KARACHI: Curiosity and inquisitiveness were the traits which earned earlier Muslim scientists their rightful place in the development of science and these are the two qualities which are missing today. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy shared these views on Tuesday evening while speaking on “Science in Islam: Past, Present and Future” at the Aga Khan University.

The development of science cannot be attributed to one person or a part of the world – it is the collective effort of multiple civilizations over thousands of years, said Hoodbhoy. Similarly, the Islamic civilization did not only utilise the great corpus of knowledge that the Greeks passed on to the European civilisation, but also made its mark through invaluable contributions.

There is not a shadow of doubt about the enormous contributions made by Muslim scientists between the ninth and 13th centuries, he added. “There was a time when the role of Muslims in the filed of science was not recognised in the West and there were only a few names which gained recognition even till the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Belgian chemist and historian George Sarton,” said Hoodbhoy, adding that Sarton, who developed the history of science as an academic discipline, authored five volumes on the subject and dedicated the first one and a half to seminal contributions of Muslim scientists.

Golden days
Mentioning the names of physicist Ibn al-Haytham, alchemist Jabir Ibn Hayyan, physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Hoodbhoy said “There were achievements after achievements [in that era] and we have every right to be proud of them.”

He also spoke the philosopher and theologian Ibn Rushd (Averroes), whose name has been carved on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) building along with names of other famed scientists Isaac Newton, René Descartes and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. “Averroes was the one who brought scientific rationality into such sharp focus that he became, in a sense, the intellectual father of
Renaissance,” said Hoodbhoy.

When Gundeshapur, the intellectual centre of the Sassanid Empire in Persia, fell to Muslim armies in the seventh century, they discovered the treasure of Greek learning in the form of manuscripts. “There was a curiosity during those times which lead to the introduction of science in Islam for the first time.”

Driven by this curiosity, Muslim scientists worked together to produce intellectual breakthroughs, said Hoodbhoy, which ultimately gave rise to brilliant personalities and publications that became the pride of Muslim civilisations centuries later and are present in our school textbooks. The era of brilliance, however, slowly started to wilt and Hoodbhoy recalled only one name which made a lasting impact at the beginning of the 14th century, eminent historian Ibn Khaldun.

The downfall
When asked what Muslims have been doing for the past 900 years, Hoodbhoy replied “nothing”. “With the death of curiosity, the Muslim civilisation fell from the peaks of greatness.”He lamented that more than a
billion Muslims had nothing substantial to add to the world of science and technology and have ended up as mere consumers.

He urged Muslims to move away from the mindset which dictates that there is some fundamental contradiction between Islam and science or that advancement in the field is dependent on the availability of resources. “It does not matter how many universities you build, how much fancy equipment you import, how many research journal papers you publish,” he said. “What matters are attitudes – the attitude of asking how and why and the scientific method of thinking critically. This is what we don’t teach our children and they fail to reach the first level of truth all their lives.”

Source: tribune

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San Jose, California – A California-based Hindu effort called the Pancajanya Project, which is “dedicated to increasing awareness of the glories to Lord Krishna and His teachings,” is working to place one million copies of the Bhagavad Gita in hotels and motels across the nation.

Project coordinators state that the idea came after seeing how the Bible was having a positive effect on guests, and thus they wanted to similarly distribute their texts to the public. “Just as the Gideons place Holy Bibles in motel and hotel rooms throughout the world, the Pancajanya Project would like to introduce Srimad Bhagavad Gita in as many rooms as possible, to provide inspiration and education to travelers and other guests,” the Motel Gita website outlines.

According to reports, over 150,000 copies of the Bhagavad Gita have been distributed thus far to over 1,100 hotels and motels. The Pancajanya Project runs on donations, and a significant amount of assistance came from the International Society of Krisha Consciousness, which has an estimated 500 locations across the country. Members of the organization also donated their time to help distribute copies to interested hotel owners.

The project website outlines that the group began its efforts in April 2008, and unbeknownst to them, another Hindu organization was engaging in a similar mission.

“[We began] by contacting motel and hotel owners primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area and asking them to place soft-bound copies of the Bhagavad-Gitas in their rooms,” it outlines. “The response from owners and guests has been so overwhelming that we decided to expand the project throughout the United States as quickly as possible.”

