₦airaland Forum

Good one deols. U spoke my mind

Meaning of " Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilahi Raaji'oon" 


 Yeah, sure

we say this statement when someone dies. Also

 some of us may say this sentence when they lose something,

suffer a setback or harm.  But………, do you know

 what it means?

 

 Sure, everyone know that it obviously means

 

'To Allaah we belong and to Him is our return.' But that's not what I am talking about. I mean ….

do you REALLY, TRULY understand these words and their implications in a Muslim's life? 

 It means …

whatever we have is not really ours. It belongsto Allaah.Take a look around you; everything you see,

all that you have and all that there is….in you, on you, around you…

.

belongs to Allaah, alone.

 It is

Allah Who has given you all the property and goods you possess, and that

He is the true Owner of them all. 

 So the

cars that you own, the

houses that you live in,

 the 

businesses you possess all truly belong to Allaah

The

kids that He blessed you with, the health that He gave you,

 

the time that He has allowed you are all

Allah's  property. 

Even the bodies we live in and the life that we have belongs to Allaah alone.  "And to Allah belongs the inheritance of the heavens and the earth…." (Surah Aal-Imraan:180) "The kingdom of the heavens and the earth andeverything in them belongs to Allah.He has power over all things."( Surat al-Ma'ida: 120) 'Say: 'To Allah belongs the East and the West…'(Surah al-Baqarah:142) 

  Now, since everything belongs to Allaah,

then we have to

include even  our souls in that list.The

very souls that we think of as

our "self"; our "nafs"; our "being"-- whatever you want to call it --

that very thing that distinguishes you from the rest of the world,

 

belongs to Allaah, It's

not YOURS. 

 In fact,

YOU are not YOURS. You belong to Allaah.

 And this is the essence of the

concept of slavery to Allaah in Islam.

 And since He is the

true Possessor of everything,

and everything is His property, He allots what He wills to whomever He wills……

.and then He takes it away. After all, it was Allaah's to begin with.

 

 So He may

give you some thing and then

take it back after a while,

He will

bless you with a precious child that you love dearly…

and then

He may take it away.He will grant you

money, honour and

status;

and then He may

take it away.

He will give you

youth, vitality and

healthand then surely He will

take it away. 

 In fact

everything you have will only be with you for a very short while.

And then the

Owner will claim His Right. 

 

So when Allaah does reclaim what was rightfully His,WHY MOURN OUR LOSSES? 

 Just like a friend who lends you his book. And then after a few days, he wants it back and you give it back to him…no regrets…, no sorrow….no questions asked. 

 Similarly, if Allah takes back some of His blessings upon

 you for some reason….so be it.

 Say Alhamdulillaah.  Don't grieve. 

 Be patient. Submit to the will of Allaah, being pleased with His decision for you. For surely He will only do what is best  for you. 


 Just think…, The Owner came and took it back. Remember….that you're not the real owner…, you were NEVER the real owner to begin with.You only had everything because it was Allah who gave it to you in the first place. If He didn't give it to you, you wouldn't have had it in any way…in fact, you couldn't have had it. Remember….man enters into this world empty handed…and leaves it empty handed. Remember….that everything we have, all the blessings we enjoy, are gifts from Almighty Allah, gifts that we enjoy for a limited period until He takes them away whenever He deems fit.  They are a trust from Allah…a loan to you…to see how you respond to these gifts from Allaah and how you use them….in the obedience of the Almighty, thanking Him and worshipping Him……OR……, to the disobedience to the One Who gave then to you in the first place,  Take note of the words of the Prophet (Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam) on the occasion of the death of his son, Ibraahim: 'Our eyes are filled with tears, our hearts with grief, but we say nothing with our lips except that which pleases Allah, Verily, to Allah we belong, and to Him we return.' (Bukhaari)  And we all know the famous incidence about the companion Abu Talha and his wife when one of the sons died and Abu Talha was not at home. She washed and shrouded him and when Abu Talha came home and asked about his son, she said, 'The child is quiet and I hope he is in peace….' (Bukhaari) Subhaan Allaah….such patience! And such Imaan in the statement "Inna lillaahi wa inna ilayhi Raaji'oon"! She truly understood its meaning and the affect it should have on her life as a Muslimah, submitting to him and being pleased with whatever He has decreed for her. She knew that whatever she has, is not truly hers. Rather, it is Allaah's….and He took back whatever He owns at its appointed time. And it is because of this Imaan so strong, this understanding, that the Prophet (Sal Allaahu Alaiyhi wa Sallam) made dua for them and Allaah blessed them immensely. "'They (i.e. Abu Talha and his wife) had nine sons and all of them became reciters of the Quran (by heart)." (Bukhaari)   "Be sure we will test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives, but give glad tidings to those who are steadfast, who say when afflicted with calamity:'To Allah we belong and to him is our return.' They are those on who (descend) blessings from Allah and mercy and they are the once that receive guidance." (al-Baqarah: 155) 
  The Prophet (PBUH) said 'Pass on knowledge from me even if it is only one verse'

