Effective Rules For An Excellent Life

Effective rules for an excellent life is a very elegant book written by Hakeem Tariq Mehmood Ubqari Majzoobi Chughtai. Hakeem Tariq is the founder of Ubqari Trust. The book is about personal development and self help. It is a very nice resource for anyone who is looking for emotional well being and valuable tips for improving various spheres of life. It is quite worthwhile to present a short summary of the book.

The first thing is that this book is written from an increasingly Islamic point of view. It mentioned quite frequently that it is important for any human being to have firm faith in the existence of God and to submit to His divine will. Various examples are given from the life of Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). People are generally advised top live their lives according to the tenets of Islam and by following the example of Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). 

However, the author does not shy away from quoting events from the lives of other noteworthy and influential people. These include Buddha, Saint Paul and the work of Dale Carnegie, to name but a few. The book has a huge set of sections and chapters.

One of the first sections of the book discusses the power of the human mind. Various aspects of our conscious minds and sub-conscious minds are discussed. The author then goes on to suggest ways to develop a magnetic personality. Emphasis is paid on time management and energy saving.

One of the sections is dedicated to analyzing the consequences of bad habits in the light of teachings of Islam and modern science. The author then goes on to advocate that human beings should strive to develop piety and sobriety in their personalities. The author also discusses various familial customs in the light of Islam. The benefits of positive thinking are discussed. It is advised to develop a habit of positive thinking and enjoying life. Mental health and depression are also discussed in a great detail.

The author then moves on to work related aspects of life. it is advised to fully absorb in one's work and change working style if necessary. It is advised to adopt healthy and interesting hobbies. The author also emphases quite a lot on health and to develop a positive attitude towards life. Aspects such as analytic skills, risk taking tendencies, dedication and aims are discussed and valuable advice is given on as to how to adjust and channelize them in the right direction. The author also discusses about the importance of family planning in life.

The author also discusses issues such as inferiority complex and lack of self confidence and advises cures for them. The authors suggests ways to deal with stress and to adjust one's cor beliefs and ideologies. One of the great things the author suggests is that a person should stop doing a postmortem of the past in order to get rid of it. Just move on, is the advice!

The author also suggests a scheme for performing self hypnosis. Schemes for self analysis are also discussed. The author also suggests ways for adapting better colloquial skills. To this end, the examples of Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him). The author also discusses psychological effects of lying. Rights of the humanity towards a human being are also discussed.

This is a remarkable book. Anyone who would read it would not regret the investment. It is specially suitable for the curious mind.

Psyops by PsyopsPrime is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.psyops.tk/.
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  by  mikebaird 

Street Articles

A few days ago I signed up with Street Articles. The website is owned by Kyle and Carson. These are the same guys who own The Wealthy Affiliate. But on Street Articles their main idea is to train people to become better writers. To this end, their effort is very good. When I first visited the website of Street Articles, it sounded strange to me, albeit in a pleasant way. It reminded me of street fighter, a video game we used to play when we were kids. But I suppose they have also taken inspiration for the name of the website from the same game. While in the video game people learn to become fighters, on this website people learn to become writers. And all of this is accomplished while maintaining a sense of an informality. So the idea is really cool. You sit in a street with your laptop and you scribble articles. 

The present you get as you sign up on Street Articles is the 30 in 30 challenge. This means that as soon as you become a member of street writing club, Kyle and Carson throw a challenge at you of writing thirty articles in thirty days. This is quite interesting and difficult at the same time. It is interesting because of the various aspects of the overall writing experience that is expected to be had. You have to choose a niche that you like. Then you have to think about it. And then you have to write about it. There are things that have to be kept in mind about the structure of the article. You are expected to hone your skills by the passage of time. 

I was quite busy in trying to meet those deadlines along with doing some other things too of course. This explains my absence from here for quite a few days too. In any case, it may be a good idea for you to visit Street Articles. You may as well end up liking it after a while. The niche I have chosen to write about is home based business. I believe that this is probably the most important niche specially given the overall economic conditions of the world. I have already written a few articles. And I have to constantly think about more ideas to write about.

PsyopsPrime by Psyops is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://psyops.tk.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://psyops.tk.

  by  DaveBinM 

The Muslim Blogger

After having read a lot, and after having written to some extent, I presume that I should also write a few words about The Muslim Blogger. The website is owned by (a) Muslim person(s), of course. The aim of this is to help people to develop websites using WordPress. The administrators help people in doing that for free. Moreover, they offer free plugins that render a more Islamic look and feel to the website. This sounds cool. They also claim to offer some more stuff but I am not sure if I understand everything. Apart from that they have various sections on their website which are full of useful resources. These include tips and tactics to becoming better writers, ways to enhance website traffic, search engine optimization strategies, guideline for writing e-books and becoming authors, nice alternatives to google's AdSense, and a lot of motivational advice. 

I have been browsing the website time and again and I have found it to be quite informative. They also help in one-click sort of hosting and installation of the website on a number of web hosting platforms. HostGator is one of them. One of the problem with these guys is that they are not as efficient as the guys at Wealthy Affiliate are. I mailed them a number of times with my queries and questions, but I am still waiting for a response. Although I hope that I would get a reply any time soon.