“Meanwhile, …  Rohini-Nandana Dasa, a devotee at ISKCON’s temple in Boston Massachusetts, had already been placing Bhagavad Gitas in motel rooms in the U.S. Eastern Seaboard,” it continued. “East and West coast devotees have now joined forces under the auspices of ISV to form the Pancajanya Project.”

The Bhagavad Gita is a dialogue between the Hindu god Krishna and a warrior named Arjuna, in which the two have a discussion about the “universal order.” There are many books in Hinduism, just as there are several sects within the religion.

Jesse Boyd of Full Proof Gospel Ministries in North Carolina, who has served as a missionary to Hindus worldwide for over a decade, told Christian News Network that Hinduism is largely a collection of stories and traditions that have been handed down in the Eastern world over time. He stated that unlike the Bible, it does not contain an objective moral code.

“The Bhagavad Gita is basically like the Odyssey or the Iliad in ancient Greece,” Boyd explained. “What you’re dealing with is mythology. … It’s not a set theme, or a set story or a set code of ethics.”

“In terms of being a threat to the Bible, no way,” he continued. “Anybody that’s honestly seeking spiritual truth is going to be exposed to the differences between [Christianity and Hinduism] pretty quickly.”

Boyd said that he believes the effort is most likely more of an educational endeavor, or one designed to keep existing Hindus from converting to Christianity, as Hinduism is not an evangelistic religion. He advised that one cannot convert to Hinduism; you have to be born into it.

“I think it is more about keeping Hindus and educating Americans about what Hindus are,” Boyd stated. “The motive is not religious.”He further pointed out that there is a significant difference between the work of the Gideons and the Pancajanya Project, because the focus of the Christian life is evangelism.

“We put the Bible there to bring people to Christ from all peoples, tribes and nations,” Boyd asserted. “The Church is the opposite of religion. It’s not about waiting for them to come in; it’s about going out and making disciples.”

In summary, he stated that he does not have a problem with the presence of the Bhagavad Gita in hotels. “Let people see that all religions are not the same,” Boyd said. “Religion doesn’t make sense. It’s a bunch of weird paradoxes. But the Bible does make sense.”

Source: christiannews

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During first period at Olivenhain Pioneer Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif., Kristen McCloskey leads about two dozen third-graders through some familiar yoga poses.

"All right, so let's do our opening sequence A," she says, instructing the kids. "Everyone take a big inhale, lift those arms up. Look up."At the end of the half-hour class, 8-year-old Jacob Hagen says he feels energized and ready for the rest of the day. "Because you get to stretch out and it's good to be the first class because it wakes you up," he says.

Schools across the country are focusing more on teaching students to make healthy choices; Encinitas Superintendent Tim Baird says yoga is just one element of the district's physical education curriculum.

"We also have a nutrition program," he says. "We also have a life-skills program where kids learn about perseverance and responsibility."The whole wellness program is supported by a $500,000 grant from the K.P. Jois Foundation. The Encinitas-based group promotes a kind of yoga called Ashtanga, which was introduced to Encinitas from India in 1975 by founder Krishna Pattabhi Jois.

But when Mary Eady visited one of the yoga classes at her son's school last year, she saw much more than a fitness program. "They were being taught to thank the sun for their lives and the warmth that it brought, the life that it brought to the earth and they were told to do that right before they did their sun salutation exercises," she says.

Those looked like religious teachings to her, so she opted to keep her son out of the classes. The more Eady reads about the Jois Foundation and its founders' beliefs in the spiritual benefits of Ashtanga yoga, the more she's convinced that the poses and meditation can't be separated from their Hindu roots.

"It's stated in the curriculum that it's meant to shape the way that they view the world, it's meant to shape the way that they make life decisions," Eady says. "It's meant to shape the way that they regulate their emotions and the way that they view themselves."

Eady is part of a group of parents working with Dean Broyles, president and chief counsel of the Escondido-based National Center for Law and Policy. "And then the question becomes — if it is religious, which it is, who decides when enough religion has been stripped out of the program to make it legal?" Broyles says. "I mean, that's the problem when you introduce religion into the curriculum and actually immerse and marinate children in the program."

