The distinguished mathematician, Sir Michael Francis Atiyah, who visited Bombay recently, said that God was a mathematician. This idea is not new. About fifty years ago, Sir James Jeans suggested that the universe was handiwork of a mathematician. Centuries before him Pythagoras said that all things are numbers. To Picasso, God was an artist. “God is really another artist,” he said. “He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat.” Einstein once said that the Lord is subtle and—though not malicious—is very clever.
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 so 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 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. □
A Modest Reply
Umar arrived in Palestine with a group of Muhajirs and Ansars. He had a shirt made of patch, coarse cotton cloth, which he gave to Asqaf to wash and mend; it had been torn in the back from making such a long journey riding on camelback. Asqaf took the shirt and fixed it. When he brought it back, he brought another shirt of thin fine cloth with it. Umar asked him what he had brought. “Your shirt,” Asqaf replied, “I have washed it and patched; and I have brought you another shirt as a gift.” Umar looked at it, touched it, then put on his own shirt and gave the other one back to Asqaf. “This one absorbs sweat better,” he explained.
