The Sunday Observer
May 18th -24th, 1997
Should the sun hiccup...
"An expanding shell of less energy from the sun's core was moving towards its surface for the last million years. As the shell breaks through the outer envelope, sometime in the 21st century, the sun's output dips slightly. The shell is thin and the peculiar irregularity in the solar machinery is not going to last long. Still, the event has tremendous potential of menace, as even this thin solar hiccup has the capability to push the planet towards a cold grave, from which it had emerged only twelve thousand years ago..."
This scenario, though spine-chilling, is fast becoming a reality. Temperature changes all over the world has brought the spectre of ice age disturbingly close. The Ultimate Revelations, one of the few science fictions written in India, talks about the time when ice age actually dawns on the world, and mankind - for once forgetting all their differences-search for a solution. It's a matter of their survival.
The book begins with a young scientist, Hamza dreaming about a celestial phenomenon. A ring of material tears from an intensely luminous gaseous talk, whirling fast in the inky black space and expands outwards like giant ripple. There follows a series of such dreams. About tryannosaurus and dinosaurs - the early inhabitants of the earth -, Noah's arc and the arrival of Buddha.
Running parallel to this sequence of events is the dawning of ice age. This is how the author describes it, "For the last million years, an expanding shell of less energy produced at the sun's core, was working its way towards the surface. Now it had just reached the outer envelope of the sun. The shell was thin, and it was going to produce only a small irregularity in the working of the solar machinery, just a tiny hiccup on the solar scale, that was going to last for a mere eight months of the planet earth... Owing to the peculiar condition related with the earth's reflective capacity, its entire ecology lay poised on a knife's edge so sharp, that even this small irregularity had the capability to push the planet towards a cold grave.."
And what solution does Akhtar present though his protagonist Hamza for this crisis? A message given by extraterrestrial Intelligence in the actual past, available on the planet, and revered by over six hundred million people. The well-researched arguments presented relate to its time and place of arrival, characteristics of the language, the contents and the composition.
Akhtar claims that this extra terrestrial message did not arrive randomly, but is logically predicted though a cosmic design that links together- in a single strand - all laws of nature, elements of change, accidents, catastrophes and global creative impulses. A mathematical support for the hypothesis is also provided in the book together with the suggestion of a probable key to the ultimate code.
The Ultimate Revelations is a gripping science fiction. The chapters describing Hamza's dreams and the catastrophe caused by the advent of the ice age are written in a lucid style.
Deepali Nandwani
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The Times of India
Feb 23rd, 1997
'In search of new meanings in Quran'
Jamshed Akhtar's book The Ultimate Revelations is a clever amalgam of fact and fiction. It is a search for layers of meaning in the Quran. Since it goes on to imply and say new things, it is in the danger of being misunderstood...
In the book. the author pursues the line of thought that Quran may be a message sent extra-terrestrially to the mind of prophet Mohammed and may have layer upon layer of meaning... scientists like Hoyle and Wickramsinghe had suggested in the past that the large amount of 'dark' matter seen in telescope as occupying outer space may actually be organic formations capable of intelligent behaviour but of sizes equal to billions of stars like the sun; in other words that there were brain-like structures the size of an entire galaxy. They suggested that the enormous 'brain' in outer space could act like a demi-god. Akhtar does not mean by God any such contraption nor does he imply that the Quran was sent by some creatures in outer space. What he does seem to be implying is that if signals can be sent to brains by creatures in outer space how much more likely it is that a coded message was sent by God to Mohammed and if it is allowed that new ages will be seeking the meaning according to their preparedness, then why should it not be that there may be hidden layers of meaning which can be known only at the time which is right and proper to receive it.
Science has its enigmas, and like religion, is based on a certain kind of faith; the faith that the universe is, has been and will always be orderly and that if we think hard enough we can know what that order is. In fact, sooner or later, science and religion must overlap and converge, as we understand science and religion better and better. The Ultimate Revelations is cleverly cast in the form of a science fiction because it is well known that science fiction of one generation often becomes the fact of another generation...
As a literary work, the book has both artistic as well as informative merit based on short chapters, each containing summary accounts of successive episodes in the historical record of the universe as described by science as well as religion...
In short, the book is an unique example of the new and popular style of writing called 'faction' a combination of some fact some fiction..