I don't really know why the father must take his child to covenant in the first place. There are islamic Universities around. Al-hikma, Crescent, and others. If the islamic Universities are not okay for him, he must know that some muslims' children go to these schools thereby contributing their quota to the development.

He should have assisted the Islamic Universities rather than wasting the little he has on fighting to a supposed logical conclusion.

if you have decided the masquerade of your father's house would dance,you may later decide it wont dance and nobody can arrest you.

With d above, I am free to say:

1. Islamic banking shouldn't be an issue in Nigeria either it supports gambling, intoxicants etc or not. It has all the rights to be established just like the christian Universities.

2. It is sufficient to say that if the banking institution is established, it must be at liberty to employ muslims only and thrash out anything christian since the masquerade doesn't want to dance again.

3. It is sufficient to say that if by happenstance the bank employed a christian, it is at liberty to send d christian away base of religious grounds.

^^ you got me wrong. Avoidable evil committed by man could be drastically reduced by the above formula. Even if no one would ask what u have done per day, the Lord of th
e worlds will ask on the day of accountability

Allahu Akbar! There is a book called "technology the islamic heritage" by ismail bidmus. It is a compilation of great islamic scholars who contributed immensely to the development of science and technology. I will soon get a hold of the book in sha Allah and keep this thread updated.

I deliberately brought this for those that went wild and berserk because of islamic banking in Nigeria.

By Omobolaji Omoyele

The dream of Mr. and Mrs. Taiwo Salami of Ijaye Housing Estate at Pen Cinema Agege, Lagos has always been to give their children the best education that will eventually make them useful not only to themselves but also to the society at large.

So when their son, Ayomide Abdul Gafar Salami, began preparation to seek admission into a tertiary institution, they took their time to assist him in choosing a university that they believe would instill the best moral and academic development in their son. They (the couple and the boy) decided to choose Covenant University, Ota. “We want the best for our child and we found that the university is one of the best in the country. Apart from this, it ranks as one of the most peaceful and disciplined tertiary institution in the country which is devoid of the dreaded cult activities which have turned most Nigerian universities campuses into abattoir, hence the decision to settle for Covenant University,” Mr. Taiwo Salami, an employee of Eagle Paints at Agidingbi, Lagos explained why he and his wife, devoted Muslims, settled for Covenant University, owned by a fiery Pentecostal Christian organization, Living Faith Christian Ministry a.k.a Winners Chapel.

Everything went according to plan at the initial stage. Ayomide sat for the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination after filing the admission form online conspicuously choosing Covenant University as his choice of tertiary institution and Chemical Engineering as his choice of course. As a mater of fact, it was his father who filled the form on his behalf.

When the result of the examination was released by the examination board, he passed out in flying colours, scoring 295 marks which was actually the second highest mark scored by students who picked Covenant University as their tertiary institution of choice. Pronto, the boy applied again online for the post-UME test which took place at the university campus. It was another conquering outing for him as he scored 65 marks out of the obtainable 80.

Two weeks after the result of the post-UME was released, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) released the school certificate examination result and again Ayomide had an excellent result. Check it out: English Language, B3; Mathematics, A1; Further Mathematics, A1; Geography, A1; Chemistry, B2; Physics, B2; Biology, B3; Agricultural Science, B3 and Economics, B3. 

“We took the WAEC result to the university because we filled awaiting result for him when we filled the admission form and the result was accepted. When we were filling the admission form, there was a confidential form we were asked to print out for the pastor of the church the family attend to fill but since we are Muslims, we printed out the form and gave it to the Chief Imam of the Ijaiye Housing Estate Muslim Association who duly filled the form and we submitted it along with the admission form and other documents. After the post-UME test, the pastor was expected to write a letter of recommendation on the student which the Chief Imam duly did and we submitted to the university authority. So when our child passed the JAMB, post-UME and WAEC examinations, we were sure of his admission,” Mr. Salami told The Premier.

