, visible."

Zealotry and illiteracy can be a potent mix. Spectacles like the Sudanese clerics making a mountain out of nothing, not even a molehill, can both enrage and demoralize Muslims.

Consider: In the six years since 9/11, public opinion in America has shifted significantly against Muslims. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 35 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Muslims, up from 29 percent in 2002. Whereas 27 percent of Americans in 2002 thought that Islam was more likely to encourage violence than any other religion, the figure in 2007 stands at a whopping 45 percent.

For Muslims fighting bigotry and distrust and striving to earn their rightful place in Western societies, incidents like the one in Khartoum can sap the energy and make us wonder if we will ever make any progress.

Yet, as grim as the situation looks, we must not forget Darfur. If we are to remain true to our faith, we must join hands with people of conscience around the world in forcing the Sudanese government to stop the genocide.

A group of retired statesmen, including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president Jimmy Carter, have issued a report this week for the Sudanese government to honor past peace treaties, for rebel groups to participate in peace talks and for the international community to support a peacekeeping force with money and manpower.

Muslims can be a catalyst for such efforts, at least at the grassroots level. We can be the largest donors to Farrow’s Darfur fund. And we can demand that our imams and leaders address the Darfur situation forthrightly and unsparingly in their sermons and lectures.

In the four years since the Darfur genocide began, I did not hear a single sermon on it in the mosques that I attended in the San Francisco Bay Area, nor come across a single conference organized around the atrocities of the Sudanese regime.

It may be that as a minority, we feel overwhelmed by a few hate-mongers in the media. It may be that we are frustrated by our inability to reach out to many of our fellow-Americans despite the open houses and the interfaith dialogues. It may be that some of us experience discrimination at work because of our faith. And it is a fact that more than any other group, we are singled out for scrutiny at airports.

But none of these indignities can ever justify our silence when Muslims kill and commit injustice. We must speak out unequivocally against the world’s current “heart of darkness” in Darfur.

You can also read the article here.

“On 30^th June, 2003, at 11 AM, almost two years after the Taliban captured me in Afghanistan, I embraced Islam.”

Yvonne Ridley was speaking to a packed audience at the Muslim Community Association of Santa Clara, California, on 17^th November, 2007. Although her story has been widely known, it was still quite an experience to hear it firsthand from her. The former Sunday Express (UK) reporter used humor and drama to give a spellbinding account of her imprisonment by the Taliban after the 9/11 attacks, her release 10 harrowing days later, and the subsequent questioning and soul-searching that led her to become a Muslim.

Three thousand journalists had descended on Pakistan within days of the terrorist attacks in New York. Ridley was one of them but she was restless and wanted to report directly from Afghanistan, al-Qaida’s home base.

With two guides from the North West Frontier Province, she set out for the eastern city of Jalalabad through the winding and historic Khyber Pass.

There was a problem, however. Taliban leader Mullah Omar had banned foreign journalists from entering into Afghanistan. Ridley solved the problem by cloaking herself with the ubiquitous head-to-toe blue burqa of the Afghan women. She became “invisible” and moved about freely in the forbidden land.

The disguise worked for a few days until she found herself in a market near Jalalabad. Her swollen and blistered feet made further walking impossible. The intrepid guides found a donkey for her but the animal bolted as soon as she tried to ride it. A camera slipped out from under her, right in front of a Taliban soldier brandishing a Kalashnikov.

“This is the end,” she thought. Images of the Taliban executing prisoners and spies in cold blood flashed through her mind. When that didn’t happen, she was convinced she would be stoned to death. That didn’t happen either but she was hauled away to a prison where she made her unhappiness known by going on a hunger strike. But the food she was offered, freshly-baked bread and other delectable stuff, made her wonder about the blood-curdling reports she had been hearing about her captors.

On the third day of her captivity, a cleric visited her. “A light seemed to emanate from his face,” she recalled. “I have seen such light on only a few faces since that day as I traveled the world.”

To please the cleric, she readily agreed with everything he said, heartily proclaiming the beauty and the greatness of Islam. The cleric smiled (“he saw through me”) and promised that she would soon be released. All he wanted was for her to read the Quran when she was free so she could judge for herself what Islam was like.

