Issue 5 (January - March 1994)

We used to have a magnificent civilization founded on faith, resolution, altruism and valour. The dark world of Europe’s Middle Ages was illumined and revitalized by the learning, faith, compassion and love with which our ancestors inspired it. The era of illumination which began with the coming o…

What do penicillin, Teflon, X-rays and insulin have in common? A prominent thinker of our age, while explaining the purpose in the creation of man, emphasizes the importance of prayer and classifies the types of prayer: ‘(Our type of) prayer falls into two categories, as active and oral prayers. To…

The principal players involved in terrorism and counter-terrorism are the state, the terrorists and the public. By the ‘state’ is meant the whole political establishment, power and authority of government, exercised through its various civil and military organs. By ‘terrorists’ is meant those (typi…

It was only after Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park had become the most watched movie of all time that we have started to consider how genetic engineering is moving from science fiction to science-fact. Spielberg’s film is Michael Crichton’s adaptation of his own novel and it concerns cloned dinosau…

INTRODUCTION Technology is the tool of civilization, and for Islamic civilization to have been such a leading force in the world for several centuries, it must have been based on important technological achievements. The blossoming of science and culture in Islamic civilization was the result of…

THE DOOR TO HUMAN HAPPINESS Belief in the All-Mighty Creator and the belief in the Hereafter are alike precious, since it is through them that the mystery of the universe is revealed and the door to human happiness opened. Reliance on the Creator in patience, begging from the Provider in gratitude…

With the collapse of the USSR, the concept of a New World Order began to be heard more frequently in the world’s media and in the speeches of its leaders. The concept emerged against the background of the ending of the Cold War between two polarized political, ideologies, the capitalist and the com…

It is difficult, on first reading, to divine the great scientific message imparted by this verse. The scientific description of the earth contained in the verse must be a humiliation to those who see the earth as no more than an accident in the universe. We have described elsewhere the chain of di…

World politics is entering a new phase, and commentators have not been slow to express their visions of what it will be–the ‘end of history’, the return of traditional rivalries between nation states, and the decline of the nation state from the conflicting pull of tribalism or globalism , among ot…

Zayd the son of ‘Amr stood away from the Quraysh crowd as they celebrated one of their festivals. Men were dressed in rich turbans of brocade and expensive Yemeni burdahs. Women and children were also exquisitely turned out in their fine clothes and glittering jewellery. Zayd watched as sacrificial…

There are historical, social and psychological dimensions to this question, which we must work through patiently, if we are to arrive at a satisfactory answer. First of all, it is useful to recall why the institution of slavery is thought of or remembered with such revulsion. Images of the brutal…