But it was not to be. When the university released the first batch of candidates admitted, Ayomide’s name was conspicuously missing. “I made enquiries because naturally I believe my son’s name should appear on the first list on merit due to his performance. We were told to exercise patience as his name will come with the second batch list. It was while going through The Nation newspaper on 31st August, 2011 that I discovered that the second batch list for admitted candidates had been released but again our son’s name was missing. I even searched for his name from other courses thinking he might have been given another course other than the Chemical Engineering he applied for but it was quite clear that his name was not listed,” Salami narrated.

It was a disturbed father who called his son on what transpired during the post-UME examination and Ayomide replied that nothing unusual happened. “I asked him how he got to know that the obtainable mark was 80. He replied that all the total questions were 80 in number. I asked him again how he got to know that he scored 65. He replied that the exam was computer- based that it was marked immediately they finished and the scored displayed on the computer. I asked him further what transpired after the examination, he replied that they were given bio-data forms to fill which he did,” Salami said further.

He was determined to know why his son who performed so brilliantly was not offered admission; hence he asked his wife to go to the campus and enquired on what happened. “I wanted to go myself but my tight schedule will not allow me,” he said.                               

When Mrs. Salami got to the campus, she met the admission officer addressing parents whose wards were not offered admission. He told them that the university has only vacancy for students offering Education courses. “My own case is different. My son scored 295 in JAMB, scored 65 in post-UME and had distinctions in all his subjects but was not offered admission,” she narrated to the admission officer who expressed seemingly genuine interest in the matter and asked her to follow him to his office.

The admission officer confirmed what Mrs. Salami told him but later told him that the problem was that the candidate filled Muslim/Anglican on the religious space provided on the admission form. The woman was perturbed. She asked the admission officer if her child would be denied admission simply because of error in filling the religious space. It was a big shock to her when the admission officer told her that the university authority had decided not to offer admission to Muslims because the 12 Muslim students they took previously gave the school authority problems. The woman asked that if the university authority knew it is not offering admission to Muslims, it should have been indicated in the admission guidelines. It was a livid Mrs. Salami who left the admission office and laid an official complaint with the Vice Chancellor, Professor (Mrs.) Aize Obayan. She promised to look into the matter. “But we were surprised later when the Personal Assistant to the VC, one Mrs. Salami, called my wife and informed her that the admission officer had convinced the VC why Ayomide would not be offered admission but she did not tell us the reason given by the admission officer,” Salami said.                           

It was a herculean task getting the side of the university. The Premier was first directed to the PA to the VC, Mrs. Salami who also directed us to the Admission Officer. At the initial stage, we were informed that he was not on sit but later we spoke with him on phone. In the first instance, he declined to give us his name saying he does not know the reporter hence he was not obliged to mention his name.

On the issue at hand, he explained that the university admits Muslim students saying Ayomide’s case was different because there was an error when the admission form was filled. “In the space reserved for religion, he filled Muslim while in the space for denomination he filled Anglican and we felt we cannot allow this. One should be honest, if you are a Muslim or a Christian let us know your true religious status. However, the parents should have written a letter to the university authority correcting this error but the mother was impatience as she was just abusing us,” he said.

But Ayomide’s father debunked this. “I filled the form myself and there is no way I filled Muslim/Anglican. We are Muslims and we have never hidden that fact from anybody. My son attended Dansol High School in Ogba, a private secondary school with strict Christian background but this kind of thing never happened to him. All we want is good education for our child and that is why we chose Covenant University,” he said.

The bone of contention is can a student be denied admission on religious excuse? A university don at the University of Lagos cleared the air. “So far it is not a theological university, the National University Commission (NUC) which regulates the operation and activities of universities in the country, frowns at religious discrimination in the admission of students into the universities be it private or public,” the lecturer said.

The don stated that even if the admission form was filled in error, the university authority should find ways of explaining to the parents and things to be done and not wait until the parents came to enquire. “Moreover, it is not good to deny student outright admission on such excuse which I believe is flimsy,” he said.

The Premier investigation however revealed that this is not the first time such act of religious intolerance would occurred at the university. About two months ago, the university sought applications from prospective lecturers in the university. One Fatai Akinpelu applied to be considered for employment as a lecturer in the Department of English. According to our source, he excelled in all the tests and interviews conducted by the university only to be informed at the end of the day that he could not be offered employment because he was an Alfa, that is, a Muslim cleric.

A student of the university told us in confidence that he had to lie that he was Christian before he could be given admission. “I’m a Muslim and my roommate is a Muslim. I know some Muslim students who go into hiding before they pray. It is not a lie. You have to be a Christian before you are admitted,” the student told The Premier.