Three days later, she was put in a car and told that she was being driven to Kabul where she would board a plane to freedom. Instead, she was brought to another prison where she met six Christian charity workers - two Americans, three Germans and an Australian. She was shocked to find that they engaged in loud, in-your-face bible study in prison, without any retaliation from the Taliban guards.

The Talibans were no angels, of course. “They tried to break me mentally by asking the same questions time and time again, day after day, sometimes until 9 o’clock at night.” In return, she swore and spat at her captors. (The Taliban’s portrayal by Khaled Hosseini in his international best-seller The Kite Runner is, I believe, closer to the truth about the group’s brutality toward its own people, particularly women, than would be suggested by Ridley’s experience).

On the 9th day, there was a tremendous roar that seemed to tear the sky apart. The earth shook as cruise missiles began raining down on and around Kabul. There goes my last chance of freedom, thought Ridley. “Why should the Taliban not kill me now that their country has been attacked?”

Although certain that death was imminent, Ridley found herself wondering about the impersonal nature of bombs and missiles. They don’t discriminate. They kill children and young girls with the same savagery as they kill one’s enemy.

The next day, the guards came and took her away … to freedom.

When she crossed the border into Pakistan, reporters converged on her.

“How did the Taliban treat you?”

“With respect and courtesy,” she replied to the incredulous media hordes.

“They expected me to say the kind of horrible things that (as I was to learn later) happened to prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. But I told them the truth. And that clearly didn’t satisfy them.”

In the end, for Ridley, it came down to a question of keeping her word. The enigmatic cleric she had met in prison (she never saw him again in subsequent trips to Afghanistan) had promised that she would be released, and she was. In return, she had promised him that if set free, she would give the Quran a try. And so she did.

It was a translation by Abdullah Yusuf Ali that she picked up one day at her home in London. The first thing she did was to look up “women” in the index. “To my surprise, I found no injunction for beating your wife and oppressing your daughters; instead, I found passages promoting the liberation of women. That this was divinely revealed to the prophet 1,400 years ago, long before the West knew of such radical ideas, opened my eyes. Women were equal to men in spirituality and education in Islam and given our child-bearing abilities, we were, in fact, the deluxe model of human beings!”

Most Western male politicians and journalists, Ridley discovered, propagate the idea that misogyny is a part of Islam. They cite child brides and veils and forced marriages and wrongly blame Islam for these cultural practices, their arrogance surpassed only by their ignorance.

The more Ridley read the Quran, the more she was persuaded that the Quran provided a magnificent blueprint for conducting one’s life on earth.

But she took her time. She read and reflected. She traveled and observed. She talked and asked. And then one day in June 2003, her questions answered and her longings met, she became a Muslim.

Lacking the nerve to inform her mother in person, Ridley emailed her about her conversion. A few days later, mother and daughter met in a London suburb and the following conversation ensued:

Mother: When I learned that you converted to Islam, I began attending my church regularly.

Daughter: See, mother, my conversion is already having a positive effect on you!

You can also read the article here.

I have been an admirer of Dr. Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy’s writings on bringing about a scientific renaissance among modern-day Muslims. His 1991 book, Islam and Science – Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality, was an eye-opener for me. The Quran is a book of moral guidance and not a book of science, he wrote. In one clear sentence, he exposed the inadequacy of Muslims who would do away with the scientific method and install revelation (as they understood it) as the source of scientific progress and discovery. His subsequent writings on the topic only deepened my admiration.

Which was why, in an otherwise incisive article in Physics Today (August 2007), I was disappointed by a solution he proposed for Muslim renaissance in science. Dr. Hoodbhoy recommends behavioral changes among Muslims to excel in a ruthlessly global marketplace dominated by science and technology. Such changes would allow Muslims to develop intense “social work habits” that “are not easily reconcilable with religious demands made on a fully observant Muslim’s time, energy, and mental concentrations. The faithful must participate in five daily congregational prayers, endure a month of fasting that taxes the body, recite daily from the Quran, and more. Although such duties orient believers admirably well toward success in the life hereafter, they make worldly success less likely. A more balanced approach will be needed.”

Is Dr. Hoodbhoy suggesting that daily prayers, recitation of the Quran and month-long Ramadan fasting are hindrances to a Muslim’s attaining scientific excellence, since they disrupt sustained concentration? Although he does not spell out the details of “a more balanced approach,” the implication is clear: Do away with these religious demands, or, at the very least, reduce their frequency.

