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text:
Mason Greenwood a special talent who's coming of age
Football fans aren't stupid. You know when you're witnessing the birth of a superstar. There have been many young players - strikers in particular - to have started down the path of greatness before falling by the wayside never to be seen or heard from again. Federico Macheda anyone? Adnan Januzaj. Perhaps most pertinently of all, Ravel Morrison. Those are three players in particular that spring to mind when it comes to never fulfilling potential. It offers a stark reminder never to believe your own hype and to stay grounded.
Morrison was tipped for stardom and described by Sir Alex Ferguson as the most talented player he had ever seen, but ended up playing in Mexico and Sweden before Chris Wilder decided to gamble and bring him to Bramall Lane.
Mason Greenwood may be a name not yet widely known to the wider football world, but to those who follow United at all levels from senior side to Academy, his emergence is no surprise. He's been banging in the goals for fun at youth level at such a rate that a first team bow seemed only a matter of time. Greenwood scored 30 goals in 29 games for United's Under-18, Under-19 and Under-21 sides last season but perhaps the most striking aspect about the teenager is that he is completely comfortable using both feet, the definition of a two-footed player. To be so good with both feet is extremely rare, especially in someone so young. Of course, it's one thing getting your chance, but taking your opportunity quite another entirely. It's fair to say that Greenwood has done that.
So many young prodigies have been subjected to the Old Trafford hype machine yet the reality is very few hit the heights hoped for them at a club with as rich traditions of youth development as any in Europe. Will it be different for Greenwood? No one can say with any certainty yet but, on the evidence of what we have seen so far, he seems to have a better chance than most.
In the 21st minute of United's Europa League game against FK Partizan, his moment came. He'd already scored the winner to edge out Astana in this competition and followed that up with another against Rochdale in the League Cup. Against the Serbs, he anticipated Marcus Rashford's defence-splitting ball and timed his run to perfection. Without breaking stride he walloped the ball beyond Vladimir Stojkovic and in to finish superbly. What a talent. This young lad is coming of age before our eyes and showing a maturity beyond his years. Comes alive in the box and took his first opening with aplomb. He will be special. Only just 18, he's our joint top scorer with Daniel James and as well as the opening goal, he also set up the second for Anthony Martial. A star is born. There are shades of Robin van Persie about Greenwood's style of play and dead eyed ability in front of goal. If he does even half as well as RvP then he's set for a spectacular future.
Rashford's emergence a few years earlier can only help Greenwood. United have produced plenty of outstanding players who have progressed from the academy but not many strikers who have reached the top so Rashford's progress offers his younger, similarly single-minded team-mate a pathway. Still only 21, Rashford has much still to prove himself, not least whether he can become a 20-goal-a-season man, but Greenwood will recognise the faith Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has placed in the England striker and understand the manager is serious when he talks about giving youth its chance.
No disrespect to Rashford, but the contrast between the two was striking, if you'll pardon the pun. Despite the fact that Rashford is nearly four years older than Greenwood and a relative veteran by comparison, Greenwood is outperforming him. Whereas Rashford finally got his goal at the fifth time of asking, Mason gobbled up the first chance that came his way. He's a natural finisher with a very bright future ahead of him. Whereas Macheda and to a lesser extent Januzaj proved merely flashes in the pan, with Greenwood it feels different. It feels like he's being nurtured correctly and being allowed to have what he needs to become the player we all know he can be.
He's now the youngest United to score and get an assist in a European tie. Not even a certain teenage tyro by the name of Cristiano managed that. The hype around this young man is starting to feel very real.
Match preview: Man Utd v Aston Villa
What we learned from United's Class of 2019
Match report: Astana 2-1 Man Utd
Youthful United side confirmed to face Astana
Apologies from us
Superb Williams showing United's youth is in good ...
Manchester United have unearthed a gem in £15m James
Match report: Man Utd 3-1 Brighton&HA
Match preview: Man Utd v Brighton&HA
Match report: Man Utd 3-0 FK Partizan
Match report: AFC Bournemouth 1-0 Man Utd

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


NORTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Hundreds of people laced up their sneakers and took to the streets to honor Trayvon Martin at a special event in Miami-Dade County.
The Trayvon Martin Foundation organized the Seventh Annual Trayvon Martin Peace Walk, which began at Gardens Promenade in Miami Gardens, Saturday morning.
"No justice, no peace," chanted marchers as they then made their way to Carol City Park in Northwest Miami-Dade.
The community event pays tribute to Martin, the unarmed African-American teenager who was shot and killed while walking home in Sanford, Florida on Feb. 26, 2012. He was 17.
The event brings together young people, community leaders and celebrities for honest talks about youth empowerment and how to overcome violence in neighborhoods.
The slain teen's family spoke at the event.
Martin was visiting relatives in Sanford when his life was tragically cut short. The high school student was walking home from the store when he was fatally shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman.
Martin, who was originally from Miami Gardens, would have turned 24 on Tuesday.
Local artist Santonio "Blaze" Carter also showed support at the walk. His 6-year-old son King lost his life to gun violence in 2016.
Carter said he believes that by lending his voice to bring awareness to this very prevalent issue, he's also going to places politicians are not always able to reach.
The Martins said they will not let their son's death be in vain.
The foundation will host a gala Sunday night to honor civic leaders and others working to make a difference in their community.


text:
namespace IntergalacticTravel.Tests
{
    using System;

    using Moq;
    using NUnit.Framework;
    using Exceptions;
    using Contracts;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using TeleportStationTests.Mocks;
    [TestFixture]
    public class test
    {

        [Test]
        public void Pay_ShouldThrowNullReferenceException_IfTheObjectPassedIsNull()
        {
            var unit = new Unit(3, null);

            Assert.Throws<NullReferenceException>(() => unit.Pay(null));
        }

        [Test]
        public void Pay_ShouldDecreaseOwnersAmountOfResources_ByTheAmountOfCost()
        {
            var unit = new Unit(1234, "Gosho");
            var cost = new Resources(10, 20, 30);
            unit.Resources.BronzeCoins = 20;
            unit.Resources.SilverCoins = 30;
            unit.Resources.GoldCoins = 40;
            unit.Pay(cost);
            Assert.AreEqual(10, unit.Resources.BronzeCoins);
            Assert.AreEqual(10, unit.Resources.SilverCoins);
            Assert.AreEqual(10, unit.Resources.GoldCoins);
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Needed to measure 4 water temperatures, had created I2C device using Arduino with color led temperature indication.
NOTE this is unfinished project and so I'll keep on adding more text & images as it goes on.
Soldered together the prototype hardware and wrote firmware and I2C library for it to be used in master Arduinos.
Had to also create schematic libraries and footprints for Arduino UNO shield and Arduino Pro Mini along the way.
Base on the experiences from the #1 version ^^^ now working on a next one.


text:
WarnerMedia Kids & Family Announces Virtual Panels for 2021 San Diego Comic-Con@Home July 23 & 24!
Catch Exclusives from HBO Max's Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Jellystone! and Looney Tunes Cartoons, as well as Cartoon Network's Craig of the Creek
WarnerMedia Kids & Family has announced its upcoming virtual panels for 2021 San Diego Comic-Con@Home, Friday, July 23 and Saturday, July 24. Sit in on discussions with creators, artists and voice-over talent as they delve into what it takes to put together fan-favorite series, specials and cartoon classics. Also, look out for exclusive content and sneak peeks at the upcoming HBO Max Original special, Adventure Time: Distant Lands - Wizard City, and the highly anticipated HBO Max Original series, Jellystone!, as well as an inside look at HBO Max's acclaimed Looney Tunes Cartoons and Cartoon Network's hit series, Craig of the Creek. Each of the WarnerMedia Kids & Family panels will be available to view at https://comic-con.org, as well as the SDCC YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/ComicCon. Check out the complete list of virtual panels coming to San Diego Comic-Con@Home below:
12:00 p.m. – HBO Max & Cartoon Network Studios: Adventure Time: Distant Lands What time is it? It's time for more adventure in the land of Ooo and beyond with Adventure Time: Distant Lands, based on the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning Cartoon Network series Adventure Time from creator Pendleton Ward and executive producer Adam Muto. Join moderator Bex Taylor-Klaus (Blaine) as they deep dive into the recent special, Together Again, and preview the upcoming Wizard City along with Adam Muto (Executive Producer), John DiMaggio (Jake), Mace Montgomery Miskel (Pep), and Toks Olagundoye (Dr. Caledonius). Uncover some secrets, hear behind-the-scenes stories and stick around until the very end for a special sneak peek at the upcoming Adventure Time: Distant Lands - Wizard City. It's going to be James Baxter good!
10:00 a.m. – HBO Max & Warner Bros. Animation: Looney Tunes Cartoons There's More Folks! Looney Tunes Cartoons continues to captivate a new generation of fans with over 400 minutes of Looney mayhem and much more to come. Moderated by voice cast member Eric Bauza (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety, Marvin the Martian), join Pete Browngardt(Executive Producer), Aaron Spurgeon (Art Director), Alex Kirwan (Supervising Producer), Caroline Director(Storyboard Artist), and Keika Yamaguchi (Assistant Art Director) for a panel discussion to find out what's next for Bugs, Daffy and the rest of your favorite Tunes! Looney Tunes Cartoons is produced by Warner Bros. Animation. Stream episodes now on HBO Max.
1:00 p.m. – HBO Max & Warner Bros. Animation: Jellystone! They're back! Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Jabberjaw, Top Cat and all your favorite Hanna-Barbera characters star in the all-new animated series, Jellystone! Join showrunner and executive producer C.H. Greenblatt, Ian Wasseluk(Supervising Director), Jeff Bergman (Yogi Bear), Grace Helbig (Cindy Bear) and Niccole Thurman (Jabberjaw) on a sneak peek tour of this charming town where these beloved characters live, work and play together. Jellystone! is produced by Warner Bros. Animation and premieres July 29 on HBO Max.
2:00 p.m. – Cartoon Network Studios: Craig of the Creek Meet us down at The Stump and get ready to map out new adventures with Craig of the Creek! Philip Solomon, voice of Craig, will moderate this fun-filled panel featuring behind-the-scenes stories and a preview of the upcoming fourth season from the GLAAD-, Emmy- and NAACP Image Award-nominated series. Joining Philip are Ben Levin(Co-Creator), Ashleigh Hairston (Writer), Dashawn Mahone (Supervising Director), Najja Porter (Supervising Director) and Jeff Trammell (Story Editor). With so many places to explore, this is one panel you won't want to miss!
Cartoon Network Hbo Max
HBO Max Cartoon Network
SDCC panels
SDCC 2021 Panels
Wearecritix.com SDCC