However in the case of Ayomide Salami, the father has vowed to fight the issue to a logical conclusion. “I’m writing officially to the NUC, the Federal Ministry of Education and other relevant bodies. After this, I’m taking the case to court. This is an injustice I’m fighting to a logical conclusion,” he vowed.

 

http://www.thepremiernewsonline.com/articlereader.aspx?newsid=gdefbdcgagbhccihfa

All being said! Islamic banking should be given a free ride in the country. It must set its own standards not minding whose horse is gored. I believe everyone that supports the school nefarious act must potentially support islamic banking.

Thank you brothers, let them know though they know not. Keep up the work of Dawah!

Telling the truth is a very good habit. If you always speak the truth, you can save yourself from a lot of trouble! Here is a story of a man who did a lot of bad things, but his promise to tell the truth saved him.

Once a man came to the prophet Muhammad (S) and said, "Oh prophet of Allah, I have many bad habits. Which one of them should I give up first?" The prophet said, "Give up telling lies first and always speak the truth." The man promised to do so and went home.

At night the man was about to go out to steal. Before setting out, he thought for a moment about the promise he made with the prophet. "If tomorrow the prophet asks me where have I been, what shall I say? Shall I say that I went out stealing? No, I cannot say that. But nor can I lie. If I tell the truth, everyone will start hating me and call me a thief. I would be punished for stealing."

So the man decided not to steal that night, and gave up this bad habit.

Next day, he felt like drinking wine, when he was about to do so, he said to himself, "What shall I say to the prophet if he asks me what did I do during the day? I cannot tell a lie, and if I speak the truth people will hate me, because a Muslim is not allowed to drink wine." And so he gave up the idea of drinking wine.

In this way, whenever the man thought of doing something bad, he remembered his promise to tell the truth at all times. One by one, he gave up all his bad habits and became a good Muslim and a very good person.

If you always speak the truth, you can be a good person, a good Muslim whom Allah likes and favors. If Allah - our Creator - is pleased with us, He will reward us with HEAVEN, which is a place of happiness and joy.

MAKE A PROMISE: I SHALL ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH.

I don't believe persia is a religion. Tell me his religion!

@deols. I only said that base on my own sincere observation. I observed it when I went through comments on toba's interview on another thread. Even with a penultimate post. I really appreciate your contributions always even if no one comments, u usually wade in with lots of sensible contributions. Sweetnecter is also another person which I know must have genuine reason. I really want to see all of those that contributed on the 2 posts I cited above to come in always and make this section flow. Had it been for sweetnecter and others, islam for muslim section would have gone bland. Peace be unto u

This is one of the consequences of giving toba attention in islam for muslim section. When islamic messages are posted, it is seriously deserted, deal with this brothers and sisters

Terribly bad in my area. It has gone from bad to worse

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has, for the second year running, won the ‘Central Bank Governor of the Year’ award for sub-Saharan Africa.

The award was presented to the governor in Washington DC., United States (US) of America, venue of the 2011 World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual General Meetings by the Emerging Markets.

Sanusi won the awards for “the vigour with which Nigeria’s Central Bank has tackled the crisis in the banking industry, which is a testament to the determination of its governor.”

Announcing the award Saturday night, the Emerging Markets said “it is somewhat ironic that Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s radical and hard line reforms of Nigeria’s banking system have earned him the approval of even Western regulators and politicians, many of whom have fallen short in their own efforts to rein-in their coutry’s financial excesses.”

Beyond banking reforms, Emerging Markets said that thr Nigerian Central bank Governor has continued to act “boldly and decisively on the policy front over the past 12 months, meriting his status as Emerging Markets Central Bank Governor of the Year for the second consecutive year.

According to the organisation, Sanusi’s steady tightening of interest rates by 100 basis points to ease pressure on the naira and tame inflation at 9 per cent, despite calls from banks and businesses to keep rates down was heart warming. “His outspoken criticisms of Nigeria’s runaway recurrent expenditure and fiscal largesse, as well as his call for better use of oil revenue, have drawnrespect for Sanusi from the international community,” said the institution.

Senegal’s Finance Minister, Abdoulaye Diop won the Finance Minister of the Year award for sub-Saharan Africa for opening up his country to the international capital markets following years of hard-fought fiscal reforms.

, sun newspaper

@uplawal, walaikum salam warahmarulah!

@frosbel, life in britain beclouds your thinking. Even loon the bad boy (former musician) saw life in UAE combined with beautiful nature of Islam, he forgot all the luxuries of life, myriads of dirty women around him! All these you boast of in britain.