I am surprised by the obvious errors Dr. Hoodbhoy has made in his argument. While it is commendable for Muslims to offer the five daily prayers in congregations, it is not a must. The prayers (with the exception of the Friday noon congregational prayer) can be offered in private, taking no more than a few minutes and very little space. In fact, that is how most observant Muslims meet the requirements of their faith during workdays in their professional lives. If, for some reason, they cannot offer the daily prayers on time, they can make them up later.

His use of the word “endure” for the month of fasting is also perplexing. Most Muslims do not “endure” fasting but look forward to it as a time of physical cleansing and heightened spirituality.

The major flaw in Dr. Hoodbhoy’s suggestion is that religious practices prevent observant Muslims from focusing and maintaining the continuity of their thoughts, particularly in science. In fact, the opposite is true. Properly practiced (a challenge for many Muslims for whom religious observances have become rituals without meaning), prayers and fasting instill discipline, a prerequisite for concentration. His mentor, Nobel physicist Abdus Salam, is an obvious example. Salam was one of the great theoretical physicists of the twentieth century but he was also a devout Muslim, punctilious about the demands of his faith. In numerous essays and articles, Salam explained how his faith inspired his science and vice-versa. While most Muslim scientists of our times can hardly match Salam’s achievement, the science of many of them is also informed by the awe and wonder inspired by their faith.

So why are Muslim nations so far behind in science compared to the West? Why does the observation of Turkish-American physicist Taner Edis that “if all Muslim scientists working in basic science vanished from the face of the earth, the rest of the scientific community would barely notice” ring so true? Why is creationist literature unleashed by a Turkish clergy named Harun Yahya sweeping the Muslim world?

One reason is the lack of separation of mosque and state, and consequently, separation of mosque and science, in many Muslim countries. Science thrives on unfettered inquiry. If the clergy can impose religious limits on free inquiry and threaten dire consequences if the limits are transgressed, science can never advance.

Another related reason is the lack of quality education. Take the case of Dr. Hoodbhoy’s own country, Pakistan. As William Dalrymple noted (The ‘poor’ neighbor, The Guardian UK, August 14, 2007) on the occasion of Pakistan’s 60^th independence anniversary, only 1.8% of Pakistan's GDP is spent on government schools. 15% of these government schools are without a proper building; 52% without a boundary wall; 71% without electricity. Many of the barely functioning schools cram children of all grades into a single room, often sitting on the floor because of lack of desks. While 65% of India’s population is literate and rising, the figure for Pakistan is 49% and falling. Out of a population of 162 million, 83 million adults of 15 years and above are illiterate. It is worse for women: 65% of all female adults are illiterate. The absence of quality government schooling has compelled the poorest Pakistanis to place their vulnerable children in the Madrasa system. Madrasas offer free education but can turn their young wards into ideologues under the tutelage of fiery preachers, as the recent red mosque showdown in Islamabad demonstrated.

When one adds to this grim status quo the general lack of accountability and respect for law by the leaders of many Muslim countries, it is easy to see why engaging in genuine scientific research can become hazardous to one’s health.

Yet there is hope. Even diehard conservative Muslims are becoming aware of the central role of science in defining the destiny of modern nations. Slowly but surely, they are beginning to see that science does not undermine religion but enriches it. The wind of change is blowing and it cannot be stopped or reversed.

You can also read the article here.

The recent release of the movie, “A Mighty Heart,” based on the book of the same name by Mariane Pearl, widow of journalist Daniel Pearl who was slain in Karachi, Pakistan in 2002, has revived memories of this harrowing event and its implications in a post-9/11 world that seems to be spinning out of control.

Pearl was the Mumbai-based India correspondent of The Wall Street Journal who arrived in Karachi in January, 2002 with his five-month pregnant wife to pursue the investigation of “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and his possible al-Qaida links in Pakistan.

Trusting, curious and driven by a passion for truth, Pearl agreed to meet a mysterious, elusive imam named Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani whose followers, it was believed, included Reid. A man named Muhammad Bashir arranged the meeting.

It was a trap, and on January 23, 2002, Daniel Pearl walked straight into it.

A frantic search begins when Mariane suspects that her husband has been kidnapped. Pakistan’s intelligence agency (inter-services intelligence, the ISI), US consulate in Karachi and the FBI pool their resources to rescue Pearl.

