three religious symbols

WHAT I BELIEVE

What informs my beliefs about spiritual practice and this life

I trust two sources of knowledge because they are not the opinions of men. They are The Holy Quran and Mathematics. Of these two the Quran is the most reliable and trustworthy.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from The Holy Quran and on Mathematics.

I have not created the jinn and the humans except to worship Me.
Quran [51:56]

This Quran could not possibly be authored by other than God. It confirms all previous messages, and provides a fully detailed scripture. It is infallible, for it comes from the Lord of the universe.
[Quran 10:37]

Say, "We believe in God and in what was brought down to us, and in what was brought down to Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob and the Patriarchs, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus, and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction among any of them and to Him we are submitters."
[Quran 2:136]

Mathematics is merely a formal description of relationships: the relationships created by God

I argue, as others have done before me, that mathematical concepts and ideas exist objectively, outside of the physical world and outside of the world of consciousness. We mathematicians discover them and are able to connect to this hidden reality through our consciousness. If Leo Tolstoy had not lived we would never have known Anna Karenina. There is no reason to believe that another author would have written that same novel. However, if Pythagoras had not lived, someone else would have discovered exactly the same Pythagoras theorem. Moreover, that theorem means the same to us today as it meant to Pythagoras 2,500 years ago.

[Edward Frenkel - Berkeley Math Department]

HTML 4.0 blue icon