With uplawal re -affirmation, frosbel will have 3 sleepless nights. Lol

^^ was alkhwarizmi quoted above a muslim, pagan or jew? Can u tell me the religion of alfarabi, alkindi, avicena?

Any other one?

Come back later

I don't expect anything reasonable from infidels. U can do better

@deols I will be willing to read more about yours. I can't wait to read more about ibn Sina (Avicena), Al-kindi et al. Salam alaik

Yep

It is the daddy cos real technology emanated during the islamic civilization golden era.

While massage is licking aboniki ointment

1000+ but his knowledge was used for today's notorious complex calculations, and someone said nothing to boast of. Na wa o

Without the origin, there could be nothing. Don't u think there are lots to boast of? Pls think well

Ideas, not money, alleviate poverty
By Philip Emeagwali (philip@emeagwali.com)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.”
I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance.

If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa. If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a general earn more than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent. After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and ideas are the engines that drive economic growth.

When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas, have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in Africa. African literature is more at home abroad than it is in Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas — the true healers of Africa — start returning home, the African Renaissance and poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. 

After all, the brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas.
The first annual report by J.P. Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of 1.3 trillion dollars, reads: “The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value.” This quote is a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology.

For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa’s primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief, foreign assistance, and investments from western nations. Poverty alleviation means looking beyond 100 percent literacy and aiming for 100 percent numeracy, the prerequisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital. Yet, in this age of information and globalization when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for the global market and competing with Asia, the United States, and Europe — shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africans.

The intellectual capital needed to produce products and services will lead to the path of poverty alleviation. Intellectual capital, defined as the collective knowledge of the people, increases productivity. The latter — by driving economic growth — alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.

Those who create new knowledge are producing wealth, while those who consume it are producing poverty. If you attend a Wole Soyinka’s production of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” you consume the knowledge produced by Soyinka and Achebe as well as the actor’s production, much like I consume the knowledge and production of Bob Marley’s through his songs. 

We will need wisdom, that which turns too much information — or information overload — into focused power, not only to process, but also to evaluate the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet. This wisdom will give us the competitive edge and enable us to find creative solutions.
The following story illustrates the difference between information and wisdom. Twelve hundred years ago, in the city of Baghdad, lived a genius named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the fathers of algebra. In fact, the word algebra comes from the title of his book Al-jabr, which for centuries was the standard mathematics textbook. Al-Khwarizmi taught in an institution of learning called the House of Wisdom, which was the center of new ideas during Islam’s golden age of science. To this day we computer scientists honor Al-Khwarizmi when we use the word algorithm, which is our attempt to pronounce his name.
One day, Al-Khwarizmi was riding a camel laden down with algebraic manuscripts to the holy city of Mecca. He saw three young men crying at an oasis. “My children, why are you crying?” he enquired.

“Our father, upon his death, instructed us to divide his 17 camels as follows: ‘To my oldest son I leave half of my camels, my second son shall have one-third of my camels, and my youngest son is to have one-ninth of my camels.’”
“What, then, is your problem?” Al-Khwarizmi asked.

“We have been to school and learned that 17 is a prime number that is, divisible only by one and itself and cannot be divided by two or three or nine. Since we love our camels, we cannot divide them exactly,” they answered.

Al-Khwarizmi thought for a while and asked, “Will it help if I offer my camel and make the total 18?”
“No, no, no,” they cried. “You are on your way to Mecca, and you need your camel.”
“Go ahead, have my camel, and divide the 18 camels amongst yourselves,” he said, smiling.
So the eldest took one-half of 18 — or nine camels. The second took one-third of 18 — or six camels. The youngest took one-ninth of 18 — or two camels. After the division, one camel was left: Al-Khwarizmi’s camel, as the total number of camels divided among the sons (nine plus six plus two) equaled 17.
Then Al-Khwarizmi asked, “Now, can I have my camel back?”

These young men had information about prime numbers, but they lacked the wisdom to use the information effectively. It is the manipulation of information to accomplish seemingly impossible purposes that defines true wisdom.

Today, we have ten billion pages of information posted on the Internet — more than enough to keep us busy the rest of our lives, and new information is being added daily. More information has been created in the last 100 years than in all of the previous 100,000 years combined. We need the wisdom to sift through and convert these billions of pages into information riches.

The genius of Al-Khwarizmi was not in his mathematical wizardry or even his book knowledge: It was in his experiential knowledge — his big-picture, right-brain thinking; creativity; innovation; and wisdom. It was his wisdom to add a camel to make the total 18 and still get his camel back.