Search Engine Optimization

I have been in to too many fascinating things over the last couple of days. This has kept me unusually busy over the weekend. The temptation to keep on so great that I had to abandon so may things. And the time elapsed very quickly. Actually from the moment I signed up with wealthy affiliate, I have had to read non-stop. Added to that was the temptation coupled with compulsion to act on what they had advised. That was mainly to create a website as a part of the learning process. Anyhow, I learnt many things that I never knew before. One of them is search engine optimization.

There is an e-book that you get for free as soon as you sign-up with the wealthy affiliate. I am not sure that at which stage you get it. But you surely get a prompt to download a free e-book for search engine optimization. The name of the book is SEO Tips: 5 Things Every WordPress Owner MUST Know. I am not quite sure how to get this book just like that, but I guess it should be downloadable from somewhere here. You may have to perform a search on it though. It is written by a person named Michael Torbet, who is the author of the "All in one SEO pack" plugin for WordPress. He is also the founder of Semper Plugins. Quite naturally I presume that he makes more plugins for WordPress in this company. In the book he gives valuable advice on as to how to write content for your website in a search engine friendly way. The book has topics ranging from tips for using meta tags to arrangement of keywords in the content. Overall it is a great thing to know the strategies search engines use to index and rank pages. The main emphasis is, however, on the content itself. This means that the content you write on your website, or wherever, should be good quality content. As the punchline goes, content is the meat!

Think Twice Before You Take A Leap

I have been thinking about shifting the whole of this blog to this new Word Press powered hosting and website management and creation service called Wealthy Affiliate. But may be one should think again before doing all the dirty work of creating the website and actually exporting all of it from here to there. What are the tradeoffs? The bottom line of word press is that it also only allows you to create a blog. It is another thing that one can arrange the things to look more like a dedicated niche specific website. Blogger does not allow to have that sort of a look and feel. It has a blog-like look after all. And I imagine that even if we tried hard to convert our blog to a website through blogger, it is still going to look like a blog. But what is a blog after all? It is a website. Right? Right!

But there are other better things that are better about using blogger. One thing is that you don't have to wait for nasty approvals. Another is that you do not have to go to the HTML source code time and again to switch the text alignment from left aligned to justified. This is something that has to be done by hand in word press. But I am sure that there must be an easy cure for this. It is just tedious somehow. Media management is also not quite cool with word press. It just does not have the kind of look and feel blogger has. Dynamic views in blogger make the whole thing appear much nicer. It is just that it is a bit difficult to get rid of its blog-like appearance.  

What are the other benefits? The bottom line I guess is that if you really want to have a website then it is better to switch to Word Press. Moreover, the guys working with Wealthy Affiliate promise that they will help in guiding a great website that is going to churn out profits in a short while. Indeed, they have helped to a great deal. I wonder what is next in their jukebox. I hope it would be cool though. 

Wealthy Affiliate

Today I decided that I would write a full fledged research proposal about neuroscience and human consciousness. I have been reading about this field for quite a bit of a time after all. So I opened my Latex editor and started writing down all of my thoughts about human consciousness. But while I was about to finish it I just thought for a moment that it is just another research proposal after all. At the best it may only win me another postdoc at best. And after finishing that I would be on my own once again about finding another postdoc. And the vicious cycle goes on. But research can be very charming and enticing at the same time too. Anyhow, I just thought for a moment that what if I put the same amount of effort in going solo that I would have exerted for doing a postdoc or any other research job? It is good to own a business after all where you don't have to work for someone else. I do not have any business experience by the way. I have a fear that I would mess it up somehow. And that explains the endless procrastination about not attempting to start one.

I just made a casual google search with the phrase "How to become an online entrepreneur?". I remember I came across the term online entrepreneurship a short time back. And I remember that it has got to do something with creating and managing a web based business. It can be a difficult thing to do indeed, specially if you do not have any prior experience in it. Anyhow my search led me to the website of Wealthy Affiliate. Wealthy affiliate helps people in establishing their own online marketing business. I have already read through a few of their lessons on how to create an online business. Their free membership offers you to create two wordpress websites for free along with free web hosting. 

This is quite interesting. They also teach some other useful stuff such as search engine optimization (SEO). And how to have catchy menus on the website. The tutorials are really lucid. They encourage that the more effort you put, the more successful you may become in terms of making money. And then they also have a premium account. I presume that by becoming a premium member the chances of becoming wealthier increase. This is quite interesting. I wonder if the whole effort would be as much lucrative as it promises to be. But I guess that it is definitely worth giving a try.

Give Me A Shout

I started writing this blog as a response to the work of people like Sam Harris. At that time I had not envisaged that I would write so much on this. As a matter of fact, as the time has passed, I have started enjoying writing quite a lot. This is not to say that I did not like writing before. I have quite a bit of research experience in which I had to write substantially. Writing is one of the most interesting things about research. It is perhaps needless to say that reading and thinking are the other two interesting things about being a researcher. And yes I am forgetting all the hands on and thought experiments. 

But writing a blog or about anything that does not include hardcore technical writing has it own charm and, I must say, addiction. Indeed, it is fun to write on diverse topics. It is also quite fascinating to try to develop different writing styles and to use them in developing write ups probably to address a broader audience. Technical writing can be for a very few people who are domain experts.

