Farah Jassat2013-06-19T04:48:50-04:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=farah-jassatCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Farah JassatGood old fashioned elbow grease.Telling Stories Through Numbers with Daniel Tammettag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21287172012-11-14T08:04:14-05:002013-06-18T06:34:36-04:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/"Mathematics isn't simply about counting - it's about recounting stories".
This is how Daniel Tammet, best-selling British author, mathematician and autistic savant sees numbers. Not as simple numerical quantities. But as dynamic keys which can unlock the doors to human experience. "It's about how we tell a story about ourselves, our lives, our world, using numbers as well as words." This story-based approach informs his latest book, Thinking in Numbers, which was featured on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week, and is an assorted set of essays exploring how the beauty of maths permeates our everyday lives.
For Daniel, numbers are more than present; they're been personable. Having both Asperger's syndrome and synaesthesia, he sees them as visual entities with colours, shapes and personalities. This allows him to work out extraordinary sums of mental arithmetic and in 2004 he came to world-wide attention when he broke the European record for reciting pi from memory - setting it to 22,514 places.
Thinking in Numbers makes a number of parallels between maths and poetry - indeed, one chapter begins by exploring a poem written about Pi. Daniel explains that their similarity relates to their ability to be economical - "they are able to take huge amounts of info and condense it into a few lines of a poem or an equation. They make all that info meaningful because they find a pattern."
He echoes the sentiments of Einstein who famously said that for him the biggest test of a mathematical equation is asking, is it beautiful?
Daniel sees this beauty lace through the most complex of equations to the simplest of units. The number One is a familiar trope in the language of love, and of worship. The lover is presented as zero and the Beloved is One. "The ancient Greeks didn't have any idea of zero. They start with one - the idea of existence, of presence. It's a very powerful idea."
His book refers to maths as "the science of imagination", but if its creativity is so accessible, why do so many students feel alienated from the subject? Daniel argues that schools don't teach maths in a way that captures the imagination - he himself almost had his love for maths snuffed out at school. "If when we are taught English we are just taught the rules of grammar, it would take all our love of our language away from us. What makes us love a subject like English is when we learn all these fantastic stories. Feeding the imagination is what makes a subject come alive."
So how would he recommend maths teachers do this? Daniel was once a maths tutor and recalls, "I would explain ideas in a way that was intuitive. There was a boy who was about eight who loved football stickers. We would out how quickly a giant would count the stickers, because a giant would have a different perspective of numbers than we would - he would count in tens or hundreds or thousands whereas we count in ones. This gave him an idea of groupings and multiplication."
The history of mathematics is left out of many curriculums. Daniel dedicates a chapter of his book to the great Persian philosopher and mathematician, Omar Khayyam. He believes his story, amongst many others, should be taught in schools. "That's a much more inclusive way of teaching - to make it clear it's not something we are imposing on children, but that something that is being passed down from generation to generation has a value, has a meaning. Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language, numbers belong to everyone."
His book reflects this universality of numbers but also explores the diversity of their experience. The aborigines are cited as a community who understood time as defined by activity such as cow-milking. "We may say five minutes - but this very abstract idea doesn't have meaning in our lives as milking a cow would to people living on farms." Indeed, there are parts of the world where counting as a concept doesn't exist because those cultures have no need of numbers. Daniel explains that they categorise differently - "They simply divide things into big and small. So a bird is a small flock and a flock is a big bird."
Thinking in Numbers forces us to see the world from Daniel's perspective. Even if we feel numbers don't come naturally to us, one must wonder at their depth and insight into human experience. By the end of the book we may not share Daniel's passion and zeal for maths but I suspect he does succeed in making readers realise that numbers are, as he puts it, "a way of helping us to reflect on all those big universal questions about time, life, death and love".
]]>Artistic Jihad: Painting Words Differentlytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14172762012-04-11T09:31:56-04:002012-06-11T05:12:02-04:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/ Mica Gallery. The project, run by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS), aims to provide a platform to ignite creativity and showcase young British Muslim artistic talent. But it's also an empowering student initiative seeking to intellectually reclaim the negative discourse surrounding Muslim communities.
The name invites curiosity. Is it corrupting art with politics? Or is art always political, some just more subtle than others? What does it actually mean in the context of a student art competition?