The movie is faithful to these well-known facts but what is remarkable is the skill with which director Michael Winterbottom conveys them. Although we know at the outset what happens to Pearl, the movie plays like a thriller. Ordinary scenes pulsate with foreboding. Here is Pearl waving goodbye to Mariane as he is driven away in a yellow taxi for his rendezvous with Gilani from the Karachi villa rented by the writer Asra Nomani. Later in the evening, an anxious Pearl riding a different car asks the driver how much longer it will take to reach his destination, and the driver remains silent. Meanwhile, Mariane fights fear, fatigue, bureaucracy and pains of pregnancy to cling to her sanity as the clock ticks away and her husband fails to return.

After five weeks of false leads and midnight raids into the dens of terror suspects in the labyrinthine alleys of Karachi, an FBI agent posing as a journalist receives a grisly video in a hotel lobby. In graphic detail, it shows Pearl being beheaded by his captors weeks earlier, after he is coerced into confessing his “Jewishness.”

Angelina Jolie is brilliant as Mariane Pearl, at once restrained and explosive, worldly and transcendent. When informed that her husband has been murdered, Jolie retreats to her room in a trance and collapses into what has to among the most heartrending wail in movie history.

Also impressive is an officer whom Mariane calls “Captain.” Played by Irrfan Khan, whom many Americans recently saw as the father in ‘Namesake,’ the “Captain” is the head of Pakistan’s counter-terrorism unit. He vows to Marianne that “I will bring your Danny home” and afterwards, that he will bring Pearl’s killers to justice “even if it is going to take a lifetime, my lifetime.” The Muslim “Captain” is soft-spoken, but there is no mistaking the steel beneath the velvet.

It was the Captain who found that “Bashir,” who lured Daniel into the fatal trap, was in reality Omar Saeed Sheikh, the London School of Economics dropout arrested in 1994 in New Delhi for kidnapping American and British tourists. He was released by the Indian government in exchange for the hostages of an Indian airliner hijacked to Afghanistan in December 1999.

Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in July 2002 by a Pakistani court for the killing of Pearl but with several appeals pending, he remains in jail.

In the tangled world of terror, however, the truth behind the killing of Daniel Pearl remains as elusive as ever.

On March 15, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks who was captured in Rawalpindi in March 2003, told a U.S. military tribunal that he personally beheaded Daniel Pearl. “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.”

Mohammed claimed that he was tortured while in CIA custody, but told the judge at his hearing that he was speaking freely and was telling the truth.

How will Mohammed’s confession affect the fate of Omar Saeed Sheikh? No one seems to know, a source of anger and frustration for Mariane and all those who wish to see justice done.

Mariane, whose mother is Cuban and father Dutch, gave birth to Daniel’s posthumous son, Adam D. Pearl, on May 26, 2002 in Paris. (We learn from the book that as she is getting ready to give birth to Adam in the delivery room, Mariane is wearing a long white shirt she and Danny bought in Dhaka, Bangladesh.) Through Adam, she hopes to continue the legacy of her husband.

What is this legacy? As Mariane explains, it is to remain true to your purpose in life and to never let hate consume you. It is to reject a Manichean worldview where  subjective versions of good vs. evil is locked in an eternal battle, a world without hope, a world where violence is the only solution.

“Part of my ‘revenge’ (against the fanatics) was that my purpose wouldn’t change – not how I live, the work that I do or my approach to the world,” she recently said in TIME magazine. In response to “Has your view of Islam changed?”, Mariane replied, “No, it hasn’t changed at all. I grew up with Muslim people, so I was very acquainted with Islam. So it is not like the people who killed Danny taught me what Islam was about. They are hijackers of their own faith.”

And when asked, “You have a great love for the Pakistani people. Has that love changed?”, Mariane said, “Not at all … For me the nationality and the religion is really a secondary matter. For me, it is all a matter of human behavior … The people who I truly love in Pakistan are the most noble, powerful and deep people that I have ever met in my life. At times like that you encounter the worst human behavior possible, so you are also going to be very sensitive to the best human behavior possible ...”

In the context of the war on terror waged by the U.S. government since 9/11, in which the certitude of the zealots is matched by the certitude of the movers and shakers in Washington, Mariane Pearl is a beacon.