I have been wondering for past some time that what would it be like to become a writer or to formally adopt writing as a professional choice. Of course, this is a bit of a leap from where one thinks that one could work as an all encompassing researcher to where one is merely a writer. But I never appreciated it before that becoming a good writer, if one can, is a far more exciting professional choice. This is not to say that I had never read, let's say, fiction or history books before. I had done that. But there was a time that I used to feel that writing fiction or becoming a journalist was something that anyone could do. In other words, I used to believe that becoming a researcher or a scientist was far more challenging and so I used to think that I must try to become that. But now I feel that becoming a writer is also a much better professional choice. And indeed it is also both challenging and fascinating at the same time.

I wonder if I can become, for instance, a Scientific American or Huffington's Post class writer. So if you can, or know someone who can, help me in any way in taking up writing as a profession, I would be grateful. If you can help me in honing my skills and/or winning a writing contract, please give me a shout. 

Digital Image Processing

Learning an intricate subject such as digital image processing can be a quite of a difficult expedition to undertake. The student should have a firm background in mathematics. He/she should have taken a number of different pre-requisite courses in mathematics and signal processing before even being considered eligible to study image processing. Raafael C. Gonzalez, however, makes that task easy for the student. Digital Image Processing by Gonzales is a book written for the maths shy student. It assumes that the student would have little mathematical background. In so many ways this book can be compared favorably with the one written by Richard G. Lyons on digital Signal Processing i.e. Understanding Digital Signal Processing. In a metaphorical sense these books can be considered cousins of each other for two closely related subjects. 

After preparing the student with initial background material in the first two chapters, the authors illustrates a few spatial domain image treatments. In the first two chapter concepts such as linearity, pixel distance measures, spatial versus greyscale resolution, and shrinking and zooming are described. Chapter 3 discusses image enhancement in the spatial domain. Topics such as contrast enhancement, histogram matching, histogram processing, equalization etc. are explained.  

Chapter 4 is about frequency domain transformation and processing. The author explains the 2-D Fourier transform. In my opinion, this is the best part of the book. The explanation of Fourier transform is not only lucid, it gives key insights into how the whole transformation of image from the spatial domain to the frequency domain is realized. This is done in a step by step manner so the reader may fully grasp the inner workings of the otherwise quite enigmatic Fourier transform. Moreover, it is explained how filtering can take place with the Fourier transform. 

The subsequent chapters discuss more advanced topics such as image restoration and color image processing techniques, image compression. Lossy and lossless methods of compression are discussed. 

Overall the book is quite fun to read and it makes the reader enthusiastic about the subject of image processing. Although it is assumed that the reader has some familiarity with calculus and linear algebra, it is still a very good resource for almost any student from any background interested in studying digital image processing.

Articles Writer

The Alchemy of Happiness

The Alchemy of Happiness is a wonderful book by the renowned medieval Muslim scholar, philosopher and mystic, Abu Hamid Mohammad ibn Mohamad Al-Ghazali (RA). Although Imam Ghazzalli (RA) is remembered mostly for his works in philosophy, his book, the alchemy of happiness, aims to elucidate its readers on as to how to live a happier and a more fuller life according to the tenets of Islam. Original title of the book is Kimiya-yi saadat. The book has many chapters that are divided into four main parts.

Mainly the book discusses various forms of worship including prayers and dhikr. A significant portion of the book deals with the various aspects concerning human relations. The most interesting thing about the book is that discusses various spiritual and psychological problems and their cure. Emotional problems an individual can have such as hate, anger, spite, envy and jealousy etc. are discussed and their cures are suggested.  For instance, the author suggests simple cures such as to praise the person for whom one has jealousy in his/her heart. To this end, the book is also a very good resource for learning about emotional intelligence.

The Conquest of Happiness

Conquest of Happiness is a very interesting and a wonderful book by Bertrand Russell. Bertrand Russell was one of the most prominent intellectuals of the early twentieth century. His major domains were philosophy and mathematics. However, this book is about life. Particularly, the book lists many tips and tactics for acquiring happiness in life and for developing a happier and a more content personality. Apart from its contents, the book is also very well written and is a good resource for anyone willing to improve their reading comprehension of the English language. There are many good examples in the book through which Russell has tried to persuade his readers to live with a simpler lifestyle. The book also gives a reflection of the simplistic mindset that Bertrand Russell had.

The most interesting thing about the book is where the author gives and example regarding struggle for survival. I do not remember the story verbatim, but it somewhat goes like this. Russell gives the example of a businessman living in a big city such as London. He spends most of his time with his work. He is so much workaholic that he hardly has time for his spouse and children. He leaves home early in the morning and comes back much late at night. On work he spends most of his time devising strategies in order to beat his business rivals. This is how his life goes on. Russell suggests that if you ask such a man on as to why he works so hard? The usual answer would be that he has to struggle for survival. Russell argues that this is not struggle for survival. Russell then gives an example of two friends stuck on a wrecked ship. Everyone except them has died on the ship. In order to feed themselves to stay alive they have eaten up all the corpses. Their plight is now such that in order to remain alive one of them would have to eat the other. This, Bertrand Russell argues, is struggle for survival.