This page is about CCC Help Russian for Windows. Below you can find details on how to uninstall it from your computer. It is written by ATI. You can read more on ATI or check for application updates here. Click on http://www.ati.com to get more data about CCC Help Russian on ATI's website. Usually the CCC Help Russian application is to be found in the C:\Program Files (x86)\ATI Technologies directory, depending on the user's option during setup. The application's main executable file is named CLI.exe and it has a size of 311.70 KB (319176 bytes).
The executables below are part of CCC Help Russian. They occupy an average of 9.85 MB (10329240 bytes) on disk.
1. If you don't have Advanced Uninstaller PRO already installed on your system, add it. This is a good step because Advanced Uninstaller PRO is a very efficient uninstaller and all around utility to take care of your computer.
2. Run Advanced Uninstaller PRO. Take your time to get familiar with the program's design and number of tools available. Advanced Uninstaller PRO is a very useful package of utilities.
Safety rating (in the lower left corner). The star rating tells you the opinion other users have regarding CCC Help Russian, from "Highly recommended" to "Very dangerous".
7. Press the Uninstall button. A confirmation page will show up. Confirm the uninstall by pressing the Uninstall button. Advanced Uninstaller PRO will then remove CCC Help Russian.
8. After removing CCC Help Russian, Advanced Uninstaller PRO will ask you to run a cleanup. Click Next to proceed with the cleanup. All the items of CCC Help Russian that have been left behind will be found and you will be able to delete them. By removing CCC Help Russian with Advanced Uninstaller PRO, you are assured that no Windows registry entries, files or folders are left behind on your PC.
This page is not a recommendation to remove CCC Help Russian by ATI from your computer, nor are we saying that CCC Help Russian by ATI is not a good application. This page simply contains detailed info on how to remove CCC Help Russian supposing you decide this is what you want to do. Here you can find registry and disk entries that other software left behind and Advanced Uninstaller PRO discovered and classified as "leftovers" on other users' computers.


Nutella Stuffed Monkey Bread! Only 5 Ingredients!
This is a new, decadent twist on an old favorite. Each ball of fluffy dough is filled with a creamy liquid chocolate-hazelnut filling, while the outside is sticky with a deliciously sweet chocolate caramel. Quick and easy, this is a terrific dessert or brunch treat, and is terrific served with a dollop of whipped cream or scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Lightly grease an 8x8 glass baking dish.
Open the biscuits and cut each biscuit in half.
In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder and sugar.
Flatten each biscuit half into a circle about 2 inches across.
Take a very small amount of Nutella, about the size of 3 kernels of corn, and place it in the middle of the flattened biscuit. Bring up the sides of the biscuit around the Nutella and pinch them together, forming a little ball.
Place the ball, seam side down, in the baking dish, starting at a corner. Repeat with all of the biscuit halves, forming 2 layers of Nutella-filled biscuit balls. Try not to squish them together but also try not to leave many gaps.
Melt the butter in the microwave, then pour it into the bowl with whatever cocoa powder and sugar is left after all of the biscuit balls have been coated. Mix really well.
Pour the butter/cocoa powder/sugar mix over the Nutella-filled biscuits, trying to make it relatively even.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes to half an hour. It's a good idea to set the dish on a baking sheet with sides, just in case any of the chocolate caramel overflows the pan during baking. After 20 minutes, lift up one of the balls in the middle of the dish to see if the bottom layer is fully cooked. If not, leave it in for another 10 minutes or so.
When the biscuits are done, remove from the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes, but don't let it sit for more than 15, since the caramel will begin to harden and your monkey bread will stick to the pan.
You can serve it straight from the baking dish, or you can get fancy and carefully place a plate over the top of the pan (use oven mitts for this!), then quickly but CAREFULLY flip the plate and baking dish over, so that the monkey bread is on the plate with the baking dish on top. Slowly ease the baking dish off, and you should have a steaming hot mountain of delicious chocolate monkey bread glistening with sweet chocolate caramel sauce.


Attorney General Jeff Sessions has often used "religious freedom" to justify what would otherwise be considered a potential violation of the separation of church and state, but now he has taken it a step further.
Without announcement, Sessions inserted a policy requiring all U.S. Attorneys' offices in the country to assign a staff member to monitor litigation and report back whenever religious issues are mentioned. Basically, they want to use taxpayer money to help them pay attention to their pet cause, which would make it easier for the federal government to intervene and defend religion.
The policy also requires Department of Justice officials to consult with political appointees, picked by Donald Trump, before pursuing civil suits involving religious liberty issues, according to American Atheists.
… By doing so, the Trump administration is favoring religious beliefs above all other matters, and is eroding the independence of these offices by allowing a political appointee to overrule the judgment of career DOJ attorneys.
"Requiring the approval of religious political appointees before enforcing the law is something I would expect to see in a theocracy like Iran or Saudi Arabia, but I'm rapidly losing any sense of shock and surprise at the lengths this administration will go to impose the beliefs of religious extremists on all Americans," added David Silverman, president of American Atheists.
Trump has delivered gift after gift to the Religious Right, beginning perhaps with the appointment of Sessions himself as Attorney General. This is just the most recent example. This type of thing isn't really surprising anymore, but it continues to be a far cry from what our Constitution demands: a true separation of church and state.
Sessions may get away with this, because he's using "religious freedom" as his reason for looking into these cases, but there's no doubt that his goal is to expand the government's role in religious issues to favor Christians.


On Sunday, January 29, 2017 His Eminence Metropolitan Barnabas of Neapolis and Stavroupolis celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Taxiarche parish in Watertown, MA. His Eminence Metropolitan Barnabas was visiting the Metropolis of Boston accompanied by Fr. Elephtherios Koutsaftakis.


Watson is adding to his repertoire of cognitive ads today on Weather.com, with the announcement of the first one for the auto industry.
Last October, the IBM-owned Weather Company launched the first such cognitive ad on its site, for Campbell Soup. In it, a site visitor could enter a few ingredients, and Watson — drawing on his experience as Chef Watson, where he has been trained to understand human food tastes — would return an original recipe using those ingredients.
Since then, another five Watson-powered cognitive ads have seen the light of day, for Country Crock, Swanson, Hellman's, Theraflu and Flonase.
The newest ad, for Toyota's Prius Prime, allows viewers to engage in one-to-one conversation with the brand, enabled by Watson's subject matter expertise on the topic.
Similar to his prep for other endeavors, Watson has been trained about the Prius Prime by ingesting content about the topic, including FAQs, digital brochures, videos and conversational topics. His answers can include relevant videos as well as text or links, and users can ask questions in an open text field or via voice through a computer's or a mobile device's mike.
You can see examples of the new Watson-powered Prius Prime ad at the bottom of the page at Watsonads.com. The Prius ads' appearance on Weather.com is not on any particular schedule.
Of course, many brands are interacting these days with customers and would-be customers via chatbots, some of whom also learn over time via machine learning.
But Monica Fogg, product marketing lead for Watson Ads, told me that Watson provides a higher level of subject matter expertise than do chatbots, covering both structured and unstructured data.
She said that he is becoming an expert in several areas of interest to consumer brands, such as food, some over-the-counter medicines like Flonase, and now cars.
If an entered question or user response is off-topic, or if Watson is stumped, he steers the conversation back to the subject at hand. And, if there's a question he can't answer, his trainers will see the gap in his records and will feed him appropriate training content.
Other chatbots' failure rate, Fogg said, can be as high as 70 to 80 percent of the time, when they can't adequately respond to a user. By contrast, she said, Watson's is about 1 percent.
And, although the Prius ad is too new for stats, previous Watson cognitive ads have generated user participation generally lasting one to two minutes, on average.
While that kind of brand involvement can be valuable to an advertiser, Fogg noted that the questions and responses from consumers constitute what is essentially "a massive focus group" about what interests or confuses them about the Prius.