Prime numbers are to whole numbers what the laws of physics are to physics. Twenty years ago, I used an Al-Khwarizmi approach to solve a notoriously difficult problem in physics. I added inertial force, which enabled me to reformulate Newton’s Second Law of Motion first as 18 equations and algorithms, and then as 24 million algebraic equations. Finally, I programmed 65,000 “electronic brains” called processors to work as one to solve those 24 million equations at a speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second.

Like Al-Khwarizmi, I derived my 18 equations through out-of-the-box thinking in an in-the-box world, adding my metaphorical camel: inertial force. In other words, I applied wisdom to known knowledge to generate intellectual capital.

Unless Africa significantly increases its intellectual capital, the continent will remain irrelevant in the 21st century and even beyond. Africa needs innovators, producers of knowledge, and wise men and women who can discover, propose, and then implement progressive ideas. Africa’s fate lies in the hands of Africans and the solution to poverty must come from its people. The future that lies ahead of Africa is for Africa to create, after the people have outlined their vision. We owe it to our children to build a firm foundation to enable them go places we only dreamt. For Africa to take center stage in today’s economic world, we have to go out and compete on a global basis. There is simply no other way to succeed.

•Transcribed from a lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Ideas, not money, alleviate poverty
By Philip Emeagwali (philip@emeagwali.com)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.”
I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance.

If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa. If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a general earn more than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent. After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and ideas are the engines that drive economic growth.

When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas, have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in Africa. African literature is more at home abroad than it is in Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas — the true healers of Africa — start returning home, the African Renaissance and poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. 

After all, the brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas.
The first annual report by J.P. Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of 1.3 trillion dollars, reads: “The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value.” This quote is a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology.

For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa’s primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief, foreign assistance, and investments from western nations. Poverty alleviation means looking beyond 100 percent literacy and aiming for 100 percent numeracy, the prerequisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital. Yet, in this age of information and globalization when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for the global market and competing with Asia, the United States, and Europe — shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africans.

The intellectual capital needed to produce products and services will lead to the path of poverty alleviation. Intellectual capital, defined as the collective knowledge of the people, increases productivity. The latter — by driving economic growth — alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.

Those who create new knowledge are producing wealth, while those who consume it are producing poverty. If you attend a Wole Soyinka’s production of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” you consume the knowledge produced by Soyinka and Achebe as well as the actor’s production, much like I consume the knowledge and production of Bob Marley’s through his songs. 

We will need wisdom, that which turns too much information — or information overload — into focused power, not only to process, but also to evaluate the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet. This wisdom will give us the competitive edge and enable us to find creative solutions.
The following story illustrates the difference between information and wisdom. Twelve hundred years ago, in the city of Baghdad, lived a genius named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the fathers of algebra. In fact, the word algebra comes from the title of his book Al-jabr, which for centuries was the standard mathematics textbook. Al-Khwarizmi taught in an institution of learning called the House of Wisdom, which was the center of new ideas during Islam’s golden age of science. To this day we computer scientists honor Al-Khwarizmi when we use the word algorithm, which is our attempt to pronounce his name.
One day, Al-Khwarizmi was riding a camel laden down with algebraic manuscripts to the holy city of Mecca. He saw three young men crying at an oasis. “My children, why are you crying?” he enquired.

“Our father, upon his death, instructed us to divide his 17 camels as follows: ‘To my oldest son I leave half of my camels, my second son shall have one-third of my camels, and my youngest son is to have one-ninth of my camels.’”
“What, then, is your problem?” Al-Khwarizmi asked.

“We have been to school and learned that 17 is a prime number that is, divisible only by one and itself and cannot be divided by two or three or nine. Since we love our camels, we cannot divide them exactly,” they answered.

Al-Khwarizmi thought for a while and asked, “Will it help if I offer my camel and make the total 18?”
“No, no, no,” they cried. “You are on your way to Mecca, and you need your camel.”
“Go ahead, have my camel, and divide the 18 camels amongst yourselves,” he said, smiling.
So the eldest took one-half of 18 — or nine camels. The second took one-third of 18 — or six camels. The youngest took one-ninth of 18 — or two camels. After the division, one camel was left: Al-Khwarizmi’s camel, as the total number of camels divided among the sons (nine plus six plus two) equaled 17.
Then Al-Khwarizmi asked, “Now, can I have my camel back?”

These young men had information about prime numbers, but they lacked the wisdom to use the information effectively. It is the manipulation of information to accomplish seemingly impossible purposes that defines true wisdom.