Jihad is a word and concept widely misunderstood and often limited in meaning to only be associated with interpretations of "holy war". It actually comes from the Arabic word meaning "struggle" and is often used in the contexts of striving for a better world and struggling against all forms of injustice - both outward and inward.
As such, Artistic Jihad seeks to highlight the many struggles of aspiring Muslim artists. It's hard enough trying to get onto the career ladder in this economic climate but many Muslim artists also struggle to overcome the prejudice their community may have towards arts. Creative aspiration is not always understood in some migrant communities which have previously prioritised the set vocational careers of being a doctor, accountant and lawyer etc. But this culture is increasingly being questioned by many young students who want to make a career out of their creative energy. Artistic Jihad seeks to help support this next generation of artists and promote the appreciation of a broad range of arts in Muslim communities. The competition is judged by several eminent Muslim artists such as Peter Sanders, Ruh Al-Alam, Abid Hussain and Reeda El-Saie.
So who are these young artists inspired by the controversial brand-name? They tend to be Muslim University students who are bursting to convey something about themselves and what they find beautiful about religion in a contemporary light. The art defies orthodox categorisation - it is neither traditional Islamic art nor Western contemporary, but a unique fusion of the two. This flourishing new genre of contemporary British Muslim art speaks volumes about the young British Muslim presence; their values, struggles and dreams.
Perhaps all three factors played a role in proudly choosing the name Artistic Jihad. Many Muslims wouldn't touch their organisation's name with the word Jihad with a barge pole. Not because they think it relates to violent extremism. They know it's a beautiful concept of striving to be just and honourable human beings out of love for God. But they also know mainstream narratives associate it with terrorism, an excuse for the killing of innocent civilians and an ideological call against anything Western.
Let's face it - that's a hell of a tough word to reclaim from popular narratives. I'm not confident it will succeed at this point in time - the movement is too small, but all movements to reclaim language start off small. For decades minority groups have sought to re-appropriate words and reclaim authority over the terms used to describe their community. As Foucault argued, discourse is a way to articulate knowledge as an expression of power. Words are loaded bullets and if misused they can corrupt a beautifully broad concept by shoving it into a corner, interpreting it to mean only one thing. Especially when discourse is handled by influential institutions such as the media, a very one-sided discussion can take place.
It's up to small communities to try to reclaim words if they think they are being tainted from their original connotations. A few decades ago HIV/AIDS was both stigmatised as the "gay plague" and racially assigned to come from Africa, the Dark Continent, but those connotations no longer come to mind. Recently the British government launched a TV advertising campaign to broaden popular conceptions of rape; the advert shows that rape doesn't need to be by a stranger down a dark alley, it can be by one's date - it's simply if there's no consent. A word is more than a description; it can be all the connotations, stereotypes and attitudes that go with it.
There seems to be a growing trend in the young British Muslim community to reclaim language negatively associated with them. Last year Muslim students at the University of Cambridge launched a "Jihad on Homelessness", encouraging people to struggle against conditions leading to homelessness through volunteering and raising money for the local charity Jimmy's Night Shelter.
Artistic Jihad is a much-needed initiative to encourage the arts amongst young Muslims, but perhaps it is also the start of something similar to how feminists have sought to reclaim the F Word. Maybe this is the beginning of The J word.
Artistic Jihad will be featured at London's Mica Gallery from 10am-6pm until Saturday 14th April]]>Remembering Umm Kulthum: Queen of the Arabstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12510072012-02-03T00:00:27-05:002012-04-03T05:12:01-04:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/
Thirty-seven years ago today on Feb. 3, 1975, Umm Kulthum passed away. Her funeral drew more than four million people to the streets of Cairo -- bringing together more people than Gamal Abdel Nasser's grand state funeral. A heavy communal grief hung in the air -- her songs of love, longing and loss had touched the soul of the Arab world. Nearly four decades later and she is still regarded by many as the most distinguished female singer in Arab music history.
Dr Ahmed Salama, an Egyptian physician and writer, refers to her as "Queen of the Arabs," capable of culturally uniting a diverse group of nations. He was 24 years old at the time of her death and recalls the sad atmosphere; a time that felt like something had been lost. (Indeed, the feeling was quite literal for him as Tahrir Square was so packed with throngs of mourners that his shoes came off in the rush, leaving him to walk barefoot amongst the crowds).
