22 About the author
Asalamualeikum to all muslims and hello to my non muslim readers. In this section, I would like to share you some information about me. I think the best way to do that is by answering some carefully selected questions. In this way, the reader might be a bit entertained, and also I believe it should give you a much better impression of me than, e.g., listing facts. Since fact listing gives a fast overview about one’s experience, I will, inshallah, provide a CV (see chapter 23). The CV is not the most up-to-date one, but it still provides useful information about my competencies.
This is a very good question - and I believe I have a lot of answers to that. Basically, it shall serve as a part of the basis for my plans in the future. Since, at the moment, I do not know if and how many of the future plans I am going to be able to tackle - maybe I’ll give you an answer which is valid for the present time.
The content of my master’s thesis can be considered to some degree as a proof of my engineering skills. You might interject and say, “You have a certificate with a master’s degree on it. Should this not suffice as some proof of your aerospace knowledge?” Yes, sure, but still, the work is now online and everyone should easily be able to have a look at it. In this way, if anybody has an interest in my aviation expertise, they could just open a link and have a glance at what I did for my master’s thesis. They are not mandated to contact me to arrange an appointment with me. They can access it faster and with less effort. My master’s degree certificate is not available online (at least not while I am writing this). Also, I agree that this thesis only points in the direction of my competence. So, anybody with a professional intention cannot circumvent the need for an appointment, but still, there are two points to make. First, any regular person can read it. Second, the human resources department gets some initial information about me and can decide on the further progress more easily.
Besides showing some machine learning skills with my master thesis, by having provided this thesis as a webpage, skills in some other highly sought-after domains are shown. So, from what you can see, for creating this webpage, I at least must have used HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Obviously, there is much more than that, but let us stick to the things that can be inferred from the visible part. The design… come on, it looks great, right? I mean, sure, it could be better, but still, it looks quite fancy. Highlighting the animations, the design, and the interactivity does not take away from the readability and the easy access to, e.g., the references, equations, and citations. Even though more could be said about the process of getting from LaTeX to this webpage, including deploying it on a server, let us wrap it up.
With this online presentation of my master thesis, people can easily have a look at what I did for my master thesis. Imagine applying for a job position; the CV could be supported by this webpage. Finally, this small work here is intended to be just a basis for something bigger (which might or might not happen).
Sure, I get it, you look at me and think, “Wow, I want to know him personally.” No, sorry, just kidding. I know it might seem strange to people who have grown up in the West in the 21st century to see men with beards.
Let me tell you a little background story. I myself did not want to wear a beard for a very long time, I found it unattractive and unkempt. However, my wife informed me one day that she thought beards were beautiful. I asked her if I should give it a try. She was pleased, and so my journey with the beard began.
During this time, I began to find great pleasure in wearing my beard. Unfortunately, one day she asked me to remove my beard. Of course, I didn’t want to take it off anymore. However, I guess we can all imagine how the story ended.
I agree, this is probably the most important question you could ask someone. The answer to that question provides very valuable information. It tells us whether we want to spend time with the other person, how we are going to think about him, how we will get along with him, and much more. Also, it tells how one person thinks about himself, what their goals and desires are. I totally get why this question was asked. In my case, it is a very simple answer. Of course, the journey to this conclusion is a much longer one. One day I will stand in front of Allah. My purpose in life is to hear from Allah the almighty that He is pleased with me as His slave.
Well, there are many ways to achieve this goal. I think the most important first step is to develop a relationship with Allah. The rest will just come as a result. In order to establish a stable relationship with Allah, one should read His book - the Quran. By the way, I do not speak Arabic, thus for understanding it, I read it in German or English. A translation from the old Qurayshi Arabic to any other language might be compared to removing all the sugar from a cake or to removing all Python libraries from Python. In the first case, sure the cake still looks great, but you would expect a different taste. In the second case, when you only have Python without NumPy, well then, you might be even tempted to use Java. In the case of the translation of the Quran - well, it showed me the purpose of my life, I consider it my best friend, and it has more life in it than I do. So you can imagine, even the translation is more valuable than I could describe it with words.