There are many other interesting things in the book and avuncular advice to his readers for achieving happiness. For instance, Russell suggests that achieving happiness is not a one day endeavor. Rather it should be acquired over time and should be considered as a lifetime goal. Among other things Russell also argues that one should never feel guilty or remorseful from the point of view of having committed a sin. Although Russell asserted that he would explain his rationale somewhere latter in the book, as far as I remember he did not do it.

Overall the book is very nicely written and despite the fact that it is very old, it is still very much relevant for everyone to read.

Machine Learning

Machine Learning by Tom M. Mitchell is the first text book for students who aspire to learn the subject of machine learning. It presents detailed and easy to understand illustrations of various concepts that are used in the field of machine learning. These include, necessary topics concerning probability and statistics, artificial intelligence, neural networks and evolutionary algorithms. 

The best thing about the book is its illustration of feed-forward, back-propagation, multi-layer perceptron (MLP). The good thing about it is that the underlying mathematical concepts are explained in a layman friendly manner. One learns techniques for computing partial derivatives and the chain rule for differentiation for the first time in high-school calculus without having any apparent and significant practical benefit. Their utility becomes clear when one reads and understands how the MLP works. More precisely, Mitchell explains how partial derivatives are computed with respect to the weight coefficients at every step of the MLP so as to guide the gradient descent algorithm to plunge into some locally or globally optimal solution. Similarly, Mitchell shows the significance of applying the chain rule to derive weight coefficients at every layer and node of the MLP with respect to the input values at its first layer. The whole explanation is quite fascinating and exciting.

Mitchell also introduces and covers the complicated topic of evolutionary algorithms in a very nice way. Initially various concepts surrounding genetic algorithms are introduced in a lucid manner to make the student comfortable with the subject. Mitchell then illustrates genetic programming. Other important and interesting algorithms are also discussed. For instance, coverage of the famous simulated annealing algorithm is quite interesting. The book is an excellent guide for any student who has began to learn machine learning. 

Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings

During the last ten days of this Ramadhan I managed to treat myself with a thorough and complete read of the Fatwa on Terrorism and Suicide Bombings. The fatwa is written by Shaykh-ul-Islam, Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri. Dr. Qadri is an eminent Muslim scholar and his book is an attempt to guide Muslims in particular, and rest of the humanity in general, on as to why terrorism is wrong when seen through the central teachings of Islam. The book is more or less 450 pages long and contains narrations from Quran, hadith and examples from the conduct of early Muslim rulers and caliphs. The central aim of the book is to address the confusion that lurches within the minds of young Muslims viz a viz terrorism and jihad. According to Dr. Qadri the current intensity and magnitude is becoming a great cause of atheism in the world. Another reason is that the wave of terrorism that has persisted for more than a decade has been a great cause for bringing disrepute to the Muslim Ummah in general and Pakistan in particular, where Dr. Qadri  is originally from. He argues that while majority of the Muslims condemn terrorism in all forms, a minority of Muslims give it a tacit approval. It is worth remembering that Dr. Qadri was one of the first Muslim scholars who condemned the world trade center tragedy extremely vociferously.

In almost the first three quarters of the book Dr. Qadri has argued against terrorism and rebellion in a painstaking manner. In reality, this portion of book is dedicated to arguing against internal rebellion within a Muslim state. The matters concerning rights of non-Muslims living in Muslim countries have also been discussed thoroughly. Dr. Qadri argues that devout Muslims should not revolt against their unjust rulers even if they are unjust, cruel and tyrant, as it is forbidden. On the other hand, they should acquire lawful and constitutional means for getting their matters resolved by the state. Dr. Qadri argues that the people who abandon peaceful routes, such as adoption of democracy or a peaceful constitutional struggle, and rebel against the state are outlaws and should be dealt with severely accordingly.

Dr. Qadri also argues that according to the central teachings of Islam it is the duty of the Muslim state to protect the rights of the non-Muslims who live in their country. It is the duty of the state to provide security for their life, family and property. They should have proper privileges to practice their religious chores while not coming in conflict with the tenets of Islam. 

The last part of the book is dedicated to Muslims living in non-Muslim countries. Dr. Qadri argues that Muslims living in non-Muslim countries should abide by the rules and regulations of the country they reside in. Muslims should not become a source of mischief for the country they reside in. Instead they should pray and wish well for their country of residence. 

In order to strengthen his argument regarding the conduct of Muslims living in non-Muslim countries he quotes the classical event of migration of early Muslims to Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia). He quotes that the early Muslims who migrated to Ethiopia were received well by the Negus who was a Christian. The Negus treated them with humility, honor and respect. In return Muslims who lived there were also extremely loyal to the Negus. So much so that in one of the conflicts of the Negus with one of his rivals the Muslims prayed to Allah for his victory and even vowed to help him in time of need. Dr. Qadri argues that such should be the conduct and intentions of Muslims while living in non-Muslim countries. 

Dr. Qadri ends the book by suggesting a few peaceful alternatives to violence and unrest. For instance, he proposes Muslims to acquire modern education, make effective use of print and electronic media to convey their concerns, stage peaceful demonstrations and rallies, and learn from other societies about how to live and coexist with peace, harmony and nonviolence. Every Muslim and non-Muslim should read this book. 