She had a mysterious and enchanting power, which at the height of her career caused the streets of capital cities across the Arab world to empty as people rushed back home to hear her monthly radio concerts. Even Nasser admired her talent and used her popularity to push his own agenda, scheduling his speeches to broadcast directly after her performances. If Nasser was the political figurehead for the pan-Arab movement, Umm Kulthum can be seen as the cultural embodiment.
After the devastating defeat of the Egyptians in the 1967 war against Israel, Umm Kulthum took the stage as more than a musician; she had become the melodic "Voice of Egypt." She gave a series of international concerts (which took the character of state visits) raising money for the Egyptian military and uplifting the spirits of her people.
However despite her fame and wealth, she never forgot her roots of being born to a humble peasant family. Her father was an Imam at the local village mosque who caused her from a young age to learn Qur'anic recitation, but also how to sing. She was soon recognized to have an amazing voice but the family had no connections in Cairo and it was many years before the move to help her career was made in 1923. In Cairo, with the help of teachers and poets, she flourished.
Nahla Mattar, a composer and director of Cairo's Umm Kulthum Museum, reflects that Umm Kulthum "has been a very strong woman to change her status from just a village girl to such an icon." Her voice and creativity made her a brilliant artist. "Usually Egyptian music is about improvisation... she was very good at this... it depends on the energy between performer and audience." Umm Kulthum understood the art of reading the mood of every individual audience and responding to the tempo of the atmosphere. Her performances would last hours, not minutes, as she gave the audience what they wanted; repeating lines until they were satisfied. It was not just a performance; it was a sincere dialogue, an emotional exchange.
There are few artists like her today. And perhaps it was this feeling that caused Egyptian activists to play her music in the squares of the revolution. Along with other national music icons like Abdel Haleem Hafez and Sheikh Imam, this music of an older generation spoke sense to a modern audience. Dalia Gelbana, a young Egyptian activist, reflects that such artists sang about the 1952 revolution and despite the time lapse, "we have the same feelings and mostly the same demands -- social demands... we think these songs are much better than our songs nowadays." Many current popular artists have lost moral and political credibility as they are seen to have been supporters of Mubarak's regime.
In December, the large statue of Umm Kulthum in Cairo was redefined as a symbol of the revolution. She was given an eyepatch in solidarity with the activists who had their eyes shot out by security forces. It was as if she was saying I am still the voice of Egypt -- and this voice is with the revolution.
Umm Kulthum's reputation and love for Egypt has evidently transcended time. Perhaps the cultural capital she has built up is not erodible. She seems to have become a permanent fixture in Arab cultural folklore alongside great figures such as the historian Ibn Khaldun and the traveller Ibn Battuta.
]]>The Isolated Whirlpool of Tahrirtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11960682012-01-10T13:59:22-05:002012-03-11T05:12:01-04:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/
Despite travelling to a place which TV footage shows to be an unpredictable pseudo-warzone, it hit me that most of Cairo just gets on with its own business. Being glued to international coverage can subconsciously start to build an image of Tahrir as representing Cairo. The whirlpool of the Square which engulfs our TV screens paints a picture of grassroots sentiment which isn't representative. Tahrir is just an isolated area of active resistance in a bustling city which (unfortunately) doesn't pay it the same respect it did in the January uprising.
The iconic image of the beaten lady in the blue bra was released whilst I was there. Her black cloak violently pulled over her head revealed a half-naked body which was mercilessly stomped on by the military police. My disgust was absolute but local sentiments are surprisingly split, according to the Egyptian journalists I spoke to.
Manal Abdul Aziz Ali is Associate Chief Editor of the Egyptian Gazette, the Middle East's oldest English-language newspaper. "I'm not surprised", she says, referring to the army's latest tactics. "Men have been handicapped with their eyes shot out on purpose" -- so such brutality is not new in her mind. But many others don't believe that the army could do such a thing.
"The army has a special place in the hearts of the people. 1973 and January 25 saw the victory of the army protecting the people. They are heroes for Egyptians".
Some people see the picture as a forgery and propaganda against the army. In similar vein there are rumours that the women suing against rape are fabricating the story.
Lina Attalah, Managing Editor of Egypt's most influential newspaper, Al-Masry Al-Youm, also takes the view that the women of the revolution have been demonised. She has overheard people asking why the lady in the blue bra was not wearing anything else under her abaya (black outer garment). The irony leaves me speechless. In any case they fault her for being there in the first place.
The demonization of women is compounded by the army's robust propaganda campaign to present itself as the real protector of the nation. Activists are painted as trouble makers. Last Friday saw thousands demonstrate in a day of 'regaining honour' particularly for women, but only a day before I saw a newspaper sporting the front-page headline, 'A plot for burning Egypt'.
Tahrir can be seen as a Republic -- a sub-state in Cairo epitomising the revolution. But outside of its borders, the vying narratives and propaganda wars make it hard for the ordinary Egyptian to navigate the political scene. Tahrir is a vital whirlpool of activism but perhaps also an echo-chamber of its own perspectives.
"A lot of people who partook in protests in January are back home now", Lina explains. "They think protests are actually hurting the cause. At this point there is this striving for stability. Those who remain in Tahrir are radical activists, alongside lower class activists who think only the street can reclaim their demands for better lives -- this is the aspect of the revolution being about social justice."
She muses that the social psychology of the square has become less gentrified, with an element of some people feeling "I can risk my life anyway because it's worthless".
Women have been vital to the whirlpool of political activism but their presence has also been targeted -- both physically and in discourses surrounding morality. The recent cries of "women are the red line!" vent only a morsel of the anger felt by activists.
Lina points out that "there is a misconception about the fact that perhaps being a woman will spare you from being harassed. That hasn't been considered at all. Women have been equally humiliated." She ironically concludes, "It's a great moment of equality."
Following the incident of the lady in the blue bra there has been a resounding silence from the Islamists, revealing a more complex political reality. There is not only an intellectual air to the silence -- one which infers their view towards women -- but a deeper political motive of not wanting to clash with the army. Only the military can grant them organised elections which will pave their way to their forecasted ascent to power. From that perspective, there is no need to speak out -- regardless of the costs.
Manal predicts that this will be the start of a new women's movement in Egypt -- directed at the Islamists.
But no one knows how the political scene will develop. It's clear that Tahrir is no longer attracting enough Egyptians. Nevertheless, as Lina points out, "You go back and remind yourselves that it's only minorities which make revolutions... I refuse to be hopeless. I think hope is resistance in and of itself."]]>Education is Not a Skills Checklisttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11860732012-01-05T10:19:19-05:002012-03-06T05:12:01-05:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/
"Education is the sum of what students teach each other in between lectures and seminars. You sit in each other's rooms and drink coffee - I suppose it would be vodka and Red Bull now - you share enthusiasms, you talk a lot of wank about politics, religion, art and the cosmos and then you go to bed, alone or together according to taste."
I was recently delighted to find this interpretation of education as I meandered through Stephen Fry's life in his autobiography, The Fry Chronicles. Although referring to university life, the essence of his point relates to the purpose of all education, which should be to cultivate an atmosphere of gaining knowledge. It might seem obvious but unfortunately it's not. Not by looking at today's education system and the culture that surrounds it.
Schools revolve around exams, exams and more exams. And if you do well by the time of your A Levels, then you are rewarded by being able to assert a checklist of relevant skills on your University Personal Statement. You know the ones I mean - analytical, evaluative, logical, creative etc. As if the point of learning your course was simply to gain such skills. Don't get me wrong - I appreciate the value of transferable skills. But I disagree with the inference that the value of education is defined by skills. That value is assessed by a skill buzz-word rather than knowledge in and of itself. The skills gained are a part of knowledge but don't define it.
I recently spoke to students at my old high school about studying humanities and art subjects at university. I ended my talk by making this point: as important as skills are, they are not the be all and end all. Any knowledge learnt can be precious in and of itself. Full stop. With or without exams; with or without definable skills.
After I quietened down and gave the students some respite from my babble, their teacher came up to speak to me. She seemed very happy with my talk - but more than that - it was as though I had reminded her of a point she had perhaps been forced to shelve. Maybe the pressurised culture of teachers to perform to set targets distracts educators from reminding kids why education and knowledge about the world is actually important.