Let me give you only one short example of the many possible and please note, all I am about to say is just based on my own thoughts - the thoughts of a human being with the nature inherited limited capabilities of a human being. When talking about getting a relationship with Allah for starters, I think the best way is just to follow what Allah has already done. It is just mind-blowing - get your own opinion on that. So, if I want to spend my time in reading a book with the purpose of getting value out of it, I would be highly interested in the title, in the author and then maybe some reviews. The title is Quran, which might be translated as recitation. The author, however, and here things get interesting, is Allah Himself. Now, if I don’t know Allah, or the author of the book, I would find it highly appreciating if Allah would give me some introduction to Him. The first Surah is called Al-Fatihah, which might be translated as the opener. The opener sounds like an introduction, at least we can find similarities to that. Note, the opener is much, much better than an introduction. There are many reasons why, but to keep it very brief, Allah guides people by opening their minds and hearts. Calling the first Surah the opener is His style of amazing me in every Surah over and over again. It’s just how He builds thought buildings, villages, cities which are stunning by themselves but can also be combined with each other. If you don’t understand the last part and want to understand it, have a look at the last question.
The first Ayat of the opener Surah can be understood as: In the name of Allah, the Rahman and Rahim. Rahman is a very loaded word and for starters can be thought as, Allah, the one who is extremely merciful, caring, sheltering, forgiving, understanding and lenient. Imagine the love and compassion a mother has for her child that she gave birth to. Take that love and multiply it with a factor of your choice and you still won’t reach the meaning of Allah’s Rahman. But at least we have some kind of understanding of Allah’s Rahma. In the name of Allah, the Rahman and Rahim. The Rahim part might be the same in the next life. So, the Allah is Rahman for everybody, you believe in him or not. That does not matter, Allah will give you His Rahma. However, His Rahim is only for some people in the next life who engaged in building a relationship with Him.
The next Ayat in the same Surah, the opener, says something like: All gratitude and thanks belong to Allah, the owner of the seen and unseen. When Allah says, all gratitude belongs to Him, it actually means, accept it or don’t accept it, be grateful or don’t. There is no way how gratitude could not belong to Him. It is like Allah invented gratitude and let it serve Him. Starter might not know why we should thank Allah. I started my journey of reading the Quran and can tell you something from my experience. When reading the Quran and just thinking about it, sometimes it simply forces someone to fall to the ground in front of Allah, due to various reasons. And gratitude is one of them. While you are in awe of Allah’s words, you might catch yourself thinking, how could someone who gets to know Allah a bit, not be thankful to Him.
Back to the Ayat: All gratitude and thanks belong to Allah, the owner of what you can see and what you cannot see. When it is said, Allah owns everything, it means, everything on the earth, in the skies, and everything in between is under His authority. Take a look at a leaf, zoom in, zoom in again. Get the best microscope you can get for money. Now, with it have a look at the leaf again. We can’t go finer than that, Allah can. He not only can see the micro, micro, nano, femto… you got the idea, but He also has made it, watches over it, takes care of it, knows exactly what is happening there, and has full authority over it. Now, get the best telescope you can get for money, or send your recording devices to space, i.e., outside of this earth. The same game again, He made it and has full authority over it. When we say authority, the meaning is not just a master-slave relationship, but it’s like Allah takes care and nurtures a very sensitive plant. In other words, my Master takes care of my dealings, and I can rely on Him to help me like only He could do it.
Up to now, these were only 2 Ayats of the first opener Surah. Isn’t it amazing? Allah is introducing Himself in His book, the Quran. He is telling us who He is, which is exactly what I would expect from the author of a book, I consider reading. If you keep reading the 5 remaining Ayats of the opener Surah, you will see that the introduction to Allah and to a relationship with Him continues.