CasterHQ's flat free foam filled wheels are great alternatives to pneumatic tires since they cant lose air. Our flat free tires are filled with a micro-cellular polyurethane foam which provides a very light weight tire in return. These wheels have a wide foot-print like the pneumatic wheel. Our flat free wheels offer great durability and floor protection with no maintenance required. Comes with a 1-piece style gray metal hub and precision bearings. Choose your bearing size on the product page options.
Questions? Call us at 844-435-4335 or email us here.


text:
Q: MemoryError in python 3.6 I Run this code and get the error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "C:/Users/asus/PycharmProjects/Refah_New/Clustering.py", line 177, in
     G.add_edge(personid[l], personid[t], weight=x, edge_color='r')
   File "C:\Users\asus\PycharmProjects\Refah_New\NewInterpretor\lib\site->packages\networkx\classes\graph.py", line 891, in add_edge
     self._adj[u][v] = datadict
  MemoryError

I'm Reading a CSV file with 50000 personid and dahak and store these in two lists. then, i wanna to create a network with personid as nodes and a weight that calculates from dahak as edges.
import csv
import networkx as nx
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

myfile = r'C:\Users\asus\Downloads\income.csv'

personid = list()
dahak = list()

with open(myfile, mode='r') as infile:
    reader = csv.reader(infile)
    for row in reader:
        personid.append(int(row[0]))
        dahak.append(int(row[1]))

t=len(dahak)
l=len(dahak)
graphlist=list()
G = nx.Graph()

for l in range(l):
    print("counter: ", counter)
    for t in range(t):
        if l!=t:
            if dahak[l]==dahak[t]:
                G.add_edge(personid[t],personid[l],weight=1,edge_color='b')
            elif dahak[l] != dahak[t]:
                x = 1 - (abs(dahak[l] - dahak[t]) / 10)
                if x >= 0.3:
                    G.add_edge(personid[l], personid[t], weight=x, edge_color='r')

pos = nx.spring_layout(G)
nx.draw_networkx_labels(G,pos)
nx.draw(G)
plt.show()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Combining two of the country's national pastimes, flowers and trade, the Dutch are taking an innovative approach to exporting floriculture. Last year the GreenRail project—a partnership between flower auctioneer FloraHolland, the VGB (Association of Wholesalers in Floricultural Products), rail operator HUPAC, and 4PL e-Logistics Control—began arranging transportation for products along conventional railway lines in Europe. On average, two to three containers are transported to Italy, Hungary, and Romania weekly, and new routes are planned for Poland and Switzerland.
The GreenRail initiative demonstrates that rail transportation is a suitable method for moving flowers long distances. Also, as its name implies, the rail piece is more sustainable. Trips longer than 350 miles reduce CO2 emissions by 50 percent and slash costs by almost 10 percent compared to road transport. It's also reliable, with 96 percent of containers shipping on time.
Singapore investors have signed on to develop an Eco-Industrial Park (EIP) in Tianjin Eco-City, China, marking a landmark bilateral project between the two countries. With an estimated total investment of US $585 million over the next six years, the EIP is expected to be the base for global eco-businesses in the Bohai Rim, serving as an important stimulus in China's progression toward clean technologies and sustainable urban growth.


The most interconnected generation in history is navigating unimaginable amounts of social pressure, both in personal and online interactions. Very little time, focus or education is being spent teaching and coaching this generation how to navigate the unprecedented amount of 'stuff' entering their lives each day. How do we help the overloaded and distracted next generation deal with increasing complexity and help them not only survive, but thrive? How do we help them experience stress-free productivity and gain momentum and confidence? How do we help them achieve autonomy, so that they can confidently take on whatever comes their way?
Getting Things Done for Teens will train the next generation to overcome these obstacles and flourish by coaching them to use the internationally renowned Getting Things Done methodology. In its two editions, David Allen's classic has been translated into dozens of languages and sold over a million copies, establishing itself as one of the most influential business books of its era, and the ultimate book on personal organization. Getting Things Done for Teens will adapt its lessons by offering a fresh take on the GTD methodology, framing life as a game to play and GTD as the game pieces and strategies to play your most effective game. It presents GTD in a highly visual way and frames the methodology as not only as a system for being productive in school, but as a set of tools for everyday life.
Getting Things Done for Teens is the how-to manual for the next generation - a strategic guidebook for creating the conditions for a fruitful and effective future.
5.0 out of 5 starsGood for adults too!
I feel a bit embarrassed to write this review, but maybe it'll help someone who feels like me. I have been trying to implement Gtd for many years, but whenever I would try, it all just seemed overwhelming and too complicated for me. However, something about the process made me feel as if it could really help me organize my life. I don't know if its because I am a teacher, but reading this version for teens is helping me so much! It has clarified and simplified parts of the process that were my roadblocks before. And I look forward to introducing it to my students this fall. So even if you are an adult, this may be useful to you as well.
This is targeted for teens, yes, and is exceptionally well presented for adults as well. The little cartoon characters didn't appeal much to me, but I am not a teen. What did appeal to me was how well the GTD process was explained, and how much better it made my implementation of some aspects of it, and I've been practicing a lot of the GTD program for several years. It uses some different terminology than David Allen's original book, and that seems to help give another perspective to the information that is useful to have. I highly recommend this book to anyone.
I read this book with the goal of helping my soon to be teens get a handle on all the "stuff" that is coming at young people today. What I found was not only a helpful guide for them but a motivating, easy to apply approach for myself in my own personal, professional and family life.
Kids today have many things vying for their attention and in a world where attention spans seem to be getting shorter, this book helps guide your teen in deciphering what is important and what it simply static. It takes them through the steps in determining what it will take to reach a desired outcome or goal and the process of being organized and productive.
In my professional life as a community college instructor, I can attest that for many students executive function and knowing how to get from point A to point B is a struggle. Getting Things Done for Teens can provide a starting point for bigger conversations and provide the blueprint towards healthy habits that will benefit them not only today but throughout adulthood.
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat tool for streamlining a monkey mind!
I bought this for my kids, and I've read through it twice myself. Sure, the title says "for teens," but I've found it immensely helpful for adults, too. When I follow these helpful strategies for capturing and organizing the mental and physical stuff that clutters my daily life and decision making, I feel so much more confident and clear in how I spend my time. I highly recommend this book and this approach for people of all ages who want a little quiet in the midst of information chaos, a little clarity in the midst of competing priorities. Not only is this book engaging and enlightening, it offers a common language for families and friends to discuss the benefits and challenges of living in our fast-paced, information-driven, schedule-saturated culture.


text:
SPRING CONFERENCE SESSION 4: Seeing the Blind Spots: Non-Legal Aspects a Lawyer Needs to Consider When Working with Family Enterprises
Professional advisors often encounter behavioral issues that represent an obstacle to achieving the goals of an engagement, particularly because the professional typically has no training to address them. These issues thus often represent "blind spots" in the engagement. A failure to understand those issues and respond to them may in fact may achievement of those goals impossible. This presentation will identify some of the more common blind spots and suggest approaches to counteract their impact on a professional's work for a family enterprise.
Peter M. Bloom, Esq.
The Bloom Group, LLC
Peter Bloom, a lawyer with over two decades of experience in private practice, has particular expertise in working with family businesses and the unique problems they face.
Peter's professional career began in his family's restaurant and bar supply company, where dealing with the dynamics of family businesses became second nature. Peter is often asked to assist family businesses address issues such as compensation of participating and non-participating family members; the relationships between non-family members and the family business; governance, and succession in multi-generational family businesses.
Subsequent to working in his family business but prior to starting the practice of law, Peter worked as a clerk in the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, including serving as a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts when the Chief Justice was a partner in that firm. After finishing law school, he spent several years practicing at Tucker, Flyer & Lewis, a respected Washington corporate law boutique, and also practiced for several years at the international law firm Mintz Levin working on complex business transactions before he formed The Bloom Group in 2002.
Peter's practice also encompasses estate planning, and general business law.
Peter graduated magna cum laude graduate from Duke University, has a J.D. from the University of Connecticut, and also has an LL.M in taxation from Georgetown University.
Mariana Martinez
California School of Professional Psychology
Mariana Martinez is a Clinical Psychologist from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego, CA and specialized in Family Systems at The Bowen Center for the Study of the Family in Washington DC, where she is currently faculty member. She holds an Advanced Family Wealth Advisor certificate from the Family Firm Institute. Dr. Martinez currently serves as a Family Dynamics Consultant in West Fargo Private Bank where she helps high net worth client successfully address their concerns at the intersection of the financial and non-financial is-sues families of wealth face.
Dr. Martinez has published in Family Business Magazine, Family Systems Journal, and FFI's Practitioner. She has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Market Watch and CNBC.
Dr. Martinez, along with Peter Bloom, recently published The Blind Spot, A Guide for Advisors Working with the Family Enterprise. In this publication they present 4 cases of families dealing with multigenerational wealth transfer and business succession, and they provide an analysis of the process based on Bowen Theory. They provide concrete action items that professionals can incorporate in their practice to avoid blind spots.