Today, we have ten billion pages of information posted on the Internet — more than enough to keep us busy the rest of our lives, and new information is being added daily. More information has been created in the last 100 years than in all of the previous 100,000 years combined. We need the wisdom to sift through and convert these billions of pages into information riches.

The genius of Al-Khwarizmi was not in his mathematical wizardry or even his book knowledge: It was in his experiential knowledge — his big-picture, right-brain thinking; creativity; innovation; and wisdom. It was his wisdom to add a camel to make the total 18 and still get his camel back.

Prime numbers are to whole numbers what the laws of physics are to physics. Twenty years ago, I used an Al-Khwarizmi approach to solve a notoriously difficult problem in physics. I added inertial force, which enabled me to reformulate Newton’s Second Law of Motion first as 18 equations and algorithms, and then as 24 million algebraic equations. Finally, I programmed 65,000 “electronic brains” called processors to work as one to solve those 24 million equations at a speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second.

Like Al-Khwarizmi, I derived my 18 equations through out-of-the-box thinking in an in-the-box world, adding my metaphorical camel: inertial force. In other words, I applied wisdom to known knowledge to generate intellectual capital.

Unless Africa significantly increases its intellectual capital, the continent will remain irrelevant in the 21st century and even beyond. Africa needs innovators, producers of knowledge, and wise men and women who can discover, propose, and then implement progressive ideas. Africa’s fate lies in the hands of Africans and the solution to poverty must come from its people. The future that lies ahead of Africa is for Africa to create, after the people have outlined their vision. We owe it to our children to build a firm foundation to enable them go places we only dreamt. For Africa to take center stage in today’s economic world, we have to go out and compete on a global basis. There is simply no other way to succeed.

•Transcribed from a lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Ideas, not money, alleviate poverty
By Philip Emeagwali (philip@emeagwali.com)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
I once believed that capital was another word for money, the accumulated wealth of a country or its people. Surely, I thought, wealth is determined by the money or property in one’s possession. Then I saw a Deutsche Bank advertisement in the Wall Street Journal that proclaimed: “Ideas are capital. The rest is just money.”
I was struck by the simplicity of such an eloquent and forceful idea. I started imagining what such power meant for Africa. The potential for progress and poverty alleviation in Africa relies on capital generated from the power within our minds, not from our ability to pick minerals from the ground or seek debt relief and foreign assistance.

If ideas are capital, why is Africa investing more on things than on information, and more on the military than on education? Suddenly, I realized what this idea could mean for Africa. If the pen is mightier than the sword, why does a general earn more than the work of a hundred writers combined? If ideas are indeed capital, then Africa should stem its brain drain and promote the African Renaissance, which will lead to the rebirth of the continent. After all, a renaissance is a rebirth of ideas. And knowledge and ideas are the engines that drive economic growth.

When African men and women of ideas, who will give birth to new ideas, have fled to Europe and the United States, then the so-called African Renaissance cannot occur in Africa. It can only occur in Paris, London and New York. There are more Soukous musicians in Paris, than in Kinshasha; more African professional soccer players in Europe, than in Africa. African literature is more at home abroad than it is in Africa. In other words, Africans in Europe are alleviating poverty in Europe, not in Africa. Until the men and women of ideas — the true healers of Africa — start returning home, the African Renaissance and poverty alleviation will remain empty slogans. 

After all, the brightest ideas are generated and harnessed by men of ideas.
The first annual report by J.P. Morgan Chase, a firm with assets of 1.3 trillion dollars, reads: “The power of intellectual capital is the ability to breed ideas that ignite value.” This quote is a clarion call to African leaders to shift purposefully and deliberately from a focus on things to a focus on information; from exporting natural resources to exporting knowledge and ideas; and from being a consumer of technology to becoming a producer of technology.

For Africa, poverty will be reduced when intellectual capital is increased and leveraged to export knowledge and ideas. Africa’s primary strategy for poverty alleviation is to gain debt relief, foreign assistance, and investments from western nations. Poverty alleviation means looking beyond 100 percent literacy and aiming for 100 percent numeracy, the prerequisite for increasing our technological intellectual capital. Yet, in this age of information and globalization when poverty alleviation should result in producing valuable products for the global market and competing with Asia, the United States, and Europe — shamefully, diamonds found in Africa are polished in Europe and re-sold to Africans.

The intellectual capital needed to produce products and services will lead to the path of poverty alleviation. Intellectual capital, defined as the collective knowledge of the people, increases productivity. The latter — by driving economic growth — alleviates poverty, always and everywhere, even in Africa. Productivity is the engine that drives global economic growth.