Habeebul H Ansari
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'The Hindu'
Sunday, July 7, 1996
The Book News
Message from the stars
Using the vehicle of science fiction, Jamshed Akhtar presents his views on the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence being pursued by astronomers all over the planet in "The Ultimate Revelations".
In the book, Akhtar puts on record arguments for one such "message from the stars" that is not a future probability but is part on an actual past, available on the planet. The arguments presented in the book relate to its time of arrival, place of arrival, characteristics of the language, the contents, the composition, presence of knowledge ahead of its time in the text, mysteries involved in its arrival and its subsequent effect on humanity.
A probability of colossal quantum of "knowledge from stars" in the text, in coded format, is presented with mathematical support. The book comes with an invitation from the author to all to verify his arguments and evidence, prove him wrong or help him in decoding the first layer of message.
Anita Joshua
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The Islamic Voice
Feb 23rd, 1997
Science fiction with a difference
It is early 21st century. The shadow of destruction looms large over earth. The danger of the impending ice age is so real that the scientific wing of the UN has arranged a tele-conference to be telecast throughout the world in a desperate search for a clue from anyone to counter the threat. The time is too short for a long term strategy to avoid the seemingly inevitable catastrophe. A help from the possible extra terrestrial intelligence is probably the only solution in such a short-time, a message from the space providing the vital clue for survival. The message comes in the form of series of visions to an Indian scientist. He witnesses the whole process of earth's formation, the gigantic creatures of the Dinasour age, the building of Noah's Arc, Buddha's delivering sermon to the monks, Moses mounting over Toor hills for his Divine Appointment, Prophet Zachariah winning the guardianship of Mary who was destined to give birth to Jesus Christ, an ascribe of Qur'an reading a revelation to the prophets companions, and finally the clue to the message anxiously awaited by the world. The deduction from the visions was that the message had already come to the world centuries ago and the survival of humanity depended upon following the leads of the Message. The scientist, with the help of a lead given by a scientist in the 70's of the 20th century, produces before the world a miracle of the message, an inherent mathematical structure in it which no man could have incorporated.
'The Ultimate Revelations' is a unique religion-science fiction, with a purpose and therefore very different from other science fictions. The climax of the novel is based on a divine mathematical structure in Qur'an unfolded by an America based Egyptian UNIDO scientist Rashad Khalifa in 1969. He produced more than a hundred examples of a 19 based structure and gained an instant popularity in the Muslim world. But the whole Muslim-Community was shocked, when he declared in 1973 that the structure worked only if the last two verses of Surah Tauba (9:120,129) were deleted from Qur'an. Subsequently, he claimed the mantle of prophethood and ultimately was murdered.. in 1990.
The author points out that the Muslims while eulogizing him prior to 1973 for his great service, did not take pain to verify his calculations and they committed the same blunder again in outrightly rejecting his hypothesis, when he disclosed that the miracle of Qur'an worked only if two of its verses were deleted from it.
More than 50 calculations of the structure are true anyway, with those two verses included in the Message. Why should we entirely seal a spoiled and misguided genius' contribution? We should have taken a lead from him and removed his anomalies.
The author by producing some examples has shown that the miracle works both ways (with or without two verses). Rejecting Rashad Khalifa's contention about the two verses, he concludes that those two verses have a special status and in fact are the key to other hidden meanings of the message...
There are many other data, which in my opinion Rashad Khalifa has manipulated. There are also many a debatable mode of calculations which he used to discredit the two verses of Qur'an... All his data (for their counts) and calculations (for many of their modes) need verification. I agree with the author and congratulate him in presenting Rashad Khalifa's theory anew for the undistorted facts in the theory are of immense value. Innovative research by Muslim scholars on these lines will beyond doubt prove to the world one of the most amazing miracles of Qur'an to date. The author has presented his theme in the form of a beautifully written novel. Though, in the end of the book, the lengthy part of the descriptive calculations tends to disturb its value as a novel. The absorbing revelations of this portion, more than makes up for the loss in technique.
The book is thoroughly enjoyable for those whose subjects are science or religion. But even if you are not interested in either of the above it may prove to be an asset for your personal library for ready reference on a variety of topics. The book contains encyclopaedic information on the cosmic phenomena, the atmospheric impacts, the formation of planet earth and the creations of Tyrannusaurus age, and many other subjects like theory of evolution of Islamic Science, apart from detailed and authentic information on Bible, and Qur'an.
Tariq Abdullah
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