Allama Mashraqi

“The First volume of ‘Tazkirah’ published in 1924 has four sections. The first which is in Arabic constitutes the author’s main theorem on the rise and fall of human societies, and a verdict on the fluctuating fortune of the world Muslim community. The three sections following the Arabic text are in Urdu and consist of a 132-page Preface, a 100-page Introduction, and 172-page text of the book proper. The Introduction deals with the Quranic version of the law of man’s evolution as a species and the collective conduct of human societies determining their ultimate destiny. The Preface which precedes it discusses the conflict between various religions — the distortion of the Message brought by the prophets, the tussle between Religion and Science, and the compelling necessity to resolve these conflicts before mankind becomes extinct through its own follies…

Even when analyzing the fate of human communities and man’s ultimate destiny, Mashriqi has looked on everything as a mathematician. It was as a mathematician that he discussed in 1926 the theme with Einstein on his return from Cairo via Germany, and tried to impress upon him to come out of the shell of a mere physicist. In his address to the mathematical society of Islamia College Peshawar in November 1928…he made a particular reference to it. He said, ‘If I have presented a book (Tazkirah Ed.) to the world that has no peer it is because of mathematics. If I had left mathematics and gone on to higher things it is through mathematics. If I have left studying mathematics and have seen a higher truth in the Koran its through mathematics. In fact, the first truth of the Koran dawned on me while I was busy day and night preparing for the Mathematics Tripos at Cambridge’.”
Source:Inayat ullah Khan El-Mashriqi: God, Man And Universe: As Conceived by a Mathematician. Edited by Syed Shabbir Hussain. First Impression, November, 1980, p. 25

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