Article: Red Rose or Cat's Eye: What's in a Name?

Cat's Eye or Red Rose:
What's in a name?

Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq

Associate Professor of Economics and Finance
Upper Iowa University

The original article was written for a distinctive internet discussion forum, Shetubondhon, which means "bridge-building". To appreciate this message better, the readers, if they have online access, might like to pay a brief visit first to this link to look up a beautiful picture (actually, I have already included the picture at the upper right corner).

Circulated through the personal list of a Bangladeshi friend (probably originated from other sources), I came across the following brief message: "The picture (displayed at the abovementioned URL) is taken by the NASA Hubble Space Telescope of the 'Cat's Eye Nebula.' It is an exploding star 3,000 light years away. They should have called it the "Oily Red Rose Nebula." As the Qur'an states in ar-Rahman, 'When the sky is torn apart, so it was (like) a red rose, like ointment.'" [verses 37-38]

I checked the Qur'anic text. The actual Arabic is "war-datan kad-dihaan", which means exactly as stated, though not to be found verbatim in any published English translations of the Qur'an. The picture of the nebula is truly amazing. The general credit for facilitating such discovery on behalf of the humanity goes to institutions, such as NASA and Hubble Space Telescope project, and individual credit goes to: J.P. Harrington and K.J. Borkowski (U. Maryland). The humanity should be gratified for the exciting and wonderful works these individuals do and the interest they take in the nature and the universe.

After looking up the picture, viewers themselves can decide whether there is any merit of naming it "Oily Red Rose Nebula". However, one must understand that it is the discoverers' prerogative to call their discovery whatever they like. When Muslims would take interest in the nature, the universe, the vast expanse of the creation, and some of the nebulas would be discovered by us, we could call it "Oily Red Rose Nebula" or whatever we like.

From Brunei to Bahrain or from Benin to Bangladesh, the sad state of Muslims' affairs in every aspects including science and technology does not leave much room for us to suggest that others should be doing the discovery, but naming it according to our likes and dislikes. What has prevented the Muslims from being the first to discover these "petals of red roses" in the space? The naming comes as a privilege for those who do the legwork or in this case WINGwork. Remember the Wright brothers dreaming about spreading their wings?

There MIGHT BE great truths in what many believe to be divine revelations to take cue from and venture into such exploration and discovery. Unfortunately, Muslims haven't done anything in the area of exploration and discovery in a very long time. Their microscopes seem to be focused, instead of on germs and bacteria, on petty details of institutionalized religion; and, their telescopes are focused, instead of on the vast and wonderful universe to explore, on, for example, hair-splitting religious matters. Indeed, those souls, such as Harrington and Borowski, whose lives are dedicated to these scientific and exploratory pursuits, if they hear such suggestion about naming according to the wish of the Muslims, they might find it little more than just amusing, and might frown, "WHAT NOW?".

On the other hand, we the Muslims, could argue that how in the world we are going to have a chance of our share to name any of these, when we haven't solved our problems of poverty, illiteracy, dependency on those whom we detest, high infant mortality, political instability or autocracy, etc.. Forget about those SMALLER problems, we still have not been able to resolve when do we begin fasting and when do we celebrate Eid together as a community. We are still writing new books on rules for prayers, ablution, whether to cross legs while sitting, and so on. So, does that mean the world is not going to pay attention to what we like or what is said in the Qur'an? Well, that's right! They are NOT going to pay any attention to what the Qur'an says. They are NOT going to call it "The Oily Red Rose Nebula". It's name is - let's all say it together as it is going to be called from now on - Cat's Eye Nebula!"

It's actually very simple. If the contribution in the field of knowledge, science, or technology comes from Muslims, their names carry a mark on the pages of history, as for example, Algorithm from Al-Khawarizmi or Algorism. On the other hand, if others discover a nebula, they can call it Cat's Eye, Bull's Eye, Winking Eye, or whatever they like.

There is a redeeming aspect though. I undertook a rather crude experiment. Without providing any background or prior information, I presented the same colored Nebula image on computer to one of my economics classes last February and asked them to describe what do they think the picture was about or of.

Here is what they said. I asked them two questions: (1) What does this image look like at the first sight? (2) What did they think it was? I did not get good answers to the second question. But in response to the first question, almost 75% thought the image that comes to their mind at first is of a flower. The follow up question was: If they thought it was a flower, is there any particular flower that comes to their mind? The answer to that was almost unanimous: a rose. Later the same day, I showed the image to a number of colleagues and other staff on a random basis. The answer was similar, except when the viewer saw a larger image on a larger screen, they were readily guessing it as a galaxy or space object.

So what is the redeeming aspect? Call it Cat's Eye or call it something else, on visual inspection, there seems to be a "rose" connection in people's mind. Thus, whether it should be called "Oily Red Rose" or not, let it remain for the viewers to decide. In reality, from now on we will call it Cat's Eye, even if it looks like a red rose, and, yes, even if there might be a reference to such simile in the Qur'an.

More than twelve centuries before Charles Darwin undertook his travel, the humanity was called upon: "TRAVEL through the earth and see how God did ORIGINATE CREATION;..." [al-Qur'an/29/al- Ankabut/20]. What was there to TRAVEL to see "how God did originate creation"? We have been reading about this commandment about "travel", but for centuries now we have been sitting on the reminiscences of our "traveling" ancestors such as al-Biruni, Ibn Batutta, and so on. Darwin did not turn to the Qur'an to undertake the travel, because there was a call within himself as a human being: it's human curiosity. Indeed, the Qur'an did not "command" us to "travel"; it was only "reminding" us as hints, clues - just in case, anyone would pick up the cue. It's unfortunate how ready so many Muslims are to summarily reject what that bearded man, I mean Darwin, had to say. Right or wrong, doesn't he deserve some credit/respect for the scientific inquiry and exploration he undertook?

I do hope that this kind of wish about having this nebula named as "Oily Red Rose" does not reach too many non-Muslims, especially in a message that does not have even a sentence acknowledging the tremendous scientific accomplishment this discovery of the nebula represents as part of the ongoing human quest to wonder about and explore this wonderful universe. Unless, of course, we are trying to make others laugh by making our such wishes known. By the way, talking about laugh, you might like to visit my probably "one and only (so far)" Hadith Humor page? It's SERIOUSLY light stuff.