While she is more eager than anyone to see the killers of her husband, and the killers of innocent people anywhere, brought to justice, she has achieved victory against the extremists by remaining true to her goal, and her husband’s, of bridging races, religions and cultures through compassion and understanding. She has done this without in any way compromising with the fanatics and their nihilistic ideologies.

Like her husband, Mariane gives substance to Hemingway’s observation about the fearless fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea: “A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

Against the mighty hearts of the likes of the Captain and the Pearls, the heart of darkness symbolized by the likes of Omar Saeed Sheikh and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad stand no chance. There is a lesson here: Never succumb to despair, and never allow fear to overcome courage and hope.

You can also read the article here and here.

"Power tends to corrupt,” goes the familiar dictum of English historian Lord Acton (1834-1902), “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

The recovery of stupendous amount of ill-gotten wealth in Bangladesh from top government officials enjoying unchecked power and privileges underscores the truth of Acton’s observation across space and time.

Leaders of Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Awami League (AL) and their relatives, appointees and assorted henchmen are guilty of unprecedented plundering of national wealth and betrayal of public trust. These are not petty criminals; they constitute the Bangladeshi mafia that has brought shame and disgrace to a nation born after the sacrifices of millions.

Bangladesh is at a momentous crossroads now. Without a governmental infrastructure of checks and balances that transcend the superficial trappings of democracy, there will be more looting and lawlessness, and there will be no end to the sufferings of the majority of the population.

How can checks and balances be introduced into a system so ridden with nepotism, greed and power-lust? Three suggestions, out of many, follow:

First, the current caretaker government has to deliver on what it has promised: it must ruthlessly root out corruption. It must prioritize its effort by starting at the leadership of both BNP and AL, going down the hierarchy by perhaps three or four levels to keep the situation manageable, and sparing no one along the way if found guilty. In spite of the mistakes the caretaker government has made, it still has the upper hand in steering the country toward the right direction because of the overall support of the people.

Only when the Bangladeshis see that exemplary punishment has been meted out to those who betrayed and defrauded them and turned the country into their personal fiefdoms can their confidence be regained. Besides, nothing can convince lower-level functionaries to straighten out their acts faster than the prospect of tough justice.

Second, accountability of public officials has to become an ever-present reality. The most important instrument for realizing this is a free and fearless media. It is the media that can help ensure that the government conducts its business transparently and that any wrong-doing is relentlessly pursued and exposed.

This can exact tolls. Reporters may mysteriously “vanish” or compromised by their personal failings. They may languish in jails or lose their livelihood. But that is the nature of their job and as long as there is a core group of media professionals who remain focused on the truth, a nation is unlikely to go awry.

Additionally, the online media must do a better job of harnessing the opinions and call-to-action programs of its readers through interactive Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and RSS.

Third, religion must not be misused for political ends. Most Bangladeshis are religious by instinct but they wisely choose not to wear religion on their sleeves. The minority of clergy who think they are the custodians of people’s spirituality live in a fool’s paradise. The only way to undermine them is not to be swayed by their extremist rhetoric but to follow a middle path, as the Quran and other holy texts advise.

In decrying the rise of the military-industrial complex, American president Dwight D. Eisenhower once said in 1953 that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children …”

Eisenhower got only half the story right. As Bangladeshis watch in horror the daily revelations of the plundering of national wealth by the likes of Tarique and Arafat Rahman, Lutfozzaman Babar, Osman Gani, Abdul Awal Mintoo and others, we realize that it is not only the arms merchants who snatch food from the mouths of hungry infants and poor peasants but also immoral and unscrupulous politicians, public officials, godfathers and godmothers.

Babar’s crores (1 crore = approximately 170 thousand US dollars), in the final sense, came at the expense of millions of poor families throughout Bangladesh trying to eke out a living on uncertain and paltry income. Clear-cutting of old-growth forest in places like the Hill Tracts and the Sunderban Delta that yielded Gani his crores surely came at the expense of millions of farmers who lost their land and livelihood to rising rivers. And the wealth of Tarique and Arafat Rahman? It beggars the imagination to think how many Bangladeshis, in the final sense, must have paid for it with their blood and toil.

Checks and balances achieved through sound institutional practices - aided by an ever-vigilant press and an informed citizenry swayed not by emotion or dogma but by reason - if these and similar traits seep into the collective consciousness of Bangladeshis, the long national nightmare will perhaps soon be over.

You can also read the article here.