Yes, it is podcast overload this week. But hey, we have some good writers; and me.
The April Fringe event was organized for us by the ever-busy Kevlin Henney, Bristol's Mister Flash. It was devoted entirely to flash fiction, and as such had far more than the usual number of readers. In fact we had eight. The evening was split into three parts, the first two with four readers each, and the final section being the Q&A. That's how I have edited the podcasts.
We did have a slight technical issue on the night, which resulted in my having to spend the first session stood in front of the readers with a recorder. Thankfully this does not seem to have put them off. Normal service was resumed for the rest of the event. The main consequence of this was that, in the absence of any amplification, we picked the people with the loudest voices to go first.
Pauline Masurel entertained us with a couple of cosmologically-themed stored, including one involving Professor Brian Cox doing something he has never done before: get pregnant.
Jonathan Pinnock has a very disturbing tale involving collecting an unusual order from a butcher.
Jonathan L. Howard read a story from his GOON SQUAD series of stories about a special operations police unit from Manchester who happen to be superheroes. You'll never see werewolves in the same light again.
And finally Kevlin Henney treated us to the true story of Little Red Riding Hood.
At the start of part 2 Louise Gethin read us a story about the secret lives of garden gnomes.
Then there was me. The piece I read is called "The Dragon's Maw", and it will be appearing in The Girl at the End of the World: Vol. 2, forthcoming from Fox Spirit later this year (cover above). It is sort of a mash-up of Assyrian mythology and quantum physics. This is the first time I've ever read my own fiction in public, and I can see from the recording that I don't have sufficient confidence in my voice to do dramatic readings. Anyway, as far as my fiction goes, this is not awful. On the way to Finland I showed it to Liz Hand and John Clute, and they did not laugh.
Next up is Justin Newland with a story about hell inspired by the card for The Devil in the tarot deck. Justin will be back for the May reading with something a little longer.
And finally we have Pete Sutton with a creepy story about having a little brother.
With so many readers the Q&A subjects varied far and wide, but we finally settled down to talk about writing; in particular how and why one would want to write flash in preference to any other length.
Hopefully you'll enjoy it all. The next Fringe event is on Monday (May 19th), and I'll do a post about that later in the week.
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text:
Voice of India Books
The Myth of St. Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple – Ishwar Sharan
BHARATA BHARATI
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Hindu Nationalism
"It (is) not easy ... to draw a line between Hindu nationalism and true nationalism. The two overlap as India is the only home of Hindus and they form a majority there." — J. Nehru in Glimpses of World History
Those who permit slaying of animals; those who bring animals for slaughter; those who slaughter; those who sell meat; those who purchase meat; those who prepare dishes out of meat; those who serve that meat and those who eat it are all murderers. — Manusmriti
Lord Buddha was every inch a Hindu
Hindu Press International
Nepal Dispatches Two Shaligram Stones to Ayodhya for Ram, Janaki Statues
Shaligrams Explained
Palani's Murugan Temple Sees Huge Rush of Devotees for Kumbabhishekam Ceremony
More Than 1.5 Million Expected in 3-day Thaipusam Celebration in Penang
Jesus in India?
Tainted Teresa
Word of God?
When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it." — Oscar Wilde
"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world." — Voltaire
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned, [and molested]: yet we have not advanced one inch towards humanity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support error and roguery all over the earth." — Thomas Jefferson
Homos & Hinduism
National Shame!
Mohd Posters Iran
Tolerance Paradox
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. […] We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. — Karl Popper
India Crossed Out!
India's Rebirth – Sri Aurobindo
The Concept of Hindu Nation – Abhas Chatterjee
Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions – Harsh Narain
The Wonder that was India – A. L. Basham
The Hindus: An Alternative History – Wendy Doniger
M. K. Gandhi on Religious Conversion – Sandhya Mehta
Hindu View of Christianity and Islam – Ram Swarup
The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice – Christopher Hitchens
The Dashanami Sannyasis – Mathew Clark
Good-bye to Western Culture – Norman Douglas
The Dark Side of Christian History – Helen Ellerbe
Islam and the Mind of the Musulman – Andre Servier
Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery – M.A. Khan
An Account of the Inquisition at Goa – Gabriel Dellon
The Vatican Billions – Avro Manhattan
The Great Catholic Cover-up – Christopher Hitchens
Christian Politics and the Genocide in Rwanda – Timothy Longman
The Bone Collectors – David Farley
St. Peter: Of bones and boners – Frank Zindler
A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707 – Stephen Neill
Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins – Joan E. Taylor
Against the [fiction of the] Galilaeans – Flavius Claudius Julianus
The Private Diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai – Frederick J. Price
The Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopedia Britannica – Joseph McCabe
My Life and Quest – Arthur Osborne
What is the Koran? – Toby Lester
Posted on Jul 23, 2015 by VOI
"Increasingly diverse interpretations of the Koran and Islamic history will inevitably be proposed in the coming decades, as traditional cultural distinctions between East, West, North, and South continue to dissolve, as the population of the Muslim world continues to grow, as early historical sources continue to be scrutinized, and as feminism meets the Koran. With the diversity of interpretations will surely come increased fractiousness, perhaps intensified by the fact that Islam now exists in such a great variety of social and intellectual settings. … More than ever before, anybody wishing to understand global affairs will need to understand Islamic civilization, in all its permutations." – Toby Lester
In 1972, during the restoration of the Great Mosque of Sana'a, in Yemen, laborers working in a loft between the structure's inner and outer roofs stumbled across a remarkable gravesite, although they did not realize it at the time. Their ignorance was excusable: mosques do not normally house graves, and this site contained no tombstones, no human remains, no funereal jewelry. It contained nothing more, in fact, than an unappealing mash of old parchment and paper documents—damaged books and individual pages of Arabic text, fused together by centuries of rain and dampness, gnawed into over the years by rats and insects. Intent on completing the task at hand, the laborers gathered up the manuscripts, pressed them into some twenty potato sacks, and set them aside on the staircase of one of the mosque's minarets, where they were locked away—and where they would probably have been forgotten once again, were it not for Qadhi Isma'il al-Akwa', then the president of the Yemeni Antiquities Authority, who realized the potential importance of the find.
Al-Akwa' sought international assistance in examining and preserving the fragments, and in 1979 managed to interest a visiting German scholar, who in turn persuaded the German government to organize and fund a restoration project. Soon after the project began, it became clear that the hoard was a fabulous example of what is sometimes referred to as a "paper grave"—in this case the resting place for, among other things, tens of thousands of fragments from close to a thousand different parchment codices of the Koran, the Muslim holy scripture. In some pious Muslim circles it is held that worn-out or damaged copies of the Koran must be removed from circulation; hence the idea of a grave, which both preserves the sanctity of the texts being laid to rest and ensures that only complete and unblemished editions of the scripture will be read.
Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries—they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God.
The mainly secular effort to reinterpret the Koran—in part based on textual evidence such as that provided by the Yemeni fragments—is disturbing and offensive to many Muslims, just as attempts to reinterpret the Bible and the life of Jesus are disturbing and offensive to many conservative Christians. Nevertheless, there are scholars, Muslims among them, who feel that such an effort, which amounts essentially to placing the Koran in history, will provide fuel for an Islamic revival of sorts—a reappropriation of tradition, a going forward by looking back. Thus far confined to scholarly argument, this sort of thinking can be nonetheless very powerful and—as the histories of the Renaissance and the Reformation demonstrate—can lead to major social change. The Koran, after all, is currently the world's most ideologically influential text.
Looking at the Fragments
The first person to spend a significant amount of time examining the Yemeni fragments, in 1981, was Gerd R. Puin, a specialist in Arabic calligraphy and Koranic paleography based at Saarland University, in Saarbrücken, Germany. Puin, who had been sent by the German government to organize and oversee the restoration project, recognized the antiquity of some of the parchment fragments, and his preliminary inspection also revealed unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. Enticing, too, were the sheets of the scripture written in the rare and early Hijazi Arabic script: pieces of the earliest Korans known to exist, they were also palimpsests—versions very clearly written over even earlier, washed-off versions. What the Yemeni Korans seemed to suggest, Puin began to feel, was an evolving text rather than simply the Word of God as revealed in its entirety to the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D.
Since the early 1980s more than 15,000 sheets of the Yemeni Korans have painstakingly been flattened, cleaned, treated, sorted, and assembled; they now sit ("preserved for another thousand years," Puin says) in Yemen's House of Manuscripts, awaiting detailed examination. That is something the Yemeni authorities have seemed reluctant to allow, however. "They want to keep this thing low-profile, as we do too, although for different reasons," Puin explains. "They don't want attention drawn to the fact that there are Germans and others working on the Korans. They don't want it made public that there is work being done at all, since the Muslim position is that everything that needs to be said about the Koran's history was said a thousand years ago."
To date just two scholars have been granted extensive access to the Yemeni fragments: Puin and his colleague H.-C. Graf von Bothmer, an Islamic-art historian also based at Saarland University. Puin and Von Bothmer have published only a few tantalizingly brief articles in scholarly publications on what they have discovered in the Yemeni fragments. They have been reluctant to publish partly because until recently they were more concerned with sorting and classifying the fragments than with systematically examining them, and partly because they felt that the Yemeni authorities, if they realized the possible implications of the discovery, might refuse them further access. Von Bothmer, however, in 1997 finished taking more than 35,000 microfilm pictures of the fragments, and has recently brought the pictures back to Germany. This means that soon Von Bothmer, Puin, and other scholars will finally have a chance to scrutinize the texts and to publish their findings freely—a prospect that thrills Puin. "So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Koran is just God's unaltered word," he says. "They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Koran has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Koran has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us to do this."
Puin is not alone in his enthusiasm. "The impact of the Yemeni manuscripts is still to be felt," says Andrew Rippin, a professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary, who is at the forefront of Koranic studies today. "Their variant readings and verse orders are all very significant. Everybody agrees on that. These manuscripts say that the early history of the Koranic text is much more of an open question than many have suspected: the text was less stable, and therefore had less authority, than has always been claimed."
Copyediting God
By the standards of contemporary biblical scholarship, most of the questions being posed by scholars like Puin and Rippin are rather modest; outside an Islamic context, proposing that the Koran has a history and suggesting that it can be interpreted metaphorically are not radical steps. But the Islamic context—and Muslim sensibilities—cannot be ignored. "To historicize the Koran would in effect delegitimize the whole historical experience of the Muslim community," says R. Stephen Humphreys, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "The Koran is the charter for the community, the document that called it into existence. And ideally—though obviously not always in reality—Islamic history has been the effort to pursue and work out the commandments of the Koran in human life. If the Koran is a historical document, then the whole Islamic struggle of fourteen centuries is effectively meaningless."
