Maulana Wahiduddin Khan I The Sunday Guardian I 21st July, 2013 I Page 12

The distinguished mathematician, Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, once said that God was a mathematician. This idea is not new. About 50 years ago, Sir James Jeans suggested that the universe was handiwork of a mathematician. To Picasso, God was an artist. "God is really another artist," he said. "He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat."

One who observes the universe is confronted with the awesome feeling that there is a being greater than himself at work in it. A mathematician comes across such high mathematics as to make him aware of the triviality of his grasp of the subject. "God is a great mathematician!" he exclaims. To an artist, the art displayed in the universe appears as sublime as to make his art seem worthless and he spontaneously cries out, "God is the greatest artist!" The wisdom prevailing in the universe is such as to astonish a genius; he in turn discovers that there is a genius far greater than him at work.

The Quran says: "In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of night and day; in the ships that sail the ocean bearing cargoes beneficial to man; in the water which God sends down from the sky and with which He revives the earth after its death, scattering over it all kinds of animals; in the courses of the winds, and in the clouds pressed into service between earth and sky, there are indeed signs for people who use their reason" (2:164).

The truth is that God is the greatest mathematician, the greatest artist and the greatest genius. One who fails to find the manifestations of God in the universe is blind, and one who does not believe in God after having seen Him insensate. God's might is indeed manifest in a thousand ways, but it is only those who open their minds and hearts to Him who can be truly aware of His blessings.