Critics of the yoga class launched an online petition that garnered about 260 signatures as of Friday, about 50 of them voluntarily identifying themselves as parents in the district. Another online petition, in support of the class, had more than 2,700 signatures, which are anonymous to those who don't sign.

Eady and the other parents working with Broyles want the classes made completely voluntary and moved to before or after the school day. They say school officials haven't responded to their concerns.

Opponents worry that the class will be adopted in schools across the nation. They point to the Jois Foundation's funding of researchers at the Universities of San Diego and Virginia to study whether the yoga classes affect things like attendance, behavior and student achievement.

"It is the stated goal of both the Jois Foundation and the district itself to prove scientifically that Ashtanga yoga works for kids here in the district and then export it nationally," Broyles says. Jois Foundation Director Eugene Ruffin, however, maintains that the yoga program is typical of athletics programs for kids.

"They provide you with the exercise and the motivation for children," Ruffin says. "And then they give you character exercises — 'Thou shalt not steal, thou shall be honest, thou shall be respectful to adults.' "Ruffin says those ideals aren't specific to Hinduism and don't conflict with his own Catholic upbringing.

Despite the controversy, most parents, like Monique Cocco, are happy with the classes. She says her children don't come home with a newfound knowledge of Hinduism. "Absolutely not — no. What my daughter tells me is she did the pancake today and she lays down and then she cracks up because it's so funny," Cocco says.

Cocco hears from teachers that kids are calmer and more focused after yoga, so the teachers can spend more class time on lessons, instead of settling kids down the way they sometimes have to after traditional gym classes. When winter break ends Monday, the school district is moving forward with plans to have the classes taught at all nine Encinitas schools.

Source: nhpr

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INDIAN High Commissioner Malay Mishra has expressed concern about errors creeping into Hinduism locally. "What I have seen is too much emphasis on ritualism, the ritual part of it. And sometimes with very shallow understanding of the philosophy of the religion," he said.

He voiced his concerns at a media briefing on the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Indian Hindu monk and famed spiritual leader Swami Vivekananda held yesterday at the Indian High Commission in Victoria Avenue, Port of Spain.

Speaking about Vivekananda's teachings he said the most important point is revision of the understanding of Hinduism. "And I stress this point because a lot of confusion and errors have crept into understanding this religion not only in India but in Trinidad and Tobago among the so-called priests and pundits of this country about what Hinduism really amounts to," he said.

He noted that Swami Vivekananda spoke about Hinduism it is a "totally different interpretation", where he speaks of a universal religion, and one that has always believed in tolerance and universal acceptance.

Mishra explained that an understanding of vendata, the core of Hindu philosophy, will give a different perspective of the religion.

"(It) is the most rational and scientific way of understanding what it stands for. (A religion) bereft of all prejudices and all that creeps into our mind, and brings this sort of hierarchical feeling in the society, brings us inequal distribution within the society, brings us separation between us, between the so-called higher caste and lower caste, between the priest and the not-so-learned people; it breaks all that down," he said.

Mishra recalled that from childhood he fell under the "spell" of Vivekananda, his teachings gave him a new perspective and he has taken that influence forward in his life. He noted that Vivekananda had begun raising the nation's consciousness in India even before Mahatma Ghandi.

"So he was a person who has done immense contribution to shaping India's nationhood, India's nationalism, and brought forth what we call an unleashing of ideas on the Indian sub-continent which went across the length and breadth of the world and came back to India," he said.

He said the celebrations, running from January 10-15, were not just about one community but they wanted the whole nation to be uplifted by the Vivekananda's universal message. The celebrations include a play on Viv's life starring Hansley Ajodha and co-narrated by Ralph Maraj, screening of a film and charity drives.

Mishra noted that the Indian missions all over the world were engaged in the commemoration but this country will stand out for both the number and variety of activities, all funded locally and free to the public.

Chairman of the organising committee Pundit Dr Rampersad Parasram said it was "high time" the world heard the message of Vivekananda, and of a religion free of dogma and fanaticisim and where there was no place for discrimination.

He described him as a "much respected scholar and spiritual master" though he was always willing to learn. He noted that Vivekananda was also concerned about youth empowerment, poverty and ills of all kind, and had worked with political reformers.

"Swami Vivekananda is a model many could emulate," Parasram said. Vivekananda was born in January 12, 1863 in Kolkata (now Calcutta) and died in July 4,1902. He is a household name in India and is famous for bringing Hinduism to the west.

Source: webcache.googleusercontent

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KUALA LUMPUR - The Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim) today repeated its stand That the word 'Allah' is a holy word That belongs only to Muslims and Islam and can not apply to non-Muslims and other Religions. Its director-general, Datuk Othman Mustapha, said the matter limit Been Finalised at the 82nd meeting of the Fatwa Committee of the National Council for Islamic Affairs on May 5 to 7, 2008.
"Therefore, it is compulsory for all Muslims to protect it to the best of Their Ability. Any attempts to insult or abuse the word must be prevented according to the provisions stipulated under the Federal Constitution," he said in a statement here today.

He said Statements made by Certain quarters bother to create disharmony and religious' just for the sake of gaining political mileage were very disappointing. Hence, he said Jakim would like to slow down all quarters to return to the rule of law to Ensure That bother and 'religious harmony was well preserved and protected under the Federal Constitution. - BERNAMA

Source: nst

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Sikhism, the fifth largest religion in the world, is growing rapidly. This faith, with roots in Punjab, has also recently gained greater political importance. Manmohan Singh, the current Prime Minister of India, is one of 26 million people that practice Sikhism. In spite of this, Sikhs continue to experience discrimination and are often misunderstood.

Asia Society Texas Center, in partnership with The Sikh Coalition, is proud to present a two-hour workshop that will examine the history of Sikhism in America and give tips on how to teach the religion in your classrooms. Sikhism has been added for the first time to the new Social Studies Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS).

Source: asiasociety

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People with no religious affiliation make up the third-largest global group in a new study of the size of the world's faiths, placing after Christians and Muslims and just before Hindus. The study, based on extensive data for the year 2010, also showed Islam and Hinduism are the faiths mostly likely to expand in the future while Jews have the weakest growth prospects.

It showed Christianity is the most evenly spread religion, present in all regions of the world, while Hinduism is the least global with 94 percent of its population in one country, India. Overall, 84 percent of the world's inhabitants, which it estimated at 6.9 billion, identify with a religion, according to the study entitled "The Global Religious Landscape" issued by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life on Tuesday.

The "unaffiliated" category covers all those who profess no religion, from atheists and agnostics to people with spiritual beliefs but no link to any established faith. "Many of the religiously unaffiliated do hold religious or spiritual beliefs," the study stressed. "Belief in God or a higher power is shared by 7 percent of unaffiliated Chinese adults, 30 percent of unaffiliated French adults and 68 percent of unaffiliated U.S. adults," it said.

ISLAM EXPANDS

Exact numbers for religious populations are impossible to obtain and estimates for the size of the larger faiths can vary by hundreds of millions. This study by the Washington-based Pew Forum appears to be one of the most extensive to date.

Pew Forum demographer Conrad Hackett said the 2,500 censuses, surveys and population registers used to compile the report did not allow a further breakdown to estimate the world population of atheists and agnostics.

"It's not the kind of data that's available for every country," he said. "A census will typically ask what your religion is and you can identify a number of particular affiliations or no religion. An age breakdown showed Muslims had the lowest median age at 23 years, compared to 28 for believers all around the world. The median age highlights the population bulge at the point where half the population is above and half below that number.

"Muslims are going to grow as a share of the world's population and an important part of that is this young age structure," Hackett said. By contrast, Judaism, which has 14 million adherents or 0.2 percent of the world population, has the highest median age at 36, meaning its growth prospects are weakest.

Hackett noted that Israel, which has 40.5 percent of the world Jewish population, had a younger age structure than the United States, where 41.1 percent of the world's Jews live. Global Christianity's median age is 30 and Hinduism's 26. With a median age of 34, the growth prospects for religiously unaffiliated people are weak, the study showed.