The orthodox Muslim view of the Koran as self-evidently the Word of God, perfect and inimitable in message, language, style, and form, is strikingly similar to the fundamentalist Christian notion of the Bible's "inerrancy" and "verbal inspiration" that is still common in many places today. The notion was given classic expression only a little more than a century ago by the biblical scholar John William Burgon.
The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the Throne! Every Book of it, every Chapter of it, every Verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it … every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High!
Not all the Christians think this way about the Bible, however, and in fact, as the Encyclopaedia of Islam (1981) points out, "the closest analogue in Christian belief to the role of the Kur'an in Muslim belief is not the Bible, but Christ." If Christ is the Word of God made flesh, the Koran is the Word of God made text, and questioning its sanctity or authority is thus considered an outright attack on Islam—as Salman Rushdie knows all too well.
The prospect of a Muslim backlash has not deterred the critical-historical study of the Koran, as the existence of the essays in The Origins of the Koran (1998) demonstrate. Even in the aftermath of the Rushdie affair the work continues: In 1996 the Koranic scholar Günter Lüling wrote in The Journal of Higher Criticism about "the wide extent to which both the text of the Koran and the learned Islamic account of Islamic origins have been distorted, a deformation unsuspectingly accepted by Western Islamicists until now." In 1994 the journal Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam published a posthumous study by Yehuda D. Nevo, of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, detailing seventh- and eighth-century religious inscriptions on stones in the Negev Desert which, Nevo suggested, pose "considerable problems for the traditional Muslim account of the history of Islam." That same year, and in the same journal, Patricia Crone, a historian of early Islam currently based at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, published an article in which she argued that elucidating problematic passages in the Koranic text is likely to be made possible only by "abandoning the conventional account of how the Qur'an was born." And since 1991 James Bellamy, of the University of Michigan, has proposed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society a series of "emendations to the text of the Koran"—changes that from the orthodox Muslim perspective amount to copyediting God.
Crone is one of the most iconoclastic of these scholars. During the 1970s and 1980s she wrote and collaborated on several books—most notoriously, with Michael Cook, Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World (1977)—that made radical arguments about the origins of Islam and the writing of Islamic history. Among Hagarism's controversial claims were suggestions that the text of the Koran came into being later than is now believed ("There is no hard evidence for the existence of the Koran in any form before the last decade of the seventh century"); that Mecca was not the initial Islamic sanctuary ("[the evidence] points unambiguously to a sanctuary in north-west Arabia … Mecca was secondary"); that the Arab conquests preceded the institutionalization of Islam ("the Jewish messianic fantasy was enacted in the form of an Arab conquest of the Holy Land"); that the idea of the hijra, or the migration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622, may have evolved long after Muhammad died ("No seventh-century source identifies the Arab era as that of the hijra"); and that the term "Muslim" was not commonly used in early Islam ("There is no good reason to suppose that the bearers of this primitive identity called themselves 'Muslims' [but] sources do … reveal an earlier designation of the community [which] appears in Greek as 'Magaritai' in a papyrus of 642, and in Syriac as 'Mahgre' or 'Mahgraye' from as early as the 640s").
Hagarism came under immediate attack, from Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike, for its heavy reliance on hostile sources. ("This is a book," the authors wrote, "based on what from any Muslim perspective must appear an inordinate regard for the testimony of infidel sources.") Crone and Cook have since backed away from some of its most radical propositions—such as, for example, that the Prophet Muhammad lived two years longer than the Muslim tradition claims he did, and that the historicity of his migration to Medina is questionable. But Crone has continued to challenge both Muslim and Western orthodox views of Islamic history. In Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987) she made a detailed argument challenging the prevailing view among Western (and some Muslim) scholars that Islam arose in response to the Arabian spice trade.
Gerd R. Puin's current thinking about the Koran's history partakes of this contemporary revisionism. "My idea is that the Koran is a kind of cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad," he says. "Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history from them if one wants."
Patricia Crone defends the goals of this sort of thinking. "The Koran is a scripture with a history like any other—except that we don't know this history and tend to provoke howls of protest when we study it. Nobody would mind the howls if they came from Westerners, but Westerners feel deferential when the howls come from other people: who are you to tamper with their legacy? But we Islamicists are not trying to destroy anyone's faith."
Not everyone agrees with that assessment—especially since Western Koranic scholarship has traditionally taken place in the context of an openly declared hostility between Christianity and Islam. (Indeed, the broad movement in the West over the past two centuries to "explain" the East, often referred to as Orientalism, has in recent years come under fire for exhibiting similar religious and cultural biases.) The Koran has seemed, for Christian and Jewish scholars particularly, to possess an aura of heresy; the nineteenth-century Orientalist William Muir, for example, contended that the Koran was one of "the most stubborn enemies of Civilisation, Liberty, and the Truth which the world has yet known." Early Soviet scholars, too, undertook an ideologically motivated study of Islam's origins, with almost missionary zeal: in the 1920s and in 1930 a Soviet publication titled Ateist ran a series of articles explaining the rise of Islam in Marxist-Leninist terms. In Islam and Russia (1956), Ann K. S. Lambton summarized much of this work, and wrote that several Soviet scholars had theorized that "the motive force of the nascent religion was supplied by the mercantile bourgeoisie of Mecca and Medina"; that a certain S. P. Tolstov had held that "Islam was a social-religious movement originating in the slave-owning, not feudal, form of Arab society"; and that N. A. Morozov had argued that "until the Crusades Islam was indistinguishable from Judaism and … only then did it receive its independent character, while Muhammad and the first Caliphs are mythical figures. "Morozov appears to have been a particularly flamboyant theorist: Lambton wrote that he also argued, in his book Christ (1930), that "in the Middle Ages Islam was merely an off-shoot of Arianism evoked by a meteorological event in the Red Sea area near Mecca."
Not surprisingly, then, given the biases of much non-Islamic critical study of the Koran, Muslims are inclined to dismiss it outright. A particularly eloquent protest came in 1987, in the Muslim World Book Review, in a paper titled "Method Against Truth: Orientalism and Qur'anic Studies," by the Muslim critic S. Parvez Manzoor. Placing the origins of Western Koranic scholarship in "the polemical marshes of medieval Christianity" and describing its contemporary state as a "cul-de-sac of its own making," Manzoor orchestrated a complex and layered assault on the entire Western approach to Islam. He opened his essay in a rage.
The Orientalist enterprise of Qur'anic studies, whatever its other merits and services, was a project born of spite, bred in frustration and nourished by vengeance: the spite of the powerful for the powerless, the frustration of the "rational" towards the "superstitious" and the vengeance of the "orthodox" against the "non-conformist." At the greatest hour of his worldly-triumph, the Western man, coordinating the powers of the State, Church and Academia, launched his most determined assault on the citadel of Muslim faith. All the aberrant streaks of his arrogant personality—its reckless rationalism, its world-domineering phantasy and its sectarian fanaticism—joined in an unholy conspiracy to dislodge the Muslim Scripture from its firmly entrenched position as the epitome of historic authenticity and moral unassailability. The ultimate trophy that the Western man sought by his dare-devil venture was the Muslim mind itself. In order to rid the West forever of the "problem" of Islam, he reasoned, Muslim consciousness must be made to despair of the cognitive certainty of the Divine message revealed to the Prophet. Only a Muslim confounded of the historical authenticity or doctrinal autonomy of the Qur'anic revelation would abdicate his universal mission and hence pose no challenge to the global domination of the West. Such, at least, seems to have been the tacit, if not the explicit, rationale of the Orientalist assault on the Qur'an.
Despite such resistance, Western researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests press on, applying modern techniques of textual and historical criticism to the study of the Koran. That a substantial body of this scholarship now exists is indicated by the recent decision of the European firm Brill Publishers—a long-established publisher of such major works as The Encyclopaedia of Islam and The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition—to commission the first-ever Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an. Jane McAuliffe, a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Toronto, and the general editor of the encyclopedia, hopes that it will function as a "rough analogue" to biblical encyclopedias and will be "a turn-of-the-millennium summative work for the state of Koranic scholarship." Articles for the first part of the encyclopedia are currently being edited and prepared for publication later this year.
The Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an will be a truly collaborative enterprise, carried out by Muslims and non-Muslims, and its articles will present multiple approaches to the interpretation of the Koran, some of which are likely to challenge traditional Islamic views—thus disturbing many in the Islamic world, where the time is decidedly less ripe for a revisionist study of the Koran. The plight of Nasr Abu Zaid, an unassuming Egyptian professor of Arabic who sits on the encyclopedia's advisory board, illustrates the difficulties facing Muslim scholars trying to reinterpret their tradition.
The Koran is a text, a literary text, and the only way to understand, explain, and analyze it is through a literary approach," Abu Zaid says. "This is an essential theological issue." For expressing views like this in print—in essence, for challenging the idea that the Koran must be read literally as the absolute and unchanging Word of God—Abu Zaid was in 1995 officially branded an apostate, a ruling that in 1996 was upheld by Egypt's highest court. The court then proceeded, on the grounds of an Islamic law forbidding the marriage of an apostate to a Muslim, to order Abu Zaid to divorce his wife, Ibtihal Yunis (a ruling that the shocked and happily married Yunis described at the time as coming "like a blow to the head with a brick").
Abu Zaid steadfastly maintains that he is a pious Muslim, but contends that the Koran's manifest content—for example, the often archaic laws about the treatment of women for which Islam is infamous—is much less important than its complex, regenerative, and spiritually nourishing latent content. The orthodox Islamic view, Abu Zaid claims, is stultifying; it reduces a divine, eternal, and dynamic text to a fixed human interpretation with no more life and meaning than "a trinket … a talisman … or an ornament."
For a while Abu Zaid remained in Egypt and sought to refute the charges of apostasy, but in the face of death threats and relentless public harassment he fled with his wife from Cairo to Holland, calling the whole affair "a macabre farce." Sheikh Youssef al-Badri, the cleric whose preachings inspired much of the opposition to Abu Zaid, was exultant. "We are not terrorists; we have not used bullets or machine guns, but we have stopped an enemy of Islam from poking fun at our religion…. No one will even dare to think about harming Islam again."
Abu Zaid seems to have been justified in fearing for his life and fleeing: in 1992 the Egyptian journalist Farag Foda was assassinated by Islamists for his critical writings about Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and in 1994 the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed for writing, among other works, the allegorical Children of Gebelawi (1959)—a novel, structured like the Koran, that presents "heretical" conceptions of God and the Prophet Muhammad.
Deviating from the orthodox interpretation of the Koran, says the Algerian Mohammed Arkoun, a professor emeritus of Islamic thought at the University of Paris, is "a very sensitive business" with major implications. "Millions and millions of people refer to the Koran daily to explain their actions and to justify their aspirations," Arkoun says. "This scale of reference is much larger than it has ever been before."
Muhammad in the Cave
Mecca sits in a barren hollow between two ranges of steep hills in the west of present-day Saudi Arabia. To its immediate west lies the flat and sweltering Red Sea coast; to the east stretches the great Rub' al-Khali, or Empty Quarter—the largest continuous body of sand on the planet. The town's setting is uninviting: the earth is dry and dusty, and smolders under a relentless sun; the whole region is scoured by hot, throbbing desert winds. Although sometimes rain does not fall for years, when it does come it can be heavy, creating torrents of water that rush out of the hills and flood the basin in which the city lies. As a backdrop for divine revelation, the area is every bit as fitting as the mountains of Sinai or the wilderness of Judea.
The only real source of historical information about pre-Islamic Mecca and the circumstances of the Koran's revelation is the classical Islamic story about the religion's founding, a distillation of which follows.
In the centuries leading up to the arrival of Islam, Mecca was a local pagan sanctuary of considerable antiquity. Religious rituals revolved around the Ka'ba—a shrine, still central in Islam today, that Muslims believe was originally built by Ibrahim (known to Christians and Jews as Abraham) and his son Isma'il (Ishmael). As Mecca became increasingly prosperous in the sixth century A.D., pagan idols of varying sizes and shapes proliferated. The traditional story has it that by the early seventh century a pantheon of some 360 statues and icons surrounded the Ka'ba (inside which were found renderings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, among other idols).
Such was the background against which the first installments of the Koran are said to have been revealed, in 610, to an affluent but disaffected merchant named Muhammad bin Abdullah. Muhammad had developed the habit of periodically withdrawing from Mecca's pagan squalor to a nearby mountain cave, where he would reflect in solitude. During one of these retreats he was visited by the Angel Gabriel—the very same angel who had announced the coming of Jesus to the Virgin Mary in Nazareth some 600 years earlier. Opening with the command "Recite!," Gabriel made it known to Muhammad that he was to serve as the Messenger of God. Subsequently, until his death, the supposedly illiterate Muhammad received through Gabriel divine revelations in Arabic that were known as qur'an ("recitation") and that announced, initially in a highly poetic and rhetorical style, a new and uncompromising brand of monotheism known as Islam, or "submission" (to God's will). Muhammad reported these revelations verbatim to sympathetic family members and friends, who either memorized them or wrote them down.
Powerful Meccans soon began to persecute Muhammad and his small band of devoted followers, whose new faith rejected the pagan core of Meccan cultural and economic life, and as a result in 622 the group migrated some 200 miles north, to the town of Yathrib, which subsequently became known as Medina (short for Medinat al-Nabi, or City of the Prophet). (This migration, known in Islam as the hijra, is considered to mark the birth of an independent Islamic community, and 622 is thus the first year of the Islamic calendar.) In Medina, Muhammad continued to receive divine revelations, of an increasingly pragmatic and prosaic nature, and by 630 he had developed enough support in the Medinan community to attack and conquer Mecca. He spent the last two years of his life proselytizing, consolidating political power, and continuing to receive revelations.
The Islamic tradition has it that when Muhammad died, in 632, the Koranic revelations had not been gathered into a single book; they were recorded only "on palm leaves and flat stones and in the hearts of men." (This is not surprising: the oral tradition was strong and well established, and the Arabic script, which was written without the vowel markings and consonantal dots used today, served mainly as an aid to memorization.) Nor was the establishment of such a text of primary concern: the Medinan Arabs—an unlikely coalition of ex-merchants, desert nomads, and agriculturalists united in a potent new faith and inspired by the life and sayings of Prophet Muhammad—were at the time pursuing a fantastically successful series of international conquests in the name of Islam. By the 640s the Arabs possessed most of Syria, Iraq, Persia, and Egypt, and thirty years later they were busy taking over parts of Europe, North Africa, and Central Asia.
In the early decades of the Arab conquests many members of Muhammad's coterie were killed, and with them died valuable knowledge of the Koranic revelations. Muslims at the edges of the empire began arguing over what was Koranic scripture and what was not. An army general returning from Azerbaijan expressed his fears about sectarian controversy to the Caliph 'Uthman (644-656)—the third Islamic ruler to succeed Muhammad—and is said to have entreated him to "overtake this people before they differ over the Koran the way the Jews and Christians differ over their Scripture." 'Uthman convened an editorial committee of sorts that carefully gathered the various pieces of scripture that had been memorized or written down by Muhammad's companions. The result was a standard written version of the Koran. 'Uthman ordered all incomplete and "imperfect" collections of the Koranic scripture destroyed, and the new version was quickly distributed to the major centers of the rapidly burgeoning empire.
During the next few centuries, while Islam solidified as a religious and political entity, a vast body of exegetical and historical literature evolved to explain the Koran and the rise of Islam, the most important elements of which are hadith, or the collected sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad; sunna, or the body of Islamic social and legal custom; sira, or biographies of the Prophet; and tafsir, or Koranic commentary and explication. It is from these traditional sources—compiled in written form mostly from the mid eighth to the mid tenth century—that all accounts of the revelation of the Koran and the early years of Islam are ultimately derived.
"For People Who Understand"
Roughly equivalent in length to the New Testament, the Koran is divided into 114 sections, known as suras, that vary dramatically in length and form. The book's organizing principle is neither chronological nor thematic—for the most part the suras are arranged from beginning to end in descending order of length. Despite the unusual structure, however, what generally surprises newcomers to the Koran is the degree to which it draws on the same beliefs and stories that appear in the Bible. God (Allah in Arabic) rules supreme: he is the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-merciful Being who has created the world and its creatures; he sends messages and laws through prophets to help guide human existence; and, at a time in the future known only to him, he will bring about the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. Adam, the first man, is expelled from Paradise for eating from the forbidden tree. Noah builds an ark to save a select few from a flood brought on by the wrath of God. Abraham prepares himself to sacrifice his son at God's bidding. Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and receives a revelation on Mount Sinai. Jesus—born of the Virgin Mary and referred to as the Messiah—works miracles, has disciples, and rises to heaven.
The Koran takes great care to stress this common monotheistic heritage, but it works equally hard to distinguish Islam from Judaism and Christianity. For example, it mentions prophets—Hud, Salih, Shu'ayb, Luqman, and others—whose origins seem exclusively Arabian, and it reminds readers that it is "A Koran in Arabic, / For people who understand." Despite its repeated assertions to the contrary, however, the Koran is often extremely difficult for contemporary readers—even highly educated speakers of Arabic—to understand. It sometimes makes dramatic shifts in style, voice, and subject matter from verse to verse, and it assumes a familiarity with language, stories, and events that seem to have been lost even to the earliest of Muslim exegetes (typical of a text that initially evolved in an oral tradition). Its apparent inconsistencies are easy to find: God may be referred to in the first and third person in the same sentence; divergent versions of the same story are repeated at different points in the text; divine rulings occasionally contradict one another. In this last case the Koran anticipates criticism and defends itself by asserting the right to abrogate its own message ("God doth blot out / Or confirm what He pleaseth").
Criticism did come. As Muslims increasingly came into contact with Christians during the eighth century, the wars of conquest were accompanied by theological polemics, in which Christians and others latched on to the confusing literary state of the Koran as proof of its human origins. Muslim scholars themselves were fastidiously cataloguing the problematic aspects of the Koran—unfamiliar vocabulary, seeming omissions of text, grammatical incongruities, deviant readings, and so on. A major theological debate in fact arose within Islam in the late eighth century, pitting those who believed in the Koran as the "uncreated" and eternal Word of God against those who believed in it as created in time, like anything that isn't God himself. Under the Caliph al-Ma'mun (813-833) this latter view briefly became orthodox doctrine. It was supported by several schools of thought, including an influential one known as Mu'tazilism, that developed a complex theology based partly on a metaphorical rather than simply literal understanding of the Koran.
By the end of the tenth century the influence of the Mu'tazili school had waned, for complicated political reasons, and the official doctrine had become that of i'jaz, or the "inimitability" of the Koran. (As a result, the Koran has traditionally not been translated by Muslims for non-Arabic-speaking Muslims. Instead it is read and recited in the original by Muslims worldwide, the majority of whom do not speak Arabic. The translations that do exist are considered to be nothing more than scriptural aids and paraphrases.) The adoption of the doctrine of inimitability was a major turning point in Islamic history, and from the tenth century to this day the mainstream Muslim understanding of the Koran as the literal and uncreated Word of God has remained constant.
Psychopathic Vandalism?
Gerd R. Puin speaks with disdain about the traditional willingness, on the part of Muslim and Western scholars, to accept the conventional understanding of the Koran. "The Koran claims for itself that it is 'mubeen,' or 'clear,'" he says. "But if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn't make sense. Many Muslims—and Orientalists—will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Koranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Koran is not comprehensible—if it can't even be understood in Arabic—then it's not translatable. People fear that. And since the Koran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not—as even speakers of Arabic will tell you—there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on."
Trying to figure out that "something else" really began only in this century. "Until quite recently," Patricia Crone, the historian of early Islam, says, "everyone took it for granted that everything the Muslims claim to remember about the origin and meaning of the Koran is correct. If you drop that assumption, you have to start afresh." This is no mean feat, of course; the Koran has come down to us tightly swathed in a historical tradition that is extremely resistant to criticism and analysis. As Crone put it in Slaves on Horses,
The Biblical redactors offer us sections of the Israelite tradition at different stages of crystallization, and their testimonies can accordingly be profitably compared and weighed against each other. But the Muslim tradition was the outcome, not of a slow crystallization, but of an explosion; the first compilers were not redactors, but collectors of debris whose works are strikingly devoid of overall unity; and no particular illuminations ensue from their comparison.
Not surprisingly, given the explosive expansion of early Islam and the passage of time between the religion's birth and the first systematic documenting of its history, Muhammad's world and the worlds of the historians who subsequently wrote about him were dramatically different. During Islam's first century alone a provincial band of pagan desert tribesmen became the guardians of a vast international empire of institutional monotheism that teemed with unprecedented literary and scientific activity. Many contemporary historians argue that one cannot expect Islam's stories about its own origins—particularly given the oral tradition of the early centuries—to have survived this tremendous social transformation intact. Nor can one expect a Muslim historian writing in ninth- or tenth-century Iraq to have discarded his social and intellectual background (and theological convictions) in order accurately to describe a deeply unfamiliar seventh-century Arabian context. R. Stephen Humphreys, writing in Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry (1988), concisely summed up the issue that historians confront in studying early Islam.
If our goal is to comprehend the way in which Muslims of the late 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th centuries [Islamic calendar / Christian calendar] understood the origins of their society, then we are very well off indeed. But if our aim is to find out "what really happened," in terms of reliably documented answers to modern questions about the earliest decades of Islamic society, then we are in trouble.
The person who more than anyone else has shaken up Koranic studies in the past few decades is John Wansbrough, formerly of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies. Puin is "re-reading him now" as he prepares to analyze the Yemeni fragments. Patricia Crone says that she and Michael Cook "did not say much about the Koran in Hagarism that was not based on Wansbrough." Other scholars are less admiring, referring to Wansbrough's work as "drastically wrongheaded," "ferociously opaque," and a "colossal self-deception." But like it or not, anybody engaged in the critical study of the Koran today must contend with Wansbrough's two main works— Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (1977) and The Sectarian Milieu: Content and Composition of Islamic Salvation History (1978).
Wansbrough applied an entire arsenal of what he called the "instruments and techniques" of biblical criticism—form criticism, source criticism, redaction criticism, and much more—to the Koranic text. He concluded that the Koran evolved only gradually in the seventh and eighth centuries, during a long period of oral transmission when Jewish and Christian sects were arguing volubly with one another well to the north of Mecca and Medina, in what are now parts of Syria, Jordan, Israel, and Iraq. The reason that no Islamic source material from the first century or so of Islam has survived, Wansbrough concluded, is that it never existed.
To Wansbrough, the Islamic tradition is an example of what is known to biblical scholars as a "salvation history": a theologically and evangelically motivated story of a religion's origins invented late in the day and projected back in time. In other words, as Wansbrough put it in Quranic Studies, the canonization of the Koran—and the Islamic traditions that arose to explain it—involved the
attribution of several, partially overlapping, collections of logia (exhibiting a distinctly Mosaic imprint) to the image of a Biblical prophet (modified by the material of the Muhammadan evangelium into an Arabian man of God) with a traditional message of salvation (modified by the influence of Rabbinic Judaism into the unmediated and finally immutable word of God).
Wansbrough's arcane theories have been contagious in certain scholarly circles, but many Muslims understandably have found them deeply offensive. S. Parvez Manzoor, for example, has described the Koranic studies of Wansbrough and others as "a naked discourse of power" and "an outburst of psychopathic vandalism." But not even Manzoor argues for a retreat from the critical enterprise of Koranic studies; instead he urges Muslims to defeat the Western revisionists on the "epistemological battlefield," admitting that "sooner or later [we Muslims] will have to approach the Koran from methodological assumptions and parameters that are radically at odds with the ones consecrated by our tradition."
Revisionism Inside the Islamic World
Indeed, for more than a century there have been public figures in the Islamic world who have attempted the revisionist study of the Koran and Islamic history—the exiled Egyptian professor Nasr Abu Zaid is not unique. Perhaps Abu Zaid's most famous predecessor was the prominent Egyptian government minister, university professor, and writer Taha Hussein. A determined modernist, Hussein in the early 1920s devoted himself to the study of pre-Islamic Arabian poetry and ended up concluding that much of that body of work had been fabricated well after the establishment of Islam in order to lend outside support to Koranic mythology. A more recent example is the Iranian journalist and diplomat Ali Dashti, who in his Twenty Three Years: A Study of the Prophetic Career of Mohammed (1985) repeatedly took his fellow Muslims to task for not questioning the traditional accounts of Muhammad's life, much of which he called "myth-making and miracle-mongering."
Abu Zaid also cites the enormously influential Muhammad 'Abduh as a precursor. The nineteenth-century father of Egyptian modernism, 'Abduh saw the potential for a new Islamic theology in the theories of the ninth-century Mu'tazilis. The ideas of the Mu'tazilis gained popularity in some Muslim circles early in this century (leading the important Egyptian writer and intellectual Ahmad Amin to remark in 1936 that "the demise of Mu'tazilism was the greatest misfortune to have afflicted Muslims; they have committed a crime against themselves"). The late Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman carried the Mu'tazilite torch well into the present era; he spent the later years of his life, from the 1960s until his death in 1988, living and teaching in the United States, where he trained many students of Islam—both Muslims and non-Muslims—in the Mu'tazilite tradition.
Such work has not come without cost, however: Taha Hussein, like Nasr Abu Zaid, was declared an apostate in Egypt; Ali Dashti died mysteriously just after the 1979 Iranian revolution; and Fazlur Rahman was forced to leave Pakistan in the 1960s. Muslims interested in challenging orthodox doctrine must tread carefully. "I would like to get the Koran out of this prison," Abu Zaid has said of the prevailing Islamic hostility to reinterpreting the Koran for the modern age, "so that once more it becomes productive for the essence of our culture and the arts, which are being strangled in our society." Despite his many enemies in Egypt, Abu Zaid may well be making progress toward this goal: there are indications that his work is being widely, if quietly, read with interest in the Arab world. Abu Zaid says, for example, that his The Concept of the Text (1990)—the book largely responsible for his exile from Egypt—has gone through at least eight underground printings in Cairo and Beirut.
Another scholar with a wide readership who is committed to re-examining the Koran is Mohammed Arkoun, the Algerian professor at the University of Paris. Arkoun argued in Lectures du Coran (1982), for example, that "it is time [for Islam] to assume, along with all of the great cultural traditions, the modern risks of scientific knowledge," and suggested that "the problem of the divine authenticity of the Koran can serve to reactivate Islamic thought and engage it in the major debates of our age." Arkoun regrets the fact that most Muslims are unaware that a different conception of the Koran exists within their own historical tradition. What a re-examination of Islamic history offers Muslims, Arkoun and others argue, is an opportunity to challenge the Muslim orthodoxy from within, rather than having to rely on "hostile" outside sources. Arkoun, Abu Zaid, and others hope that this challenge might ultimately lead to nothing less than an Islamic renaissance.
The gulf between such academic theories and the daily practice of Islam around the world is huge, of course—the majority of Muslims today are unlikely to question the orthodox understanding of the Koran and Islamic history. Yet Islam became one of the world's great religions in part because of its openness to social change and new ideas. (Centuries ago, when Europe was mired in its feudal Dark Ages, the sages of a flourishing Islamic civilization opened an era of great scientific and philosophical discovery. The ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans might never have been introduced to Europe were it not for the Islamic historians and philosophers who rediscovered and revived them.) Islam's own history shows that the prevailing conception of the Koran is not the only one ever to have existed, and the recent history of biblical scholarship shows that not all critical-historical studies of a holy scripture are antagonistic. They can instead be carried out with the aim of spiritual and cultural regeneration. They can, as Mohammed Arkoun puts it, demystify the text while reaffirming "the relevance of its larger intuitions."
Increasingly diverse interpretations of the Koran and Islamic history will inevitably be proposed in the coming decades, as traditional cultural distinctions between East, West, North, and South continue to dissolve, as the population of the Muslim world continues to grow, as early historical sources continue to be scrutinized, and as feminism meets the Koran. With the diversity of interpretations will surely come increased fractiousness, perhaps intensified by the fact that Islam now exists in such a great variety of social and intellectual settings—Bosnia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the United States, and so on. More than ever before, anybody wishing to understand global affairs will need to understand Islamic civilization, in all its permutations. Surely the best way to start is with the study of the Koran—which promises in the years ahead to be at least as contentious, fascinating, and important as the study of the Bible has been in this century. – The Atlantic, January 1999
» Toby Lester, the author of Da Vinci's Ghost (2012) and The Fourth Part of the World (2009), is an American writer and an editor. In addition to writing books, he is a longtime contributor to The Atlantic, for whom he has written extensively. He can be contacted through his website.
Innocence of Muslims: The Hidden Origin of Islam with Gerd R. Puin
Koran Documentary with Antony Thomas
Filed under: india | Tagged: history, history of islam, islam, koran, muslim scholars, muslims, mythology, prophet, prophet muhammad, prophetism, psychological warfare, quran, scholarship, theology, western scholars | 2 Comments »
Logos Not Khristos
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgement. — Seneca
To teach superstition as truth is a most terrible thing. — Hypatia
The world has produced three great impostors: Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. — Frederick II of Sicily
Christians must acknowledge the historical fact that from Bethlehem to Madras, most of their sacred sites are booty won in campaigns of fraud and destruction. — Koenraad Elst
Every formula of every religion has in this age of reason, to submit to the acid test of reason and universal justice if it is to ask for universal assent. — M. K. Gandhi
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. — M. K. Gandhi
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. — Cicero
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Post Contents › 7
Inside the Mooji cult - Be Scofield
Time to revisit the 'borrowed' Indian Constitution - Yuvraj Pokharna
1,500-year-old Bible claims Jesus wasn't crucified - Victor Ochieng
Fifty people who have affected Hindus and Hinduism in a negative way - Francois Gautier
Time to revisit the 'borrowed' Indian Constitution – Yuvraj Pokharna
The spread of anti-Hinduism in the West – Salvatore Babones
Can democracy coexist with Hindutva? – Debojit Borkakati
Brahm Dravya: Ganga water is self-purifying, contains bacteria-eating viruses – ANI
Ram Swarup
Sita Ram Goel
The Myth of St. Thomas and the Mylapore Shiva Temple › Ishwar Sharan › 1991
Vande Mataram
Gita Mahatmya
The Bharatas of Bharatavarsha – Sandhya Jain
Who built the Taj?
Pragyata
Śaṅkara Charitam – a re-telling – Chapter 06
India's History: Part I, By Rabindranath Tagore
Physical Culture For Children – II
Goa Inquisition
Hindu Existence
Pesudo Secular SP Maurya among 10 booked for burning Ramcharitmanas to hurt Hindu sentiments.
Hindutva: Origin, Evolution, and Future.
Modi & Francis: Call out Hinduphobia!
HinduPost
How YouTube is grooming children with LGBTQ+ propaganda and destroying their innocence
Imran accuses Zardari of paying money to terror outfit for his assassination
Highlights of Union Budget 2023: No income tax up to ₹7 lakh, all-time high capex outlay
Two Khalistani supporters detained in Delhi, were promised Rs. 2 lakhs by SFJ for writing graffiti but paid only 2K
Did Thomas bring Christianity to India?
Old Kapali Temple
Acta Indica
The Great Indian History Hoax – Sita Ram Goel
Pope denies St. Thomas evangelised South India – Ishwar Sharan
Merchant Thomas to Saint Thomas – Sandhya Jain
Muziris: Dr. Nagaswamy nails false propaganda on St. Thomas – Media Reports
Jesus: An Artifice for Aggression
Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence: New AI Technique Helps To Separate Noise From Sound, Throws Up Eight Exciting Signals Previously Missed
Budget 2023: Host Of Measures Announced To Enhance Business Activities In GIFT IFSC
SC Seeks Centre's Reply On Possibility Of Mutual Agreements With US In Custody Matters
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text:
Australian billionaire to build Titanic II
In Maritime News
From The Jakarta Globe
One of Australia's richest men, Clive Palmer, has unveiled plans for a 21st century version of the Titanic to be built in China, with its first voyage from England to New York set for 2016.
Palmer, a self-made mining billionaire, said he has commissioned state-owned Chinese company CSC Jinling Shipyard to construct Titanic II with exactly the same dimensions as its predecessor.
"It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems," Palmer said in a statement, released on Monday.
"Titanic II will sail in the northern hemisphere and her maiden voyage from England to North America is scheduled for late 2016.
"We have invited the Chinese navy to escort Titanic II on its maiden voyage to New York."
His announcement comes just weeks after the 100th anniversary of the sinking of Titanic, which went down on April 15, 1912 after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
Palmer said the new ship would be a tribute to the spirit of the men and women who worked on the original.
"These people produced work that is still marvelled at more than 100 years later and we want that spirit to go on for another 100 years," he said.
Titanic was commissioned by White Star Line and was the largest liner in the world at the time.
Palmer said he has established his own shipping company, Blue Star Line, with the new ship having the same dimensions as its predecessor, with 840 rooms and nine decks.
Titanic II 100 years Indiana State Museum Indianapolis James Cameron Captain Edward Smith White Star Line Belfast Joseph Bruce Ismay Molly Brown


