I wrote this for one of the Fikrah Adni magazines...

As I see it…

In the April 2007 issue of Reader's Digest (Malaysian Edition), there is a sentence on page 123 that reads:

"Another man who was charged pleads to assault and gets a conditional discharge - on condition he participate in a reconciliation process."

This is a story of how a young man is filled with great remorse after committing a murder. More importantly, it’s a story with a lot of substance. It has many lessons for us to ponder: questions of humanity, conscience, morals, and values. All this makes it a touching and inspiring story to dedicated teachers-cum-educators.

I’m sure virtually everyone who has read the story shares the same feelings. So I’m not going to deal with it from a philosophical or moral point of view. As a matter of fact, I’m going to touch on something else.

When reading the above-mentioned sentence, I also thought about the subjunctive used, and it reminded me of how puzzling the subjunctive was when I was in school.

The use of the subjunctive really reminds me of what my English language teacher was saying when she taught how to use verbs-to-be when I was in Form Two. She said it was wrong to say “If I was you” or “If I am you”. According to her, the only correct expression was “If I were you” but she did not mention the subjunctive at all.

Now that I have learned from my religious teachers about how careful Muslims should be when saying such expressions as “If I were you…” or “I wish I were…” or something like that, I would like to remind everyone including myself that in terms of ‘aqeedah, it’s Islamically wrong to say such expressions if we forget about the qadha and qadar.

But what if we say them as Abu Bakr did as he feared Allah with true iman?

Everyone knows that Abu Bakr is the most exalted companion of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The Prophet (peace be upon him) himself conveyed to him the glad tidings of his being the head of a group of persons in Paradise.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) once said that Abu Bakr's name would be called out from all the doors of Paradise, and that he would be the first of the Prophet's followers to enter it. (Sahih Bukhari: 1764)

With this divine privilege, Abu Bakr, with true iman and taqwa, used to say, "I wish I were a tree that would be cut down and done away with."

Sometimes he would say, "I wish I were a blade of grass, whose life ended with the grazing by some beast."

Once he went to a garden, where he saw a bird singing. He sighed deeply and said, "Oh, bird! How lucky you are! You eat, drink and fly under the shade of the trees, and you fear no reckoning of the Day of Judgement. I wish I were just like you." (Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaibah: vol. 7/ pg. 91)

Abu Bakr would say such a subjunctive expression because of his taqwa. Was he denying his raison d’être on earth as Allah’s vicegerent when he said it? Definitely not.

Let’s ponder over this in the daily context of life so that we will make every possible effort to act upon the Quran and Sunnah and thus improve our iman and taqwa.

One of the signs of the Great Miracle of the Quran...

With all the miracles in the Quranic verses, the Holy Quran itself is indeed a miracle, which is the greatest miracle in the whole universe.

To my honoured guests, I'd like to share with you some revealed Divine Knowledge contained in the Quran that has something to do with world history.

The translations of verses 1-5 in Surah Ar-Rūm on the website "Iqra Search" are as follows:


The title of today's featured article in Wikipedia is "Roman-Persian Wars", and it reminds me of one of the surahs (chapters) in the Quran titled Ar-Rūm (The Romans). (The Arabic word "Ar-Rūm" is pronounced "Ar-Room".)

I visited the website "Islam Guide" and studied the following information:

The Verses in the Quran That Mention Future Events Which Later Came to Pass

One example of the events foretold in the Quran is the victory of the Romans over the Persians within three to nine years after the Romans were defeated by the Persians. Allah has said in the Quran:

The Romans have been defeated in the nearest land (to the Arabian Peninsula), and they, after their defeat, will be victorious within bedd’ (three to nine) years.... (Quran, 30:2-4)

Let us see what history tells us about these wars. A book entitled History of the Byzantine State says that the Roman army was badly defeated at Antioch in 613, and as a result, the Persians swiftly pushed forward on all fronts. At that time, it was hard to imagine that the Romans would defeat the Persians, but the Quran foretold that the Romans would be victorious within three to nine years. In 622, nine years after the Romans’ defeat, the two forces (Romans and Persians) met on Armenian soil, and the result was the decisive victory of the Romans over the Persians, for the first time after the Romans’ defeat in 613. The prophecy was fulfilled just as Allah has said in the Quran.

There are also many other verses in the Quran and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad that mention future events which later came to pass.

Hexadecimal to decimal and vice versa...

Yesterday, some of my students tried out the computer quiz that I uploaded through my January 31 post. They said question number 7 was the toughest.

To work out the conversions from hex to dec (or vice versa), you may use the following method if you don't have a scientific calculator:

1. Open your computer's calculator.
2. Go to "View" and click on "Scientific".
3. Click on "Hex" and type the hexadecimal number and then click on "Dec" to get the decimal equivalent.







Let's say you want to find the decimal equivalent of the hexadecimal number A9. Can you figure out the answer?

GK quiz on computers...

To anyone who's tried this general knowledge quiz on computers, which question is the toughest? :)

Gold nanoparticles to trap toxins...

Tiny particles of gold could soon be helping to spot viruses, bacteria and toxins used by bio-terrorists.
Researchers in the UK have found that gold nanoparticles are very effective detectors of biological toxins.
The particles reveal the presence of poisons far faster than existing techniques which often involve shipping samples back to a lab.
The aim is to integrate the technology in a portable device that could give instant answers at crime scenes.

Colour Chemistry
Led by Professor David Russell, researchers at the University of East Anglia are studying ways to use the nanoparticles as a detector of dangerous biological substances.
The research makes use of gold nanoparticles that are only 16 nanometres in diameter - roughly 1/5000th the width of a human hair.
Earlier work by Professor Russell's team has refined manufacturing methods so relatively large amounts of the particles can be made quickly.
Once made, the particles are coated with sugars tailored to detect different biological substances.
When mixed with a weak solution of the sugar-coated nanoparticles, the target substance, be it a poison such as ricin or a bug like E.coli, binds to the sugar. This changes the properties of the solution and makes it change colour.
Professor Russell said pure solutions of the gold nanoparticles are a strong red colour but instantly change to blue when the target substance is present.
He said work had been done with solutions of particles tailored for just one toxin as well as mixtures that combined nanoparticles tailored to spot different substances.
The scientist said colour changes were less dramatic with mixtures of nanoparticles but were still significant enough to easily spot. The extent of the colour change can also reveal how much of particular toxins were present.

I came across an article on nanotech on the BBC website...

Nano Circuit Offers Big Promise
The first computer circuit to be built on a single molecule has been unveiled by researchers in the US.



It was assembled on a single carbon nanotube, a standard component of any nanotechnologist's toolkit.
The circuit is less than a fifth of the width of a human hair and can only be seen through an electron microscope.
The researchers, from IBM and two US universities in Florida and New York, told the journal Science that the work could lead to faster computer chips.

Information on nanotechnology...

On the day when Internet access was intermittent due to technical problems resulting from PC lab maintenance that was being carried out by the technician, I asked my students to email me some information on nanotechnology so that I could test every PC's Internet connection and give them exposure to such sophisticated knowledge.

I teach ICT for IGCSE but nanotechnology is not specifically in the syllabus.

Somehow, educators have to have a penchant for paradigm shifts in their pedagogic skills, don't they?

After all, "ICT and Its Implications" is one of the topics in the syllabus and ICT does have something to do with nanotechnology.