WORLDWIDE BREAKDOWN
The study estimated Christianity was the largest faith at 2.2 billion adherents or 31.5 percent of the world's population. The Roman Catholic Church makes up 50 percent of that total, with Protestants -- including Anglicans and non-denominational churches -- at 37 percent and Orthodox at 12 percent.

There are about 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, or 23 percent of the global population. "The overwhelming majority (87-90 percent) are Sunnis, about 10-13 percent are Shia Muslims," the study said. Among the 1.1 billion unaffiliated people around the world, 62 percent live in China alone and they make up 52.2 percent of the Chinese population.

Japan is the only other country with an unaffiliated majority, at 57 percent of the national population. After that comes the United States, where 16.4 percent of all Americans said they have no link to an established faith.

The world's Hindu population is concentrated mostly in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Half of the world's Buddhists live in China, followed far behind by Thailand at 13.2 percent of the world Buddhist population and Japan with 9.4 percent.

The study found that about 405 million people, or about 6 percent of the world population, followed folk religions such as those found in Africa and China or among Native American and Australian aboriginal peoples.

Another 58 million, or nearly 1 percent of the world population, belonged to "other religions" including Baha'i, Taoism, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, Wicca and Zoroastrianism. Most were in the Asia-Pacific region.

Source: profit.ndtv

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Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for The Soul of The West is a new book from Ignatius Press by William Kilpatrick. This is not a light read, but I found it to be an very informative read.
There are a range of ideas about engaging Islam and whether Islamist terrorists are misusing their religion or are more faithful adherents of it.  Within Catholic circles to some extent these differing views are represented  by Robert Spenser and Peter Kreeft. 

In fact these two men engaged in a debate on the subject that I thought was a great debate in both the issues and how both men respected the other. I tend to fall in the Robert Spenser end of the spectrum and so did this book.  There is certainly a Mark Steyn like approach in this book and Mark Steyn is quoted rather extensively in it.  The Mark Steyn view is displayed regarding demographics and how emigration of Muslims into Europe is affecting these countries.  Especially as there has been less integration into these cultures as is usual. But this goes beyond the normal political approach and into subjects relating to the Church and the Evangelization of Muslims.

The book is misnamed to some extent where atheism is really a reference to secularism and a reaction to Islam that is represented  by some agnostics, atheists, and believers of a more liberal stripe.  The second section of the book on “Islam’s Enablers” is a reference to this and how bad behavior by some Muslims are protected and covered up. The book contains multiple examples of how tolerant societies have allowed this behavior while evicting or punishing to some extent those who highlight and fight agains this. In many ways it is quite laudable when people want to prevent prejudice of one group because of the actions of a segment of that group. The problem comes in when serious problems are smoothed over and no engagement comes to label and resist these problems.  Multiculturalism is really not practiced, what we actually have is favored-culturalism and the diminishment of other cultures.  For example the book demonstrates how textbooks have come to favor Islam while demeaning Christianity.
I found the third section to be the most interesting “The Comparison.” 

We often hear of the approach towards Muslims as being one of the Abrahamic religions and that there are commonalities we can build upon.  William Kilpatrick demonstrates quite well that these common foundations are either non-existent or quiet weak.  For example Jesus in the Koran is purely of sock puppet for Mohammed to deny that Jesus was the son of God.  The Koranic Jesus plays a very minor role. A Jesus who performed no miracles and was not crucified – the very Jesus you would expect if you wanted to supplant him.  The Koranic Abraham is also much difference and the different view is more likely to cause contention than to unite. 

This pretty much is true of most of the comparisons that are suppose to provide a common foundation. Although this is really to be expected in comparisons of Abrahamic religions in that Islam is a heresy cobbled up from Christianity and other sources with no historical foundation to the claims that are made.  The standards of historical reliability somehow never seem to get applied to the Koran and we will not be seeing “The Real Mohammed” on the History Channel any time soon.  Still it is important to remember that however fabricated Islam is that there is always commonality with Muslims themselves.
The last section “The Cold War with Islam” expresses an idea I had not really considered before with a comparison to the cold war with Communism.  While not a perfect parallel there is much to think about here.  Things don’t have to end up in a shooting war to be addressed.  He goes over several approaches and critiques ideas such as the moderate-Mulsim strategy. A chapter in this section deals with what Christians should do. Obviously this requires a multifaceted approach  with of course Evangelization being the priority. 

