Was it a wrong decision?

Was it a wrong decision? Why do I insist on doing something of value, something useful ??? why didn't I stay in Egypt, get married, have kids and do anything for a living ??? Why did I put myself in this dilemma ??? Is it worth it ???

God, please help ....

Life in hand and afterlife in heart

I was terribly frustrated a few minutes ago ... I thought of playing this video which I have added to the links bar on my browser .... once I started seeing it, I felt like going to far place outside the city and looking at how people are busy running here and there, buying this, consuming that, listening to the news, Bush threatening Iran, Israel attacking Syria, the war is close, or at leastt some are saying so, others are living their normal life talking to friends, playing with their children .... but I realise that we are all busy with whatever we are doing and not aware of the afct that we will be burried one day. That is reality. But we are busy with our lives and we just don't think about that.

To have life in one's hand and the afterlife in one's heart ....... with all this mess that we are living in !!! ....... May god help us.

A science-career litmus paper !!

From Nature 449, 253. " Hiking the ups and downs of the science trail." by Paul Smaglik

My wife developed a hiking litmus test, which could also be applied to scientific careers. If we woke up in the morning eager to walk again, no matter how much we had been beaten up by the elements the previous day, we would continue. That feeling of excitement never subsided, no matter how cold, wet, sore and dirty we got. So too in science, if you no longer have that sensation of hope, curiosity and anticipation, it might be time to stop — or at least to look for another job.

المصريين

سالنى احد الزملاء ان كانت طالبه الدكتوراه اللي جت من مصر مبعوثه من الحكومه المصريه ولا على حسابها ...... قلتله لا اظن انها على حسابها لانها دكتوراه فى الخزف ..... قاللى صحيح مين حيدفع علشان يعمل دكتوراه في البلاليص

واحد تانى بيعمل دكتوراه في علوم البحار و زوجته صيدلانيه ..... اتصلوا بي علشان الهانم عايزه تعمل ماجستير فى الصيدله .... كان

سوءالهم اذا كنت اعرف جامعه في المانيا ممكن تاخد منها الماجستير مين غير حضور

ادى اللى مصر بتمولهم الدكتوراه ...... عمار يا مصر ... ربنا يكتر بلاليصك

Suspense!

This morning I woke up very excited and optimistic. I put on my clothes quickly and hurried to the lab. In the bus I was telling myself, "It must work this time. I'm trying several different parameters. I'm sure one of them will work. It's not important which one, but at least one would succeed. Then I'll have a door wide open for many further things to do ..." My thoughts went on, and my generally optimistic mood, mixed with anticipation and a touch of happiness was still there.

I ran to the lab, had a quick look at the gel. There's nothing to see yet, as it should be put in the decoloring solution first. But I was looking carefully, trying to find any clues, any faint shades of colors in the gel that may give away the yet hidden secret. But it was useless. I still had to wait for 30 more minutes. And I did.

At the end, I had a negative result. Nothing worked. It just didn't work!!

I guess there is no other job where one could have such an adrenalin kick, or live in such a thrilling suspense. And there's no other job where one enjoys such a dazzling excitement when it works. No wonder Eucledis ran around naked shouting "Eureka! Eureka!". That's why I love to do science. However, there's probably no other job where it is so infuratingly frustrating to fail or be wrong. Yet, I always tell myself, "perhaps I lost the battle but not the war. At least I learned one way how things can go wrong!"

Comments on "altadayon almankoos" (The deficient religiosity)

I read the book by Hweidy, and I’m currently writing my review of the book. Meanwhile, I would write here some of my comments regarding its contents. First, I have to admit that Hweidy is among the writers whom I respect, but I didn't really like this book. One reason is probably because it’s a collection of newspaper articles, and this undermines the book structure and style leading to many shortcomings; such as repetitions and a non-thorough handling of the discussion points. Each article is more like “a short discussion over a cup of coffee” than an earnest handling of a problem.

I have to admit that he quotes lots of example for open minded behaviour and opinions of contemporary and early Islamic scholars and “sa7abah”, however this is not enough. The book, and in general all Moslems including myself, lack a vision and a bunch of concrete measures that can use islam to build a modern civilization. We don’t know what the standards we should apply to choose between the different views are. For example, those who say that democracy is not obligatory to the ruler, or that a Moslem ruler should stay in office till his death base their opinion on verses of Quran or “a7adeeth” or well known historic facts. I have to say it has some logic, but it seems to be out of date and inapplicable NOW. When the author says that we are not obliged to follow “literally” every deed of the early Islamic success story of prophet Mohammed and his “sa7abah” regarding how to develop a nation and build a civilization, then that is fine, but what should we do then? He says it should be based on the core concepts, the real soul of islam, but what is that? And how to separate the soul (the core concepts) from the body (the practices that have accumulated over 1400 years)? How obligatory is sunna, including the deeds and words of prophet Mohamed (PBUH)? Should we follow it literally (like a7adeth al3ein for example)? And if we don’t follow it literally, does this undermine our belief? (Perhaps you can read the following page for more examples)

To me, the climax of the book was on pages 277-280. These pages contain a big list of extremely important and fundamental questions. If Moslems agree to an answer to these questions, we would have an Islamic constitution at hand. But many questions are really tough to answer, such as the status of non-moslems, how to apply “share3a” .. etc, and this is for one particular reason, should we base the answer on reason, on what is now good for us, or on the examples of early islam?

There is also a very important problem with an Islamic solution. Islam is a religion, and like any other religion, it is based on belief. Beliefs are not necessarily based on reason or on logical or experimental proofs. For example, we believe that there is heaven and hell, that there are angels and “gen”, that there is magic (se7r) as well as “hassad and ein” only because these were mentioned by Quran or prophet Mohammed (PBUH). There are no logical or experimental proofs for them, and accordingly in these aspects we believe without reasoning. Now there are 2 problems, on the one hand, some people would extend the realm of “belief” (i.e. following without reasoning) to the point of applying it to everything that prophet Mohammed (PBUH) did or said, after all he was perfect and faultless (ma3som) and the wisest human being. On the other hand, using reason might question things like 7assad and the cure suggested to it by Prophet Mohamed (PBUH). (see the above mentioned link) What are the limits then, so that one doesn’t run into one of those extremes?

Another extremely important issue is that from this book and from other ones (like Corruption the world’s big C), one can conclude that the political will is central for any change. There are many examples for countries (some are not even democratic) that have achieved huge leaps in the directions of welfare and development (e3mar el2ard), including China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand .. etc. In all these cases, a political will for improvement lead to substantial strides in the right direction. I’m afraid to say that in my opinion, which may be wrong, without this political will, any other efforts would be useless. However, the book doesn’t discuss what is to be done in case such political will does not exist?

These are among the main questions that the author raised to my mind, intentionally or inevitably, but to which I found no answer in the book. I hope some of you know some answers or can point to some books that can respond to some of those concerns.