Shaykh-ul-Islam

Shaykh-ul-Islam, Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, is an Islamic scholar and a political and a social worker from Pakistan. He is the founder and CEO of Minhaj-ul-Quran International (MQI) which is an NGO aimed at promoting religious moderation, quality education, and interfaith dialogue. Dr. Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri is a cogent thinker and writer who has written many books on various topics about Islam. Recently he has written a very interesting book titled Fatwa on Suicide Bombings and Terrorism. This is supposed to be a very interesting and inspiring book. In this book, according to Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri himslef, he has left no stone un-turned in the theology of Islam in order to argue against suicide bombings and terrorism. This means that he has turned every page of Quran and Sunnah and claims to have argued against terrorism in light of that. This is quite interesting and remarkable. Presuming that the writing of this book is motivated by rationality and reason, it could be a great resource for understanding true Islam. The book is being reported to have been translated in other foreign languages too. Furthermore, I have heard that the book has already been translated to Danish language.

I remember having met Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri when I was an undergraduate student. I suppose it was back in 1,999 or 2,000. Current era of terrorism had not began yet and the world was a peaceful place in some sense. The reason for meeting him was quite interesting. Two of our very dear friends had become atheists. I would not disclose the names for the purpose of confidentiality. Another one of my friends was very concerned about this. He was affiliated with MQI and proposed to us to take both of them for a dialogue with Dr. Qadri. After much efforts we reached MQI center in Lahore. We were a group of around more than 50 people as I remember. Dr. Qadri was somehow not expecting us. He nonetheless greeted us warmly and we had our meeting and dialogue with him. As the meeting progressed, incidentally the two of our dear friends chose to keep quite. This was rather strange because they used to be very vociferous about their atheistic ideas on the campus. After all the idea of taking them to Dr. Qadri ensued due to this. And they had agreed to having an open dialogue with Dr. Qadri prior to going there.

Seeing their silence and the consequent gravity of the situation, I decided to ask all the atheistic questions that I thought could be the most compelling about the existence of God. I found it interesting because I had recently started to learn to speak in English those days. I used to form a sentence in my mind and then utter it. It used to be questions normally. I learnt to become a bit more spontaneous over the years due to my interaction with books, movies, the Internet and various people. Similarly, my knowledge about atheism was also very limited. I remember that the friend of mine who had reverted to atheism used to keep a thick book along side him. I remember that it posed questions about the existence of God. The idea that someone would read something about the existence of God used to appear very weird to me in those days. I think it would be just as if an atheist or a materialist would find it hard to grasp the idea that God somehow existed. But for me, just like many religious people, God simply existed. There was no question about that!

So as the discussion proceeded, I asked many questions and they were answered and the congregation listened. Most of the questions revolved around the existence of God Himself, creation of life and of universe. Dr. Qadri answered each one of them in the light of Quranic verses. There were other questions like if God created the universe and all the life then who created God. Such a question has a basis in philosophy and the cosmological argument addresses it. There were also other typical questions of the sort that why does an onion have so and so number of peels and why not any other number. For instance, a typical question could be that why is God not like this or why is He like that. Or, why cannot God be seen if He exists. Such questions were also answered. But a problem with such questions is that no matter how much one dwells in to their explanations, the answers can never quell the concerns. Latter in my life I took atheism seriously and read it. This gave me a clearer perspective on what atheism was all about.

Meeting Dr. Qadri was otherwise a pleasant experience. He is a simple and a courteous man. I hope his new book on terrorism is read by every Muslim and non-Muslim.

Crime and Punishment

I read crime and punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky during the summer of 2004. It was recommended to me by a dear friend. With a typical slow start of a huge novel, the author introduces us with the characters of his novel, about the living circumstances of the people of his time, about the poverty of St. Petersburg, and the lonely and cold Russian streets of its time.

The central character of the novel is a young man named Raskolnikov who lives in a small rented room in St. Petersburg. For some odd reason he develops an idea that he should kill an old lady, who is a pawn-broker. After much pondering Raskolnikov sneaks into the old woman's apartment and kills her with an axe. He also murders her half-sister. Nonetheless, apart from a few things he leaves the apartment untouched and does not take anything substantial from it. As Raskolnikov fled, he somehow fortunately managed to do so unseen and unobserved.

The plot of the novel takes various turns and twists with a number of events emerging as it progresses. But what is central to the novel is the thought process of Raskolnikov as he holds the secret of his crime in his heart. Even though nobody knew of his crime, his psychological bewilderment make him appear as a suspicious person. Eventually he discloses his secret to his beloved, Sonya. Despite there being a minimal  practical chance of him being convicted, he eventually confesses upon Sonya's persuasion. He is eventually sentenced to eight years of penal servitude in Siberia. Sonya follows him there too. After some time in the prison the process of his redemption and moral rehabilitation begin. This happens due to the affectionate influence of Sonya.

Reading Crime and Punishment can be an extremely depressing thing to do. A sensitive reader can himself go through various psychological phases during the read. The most tormenting thing here is of course to go through the tormenting thought process of Raskolnikov after he commits the murder. Putting oneself in the shoes of Raskolnikov is the other difficult thing to do. Actually it is not only difficult, it is unavoidable too. While reading the novel the reader unconsciously maps himself on to the circumstances and the personality of Raskolnikov. This adds further anxiety to the nerves of the reader. Visualizing about the poverty ridden  circumstances of St. Petersberg is the last thing that keeps the reader melancholic for a few days of viscous reading. Through crime and punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky creeps into the conscience of every one of its readers.

Mesmerism

Tomb of Hazrat Gul baba Bektash in Budapest, Hungary

It may astonish a few, surprise some others and annoy the others to know that mesmerism is also claimed to have a basis in Islamic mysticism. I read about this in the book Irfan. I made a few translations from that book. My reading of Irfan was motivated by my desire to understand the nature of consciousness. I read it after I read atheism, specially The End of Faith by Sam Harris. The chapters I translated include An Account of Invocation of Jinns, Angels and Souls, The Reality of European Spiritualists and Their Misunderstanding and Certainty in Belief is Dependent Upon Seeing.The book is written by Hazrat Faqir Noor Muhammad Sarwari Qadri Kalachwi (RA). This book was first published in 1942. It has two parts. Both parts also  have translations in English. The urdu version of the first volume can be read here and English version can be read here.

Somewhere in Irfan the author suggests that mesmerism also has a basis in Islamic mysticism  According to the narrative in the times in which Franz lived there used to be Hazrat Gulshan baba Bektashi (or probably it was Gul baba) somewhere in the Eastern Europe. I do not remember the country precisely but I think that it was Hungary. Hazrat Gulshan baba used to treat the people about their problems. By the blessings of Allah he could cure the sick. He was also blessed enough by Allah the he could treat the wounded. Thus, it was reported that many wounded soldiers used to come to him and he  used to make dum on them. In hours of desperation he even used to apply his spit to the wounds of the sick and they used to heal by the blessings of Allah. Even Christian soldiers used to come to him and he was quite venerated by them.

In those years Franz Mesmer started visiting his shrine. From there he acquired a few tricks of the trade viz a viz what we now know as mesmerism or its descendant, hypnotism. This is what I read in Irfan, Allah knows the best.

God of the Orient

The other day I came across an Urdu novel titled "Khuda-e-Mashriq", literally meaning "God of the Orient" in English. I casually browsed its pages and I could not resist reading a part of it with a lot of concentration. I shall talk about that latter. But first I would like to briefly describe what the novel is about. The novel is written by Muhammad Zahid Afghan. As the name suggests, the writer is most possibly from Afghanistan. The central character of the novel is a British female who travels all the way from England to various Eastern countries and probably lands up somewhere in the subcontinent. Her name was Salomi. I am not sure though, but I think that I should reconfirm. There she makes friends. And she has her perplexities and bewilderment typical of a traveler.

The part that I found the most interesting was that the favorite personality of Salomi was the renowned German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In her conversations with her friends she talks about Friedrich Nietzsche and his nihilism. This was the part that I found most interesting. I heard about Friedrich Nietzsche  and a few about his quotes a long time a go from friends. Names such as Friedrich Nietzsche and others can be quoted in educated circles as a symbol of intellect. But after a long time, I started wondering what his really philosophy was. After all it is important to know what someone really contributed as a philosophy as opposed to merely quoting from his/her quotations. I came to know that Friedrich Nietzsche was an atheist and that much of atheism of the present day can be attributed to having a background in Nietzsche-ism. Well, I could be wrong but I suppose that Friedrich Nietzsche still has an impact. Latter I came to know that Friedrich Nietzsche was a nihilist about the existence of God. And I wondered what were the reasons that led Friedrich Nietzsche in to nihilism.

Salomi explained the underlying reason very clearly. At one point she starts narrating about the life of Friedrich Nietzsche to her friends with an emotional vigor. She says that as Christianity arrived, for some odd reason the West started indulging in barbarism. As a consequence Friedrich Nietzsche became agnostic about the existence of God. He abandoned his civil life and went somewhere in the alps to live there. There he created a new God. Zarathustra! 

Latter while having a discussion with her friends, they ask each other that then who was the God of Zarathustra. One of the characters proposes that the God of Zarathustra was the God of Hazrat Ghulam Moi-ud-din Chishti (RA). He (RA) was a sufi saint with a substantial following in the subcontinent. It is interesting to note that Zarathustra (AS) was himself a prophet of Islam. Overall the novel is nicely written and tries to address various philosophical curiosities. It is interesting to note also that there are people in Afghanistan who try to do such delicate and creative work.

Awaken the Giant Within

I was recommended to read Awaken the Giant Within, written by Anthony Robbins, a long time ago by a close friend. The book was recommended for learning about acquiring better emotional health. I have to admit that I could not put the book down as soon as I started reading it. It is a very fascinating and motivating book. It describes many methods for becoming emotionally healthy. Along with that it also provides guidelines for acquiring good physical health and for becoming financially sound. However, it is mainly focused on emotional health which, in my opinion, is also the best thing about the book.

The author takes a multi-pronged approach to rehabilitate the emotional health of its readers. It tells motivating stories about the lives of people who at some points in their lives were stuck in extraordinary circumstances. They eventually liberated themselves of their misery because of things like courage, motivation, dedication and hope. Indeed it is quite encouraging to read audacious stories about people who had a multiple personality disorder with around hundreds of altars, or of people who were stuck in concentration camps during the holocaust.

The book also offers practical tools such as neuro-associated conditioning (NAC). Following such methods and tools can definitely affect a person's personality in better ways. Among many fascinating things about the book, one is the power and ability of any person to change his/her state of mind extremely quickly. That no matter in whatever state of mind a person is, one can change that within an instant. Although there are many quotes in the book that affect a person immediately. But the one I liked the most is: Change your focus, change your life. 

The goal of the book is to make the reader to learn to become a happier and a more prosperous person. The main emotion one experiences while reading the book is that of euphoria. Anthony Robbins has indeed done a great job by writing such a marvelous book.

Understanding Digital Signal Processing

Understanding digital signal processing (DSP) can both be intriguing and frightening in the beginning. The mathematics involved in various integral transforms can turn off many teachers. The mysterious domain transformations can fascinate many a novice. For a long time as a graduate student I was amazed by the underlying idea behind transformation of a digital signal from time domain to frequency domain. I simply could not understand how it happened. After going through many lectures and books, I eventually came across Understanding Digital Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. 

Understanding Digital Signal Processing (DSP) treats the subject in a way no other author or teacher has ever done. The best thing about the book is that elucidates the various and many key concepts of DSP in an extremely layperson friendly manner.  It is quite inspiring to learn with the help of examples on as to what the various transforms and transfer functions do with a digital signal. One has a great eureka moment when one learns that the Fourier transform is basically a cross-correlation function. In order to know the strength of a particular frequency component in a multi-spectral signal, the signal is simply corss-correlated with another signal of that particular frequency. This is a very enlightening way to learn about the Fourier transform.

There are many other cherish-able ideas in the book. For instance, to know that a FIR filter is basically a smoothing function. Similarly, the rationale behind choosing a particular Nyquist's sampling rate is also quite informative. The reasons for having bell-shaped windowing functions and their linkage with spectral leakage is also explained in a very nice manner. Other topics like the Z-transform, or IIR filtering are also covered in a very nice way.

 Understanding digital signal processing can is the best book for anyone who wants to learn DSP from the ground up. It is also quite suitable for anyone who is an expert but wants a revision of concepts. It is specially useful for learning the key concepts of DSP and for developing a transparency in the mind about what actually happens to the signal when it is transformed from one domain to another. Any person who wants to learn DSP should definitely read Understanding Digial Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. Understanding digital signal processing (DSP) can both be intriguing and frightening in the beginning. The mathematics involved in various integral transforms can turn off many teachers. The mysterious domain transformations can fascinate many a novice. For a long time as a graduate student I was amazed by the underlying idea behind transformation of a digital signal from time domain to frequency domain. I simply could not understand how it happened. After going through many lectures and books, I eventually came across Understanding Digital Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. 

Understanding Digital Signal Processing (DSP) treats the subject in a way no other author or teacher has ever done. The best thing about the book is that elucidates the various and many key concepts of DSP in an extremely layperson friendly manner.  It is quite inspiring to learn with the help of examples on as to what the various transforms and transfer functions do with a digital signal. One has a great eureka moment when one learns that the Fourier transform is basically a cross-correlation function. In order to know the strength of a particular frequency component in a multi-spectral signal, the signal is simply corss-correlated with another signal of that particular frequency. This is a very enlightening way to learn about the Fourier transform.

There are many other cherish-able ideas in the book. For instance, to know that a FIR filter is basically a smoothing function. Similarly, the rationale behind choosing a particular Nyquist's sampling rate is also quite informative. The reasons for having bell-shaped windowing functions and their linkage with spectral leakage is also explained in a very nice manner. Other topics like the Z-transform, or IIR filtering are also covered in a very nice way.

 Understanding digital signal processing can is the best book for anyone who wants to learn DSP from the ground up. It is also quite suitable for anyone who is an expert but wants a revision of concepts. It is specially useful for learning the key concepts of DSP and for developing a transparency in the mind about what actually happens to the signal when it is transformed from one domain to another. Any person who wants to learn DSP should definitely read Understanding Digial Signal Processing by Richard G Lyons. The book is particularly suitable for the mathematics shy.

The Muslim Way of Speaking

Speech and language are essential and important components of human communication. Societies have evolved many languages over the course of human evolution. Currently there is a large number of languages and dialects that are spoken on our planet that may be believed to range between being euphonious to cacophonous. The manner in which a person speaks reflects on how genteel and humane he/she is. In civilized communities it is considered a norm to speak in a sweet-sounding manner. It may be thought that the early civilized societies may have had a tradition of learning to speak well too. To be able to speak is a great blessing of Allah Almighty indeed. But it is not difficult to find a widespread abuse of this blessing in everyday life. It is not uncommon to come across conversations that are full of swearing, cursing, profanity and slandering.

The Muslim Way of Speaking addresses this problem in a comprehensive, eloquent and lucid manner. The book is written by renowned Muslim scholar Harun Yahya. The book is available for download on his personal website and can be read online too. The book is also available for purchase on online stores like Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

The book is written from an increasingly Islamic perspective. It takes examples from Quran and Hadith on  as to how to speak and address people in normal everyday discourse. First of all it emphasizes on the importance of praising Almighty Allah in speech and to call Him through His beautiful names. It advises to speak with the knowledge that Allah is with the speaker at every moment. It warns not to associate others else with Allah. It is advised to speak in the knowledge of one's helplessness in the face of Allah and that no task can be performed without the will of Allah. Quran should be employed as a guide in speech. One should speak in the certainty of fate and the truth that there is good in everything. Allah should be trusted in all the situations.

One should speak with the awareness that life of this world is transitory. One should have concern in his speech for what is lawful and what is unlawful. One should avoid the style of speech that is influenced by Satan and one should seek refuge of Satan from Allah. One should enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. One should speak with wisdom, sincerity, truthfulness, sensibly and logically. One should also give good tidings.

One should speak so as to arouse joy and enthusiasm. One should say what is best. One should not speak under the influence of the mean inner self and by being motivated by personal desires. A person's speech should be measured, courteous and respectful. Humility should be a cornerstone of good speech. Similarly, while speaking one should have an attitude of tolerance and forgiveness. Consultation should be a major part of intercommunication. One should make frequent references to one's disposition about submission to the will of Allah and to acknowledge that there is no strength but in Allah. It is very important to adopt good manners while speaking to one's parents. Backbiting and gossiping behind people's backs should also be abandoned. Suspicion and slander should be abandoned. Similarly mocking and ridiculing people should be discouraged and abandoned. One should not speak out of covetousness and envy. One should not speak in vein and make empty and trivial statements. One should not interrupts others speech and on their own turn they should speak calmly. A very important point is to adopt the manner of speech that is appropriate to the level of knowledge of the person that is being addressed. Speaking hypocritically should be avoided at all costs. A way of speech that gives rise to doubts should be avoided. A manner of speech that is probing and prying should be avoided. The statements that lead to evil should be avoided. Obfuscation should be avoided and secret and meetings should not be held. One should speak so as to defend and support our prophet Hazrat Muhammad (may Allah's peace and blessings be upon him).

Finally the books lists the advantages of adopting such meritorious traits in one's speech and the author presents the conclusion. The last chapter of the book is deception of evolution. It is dedicated to addressing Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection. It tries to show with the help of logic, and in the light of relevant literature review on as to how the materialist theory of evolution presented by Charles Darwin is wrong and flawed. 

Overall I have found the book to be a very enjoyable read. It is well written and the quality and amount of material presented in the book is quite balanced and enlightening. I found this book while I was looking for literature regarding neural basis for language, speech and accent production. Although I could not find anything of that sort in the book, I believe that the book is an excellent resource for behavioral rehabilitation.  

The Code Book

After having read Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem and Big Bang it is inevitable that one would go on to read The Code Book too. As the name suggests the book is about the history and evolution of the science of encryption. Apart from being a difficult subject, cryptography can come across as boring and lackluster. But Simon Singh knows how to treat his audience well. The Code Book takes its reader on to a roller coaster ride in to the wonderland of cryptography. In the book Mr. Singh chronicles the development of the science of cryptography and crypt-analysis from the times of ancient Romans and Egyptians all the way to our current times and quantum cryptography. During the course he records all the important events and hallmarks in the history of cryptography. The effect cryptography has had on the lives, wars, liberty and the geopolitical landscape of our times is described in a revealing way.

The Code Book begins with the Romans involvement with early forms of cryptography. Julius Caesar's secret military writings are discussed. It distinguishes between cryptography and crypt-analysis. It also elucidates the role of Arabs in the development of crypt-analysis and a few old methods of cipher analysis. It then goes on to discuss the clandestine plot of Mary queen of Scots to assassinate the British Queen Elizabeth. The assassination plot was deciphered by Queen Elizabeth and she had the former beheaded. At its climax, it moves on to the stage of world war 2 and a significant portion of the book is devoted to the developments concerning the deciphering of Germans' enigma codes. The efforts of Allen Turing and his contemporaries, on both sides, are worth reading.

The author then brings right in to our very own era of so-called modern cryptography. Here the author discusses the evolution of various techniques such as RSA, PGP and public-key cryptography. The author also discusses various philosophical, ethical and moral issues concerning personal privacy in our times. In particular, the discussion on the trade-of between the level of personal privacy and the level of information gathering by the law enforcement agencies is discussed from the point of view of security.

The final chapter concludes by speculating about the future of cryptography and discusses and analyses the potential of quantum cryptography. Here again the author has done a commendable effort to elucidate some of the intricate concepts in quantum physics, specially superposition, and to analyse their relevance with quantum computing and cryptography. Simon Singh has a very inspiring style of writing about popular science. All of his books are written with much lucidity and eloquence. The pace of the plot is fast while not compromising the fine details. A person who opens the book once and set's off to reading looses track of his/her diurnal chores, looses track of time and would find it hard to close the book before the last page is reached. Anyone who would read The Code Book would fall in love with cryptography.