Too often we walk on eggshells in relating to Islam. One of the facinating things I learned about was a Coptic priest Fr. Zakaria Botros. I don’t think I had ever heard of him, but he is well versed on Islamic teachings and has a television show.  His show challenging Islam has resulted in al-Qaeda putting a $60 million bounty on his head.  He is suppose to be rather effective resulting in conversions.  Many Muslims are not use to being engaged at this level, but considering the various punishment for apostasy this is a very difficult area. Another book by Ignatius Press The Price To Pay: A Muslim Risks All to Follow Christ tells the story of a Muslim convert who was shot and left for dead by his brothers because of his conversion.  There is certainly not just one approach and the Catholic both/and applies.  There is and should be common cause with Muslims where possible and the message of the Gospel should not be left out. Over all I found this well-worth reading and I learned a lot while also giving me much to think about.

Source: patheos

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Islam is the fastest growing religion in England and Wales, according to new census data. The number of people identifying with no religion nearly doubled over the last decade while the percentage of people who call themselves Christians has dropped to 59 percent, down from 72 percent 10 years ago,

The Muslim Council of Britain was pleased with the new data, saying Muslims were playing a “significant part in increasing diversity in Britain.”Of the roughly 56.07 million people counted in the census, 33.24 million described themselves as “Christian” while 2.7 million identified as Muslims, an increase from 3.0 percent to 4.8 percent over a 10-year period. Further, the 2.7 million Muslims in England and Wales make it the second largest religion there. The next largest religions are Hinduism (817,000), Sikhism (423,000), Buddhism (248,000) and Judaism (263,000).

Religious leaders attempted to explain away the trend. “Christianity is no longer a religion of culture, but a religion of decision and commitment,” said a spokesman for the Catholic Church. A spokesman for the Archbishop’s Council of the Church of England said “one of the reasons may well be fewer people identifying as ‘Cultural Christians’ i.e. those who have no active involvement with churches and who may previously have identified as Christian for cultural or historical reasons.”

Source: theblaze

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Meditation ranks among the most ancient of Jewish practices. Commentaries on the life of Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, indicate that when he sent his offspring to the Eastern countries ‘bearing gifts,' these gifts included specific meditative practices that eventually surfaced in Far Asian spiritual teachings.

Meditation serves as a conduit for feeling a connection to the Divine and the Creation as a whole.  The idea of quieting the mind and achieving a peaceful state serves as an antidote to our modern-day feelings of angst and emotional constriction.

At the same time, it empowers and imbues us with Divine energy.  In fact, without this energy, we are not all that we can be, and the ancient Sages claimed that even personal prayer would lack the ‘wings to soar.' It is a wholesome tool which helps to bridge the gap between our everyday dealings with the physical universe and all of our own interior faculties. Prayer is an advanced form of meditation'' yet it is actually a straightforward process and accessible to everyone.   The Hebrew word for prayer, tefillah, implies connecting to and bonding with one's spiritual source.

There are many forms of meditation, beginning with simple relaxation exercises involving attention to the breath or other bodily sensations.   Other techniques employ a word or phrase, repeated mentally in order to elicit a relaxation response and transcendent thought.  Guided imagery allows the imagination to experience beauty and tranquility- because to the subconscious mind, imagination and reality are actually the same thing. There are many excellent books and classes available for those who are seeking to learn these methods.

The Jewish Sages have said that we are spiritual beings having an earthly experience while inhabiting physical bodies.  We are not mannequins, hollowed out shells unable to experience the nuances of our lives and those esoteric perceptions which lie outside of our immediate boundaries. We are even able to refine certain character traits by more objectively seeing ourselves.

It has been said that human beings can be compared to a carefully constructed camera. Like a camera, we can see things more clearly by adjusting the focus.  We can choose to see the world from a broader point of view or zoom in to examine minute details. Meditation can help us to ‘get out of our own way.' It can serve as a wide-angle lens which provides us with the perspective to see the cosmic connections in our universe and even make adjustments in dealing with our own specific challenges, relationships, and choices.

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