Posted by Avijit on 5/21/2001, 11:16 am I am regularly updating the site-- "The Quest for Truth". Yes, like you many Bangladeshi outlannders were not quite familiar with Aroj Ali. It may be because, He was shy, gentle and not eager to any kind of publicity throughout his whole life. Another thing may be .... Matubbar had no formal academic background; As Mr. Chowdhury correctly mentioned...He only attended 6 Month of Moktab class to a village Maulavi that's all this education. He never attended any school at all. May be that's why our "intellectual society" did not recognised him as a celebrity during his life time. But...dont think he was an uneducated and unculutred boorish. On the contrary, He is among those rare examples of successful self-learners in our country. He travled from vilage to town -- from town to town and from town to city and used to spend several hours and days in library continuously to achieve knowledge. He was quite familiar of all recent scientific researches, discoveries and scientific theories. If you read his "Shotter Shondaney" (Quest for truth) and "Onumaan" (Assumption) you will wonder how frequently he had to deal with Einstein's relativity, Kepler's model, Gallelio, Newton, Darwin...with an ease. He compared those advanced scientific theories with the conflicting and misleading "religious truth". Then he confidently made the reader to think by asking...Of the two interpretations, one scientific and other religious, which one is acceptable to you? Aroj Ali also learned Engineering from his old self-learning power and able to invent many new things such as cost-saving solar-cooker system etc. He could also came out with a new effective technique for measuring land area in his village which was quite well-receieved among the poor villagers. It is said that whenever the villagers faced problem relating any matters that involved accounting or mathematics, or if they had any dispute or conflict regarding land measurement - they used to call Aroj Ali- not only because of his depth of knowledge, but also for his honesty and integrity towards the common people. I have heared the story from my father...who was the Professor of physics of Dhaka University then. One day a short-beared skiny person came to meet my father with an unimpresive appearance wearing payjama-panjabi and requested to check the scientific information he stated in his writing. He told that his name was Aroj Ali. My father may be mis-leaded by the appearence, thought that this person perhaps wrote some cheap religious writings (as everybody does !). Any way, father told him to come after a day or two. When my father was going through his writings, he realised "Apearances are often Deceptive". what a hiden beauty that skiny man revealed in these papers! It was the hand written draft copy of "Shotter Shondaney" (The Quest for truth). When Aroj Ali came again two days later, my father saluted him by saying - "You are really a courageous man. You posses a great form of logical reasoning that even we scientists do not have. How did you achieve such a great sense of logic ?" "It just normally grew, sir" - Aroj Ali replied with his usual shy voice. "Surely you had a copy of this draft when you gave me for checking?" "No sir, I dont have any other copy." Aroj Ali replied. "Then what would happen if I had lost the copy ?" "Nothing sir. I thought it's not that much valuable". This is Aroj Ali who had spent his entire life learning and built "Aroj Manjil" - a library in his village for the people which have a collection of those rare books which helped him to come out with the information that he revealed in his books. He was among those pioneer humanists of Bangladesh (I am not sure whether he is the first Muslim of our country) who donated his body for transplantation after death. That's why we call Him MOHAGURU. We realised that MohaGuru and his writings should reach wider range of people of the entire world thru World Wide Web. That's what I am trying to do with my small effort. Please keep on visiting: Keep in touch.
Dear Robin,
Thank you very much for your mail. Yes, we had not formally intorduced ( so what ! now we have, right?), but I also quite familiar with your excellent postings in different mailing group such as Future of Bangladesh etc.
http://humanists.net/avijit/aroj_ali/quest_for_truth.html
Avijit.
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