Religion?

Today we had a research group seminar. The talk was given by one of my SV's PhD student. Currently, he has three PhD students and we are rotating each week about who will give presentation. Nothing much, just presented one research paper, wrote on the whiteboard, showed every mathematical steps on how to derive each equations, and throughout the talk, we can stop him to ask questions. It's informal meeting but the expectation from SV is quite high for the presenter. You must know how to answer each question people ask, lots of eye contact with audience, teach people not teach the board, and be confidence. He will give comments about your style and content. This is just basic requirement. Beyond that, you need to prepare like hell, spend almost your time and energy preparing and focusing onto that.  

Ok, back to the main topic, after we finished the seminar, I stayed back and asked him some questions about my research. Then, he gave me some ideas on how to solve it.  Alhamdulillah, I got a clearer view after that. When I'm about to leave, he asked,

"Do you celebrate this coming Chinese New Year?"

 "No. Why?"

He didn't replied but asked me another question.

"Every muslim in Malaysia is converted, right? What are their religion before that?"

Ha??  I just like.. ha??? I don't know. It's a long long time ago. What is the religion of your grandfather of grandfather of grandfather of.... (the list goes on)?

Simply said, I told him the first man that was created by God, Adam is Islam. He believed in one god i.e. Allah.

"Ok, that is your belief. My sister in law is a muslim but she didn't wear scarf and pray like you. She just didn't eat pork. She is muslim because she inherited Islam from her ancestors coming from the middle east."

I think my SV wants to know about Islam and I'm happy to answer that. He even know that we celebrate Ramadhan's eve. Then, I said,

 "I think if you truly know about Islam, you'll be a greater man than what you are now."

"No, I'm atheist." He smiled.

Aku ternganga sekejap.

"How about your wife and family?"

"My wife celebrate it. She flied back to China yesterday to see her mom."

"Why you are atheist?"

Berani pulak aku tanya.

"Because we were trained like that. When we were small, we play a lot, then when it's time to enter college, we struggled. Everybody want to go to college at that time. We studied mathematics, physics, chemistry in a short time, sleep for 3-4 hours per day and that's it. I cannot see something else. It's all about us, I don't believe anything other than that."

Hmmm.. patutla..

You see, he is the smartest mathematician I've ever known in my entire life. Even he is chinese, he is the leader of many professional organizations in USA, got lots of awards, lots of respects, lots of grants, and lots of money more than an American citizen can earned each month. It's not easy to argue with person like this. I'm not be able spontaneously lay out what surah in Quran  mentioned about bing bang theory,  the light of the moon is a reflected light, shape of the earth is geospherical and etc. since 1400 years ago.

Deep in my heart, actually I have this intention long time before, when I finished my PhD I will give a Quran's translation to him as a gift. May he get the 'nur' to embrace Islam. In shaa Allah..

Ya Allah, berikanlah aku kekuatan dan kepetahan lidah untuk berbicara tentang kebenaran agama-MU. Ampunkanlah hamba-Mu yang lemah ini Ya Rabb..

Sunset at Columbia. Love it! SubhanAllah..

Mental note: Prepare for two presentations next week: (1) Research Group Seminar, (2) PDE Chapter 6, Second-order Elliptic Equations.

Busy... busy.. busy...