text:
Economy faces paralysis if govt doesn't act urgently on water crisis - report
Melanie Gosling, Correspondent
A man collects drinking water from taps that are fed by a spring in Newlands. (Rodger Bosch, AFP, file)
Blue Scorpions called in as Limpopo municipality faces its own Day Zero
Drought disaster: R6bn in the budget, and more is coming - Mkhize
Drought declared a national disaster
Cape Town - If the government fails to respond to the country's critical water situation, South Africans could face a situation similar to the energy crisis that nearly paralysed the economy, according to a Water Research Commission report.
"To avoid a state of national panic, similar to that which occurred during the energy crisis of 2014 to 2015, the government will have to act immediately. South Africa cannot afford to delay the implementation of more aggressive water policies," it says.
The report, "A Delicate Balance: Water Scarcity in South Africa", due to be released on Friday, sketches a grim picture of the country's tight water situation and the risks this poses to the economy, food security, industry and human well-being.
It says that while Cape Town's water crisis has dominated headlines, the problem extends well beyond the drought-stricken Western Cape. South Africa is facing its worst drought in 23 years and, since 2015, five provinces had been declare disasters areas.
READ: Drought declared a national disaster
The reason, in a nutshell, is not because of drought, but because we are using more water than can be replaced. Over 60% of the country's rivers are over-exploited, and a quarter of them are in a "critical" condition, the report says.
A major problem, according to the report, is the creaking water infrastructure that is in disrepair in much of the country, leading to loss of water through leaks on a national scale.
The water situation would get worse as demand increased in industry, agriculture and municipalities, driven by population growth, urbanisation, rising incomes, expanding use of irrigation, and continued reliance on electricity from coal-fired power stations, which consume vast amounts of water for cooling.
Not all a doom and gloom
All of this is happening against the backdrop of global climate change, which will result in an increasingly hotter SA and a drier climate in the western part of the country.
SPECIAL REPORT: Water Crisis
But it is not all a doom and gloom, Mad Max future. The report lays out ways the country could avoid a national water crisis and live within its water supply limits. But this would take "significant financial investment and a lot of political will".
One of the most effective and cheapest ways of securing water supplies is by decreasing demand, the report says.
While the drought in the Western Cape has resulted in farmers having water allocations cut and Capetonians being restricted to 50l a person a day, this is not the case for most of SA, where the national average of water consumed is 235l a person a day - above the global average of 175l. This needs to be cut, the report argues.
Demand could be reduced through a combination of methods such as repairing water infrastructure to cut leaks, introducing new building codes to ensure more efficient water use, giving incentives to install water-efficient appliances, and having tiered water-pricing structures, where consumers who used a lot of water, pay a higher tariff.
The country must increase the amount of wastewater that is reused - and the authorities must crack down on the amount of untreated wastewater that is released into rivers and the ocean.
A recent survey of 88 municipalities found that about 60% of wastewater released into the environment was untreated and failed to meet government's minimum control standards.
Similar to recent energy crisis
The amount of groundwater SA uses must be increased, particularly for agricultural use. The amount of renewable energy for electricity generation must be increased to cut the industrial water demand.
Currently, SA is dependent on coal for the bulk of its electricity, which uses huge amounts of water for cooling power stations and "threatens to further harm the country's water ecosystems".
Renewable energy will not only reduce water demand, but lower carbon emissions and minimise water contamination related to coal production.
The report says that desalination is "prohibitively expensive" and won't be able to address water scarcity anywhere, except at the large coastal cities of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth. As the cost of this desalination decreased, it was likely to become a viable option for these cities.
"If the government begins to aggressively implement measures to enhance water supply and curtail demand, then it is possible to restore sustainability to South Africa's water sector without resorting to extremely punitive restrictions," the report said.
"But if the government fails to respond to the situation, the country could be forced to endure a situation similar to the recent energy crisis, which nearly paralysed the economy."
Read more on: cape town | drought | water crisis | renewable energy | water
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