Those who create new knowledge are producing wealth, while those who consume it are producing poverty. If you attend a Wole Soyinka’s production of Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” you consume the knowledge produced by Soyinka and Achebe as well as the actor’s production, much like I consume the knowledge and production of Bob Marley’s through his songs. 

We will need wisdom, that which turns too much information — or information overload — into focused power, not only to process, but also to evaluate the overwhelming amount of information available on the Internet. This wisdom will give us the competitive edge and enable us to find creative solutions.
The following story illustrates the difference between information and wisdom. Twelve hundred years ago, in the city of Baghdad, lived a genius named Al-Khwarizmi, who was one of the fathers of algebra. In fact, the word algebra comes from the title of his book Al-jabr, which for centuries was the standard mathematics textbook. Al-Khwarizmi taught in an institution of learning called the House of Wisdom, which was the center of new ideas during Islam’s golden age of science. To this day we computer scientists honor Al-Khwarizmi when we use the word algorithm, which is our attempt to pronounce his name.
One day, Al-Khwarizmi was riding a camel laden down with algebraic manuscripts to the holy city of Mecca. He saw three young men crying at an oasis. “My children, why are you crying?” he enquired.

“Our father, upon his death, instructed us to divide his 17 camels as follows: ‘To my oldest son I leave half of my camels, my second son shall have one-third of my camels, and my youngest son is to have one-ninth of my camels.’”
“What, then, is your problem?” Al-Khwarizmi asked.

“We have been to school and learned that 17 is a prime number that is, divisible only by one and itself and cannot be divided by two or three or nine. Since we love our camels, we cannot divide them exactly,” they answered.

Al-Khwarizmi thought for a while and asked, “Will it help if I offer my camel and make the total 18?”
“No, no, no,” they cried. “You are on your way to Mecca, and you need your camel.”
“Go ahead, have my camel, and divide the 18 camels amongst yourselves,” he said, smiling.
So the eldest took one-half of 18 — or nine camels. The second took one-third of 18 — or six camels. The youngest took one-ninth of 18 — or two camels. After the division, one camel was left: Al-Khwarizmi’s camel, as the total number of camels divided among the sons (nine plus six plus two) equaled 17.
Then Al-Khwarizmi asked, “Now, can I have my camel back?”

These young men had information about prime numbers, but they lacked the wisdom to use the information effectively. It is the manipulation of information to accomplish seemingly impossible purposes that defines true wisdom.

Today, we have ten billion pages of information posted on the Internet — more than enough to keep us busy the rest of our lives, and new information is being added daily. More information has been created in the last 100 years than in all of the previous 100,000 years combined. We need the wisdom to sift through and convert these billions of pages into information riches.

The genius of Al-Khwarizmi was not in his mathematical wizardry or even his book knowledge: It was in his experiential knowledge — his big-picture, right-brain thinking; creativity; innovation; and wisdom. It was his wisdom to add a camel to make the total 18 and still get his camel back.

Prime numbers are to whole numbers what the laws of physics are to physics. Twenty years ago, I used an Al-Khwarizmi approach to solve a notoriously difficult problem in physics. I added inertial force, which enabled me to reformulate Newton’s Second Law of Motion first as 18 equations and algorithms, and then as 24 million algebraic equations. Finally, I programmed 65,000 “electronic brains” called processors to work as one to solve those 24 million equations at a speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second.

Like Al-Khwarizmi, I derived my 18 equations through out-of-the-box thinking in an in-the-box world, adding my metaphorical camel: inertial force. In other words, I applied wisdom to known knowledge to generate intellectual capital.

Unless Africa significantly increases its intellectual capital, the continent will remain irrelevant in the 21st century and even beyond. Africa needs innovators, producers of knowledge, and wise men and women who can discover, propose, and then implement progressive ideas. Africa’s fate lies in the hands of Africans and the solution to poverty must come from its people. The future that lies ahead of Africa is for Africa to create, after the people have outlined their vision. We owe it to our children to build a firm foundation to enable them go places we only dreamt. For Africa to take center stage in today’s economic world, we have to go out and compete on a global basis. There is simply no other way to succeed.

•Transcribed from a lecture delivered by Philip Emeagwali at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Sweetnecta has said it all. No injustice there. I wish someone could tell us the name of the unholy shitty ghost!

those that dont know why the close their eyes while praying, why pastors blow their saliva in the mic can never know the name of the ghost god. GUARANTEED!