I know, I already made it a bit long. However, just one more point. After getting to know the author of the book, I would like to know what I can expect from that book. Then open the next Surah, Surah Al-Baqarah. It says: Alif Lam Mim, which are just letters in the Arabic language. So you might think, well this is not really helpful, we obviously don’t understand it? Let me ask you some questions: Can a professional cook solve coupled non-linear differential equations analytically? Can he even understand the Greek letters and the strange delta signs? Could I bake you a cake? Can an insect code in C++? The answer to all these questions is, probably not. Why, then, are we expecting to understand everything that Allah says? It just makes sense, right at the beginning we were told, Allah knows He created us, He neither needs our praise nor anything else from us. Allah starts the second Surah after having introduced Himself in the first one, hey human being, know your place. You simply cannot and will never be able to fully comprehend the vast knowledge possessed by the Creator of the seen and unseen. Let us make this even more clear, Allah created time, and He created knowledge. It is not like He would understand this and not that. No, no, knowledge itself is owned by Him and it is His creation similar to us humans. We, as one of His creations, do not possess other creations of Allah.. It would be highly unwise to assume humans should be capable of understanding everything that Allah has designed.
Now, let us have a closer look at the second Ayat of the second Surah. It might be translated as: This (Quran) is the book, and there can’t be any doubt whatsoever about it. This book, it is a guidance for the one who wants to build a relationship with Allah. The style from the first Ayat is kept. He is the Creator of everything, and He does not make any mistake whatsoever. So why should He not be able to send one of His creations a book for getting in touch with Allah? What amazes me absolutely is that nobody with a sound mind would dare to state something like, he could write a book without any mistake. The only one who could claim the latter is the one who is free from any mistake whatsoever, and exactly He, Allah, says that - I just love it.
So yes, to answer the question, I need to have a firm relationship with Allah. For that, it’s my goal to read, contemplate deeply about the Ayats of the Quran and to implement them as well as possible in my life.
No, I think the PDF of my master’s thesis and the web version of it suffice as samples and can speak for themselves. Since the content of the thesis should show some aspect of my work, the answered questions should show some aspects of me as a person.
I am a research assistant at TU Dresden in Germany and am working on a project there. The aim is to do initial work on a hydrogen-powered aircraft. The innovative element of this aircraft is that the CFRP (Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer) high-pressure hydrogen tanks are located in the wing and absorb external forces. In addition, the tanks are an integral part of the structure. That is, the tanks are not placed inside the wing after the wing is manufactured, but they are part of the wing.
Thank you
I was talking about the Quran. The structure of the Quran is that it has 114 Surahs and each of the Surahs has its own Ayats. These Ayats are not to be confused with sentences or verses. Each Ayat for itself can have an enriching meaning on its own. This would be the microscopic view. Now, if we zoom a little bit out, we could also consider the previous and the next Ayats. Within this context, we might find other lessons highlighted or the already assumed strengthened. Sometimes, I was not able to understand one single Ayat without the context. However, that’s maybe only me.
Next, we could link one Ayat at the beginning to one Ayat at the end of one Surah. Within one single Surah, we could try all kinds of Ayat structures, e.g., the last with the first, the second with the second last, the third with the third last and so on, which is called symmetry. Another method of finding structure could be linking every 3 Ayats, i.e., read the Ayats 3,6,9,12… and see what you can find out of this. Maybe you think, why would someone do this? You would be surprised how many layers this book has in its structure collection. Not only the individual Ayats invite to think, but also the interwoven structure of one single Surah does it. You could also search for chapters within a Surah. A chapter is defined by a similar topic, e.g., how to be a good father, how to treat people that have less than me.
It is also possible to link one Ayat from one Surah to another Ayat of another Surah. There are a lot of possibilities to link the lessons from the Quran with each other. Each lesson obtained from a single Ayat could be considered as a single building. The building is inside a village, i.e., a subchapter, and the village might be part of a city, i.e., a Surah. The building is linked to the village, the village is linked to a city, the city to a state, and so on. It’s the same with the Surahs and Ayats of the Quran. On the one hand, an Ayat might be fully autonomous and independent, but on the other hand, we still can link Ayats across the Quran to get a different or more detailed view about a topic.
22.1 Contact
You can contact me through some channels: