Dr. Seyyed Hossein Nasr is one of the world’s leading Islamic thinkers, a top modern Islamic scholar, respected in both the West and the Islamic world. After receiving his early education in Iran, he came to America to study physics, then the history of science and philosophy at MIT and Harvard from which he received his doctorate. Dr. Nasr is the author of over fifty books and more than five hundred articles. His book The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary is an excellent and accurate translation of the Quran that offers a rigorous analysis of its theological, metaphysical, historical, and geographical teachings and backgrounds, and includes extensive study notes, special introductions for the non-Islamic readers.
Dr. Nasr’s works are characterized by persistent criticism of modern sciences, both in terms of theoretical presuppositions and applications, as well as a defense of Islamic and perennialist doctrines and principles. He argues that knowledge has been desacralized in the modern period, that is, separated from its divine source—God—and calls for its resacralization through sacred traditions and sacred science. Although Islam and Sufism are major influences on his writings, his Perennialist approach inquires into the essence of all orthodox religions, regardless of their formal particularities. Speaking about Can Many Religions All Be True? Below is his answer:
You see incredible universal characteristics which manifest themselves and all religions. For example “Do Unto Others and Others Would Have to Do Unto You” or some formulas similar to it. It is different from specific moral action in different religions. But its’ a spiritual moral quality that is as universal as you found everywhere. So everywhere even within Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shintoism, wherever you are in a sense have a particularity of that universal principle. On the metaphysical level is even more evident. First of all, the reality is not exhausted by the physical world in which we live. This reality has a transcendent and imminent aspect to it, and between us and that reality which is boundless and without finitude, there are levels of reality which separate us.
Perennial philosophy also respects particularity within each religion and considers it to be very important because there is no path to either truth or the truth without being a path. For somebody Islam has a remarkable universal characteristic which it shares, let’s say with Christianity and Judaism, but at the same time it has its own particularity. For example, the adamant refusal to distinguish between the kingdom of Caesar and the Kingdom of God where secularism doesn’t exist in Arabic and Persian. And the way that we are trying to force the separation upon Middle Eastern countries is never going to work because it doesn’t go with how they understand God and themselves and the role of religion, and life and everything else.
We live in a world today in which whether we like it or not, awareness of other world views, other religions, and other cultures has become a necessity, and therefore prayer philosophy has a very important role to play in revealing both the universality of religious truth and the particularity of religion in different clones with which Western men or Eastern men come in contact today. But Islamic philosophy like traditional Christian Jewish philosophy like Hindu philosophy is one of the great schools of parental philosophy, and itself in a sense, is both universal – the aspects of a church reconfirm the philosophy, and particularities which pertain to the Islamic world where it has grown and manifested itself.
In remote and distant history, early humans migrated all over the world to get us where we are today. The environments our ancestors inhabited made us all very different! It’s tough to know what happened on Earth thousands of years before anyone started writing anything down. But thanks to the amazing work of anthropologists and paleontologists like those working on National Geographic’s Genographic Project, we can begin to piece together the story of our ancestors. Here’s how early humans spread from East Africa all around the world. This map shows how human migrates across the Earth.
In 1896, Archaeologist Flinders Petrie made the greatest find in his 70 years career: a stele ten and a half feet high, five feet wide, inscribed on both sides. In this video Evidence for Ancient Israel Discovered in Egypt, Archaeologist Joel Kramer took us to Egypt to explore one of the most significant discoveries ever made in Biblical archaeology showing evidence for ancient Israel. Here people found Israel’s Archeological Proof of King David.
This youtube program shared the results of five Arab friends (from Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and Iraq) DNA tests. Note that Northern Africa and the Middle East have a wide variety of DNA. Since they are the areas of the oldest civilization. And interesting how Arabs and Jews are always on different sides of the coin yet they are very much related to each other.
Research of another ethnicity – the German and other Germanic peoples such as the Austrians, Swiss, Dutch, Frisians and others also reflect the same theme. According to this program: Origin and History of the Germans, the German identity is a complex one, considering it is based on thousands of years of complicated interactions between very diverse people groups, leading to the formation and rise of one of Europe’s most prominent and formidable ethnic groups.
So are we all related? Genealogy research reveals how vast our ancestors were collectively as well to show how many similarities we all share although we appear different! it proves we come from all over so really there’s no reason to have hostility toward one another because of where we’re raised or the color of our skin. This program investigates how closely related we all really are. Basic math tells us that all humans share ancestors.
Many wonder how early humans can build something like Egypt Pyramids, Stone Hinges etc.
1400+ years ago, there was no editorial process involved as Prophet Muhammad PBUH couldn’t read or write, so once he (PBUH) revealed Quran he (PBUH) couldn’t re-edit it or change it later on as that would have caused a huge uproar. Given those circumstances, it is amazing that Quran had inform people of much scientific knowledge that modern had just known in the last couple hundred years. The Quran is another miracle manifestation.
Recently NASA confirms evidence that liquid water flows on Mars, triggering among the science circle another heated speculation about potential life forms on other planets. As a matter of fact, Shakyamuni Buddha had described in detail civilizations on other planets some 2500 years ago. Shakyamuni Buddha actually explained to his high-stage students, with samadhi and clairvoyance and other superpowers, that our human ancestors were beings from the Abhasvarah (Sound and Light Heaven) within the Form Realm. Their bodies were made of light, which we can call highly refined spiritual essence for this dialogue. Once they visited this earth, these beings kept eating of it (I believe the taste was salty) and consequently their bodies became heavy and they couldn’t return. This was the start of human life on this planet.
《起世经》，又称《起世因本经》，为佛陀解说宇宙形成、发展、组织和消亡的佛教经典。释迦牟尼佛不但在2500年前早已肯定了地外文明的存在更详细描述了几类地外生命的形态及生活状况《起世经》千阎浮提南瞻部洲、西牛贺洲、东胜神洲、北俱卢洲 四部洲. 《起世经》主要包括四个部分，首先阐述了劫前世界(宇宙)的状况;其次阐述了宇宙坏灭时的种种现象;再次阐述新的世界所成立的状况;最后阐述世间众生的诞生。比如，《起世经》第一次告诉了我们宇宙本身是一种循环往复的状态，由诞生到最后消亡，再诞生再消亡无始无终的循环，这与现代科学观测到的宇宙大爆炸现象完全吻合。再如佛在《起世经》中准确指出月亮阴晴圆缺的原因(于黑月分第十五日，最近日宫，由彼日光所覆翳故，一切不现)等等。佛陀在《起世经》中所说的小千世界即是银河系，因为构成这小千世界的千日千月(编注：这里“千”是数量词)，佛陀是放在一起说的，并说这小千世界状如“周罗”(编注：梵文意译，我国古汉语意为盘起来的头发)，即不但是圆盘状，还带螺旋，正是银河系的形状;而这千日千月均是指有生命的恒星系，细分之下，有 “千阎浮提(南瞻部洲)、西牛贺洲、东胜神洲、北俱卢洲”，和“八万小洲”，和现代科学家们估算的银河系中一万到一百万个有高级生命的恒星系数量相当接近。而这小千世界有很多个，一千个小千世界组成一个中千世界，一千个中千世界组成一个大千世界，也即指宇宙间有大量类似银河的星系。
Knowing all about that, we shall let go of all prejudices and aversions about the difference. We have all the more reasons to love each other and embrace our common roots – we are one together with the universe.