Unfortunately this can foster a culture that allows children to excel in exam-driven learning at school but fall short in higher education where spoon feeding is not always an option. Education is at its peak when students understand it to be more than just a skills checklist or exercise in data absorption to pass the exam. This is when creativity and innovation can really flourish.]]>Al Ghazali: 900 Years Later and Still Relevanttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11544292011-12-18T08:38:59-05:002012-02-17T05:12:01-05:00Farah Jassathttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/farah-jassat/
Al-Ghazali was a Persian theologian, philosopher, jurist and mystic, acclaimed in both East and West as the most influential Muslim after the Prophet Muhammad. His works shaped how generations of Muslims would understand their religion and even influenced European theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas. His great feats include bringing orthodoxy and mysticism into closer contact and leading Islamic theology into an epic battle against Arabic Neo-Platonism.
But perhaps he is most relevant to us today in terms of his personality. Great religious figures transform society by who they are, as much as what they say. His life was one of fame, doubt, confusion, introspection and searching. His journey was riddled with the eternal questions of life and meaning which still face us today.
As a young lad he excelled in all the disciplines of his education and so took the route of academia. By the age of 38 he was at the pinnacle of his career as a university professor in Baghdad, with hundreds of students sitting at his feet and a reputation as a religious scholar that carried far beyond the city.
It was at this point in his life, when he apparently had all the answers, that he realised all he had was questions. He underwent a traumatic spiritual crisis riddled with doubt and confusion. Did he really believe in existing doctrine? Was he sincere in his profession or massaging his ego? Was he ready for the mortal journey of death?
Al-Ghazali later relayed this existential crisis in "Deliverance from Error," a sort of autobiographical account. His inner turmoil culminated in his dramatic exit from the classroom where, in front of his students, the falsity of his state dawned on him, rendering him speechless. He walked out of the class to start a journey of self-discovery and didn't return for 10 years. He left as an academic who had just had a breakdown and returned as a holy man who had tasted the fruits of faith.
He sold most of his possessions, leaving enough to sustain his family and set out for the wilderness. Thus began his spiritual odyssey. Al-Ghazali and Odysseus have more in common than one might think. Both their epic journeys were in order to return home. Whilst Odysseus sought the island of Ithaca, al-Ghazali looked towards his spiritual origin. They both took 10 years to find their way home but never lost sight of the final goal. As we admire Odysseus for his shrewd schemes to outwit the Cyclops and survive hearing the songs of the sirens, we too must admire Al-Ghazali's strategies to master the ego and insatiable search for knowledge which spurred on his journey.
He knew a truly informed decision on how to live his life would first entail understanding the alternatives. He studied the ways of theologians, philosophers and authoritarians before deciding to walk down the mystic path as one which not only knew about faith, but experienced it. His search for meaning was not just ethereal and his great corpus of 40 volumes, "The Revival of the Religious Sciences," explores how to practically tame the ego and foster a good character.
In the noisy rat-race of the 21st century, it's sometimes hard to take a step back. The world we live in seems to function as a great big machine for competition and ego. A sort of envy culture permeates, leaving us always asking for more but not necessarily making us happier. In a time of economic instability and talks of measuring the Happiness Index of nations, it might be a thought to look at the vision of a man who has been known to be the Alchemist of Happiness.
Al-Ghazali speaks to us because he was just as human and confused as us all -- but he never stopped searching. Faith could not be defined by academia, but was a complicated journey of realisation. He wasn't afraid to admit that despite his reputation, he didn't know. Such humility was, and still is, a rarity in a world of both religious and secular arrogance.
On Wednesday, Karen Armstrong spoke at London School of Oriental and African Studies and claimed that despite our technological advances, "our understanding of religion is very simplistic -- even primitive." We are bombarded with political discourse which confines God and religion to a box labelled with sound-bites, as though it is quick and easy to understand.
As Aquinas mentions at the end of his great exposition on the five proofs for the existence of God, we have no idea what has actually been proved because we can't comprehend what we mean when we say God. Armstrong draws an analogy with the end of a great musical symphony. There is a profound beat of pregnant silence before the applause erupts. Perhaps contentment is this serene yet weighty moment of realisation that we have transcended our own understanding and submitted to what has been found.
Al-Ghazali tried to live in this beat of silence. ]]>
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